From: Thom Quinn (thomquinn@esosoft.com)
Date: Wed Jul 22 1998 - 12:51:15 MDT
a week ago, someone wrote:
>
> > > Anyone notice that article disappeared from Buffalo.edu --
> > >the one that said someone created a wiring interconnect with negative
> > >electrical resistance (which would throw a lot of physics out the window)...?
Pentagon Buys 'Perpetual Motion'
by Steve Brody and Andrew Kirkis
4:00am 22.Jul.98.PDT
Although scientists continue to hunt for cold fusion, the US Department
of Energy gave the fledgling technology the cold shoulder long ago. That
does not mean, however, that the federal government is averse to funding
far-fetched scientific research.
In the past three years, to the astonishment of many physicists, the
Department of Defense has invested more than US$400,000 in Magnetic
Power of Sebastopol, California. The company claims to have perfected a
revolutionary material that conducts electricity with no resistance at
room temperature.
For more on this, see Wired
http://www.wired.com/news/news/email/explode-infobeat/technology/story/13894.html
Pentagon Buys 'Perpetual Motion'
by Steve Brody and Andrew Kirkis
4:00am 22.Jul.98.PDT
Although scientists continue to hunt for cold
fusion,
the US Department of Energy gave the fledgling
technology the cold shoulder long ago. That does
not
mean, however, that the federal government is
averse
to funding far-fetched scientific research.
In the past three years, to the astonishment of
many
physicists, the Department of Defense has invested
more than US$400,000 in Magnetic Power of
Sebastopol, California. The company claims to have
perfected a revolutionary material that conducts
electricity with no resistance at room temperature.
Its
so-called UltraConductors would allow ideal
efficiency
in every industrial application from electric
motors to
permanent electromagnets and would never need to be
recharged.
In short, Magnetic Power is in the business of
perpetual motion.
"Prior to the Wright brothers, no one believed
flying
machines would ever be built," said CEO Mark
Goldes.
Standard superconductors conduct without resistance
only at subzero temperatures and, owing to the
cumbersome refrigeration requirements, they have
never really left the lab. So why isn't the physics
community interested in this radical new discovery?
"Quite frankly, no one believes it," said Los
Alamos
National Laboratory superconductivity expert Martin
Maley, whose sentiments were echoed by other
physicists like Paul Grant at the Electric Power
Research Institute in Palo Alto, California.
According
to both Maley and Grant, after three years and
hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer
revenue,
nobody can even confirm that they've seen such a
material, including the military.
So-called room-temperature superconductors -- which
arise periodically in the research community only
to be
quickly disproven -- usually provoke little more
than
chortles.
But there's nothing funny about handing out
government funds to a company promising cold fusion
or room-temperature superconductors without at
least
some reasonable investigation of the claim. This
sort
of inquiry seems curiously absent in the case of
Magnetic Power.
According to information available on the
Department
of Defense and Ballistic Missile Defense
Organization,
or BMDO, Web sites, Magnetic Power received
$287,000 from the US Air Force and $120,000 from
the
BMDO through Magnetic Power's wholly owned
subsidiary, Room Temperature Superconductors Inc.
(ROOTS).
All funding was granted through the Small Business
Innovative Research programs for the development of
applications of room-temperature superconductors.
In superconductivity circles, the history of
Magnetic
Power and its UltraConductors is alternately
described
by critics as "funny" and "appalling."
"In the nearly 20 years since this claim was first
made,
there has not been one independent confirmation by
a
reputable research institute," said Maley. "Some
samples of UltraConductor have been sent out, but
never one large enough to perform a standard
conductivity measurement. Until that happens, no
one
will really believe the technology exists."
No one except the BMDO and the US Air Force, that
is.
Jeff Bond, a BMDO program manager, explained that
companies are not required to prove their ability
to
produce the proposed technology for Phase 1 Small
Business Innovative Research proposals. If granted,
Bond said, the funding typically amounts to a
$60,000
grant and the funds are intended to allow the
company
to "prove the concept."
Yet Magnetic Power's proposals do not say the
company will devise room-temperature
superconductors. Rather, it intends to develop and
improve on the materials that one grant proposal
says
"have been invented." Nonetheless, Bond said he is
unaware of any samples of UltraConductor that have
been received or tested by the military.
"We must have a good reason to believe that a given
company is proposing the development of a
legitimate
technology, before we grant a [Small Business
Innovative Research proposal]," said Bond.
"However, with the sheer number of proposals that
we
receive each year, it is certainly possible that a
few
inadequate Phase 1 proposals will slip by. The
Phase 2
grants, which are much larger, have a much more
stringent review process."
That process added another $187,500 to Magnetic
Power's budget in 1997, when the Air Force approved
a Phase 2 proposal for the company.
Magnetic Power's Goldes says that the BMDO has
observed testing of its materials and has received
samples, but that public announcement of the grants
has been suppressed by the military because of the
sensitive nature of the technology.
In fact, abstracts for all three are readily
available via a
search on the defense department's Web-site
database.
"We are well aware of who is funding what, and if
these companies keep reapplying for Phase 1 grants
without producing results, they will be quickly
weeded
out of the process," said Bond.
However, while being interviewed, Bond found that
Magnetic Power's ROOTS had just been approved for
a second Ballistic Missile Defense Organization
Phase
1 proposal, submitted under a different topic
listing
from the first. Bond was also unfamiliar with the
parent
company Magnetic Power, the name used to apply for
both Air Force grants. Goldes is CEO of both
companies and said he has 10 employees.
He also said that he is expecting to receive
another
$750,000 from the BMDO for a future Phase 2
proposal
to build on his Phase 1 work, bringing the bounty
to
nearly $1.2 million dollars.
On the bright side, one Air Force representative of
the
grant program pointed out, "At least we didn't fund
cold fusion."
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