The difference here is that Steorn is challenging all scientists to try to prove, one way or the other, whether their device works. And they say they won't take moeny until AFTER the scientific community has released their findings.
According to the company, they stumbled upon this accidentally, and now want the scientific community to verify what they believe to be a perpetual motion machine. And if scientists find that it is not the case, so be it.
At face value, this seems very legitimate...why would a hoaxer go through this kind of scrutiny? But since a perpetual motion machine is widely regarded as impossible according to the first law of thermodynamics, one must think what else could this be?
My thoughts? It could be one of three things:
- Legitimate claim, bad math. Steorn thinks they did it, but miscalculated energy input/output.
- A big social experiment. Let's see how many scientists are suckered into throwing away the basis of their beliefs on the remote chance this cold be real. Or what is the current public reaction to claims of this nature when money is removed from the equation.
- Someone finally reverse engineered alien technology and got it to work. Everyone knows that flying saucers are powered by magnetic forces.
