Explain Bedini's free energy machine to me

[Beausoleil]

So why Tesla? I think it's because our kooks are English language kooks and his name brings a hint of Eastern European mysticism... vampires... etc.

I wonder if Transylvanian kooks (for instance) invoke Edison.

 

[wahrheit]

(should have used caps and colors)

You also forgot to add an out of context Einstein quote.

 

[TheDaver]

You also forgot to add an out of context Einstein quote.

You mean a quote misattributed to Einstein.

 

[wahrheit]

You mean a quote misattributed to Einstein.

You are right, that makes it even more authentic.

Is this the machine we are talking about?

This is a free energy device which an ordinary person, who knows a little electronics, can experiment with in the basement. To develop it, one is talking several thousands of dollars and a lot of persistence and tinkering; one is not talking millions.

Bolding mine.

If it doesn't take a multi-billion budget, nor a rocket surgeon, can I see the actual device anywhere? No?

 

[theMark]

You also forgot to add an out of context Einstein quote.

"Einstien". How many times do I have to repeat this?
"If it's a woo, it's Einstien."*

* apologies for the bungled "Miracle Pictures: If it's a good picture, it's a Miracle!" quote.

 

[jsfisher]

Is this Bedini thing just another case where someone has computed input power from current and voltage, but completely ignored power factor?

 

[Ladewig]

You mean a quote misattributed to Einstein.

You don't even need a quote. The Crackpot Index awards 30 points for "suggesting that Einstein, in his later years, was groping his way towards the ideas you now advocate." On the other hand, this version may be a bit out of date in that it does not award any points at all for claiming that one is working with ideas proven by Tesla; surely that should be worth at least 22.75834 points

 

[tsig]

You mean a quote misattributed to Einstein.

Jest a-workin' in a quotemine.

I guess I am not worthy of woo. I lay down my miner's lamp and leave the ddark side to those better able to do the woo.

 

[tsig]

Is this Bedini thing just another case where someone has computed input power from current and voltage, but completely ignored power factor?

Looks like he just invented the motor-generator, what's next, the Ward-Leonard system?

 

[gdnp]

Direct Quote from his (Bedini) website...

Quote:
This system, if properly built and tuned, will furnish "free shaft energy" continually, without violating conservation of anenergy. Remember that the del-phi condition across the battery terminals means that spacetime is suddenly curved there, and conservation of energy need no longer apply.

It is doubtful that anyone who buys into this will ever see the "free" part, but you can guarantee the "shaft"

I invented a perpetual motion machine when I was in first grade. It was made out of clay, had a central tower with a pour spout, with a base shaped like a moat that was supposed to catch the water, returning it to the tower through a hole in the side. Voila! continuous waterfall!

Fortunately, nothing was damaged as I received a lesson on how water flows down hill and seeks its own level. I remember being tremendously embarrassed at the time, and throwing it out. My parents, I suspect, were proud. Not too many first graders forge their own scientific apparatus.

I wish I had kept it. So much of science I must take on faith, not having, for example, my own particle accelerator.

 

[Dragoonster]

So why Tesla? I think it's because our kooks are English language kooks and his name brings a hint of Eastern European mysticism... vampires... etc.

I wonder if Transylvanian kooks (for instance) invoke Edison.

I think it's because Tesla was a genius, had some very good and practical ideas, but also struggled to gain approval for some of his more ambitious/theoretical stuff. He was robbed of the "inventor of the radio" title, Edison punked him, and his giant generator was torn down by a fearful government (as a woo person would say). He was a man who could have changed the world except the old conservative powers conspired against him. A decent role model for modern woo artists, unfortunately for his legacy.

The comparison fails in that these folks' ideas aren't good or pratical. Not just free energy, but they haven't built a history of good, functional work that Tesla did before embarking on his giant energy theories. They want to skip ahead to the "conspired against/misunderstood/underfunded" aspect of Tesla, without first establishing the "genius" part for themselves. Any fool can do that.

 

[technoextreme]

A decent role model for modern woo artists, unfortunately for his legacy.

You forgot the part where he essentially became woo. Tesla claimed that he could do stuff that is impossible. That's why his name is bandied about so much by crackpot loons. He turned into one.

 

[DeadDesertphile]

I made a YouTube video about the Zero Point Field, explaining why it is impossible to get energy out of it--- but the free energy cultists just called me nasty names. Sheeeish.

As for the Bedini prank motor, it is possible he really believes his claims.

In the year 2004 "MythBusters" did an episode wherein an MIT engineer attempted to examine a "Bedini Motor." MythBusters and the MIT person failed to find any magic energy being created; however, Bedini claims the MIT person did not make a "Bedini Motor" and therefore the test was not just an error, but a deliberate lie on the part of MythBusters.

I have not found any statement by MythBusters answering the charge of deception on their part. If Randi would ask MythBusters to address the charges I would love to read it.

