A "philosopher's stone" is supposed to work near-miracles, like transmuting base metals into gold, or imparting immortality. Not inconceivable, maybe not even impossible in our world. An Irish company called Steorn is making an even bigger claim for a gizmo it calls Orbo:
Orbo produces free, clean and constant energy - that is our claim. By free we mean that the energy produced is done so without recourse to external source. By clean we mean that during operation the technology produces no emissions. By constant we mean that with the exception of mechanical failure the technology will continue to operate indefinitely.
The sum of these claims for our Orbo technology is a violation of the principle of conservation of energy, perhaps the most fundamental of scientific principles. The principle of the conservation of energy states that energy can neither be created or destroyed, it can only change form.
Wow. Can we see? Yes! Steorn is now demo-ing Orbo in London at the Kinetica Museum, complete with webcams. But, for the moment, Steorn confesses:
We are experiencing some technical difficulties with the demo unit in London. Our initial assessment indicates that this is probably due to the intense heat from the camera lighting.
Hm. Yeah, it's probably only that intense light. Update: Duncan Watson points out an article that appeared in the Guardian last year detailing the problems that Steorn has had in patenting the Orbo. Duncan writes, "Of particular interest to me was the following:
The UK Patent Office notes that you cannot get a patent on 'articles or processes alleged to operate in a manner clearly contrary to well-established physical laws' as they are 'regarded as not having industrial application'."
He adds: "It seems somewhat redundant to prohibit people from patenting something which is physically impossible, and one would assume that something which did break the laws of physics could well have quite significant industrial application."
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