Karmic Knowledge

Science news was dominated last week by reports of the on-again off-again planetary status of Pluto. As you can see from my previous posts, I myself was completely caught up in the controversy. Yet there was another story, less sexy than the Pluto debate, and originally ignored by much of the press, that caused my psychic antenna to vibrate much more intensely.

A small high-tech firm in Dublin accidently discovered a way to generate clean and unlimited energy using magnets.

The Guardian UK reported:

Sean McCarthy says that no one was more sceptical than he when Steorn, his small hi-tech firm in Dublin, hit upon a way of generating clean, free and constant energy from the interaction of magnetic fields. ‘It wasn’t so much a Eureka moment as a get-back-in-there-and-check-your-instruments moment, although in far more colourful language,’ said McCarthy.

Of course, the left-brained scientific community has scoffed at this claim, trying to write it off as a marketing stunt. You see, Steorn’s discovery goes against the dominant paradigm. The laws of physics state that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only change form.

But not everyone is entirely convinced that those laws can’t be broken. In an interview, Martin Fleischmann, a retired cold-fusion scientist, states:

“I am actually a conventional scientist,'’ he says, “but I do accept that the existing [quantum electro-dynamic] paradigm is not adequate. If what these men are saying turns out to be true, that would be proof that the paradigm was inadequate and we would have to come up with some new theory…”

He goes on to say that he doesn’t have confidence in the study. But, in response to an ad placed by Steorn in The Economist, more than 3000 scientists have applied to test Steorn’s theory.

I am not a scientist, but when I listen to the Still, Small Voice, what I hear is that Steorn is not actually yanking the world’s collective chain. What I believe is that they received a transmission from the future, that this technology has arrived before its time because of the dire state of our planet. With hope, this ahead-of-its-time technological breakthrough will be received with open arms. That’s what the optimist in me desires.

But part of me is a pessimist and I fear that the good that can come from this discovery will be thwarted by the naysayers and the folks who are more concerned with profit than preserving the earth’s bounty. Remember, Galileo went to prison for claiming that the earth revolved around the sun and not the other way around. I hope this part of me is wrong. Time will tell.

If you want to know how it all turns out, you can sign up on Steorn’s home page to receive an email detailing the results of the trials. I, for one, can’t wait to hear.