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From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Anyone heard of Mr. Neumann?
Message-ID: <1445@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 3-Mar-86 03:53:37 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-smok.1445
Posted: Mon Mar  3 03:53:37 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 5-Mar-86 04:21:45 EST
References: <654@ihlpl.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.ARPA
Distribution: na
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL)
Lines: 55

In article <654@ihlpl.UUCP> bde@ihlpl.UUCP (Ewbank) writes:
>	I was watching "The Tonight Show" last night and one of
>	Mr. Carson's guests was an inventor named Neumann who had (he
>	claimed) invented a device which produced more conventional
>	energy that it used.  The kicker was that this device was
>	somehow converting *magnetic* energy into electrical energy.
>	Since this was "The Tonight Show," there was not exactly an
>	in-depth report.  Does anyone know more about this Mr. Neumann
>	and his device?

First of all, Neumann claims (not very clearly) that what his device
does is to extract energy from the ATOMS of the materials used to
construct it.

Anyone who is expert in physics could poke holes in Neumann's
explanations as given on the Tonight Show.  He (as he admits)
is not schooled in physics, and it shows; he has apparently
never heard that there is energy in the E-M field itself, he
doesn't realize that reversing the legs of his horseshoe
magnet produced a spatially-rotated situation, so that symmetry
demanded that current be induced in the opposite direction
(Neumann seemed to believe it has something to do with gyroscopic
effects), etc.  I think the fellow is sincere, but he doesn't
appreciate the vast difference between careful scientific
investigation (such as has led to the modern understanding of
electromagnetism, or even that at the turn of the century) and
imaginative guesswork involving trying to apply "common sense"
to uncommon phenomena.

The "Neumann device" wasn't well described on the show, except
for the claim that it put out 3 times the energy put into it,
but it appeared to be not much more than a rather routine
motor-generator with a low output duty cycle and/or a highly
reactive load.  People who are not careful enough may jump to
the conclusion that such a device is dissipating more energy
into its load than it actually is.

>	The US Patent office turned him down because such a device is
>	"impossible to make."  I remember that the Wright Bros. were
>	told the same thing...

The Patent Office considers the Neumann device to be a "perpetual
motion machine" and as such it is subject to their long-standing
policy not to grant patents to perpetual motion machines.  (That
policy appears to be an attempt to avoid a flood of worthless
proposals.)  Neumann himself seems to be unaware that connecting
the output of his device to its own input would produce something
that looks amazingly like a perpetual motion machine.  Since
Neumann thinks he has an atomic engine, it isn't really a
perpetual motion machine, so he might as well be granted a patent.

This discussion should continue on the physics newsgroup only if
someone thinks he understands Neumann's physical theories and
believes there is some merit to them (in which case, please
explain them to us).