Yes, I guess it’s scary that somebody reports on science with two articles in the business section. `Holy crap, this is really scary,’ inventor says of strange phenomenon. Thane Heins has a machine and an unexplained phenomenon, and people are starting to whisper, “perpetual motion,” and trying to be careful that the big, bad scientists don’t hear. We’re so unreasonable about things like this.

Now, I haven’t seen the device and I don’t know what’s going on. Apparently when you put some magnets near this motor, it spins faster. (Are you doing work moving the magnets? Is the system drawing more power? Did anyone bother to measure this?). The article also explains how one way of testing this would be to put a load on it (which, I must add, you should so after you use it to power itself). But there’s no mention of this simple test being conducted. Blech. This is what you get when you have a reporter asking the wrong questions.

“What I can say with full confidence is that our system violates the law of conservation of energy,” he says.

Well, I think you’re full of something, and to you it may seem like confidence. But conservation of energy stems from the time symmetry of the universe — the laws of physics are not changing. Nonconservation of energy requires the laws to change; this from Noether’s theorem.

The other bit is bad, too, especially because of the standard headline. Turning physics on its ear. Whoa, pardner. Nobody’s turned nuthin’ yet. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and all that. The thing about overturning physics with perpetual motion is this: it’s never been right. Not once.

What I want to know is this: is your house still hooked up to the grid, drawing energy? Why is that?