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From: gjphw@iham1.UUCP (wyant)
Newsgroups: net.physics,net.misc,net.research
Subject: Re: Joseph Newman's Energy Machine
Message-ID: <463@iham1.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 14-Oct-85 16:26:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: iham1.463
Posted: Mon Oct 14 16:26:16 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 16-Oct-85 05:23:03 EDT
References: <173@tulane.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
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Xref: watmath net.physics:3359 net.misc:8673 net.research:258




    I would like to offer a few comments about K. Centanni's posting concerning
 an invention by J. Newman.  These notes arise from an article that appeared in
 SCIENCE NEWS several months ago.

    It seems that Newman has produced an interesting device though the details
 of its operation are obscure.  When Newman first applied for a patent, the
 Patent Office read his application as one for a perpetual motion machine and
 rejected it.  However, unlike most other inventors who request great sums of
 money before displaying their inventions to anyone else, Newman has been most
 interested in obtaining a patent.  He asked for, and received, a review of his
 device by an "expert" from the National Bureau of Standards.  This reviewer
 examined the device and filed a deposition with the Patent Office that the
 invention worked essentially as Newman had described it.  The Patent Office
 has continued the patent application under review (dragging their feet?).

    Newman has invited other people, mostly engineers from industry and
 universities, to examine his machine.  They have been quite interested but
 have not supplied any detail about how they think the "energy machine" works.
 Newman is, for the most part, a self-educated inventor (T. Edison was also
 self-educated) and seems content to provide qualitative descriptions of how
 his invention works.  The short description that I have been able to read
 indicates that Newman holds to some kind of ether theory (similar to Maxwell's
 ether theory) and his device converts the ether energy into mechanical or
 electrical energy (the mass to energy conversion is new to me).

    Newman is working on a healthy paranoia concerning his difficulties in
 obtaining a patent.  Yes, the Patent Office is dragging its feet despite the
 comments of the dozen or so people who have seen it and the NBS examiner.
 However, in criticism, Newman has not demonstrated his device with any
 equipment that requires a substantial amount of power (e.g., electrical motors
 rather than light bulbs).  He claims to have discovered a new electromagnetic
 principle but no physicist has examined it and written an explanative article
 about it.  Without a quantitative description (i.e., mathematical) of the
 operating principles, Newman's invention will not be taken seriously by the
 physics community, even if he has stumbled onto some new phenomena of nature.

    I recall cases where inventors built a small prototype device that relied
 on some properties of which they were ignorant, and the device would not
 operate when scaled up to a practical size.  Newman does not appear to be
 attempting fraud with his invention, but I am unconvinced that he understands
 its operation or that it can be made practical.  I would like a more careful
 examination of the device by some EE's and physicists with a few articles
 describing its operation.  On the other hand, I can appreciate Newman's
 refusal to permit this until the patent is safely in his possession.



                             Patrick Wyant
                             AT&T Bell Laboratories (Naperville, IL)
                             *!ihwld!gjphw