New Discovery Disproves Quantum Theory?

An anonymous reader writes to tell us the Guardian is running a story that has quite a few physicists up in arms. From the article: "Randell Mills, a Harvard University medic who also studied electrical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, claims to have built a prototype power source that generates up to 1,000 times more heat than conventional fuel. Independent scientists claim to have verified the experiments and Dr Mills says that his company, Blacklight Power, has tens of millions of dollars in investment lined up to bring the idea to market. And he claims to be just months away from unveiling his creation." The only problem is Mills' theory is supposed to be impossible when using current rules of quantum mechanics.

standard

[Anonymous Coward]

i for one welcome our blacklight overlor... oooo colors!

Disproves?

[rxmd]

New Discovery Disproves Quantum Theory

No way, it's just Intelligent Redesign.

What kind of medic?

[MouseR]

Harvard University medic who also studied electrical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, claims to have built a prototype power source that generates up to 1,000 times more heat than conventional fuel

So... was he a gynecologist?

Target date

[Mononoke]

And he claims to be just months away from unveiling his creation.

This is your advance invitation. Be sure to join them on the first day of April in 2006.

Re:Like They Say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Clean, unlimited energy would be nice and all, but what this REALLY means is I'll be able to bring old notes and exams back to my professors, shout "No, YOU'RE wrong!" and laugh maniacally.

but the real question is

[jjeffries]

I've already got an old Fleishman Electronics Fusion@Home Jr. (TM) power plant... non-polluting and nearly cost-free, just have to remember to top off the reservoir now and then... so what does this new thingie do better?

Let me guess...

[Private Taco]

It's a dead/alive hampster in a box, on a little wheel attached to a little generator...

What would Homer say?

[1199200]

"In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"

--
Superb hosting [tinyurl.com] 2400MB Storage, 120GB bandwidth, ssh, $7.95

Re:what it is

[Scutter]

Despite my badassly low UID

Wow, you *are* a badass! wait a minute...

Re:what it is The Real Goods...

[Anonymous Coward]

Quantum theory simply states that the closer you come to knowing what quantum theory is, the less the probability that you actually do.

Re:Pascal's Wager

[WilliamSChips]

That excludes the possibility of you buying it and it explodes on you...that would be a big loss.

Re:Yawn. Another crackpot needs funding.

[brian0918]

Come now, hot fusion used to always be 40 years away. Now, finally, it will always be 35 years away.

That is progress.

This was on slashot back in 1999

[backslashdot]

He's always "months away" from revealing this invention. Can't he come up with a newer scam?? Even what he's found is real, I don't like his secretive methods.

Link to the 1999 story..

http://science.slashdot.org/science/99/12/22/10924 5.shtml?tid=14 [slashdot.org]

Look the fact is, it's very easy to come up with a non disprovable theory in physics. If I say that "I have just found that Eintein's theory is wrong .. it is possible to create a wormhole by boiling a carrot in cat piss and one other secret ingredient ...without allowing others to reproduce the experiment how can this be disproved?" Although, the only way I could be right is if Einstein is wrong .. it's not a problem because I have just stated that "Einstein is wrong" .. You can call me a kook .. but the only way to disprove me is to provide 100% proof that Einstein is correct everywhere. Which is quite frankly impossible because physics is not like mathematics where axiomatic proofs are possible.

Well Ok, One story is fine ..and for all we know he might actually be telling the truth or at least believing it ..and quite frankly I hate censorship and support freedom of speech .. but this guy keeps reappearing .. What about the other kooks ..no equal time? At least make it comedic and original not repetition! If I was an electric universe theorist or a cold fusion proponent I'd be getting pretty pissed off ..

Re:what it is

[szo]

My thoughts exactly

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Wikipedia article on this guy

[dirtsurfer]

This article has recently been linked from Slashdot. Please keep an eye on the page history for errors or vandalism.

Wow. Apparently our reputation precedes us.

I know how the Heat is generated!!!

