Spotting Junk Science

[dsm]

Give this guy a medal:

http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i21/21b02001.htm

:cool:

(Perhaps Randi should try to get an official copy of this for permanent posting on the JREF website?)

[CurtC]

Bob Park is great. I get an e-mail newsletter from him every Friday afternoon. You can too - sign up at http://www.aps.org/WN and see an archive of his past newsletters.

Bob's pretty hard on the manned space program, so several of his recent newsletters have addressed that subject. And he had a prominent mention in the most recent Straight Dope column, Why do we travel in space? (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030307.html)

I think that anyone who is interested in skepticism enough to read this forum should subscribe to his newsletter. A recent example:1. FIRST LAW: SELF-POWERED FUEL-LESS GENERATOR AVAILABLE ON ebay.
Machines that violate the First Law of Thermodynamics are not new, they are perpetual (WN 5 Apr 02). A sharp-eyed WN reader spotted a classic on ebay. This fully-portable generator is described as a 3 cubic foot "black box" (what else?) with three standard 120-volt electrical outlets to plug home appliances into. It will generate 700 watts continuously...forever. Or so it says. This is not some wild claim about zero-point energy or
anti-gravity; the device simply uses an electric motor to spin an alternator that supplies the power to drive the motor. I know, you're going to say the alternator can't possibly supply enough power to run the motor plus a bunch of appliances. But a schematic shows the inventor thought about that a bicycle chain connects the motor to FIVE alternators. That should do it.