Bedini claims that MythBusters refused to talk with Bedini before, during, and after the examination; Bedini claims that the episode was a deliberate sabotage of him and his miracle device; Bedini claims there were no magnets on the flywheel, which would make the device not function the way Bedini claims it will function.

My questions to MythBusters would be:

1) Did you try to get a Bedini motor from Bedini?

2) Did Bedini try to contact you?

3) Did you try to contact Bedini?

4) Did your MIT person fail to build a Bedini motor?

Make no mistake: the Bedini motor does not work: there is no such thing as "free energy," nor is it possible to get "vacuum energy" from the Zero Point Field, nor do magnetic fields contain energy that can be used to perform work. I just wish to clear up the facts of the issue, and I suspect James Randi would be far more successful at getting answers from MythBusters than I have been.

 

[CORed]

Tesla... /sigh

Another hallmark of the free energy nutter is a deification of Tesla.

I have seen this upwards of ten times on websites such as this.

As far as I know, what Tesla claimed to be able to do, based on his Colorado Springs, was transmit power wirelessly. His Wardenclyffe project, on Long Island, was an attempt to implement this and also create a worldwide communications network. The wierless power transmission was apparently a mistake, and would have been problematic had it worked, as it would have been difficult to impossible to ensure that consumers of power paid producers.

After Tesla ran out of funding for Wardenclyffe, he pretty much became a crackpot. He made wild claims for "inventions" that existed only on paper or in his head, and the newspapers loved to interview him, but he produced very vew useful inventions in this time period (the Tesla turbine being perhaps the major exception to this). Unfortunately, the "free energy" and "over-unity" crowd worships the crackpot, and misinterpret his "wireless transmission of energy" claims as "free energy" claims. The Tesla who deserves to be worshiped (if anybody does) is the young Tesla who invented the polyphase AC electrical power system that we are still using more than a century after he invented it, not the pathetic crackpot he became later in life.

 

[CORed]

I invented a perpetual motion machine when I was in first grade. It was made out of clay, had a central tower with a pour spout, with a base shaped like a moat that was supposed to catch the water, returning it to the tower through a hole in the side. Voila! continuous waterfall!

It works great on paper. At least it did for Escher.

 

[CORed]

I made a YouTube video about the Zero Point Field, explaining why it is impossible to get energy out of it--- but the free energy cultists just called me nasty names. Sheeeish.

Well of course. Don't you know that the so-called laws of thermodynamics are lies invented by the oil companies? What oil company do you work for?

Excuse me. I have to go figure out why my HHO generator quits working after the gas (petrol) tank goes dry.

 

[Zep]

I suspect Bedini is making his money not from the motor but from sales of the DVD. Really old, white-hairded scam: Hey everyone! Want to know how to make a million dollars? You each send me $10 and you can find out! The Nigerian scams are a variant, and even Dogbert has sent them up more than once.

 

[GreyICE]

As far as I know, what Tesla claimed to be able to do, based on his Colorado Springs, was transmit power wirelessly. His Wardenclyffe project, on Long Island, was an attempt to implement this and also create a worldwide communications network. The wierless power transmission was apparently a mistake, and would have been problematic had it worked, as it would have been difficult to impossible to ensure that consumers of power paid producers.

After Tesla ran out of funding for Wardenclyffe, he pretty much became a crackpot. He made wild claims for "inventions" that existed only on paper or in his head, and the newspapers loved to interview him, but he produced very vew useful inventions in this time period (the Tesla turbine being perhaps the major exception to this). Unfortunately, the "free energy" and "over-unity" crowd worships the crackpot, and misinterpret his "wireless transmission of energy" claims as "free energy" claims. The Tesla who deserves to be worshiped (if anybody does) is the young Tesla who invented the polyphase AC electrical power system that we are still using more than a century after he invented it, not the pathetic crackpot he became later in life.

Also, you have to remember that at that point in his life, Tesla was wildly paranoid, having been deliberately targetted and sabotaged by men paid by Edison, and also having invented several pseudo-enemies that were more figments than anything else (Edison really was out to get him though).

Therefore in his latter years he tended to make **** up just to confuse people.

He also was slightly unhinged. We're talking about the man who, for fun and intellectual curiousity, developed the first viable method of killing every vertebrate on the planet. The next serious contender was the Manhattan project (it was slightly more discriminant, Tesla's weapon would have killed EVERYONE).

 

[gdnp]

He also was slightly unhinged. We're talking about the man who, for fun and intellectual curiousity, developed the first viable method of killing every vertebrate on the planet.

Where do I get one?

 

[GreyICE]

Where do I get one?

Dynamite. virtually any country could make one. Nowadays you could just use simple nukes. You'd need probably a dozen, two dozen, I haven't done the math. Could be less. And he did it all, energy dissipation, everything.

The trick is you'd need a day or two to shatter all the continental plates, and given that we'd all detect what you are doing long before then, you'd get a kindly greeting from intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Assuming you planned adequately though, and used orbits to get the timing down, you could do it though.

It was easier back when he figured it out because interrupting you was impossible, from a purely physical standpoint.