[failedlogic]

Simple actually, and I've never studied Quantum mechanics:

1) Post a great story/discovery on the Net.
2) Wait a few days.
3) Get story posted on Slashdot
4) Wait a few minutes.
5) Hard drives will metl, AC will fail withing minutes.
6) ?????
7) Profit!!!
(Sorry, I didn't mean for 6 and 7, but by now are obligatory).

This "Slashdotting" as a source of power is more powerful force than anything. I am sure this is the source of this discovery. And as long as there are Slashdot readers, there will always be power.

Can someone at the guardian.co.uk (source of this article) concur?

Re:THIS IS FUCKING EMBARRASSING.

[Angostura]

Seconded.

Pop quiz. Can you come up with an IT equivalent of a typical slashdot psueudo-science headline? Let's have a go:

1. Intel claims infinite number of transisters available on new chip
2. Latest Linux release boots before PC is switched on
3. Researcher claims open source licensing causes random memory corruption.

I mean, come on guys.

Re:Like They Say...

[superdan2k]

Yeah, because Wikipedia is a carefully fact-checked journal that only the most thoroughly factual data appears in. *eye roll*

Re:THIS IS FUCKING EMBARRASSING.

[Anonymous Coward]

6.8GHz 1TB RAM and 2TB HDD Laptop? [slashdot.org]

New video board for one dollar

[cinnamon colbert]

The Geek journal has an article about a poet with a degree in computer science who claims to have invented a video card that outperforms the most advanced offerings from Nvidia, and the card can be mass produced for a dollar.
The inventor claims to have millions of dollars in backing,a nd indpendent graphics artists have tested the board.

"we plan to produce 20 million cards a year soon, say CEO J Anklsy"

Re:Like They Say...

[pegr]

So now that they proved it is all wrong and stuff... will i get to pass my quantum phys exam again!?
 
Just don't look at your grade... Until you do, your grade is all possible states...

Re:What kind of medic?

[Lew Payne]

> So... was he a gynecologist?

If so, he has yet to snatch a prize.

Re:Yawn. Another crackpot needs funding.

[Magic5Ball]

Actually... you know how in glasses of beer there seems to be an infinate number of bubbles from the same spot on the glass? Can't we harness that?

I think the amount of gas dissolved in a particular volume of beer is finite.

-or-

So that's where all the greenhouse gases are coming from.

Re:THIS IS FUCKING EMBARRASSING.

[jnana]

4. New compression algorithm can be used repeatedly for infinite compression: all inputs can be compressed to 1 bit given enough compression cycles!!

Oh wait, I think I read about that on slashdot a couple of years ago.

Re:Like They Say...

[JLF65]

Seeing as this is all on an atomic or sub-atomic level, you'll never see it, even if it's true. :)

Re:Like They Say...

[st1d]

Not a chance.

Primary/Secondary schooling: Tests you willingness to learn under pressure from adults. (Translation: As long as you're walked through the steps necessary to do your job, and there are enough people to make sure you do as you're told, you'll be a highly trained button-monkey.)

College: Simply a way to test your willingness to learn on your own. (Translation: On occasion, with enough peer pressure, you might be willing to learn spend a little of your free time learning how to do your job.)

Graduate school: Tests your willingness to learn when the majority of your peers have given up on their education for the remainder of their lives. (Translation: Given enough incentive/money, you are willing to spend considerable time and effort to be successful in your career.)

Post-Graduate school: Tests your willingness to expand upon what is currently understood and taught at lower levels. (Translation: You are willing to show others how to improve in their chosen career, but it's gonna cost 'em!)

Continuing education: Tests your willingness to continue learning when most of your peers are worm food. (Translation: You're mildly psychotic.) :)

The possible failure of the theories taught to you makes no difference in the outcome of your education, because you have proven that you aren't willing to put forward a serious effort to learn at the level you attempted. Had you been taught said "correct" theories, the outcome of your grades would most likely have remained the same, as your alcohol, drug, social and sexual indulgences during this time had no bearing on your belief that the items taught were facts. As such, your failure to learn them only reinforces the fact that you don't care about your own success in life. (Translation: You're a twit for asking something this redundant on Slashdot!)

