There's One Thing That's Perpetual

Credulous media will apparently never run out.

Blacklight Power bolsters its impossible claims of a new renewable energy source

It’s difficult to pay attention to these claims, because scientific history is littered with ambitious, revolutionary theories that turned out to be groundless. But Blacklight is an interesting case. Its “hydrino” theory isn’t put forth by a single crackpot; instead, the company employs a good handful of high-level scientists who would presumably rebel if the idea was totally false.

No, not really. Creationism, for example, has a few credentialed scientists among its ranks. Pons and Fleischmann really thought they had fusion. Scientists in any field will cover a spectrum — there will always be some on the fringe. A lot of outlandish “theories” have the backing of somebody with a degree. That’s not the right metric for measurement.

As I noted in May, it would be odd, if Blacklight were a complete sham, for Mills to place himself in an end game in which he would be definitively proven wrong within just a year or two. So there does seem to be something deeper here.

As with the above, this isn’t the right way to look at it. There are numerous free-energy advocates out there, convinced they are right, with a working model just around the corner (or so they claim), or gee, it was working yesterday, right before I was going to show it off. Remember Steorn?

Proof here is a working model, producing energy. I’m not holding my breath.

Say It Isn't So

In the 80s music videos link from the other day I noticed the unsurprising absence of BLOTTO, a favorite Albany (NY)-based band from my high school/ college days (along with Fear of Strangers, aka The Units). So I went and looked for them on YouTube.

I must protest what I found.

This has to be the worse attempt at striking gold in the 80’s punk rock scene.

Punk? Dude, Blotto was not punk. They were a campy spoof-music band. Worst music video ever? Please.

I Wanna Be A Lifeguard

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

And I was there when they filmed the live footage. (I’m pretty sure I know one of the people visible in the crowd shot at 2:37, though she has kids now and is taking the fifth.)

Metalhead is after the jump. Sarge would always bite the head off of something during the song.
Continue reading

A Slice of PI

What We Research at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.

Researchers at PI build on the two great revolutionary advances of 20th century physics – the relativity and quantum theories:

Einstein discovered that space and time are not separate entities, but are different aspects of a single geometrical entity called spacetime, which dynamically twists and warps as it dances with matter and energy. This dance, called gravity, governs the behaviour of the universe on large scales, from the solar system and galaxies to the entire cosmos as a whole.

The fathers of quantum theory, on the other hand, such as Bohr, Heisenberg, and Schrödinger, discovered strange new laws that were eventually seen to govern the behaviour of all matter and forces on very small scales – the atomic and subatomic worlds, with the exception of gravity, whose quantum nature continues to elude physicists.Both are profoundly powerful theories which not only explain, with extraordinary accuracy, many previously puzzling aspects of the universe, but have also successfully predicted a wealth of completely unexpected new phenomena, from black holes and gravitational waves to lasers and quantum teleportation.

Links to Quantum Gravity, Superstring Theory, Quantum Foundations, Quantum Information, Cosmology and Particle Physics.