Friday, March 05, 2010

1. ALARM! AHMADINEJAD SAYS IRAN HAS LASER ENRICHMENT.

"For now," the Iranian President said on Saturday, "we do not intend to use it." He is, of course, a notorious liar. Whether he has it or not, the worst thing the United States could do at this point is to allow Global Laser Enrichment to proceed with plans to construct the first commercial laser enrichment plant in the US. It would be hailed by Ahmadinejad as justification for Iran to proceed with such a facility. His announcement focuses attention on the timely Opinion article in yesterday's Nature: "Stop Laser Uranium Enrichment," by Francis Slakey and Linda Cohen. The article calculates that the mean US household savings from laser enrichment of uranium would probably be less than two dollars a month. Because of its relatively small size the laser technology could be misappropriated to secretly enrich uranium for weaponry. The authors urge the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to assess proliferation risks in the licensing process.

2. MANNA: ISNT THAT A GIFT FROM HEAVEN?

The town of Odessa, MO, population 4,818, located somewhere east of Kansas City, needs jobs. So when a company, Manna of Utah, said it wanted to build a plant there employing 3000 people, folks cheered. All the town had to do was provide $90 million in revenue bonds and a site. The company even flew local officials to Florida for a demonstration of the "world- changing" technology that would be built there. It's a home generator developed by Maglev Energy in Largo, Florida, which is leasing the technology to Manna of Utah. State Representative Mike McGhee (R-Odessa) said the product would be the "equivalent of the light bulb." Steve Everly of the Kansas City Star thought it might be a good idea to check with scientists and engineers, including Bob Park. The mayor of Odessa, Tony Bamvakais, who went on the trip to Florida, says it's not a perpetual motion machine, but it's "so efficient that it keeps on producing power when it's unhooked from an outside power source."

3. PATENT NONSENSE: CASE LAW ON PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINES.

When Joseph Newman was refused a patent for his Energy Machine he sued the US patent office. Legendary US District Court Judge Robert Penfield Jackson ordered Newman to turn his machine over to the National Bureau of Standards for testing. It was found to be a motor/generator of a design vastly inferior to those on the market. The case, Newman v. Quigg (Quigg was the patent Commissioner) is cited as case-law giving the patent office authority to reject perpetual-motion claims out of hand. The only effect is that they are no longer called "perpetual motion machines." They are called over-unity devices, or zero-point-energy machines. Coverage of the Joe Newman case in Wikipedia is terrible. It's a remarkably useful encyclopedia, but you need to verify.

4. BELIEF: FRANCIS COLLINS IS FREE TO HOLD ANY BELIEFS HE LIKES.

This week, saw the publication of his new book, "Belief: Readings on the Reasons for Faith. But he is now the director of the nations largest science agency, having promised to set his personal quirks aside for the time. The argument is made that the book is work he did before he became director, but that's pretty thin cover. He could wait until he steps down. Modern science had its birth with the assertion of the Greek philosopher Thales in 585 B.C. that every observable effect has a physical cause. We should not regard any person as educated unless he understands those words, including the director of NIH.

Bob Park can be reached via email at whatsnew@bobpark.org
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
Opinions are the author's and are not necessarily shared by the University, but they should be.