(heh, heh)

All of those are true :)

[davidwr]

1. Intel claims infinite number of transisters available on new chip
Intelligence reports secreted out of North Korea's super-secret semiconductor labs claim a new way to pack semiconductors on silicon at infinite densities, using new technology which packs electrons closer to protons than normally allowed. Remember folks, only North Koreans need dense computer chips.

2. Latest Linux release boots before PC is switched on
Kinetic Distributions, Inc. is shipping a computer that's turned on by kicking it. Remember folks, in Soviet Russia, computers boot you.

3. Researcher claims open source licensing causes random memory corruption.
Slashcode causes random memory corruption in Slashdot editors. All your pseudoscience are belong to us.

Re:The New New Science

[ScrewMaster]

This guy's quakery works too, I am sure someone out there will give him money..

Hey. You got something against Quakers?

Re:But he neve said. . .

[Mr. Underbridge]

(As it has everyone who has done so since Mills first floated ths idea way back in 1991, at which time he announced that commercial applications of his theory were, oddly enough, just a couple years off.)

Wait...he's selling gallium arsenide semiconductor devices? *ducks*

Emerging /. tradition: Celebrate Crackpot Sunday!

[D4C5CE]

To commemorate today's remarkable conjunction of breakthroughs providing sources of almost infinite energy as well as healthier cigarettes and flying cars riding on superstrings (or something), built e.g. by 8-year-old Asian physicists...:

From now on, each year on the first weekend after Halloween, Slashdot (and probably academia as a whole) shall celebrate Crackpot Sunday. To mark the occasion, the year's best performers in freak science reporting shall be awarded an "exclusive" (or rather, compulsory?) rubber boat cruise through the Bermuda Triangle or across Loch Ness, providing journalists with a chance of their own to win fame and fortune at the forefront of research by helping disprove long-standing and broadly accepted theories - e.g. about man-eating monsters, alien abductions and anything else left unresolved on the "X Files".

Re:Who is Rick Maas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here [imageshack.us] is one peer review of said paper. If you ask me, though, the author has his head in the clouds.

Re:Like They Say...

[blincoln]

NASA "enhances" photos and they make great posters.

Yes, God damn NASA for not releasing X-ray, gamma, infrared, ultraviolet, microwave, and radio-wave imagery in the original bands of the spectrum! My taxes line their bloated wallets and they can't even manage to put JPEGs on their site that emit hard radiation so I can see exactly the same thing they do with their so-called "space telescopes"!

The new theory

[penguinoid]

"The Flying Spaghetti Monster moves the electrons into a closer orbit, releasing vast amounts of energy," said Mills. When asked why such deenergized hydrogen atoms were not found in nature, despite the fact that changing back to regular hydrogen would require massive amounts of energy, Mills changed the subject.

Re:As Einstein once said...

[Jesus_666]

Next time someone posts "Einstein says", please have a source. Dead men can't refute so called 'quotes.'

"Yes."
-- Albert Einstein

(I'm pretty sure that he said "yes" at least once in his life.)

Re:But he neve said. . .

[tsa]

Mainstream Linux is also 5 years away! Watch me get modded down for this...

Re:But he neve said. . .

[el_womble]

I've got a Orange 3G mobile thats a video phone, and I've got Apple iChat which is a video phone. I might be comparing Apples and Oranges, but I'm not 5 years in the future.

Re:But he neve said. . .

[PhaseChange]

Imagine if all science was done the way ID proponents want it done. We'd see a phenomenon, like, say, gravity. Then we'd say, "Hmm. It's really hard to see how this could be. So God or Elvis or some alien makes it go." Then it would be settled. Great.

Already been done. http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39512 [theonion.com]