Forum Archive Index - May 2000

["Nigel Bree" <nbree@kcbbs.gen.nz>]

Mike Nelson wrote:
> http://www.inertialessdrive.co.nz/

Woo-hoo! <wipes tears of laughter from face> Cheers for that link.

Ah, the inertialess drive, that wonderful bit of nonsense which powered
the ships of the Galactic Patrol in the "Lensman" novels of E.E. "Doc"
Smith!

Of course, the "Doc" could get away with it because a) his Ph.D. was in
food science, not physics, and b) plausibility was never that important
for the "sensawunder" school of early science fiction and the Doc's habit
of periodically jumping things up another order of magnitude in scale,
and c) he didn't bother with the details.

> What do you people make of this company?

The authors of the website either have a delicious sense of humour, or they
have a keen nose for human gullibilty.

> Has anyone heard of it before ?

No. But then, that's hardly surprising, since it's another way of dressing
up the concept of perpetual motion.

Seen a perpetual motion machine in action lately?

> Are there any technical types out there who can get a grip of this
> technology ?

I'd say that anyone who claimed to _understand_ this nonsense had lost
their grip :-). Remember the old U.S. patent office policy of requiring a
working model of an invention, *particularly* for perpetual motion machines.
Despite that a few cranks have still managed to slip the idea past patent
examiners over the years, a tribute to the enduring attraction of the idea.

> If it does all the things the webpage claims then it is a potential multi
> billion dollar operation I would think. What do you think ?

It's funny, but not very creative. I give then full marks for trying.

Mind you, I've had the delight of a first-hand view of people trying to
sell the idea of "recursive" data compression to an investor. The proof
of impossibility for *that* is simple enough, but those people seemed
quite earnest too, although it was hard to keep a straight face at some
points in the presentation.

All that said, perhaps some of the products may or may not do *something*.
But inertialessness is the stuff of fantasy and will alas always remain so.



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