The Joe Cell

Imagine, if you will, a machine that gave out more than you put in. A car that did 1000 miles on a gallon of fuel - or better yet, on no fuel at all. In fact, imagine a car that made fuel, the more you drove it. Imagine no more, for I give you… The Joe Cell.

Hamish Robertson claims to have developed an “over-unity machine” - something that gives out more energy than is put in. In doing so, he joins a lengthy list of people that have claimed to have created a perpetual motion machine, all of whom, to date, were liars. Hamish’s design is a group of nested cylinders filled with water, through which a charge is put. Other than shorting out your power supply, I can’t really see what this will achieve. On the other hand:

A static charge is induced, establishing opposing electric fields at the cathode and anode. …When a relatively small charge feedback loop begins and progressively more and more electrons are pulled through the water and off surrounding molecules toward the electric field of the anode.

Ah yes, that well-known property of negative ions, that they are attracted to other negative ions. That must be why… um… oh, god, that’s just so utterly fucking stupid I can’t even joke.
Well anyway, Hamish was passed the plans for the Joe Cell from a friend who got them from a friend, whose grandad saw them in use on tanks in the Second World War (no, really, that’s what the site says). By the way, there’s also this stunning piece of evidence, an image by rogue physicist and New Age father Walter Russell:

See how it resembles the Joe Cell? Is that not proof enough?
Originally, I was going to write to our friend Hamish. But honestly, a child could tell you that filling buckets with water and putting electricity through them isn’t a good idea. I’m not even sure how you’re supposed to connect the Joe Cell to you car, or even what it produces. Electricity? Gas? Coffee?

Buried at the bottom of the page, we have a small disclaimer from Hamish. He says:

They are prone to dying for no apparant reason

Ah. Hmm. Yes. That will explain why his machine will never work when the cameras are rolling. I think it’s safe to say that we’ll still be queueing at the pumps for a few decades yet. And when we stop, it certainly won’t be for the Joe Cell.

16 comments November 21st, 2006

I need a statistician

Last Saturday, Ben Goldacre over at Bad Science central wrote about the abundance of nonsense equations that regularly crop up in the news, usually as a thinly veiled promotion for the sponsors. He was also good enough to link to my article on Nathan Efron and his ridiculous formula for the Beer Goggle Effect (as “reported” by BBC News Online).

This morning I woke up to discover that the original Beer Goggle Effect article has leaped into the number one Most Emailed slot on BBC News Online. How did this happen? Is it coincidence? Has someone else been promoting this story? I fear I’ve given fresh legs to this Beer Goggles article Bausch & Lomb advertisement.

Add comment November 21st, 2006