Joseph NEWMAN
Gyroscopic Magnetic Particle Motor
Newman's Gyroscopic Theory
The theoretical basis of Joe Nemans' Revolutionary Energy Machine challenges many accepted laws of physics.
The starting point for understanding Newman's ideas is his assertion that the fundamental building block of all matter is the gyroscopic particle, an infinitesimal unit of matter that spins like a gyroscope.
Newman claims that the mechanics of magnetism and electricity, which have never been fully explained, can be described in terms of how gyroscopic particles react and interact.
The idea that a single type of particle is responsible for the forces at work in the universe is an old one, yet some of the latest research in physics involves the investigation of particles.
New and smaller particles with previously unknown properties are being discovered on a regular basis.
Newman's theories also depend heavily on the idea that all matter is concentrated energy, which can be released if one has a mechanism for unlocking it.
That notion is at the heart of Einstein's work and the equation E = mc^2, then the argument that he is trying to patent a perpetual motion machine has no merit.
Theoretically, Newman's machine could run indefinitely, but --- according to him --- not because it is CREATING energy to run itself, but because it is converting matter to energy.
In radically oversimplified terms, this is what happens when Joe Newman throws the switch on the Revolutionary Energy Machine:
1) An electrical current is sent through a long (miles long) coil of copper wire, magnetizing it and creating a strong magnetic field.
2) Newman describes the mechanics of the magnetic field as "shells of force" composed of gyroscopic particles that move in a spiral pattern around the wire.
Originally IN the wire, the particles expand outward and thus create the magnetic field.3) When the particles form a magnetic field, Newman says, they are traveling at the speed of light in two directions --- in the spiral pattern around the wire, and in their own normal gyroscopic spin.
This gives him the right side of the E = mc^2 equation; the particles (mass) multiplied by the speed of light squared.
4) The machine operates in pulses; that is, the electrical current is continually turned on and off. This causes the magnetic field --- in other words, the gyroscopic particles --- to expand and collapse.
5) When the trillions of gyroscopic particles that have been released collapse back into the wire, some of them collide with other gyroscopic particles.
Because of the nature of the gyroscopic spin, the collisions cause the loose particles to bounce off at right angles; those particles emerge at one end of the wire as electrical energy.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution (7-13-86)
Will Joseph Newman's Energy Machine Revolutionize the World?
by
Raad Cawthon
Staff WriterLUCEDALE, Miss. - In the piney woods southwest of this southwest Mississippi town, off the broken blacktop and two miles down a rutted sand and dirt road, through three gates, past the "Keep Out" and "Beware of the Dogs" signs, smack in the middle of nowhere, sits Joseph Westley Newman, a man who says he can change the world.
In this land where heat devils beat from the ground in waves, Newman says he can bring water to the desert places of the world, eliminate poverty, and improve the quality of everyone's life. If only Newman's enemies will let him. Newman does not look the part of a savior. He sports hair waved across his head in the style of a Baptist deacon.
In the heat Newman is calm, cool and certain. He carries a gaze direct as a laser. He says, "What I have done will revolutionize the world." What has Joe Newman done?
He has built the Revolutionary Energy Machine. His government, Newman's proclaimed enemy, says his machines are frauds. Not so, says Newman. Instead they are the bootstraps by which mankind can pull itself up. Across the tidy, tile-floored workshop from Newman sits a copper-sheathed canister the height and diameter of a fire hydrant.
At the far end of the workshop, swaddled in miles of copper wire, is another machine, a 9,000-pound version the size of a five-person hot tub, its circular rim topped with a circle of light bulbs.
These are two of Newman's Revolutionary Energy Machines, which he knows will free the world from drudgery and make the First, Second, and Third World as one.
It is these machines and others like them, using Newman's same revolutionary theory, that Newman claims produce more energy than they consume. That would allow men to light cities for pennies, power cars without pollution or gasoline, drive machines to make salt water fresh. But it is his own government, represented by the National Bureau of Standards and the U.S. Patent Office, that Newman says is his and mankind's foe.
It is his own government that Newman claims has waged a seven-year war to keep his invention from improving the world. "All I am doing is opening doors," Newman says.
The government, through its unwillingness to grant him a patent, says Newman's machine, which he has invested about $700,000 in developing and defending, does not do what he claims.
"The NBS results show that the device behaves in a manner which is entirely consistent with the well-established laws of physics," says the report, released June 26.
The "well-established" laws of physics say a machine cannot put out more energy than it consumes.
Government report `a mockery of justice' ---
Newman says he knew what the NBS report would show. As a matter of fact, so certain was Newman that he issued a press release before the report became public saying it was a "mockery of justice."
The inventor says he is certain his machine works, can demonstrate that it works, and is willing to defend his machine in public debate against anyone from the NBS or the U.S. Patent Office or any university or anyone who claims to know what he is talking about.
Newman has taken his Revolutionary Energy Machine on the road, demonstrating it in the Louisiana Superdome and in Atlanta.
In each place he challenged an expert on physics to debate his theories in public. Nobody showed up. Newman, who was raised in Mobile, dropped out of high school and left home at 15, went in the armed services, roughnecked in the oil fields, got a degree in accounting and economics, and decided - in his early 20s, after casting around through several jobs - that he wanted to be an inventor.
Over the course of the next two decades he registered patents for several inventions --- a machine to pick oranges, plastic barbells, a new type of knife --- and pursued his self-taught odyssey into electromagnetics.
Etched in the concrete of Newman's workshop walkway is "Question + Thinking = Truth." Newman says that because he is not burdened by conventional teachings, his mind is free to challenge questions without the constraints conventional physicists place on themselves. Newman already has won over a number of physicists, electrical
engineers and chemists who have seen his Revolutionary Energy Machine and heard his explanation.Dr. Roger Hastings, a physicist with Sperry-Univac Corp., has conducted hundreds of tests on Newman's machine. His opinion? "The future of the human race may be drastically uplifted by the large-scale commercial development of this invention," he says.
And Nicholaos Tsoupas, a physicist who works at Brookhaven Laboratory in New York and once taught at Yale University, said, "I know for a fact that many scientists consider his invention unorthodox and unacceptable, possibly because his theories do not fully comport with today's university teachings.
However, Mr. Newman has demonstrated that his invention works the way it claims. The Patent Office should not have denied him a patent." But the Patent Office did.
Newman applied for a patent for his machine March 22, 1979. In January 1982 the Patent Office denied him the patent, claiming his invention "smacked of perpetual motion." Newman appealed the ruling and in 1983 filed suit against the Patent Office.
Federal District Judge Thomas Jackson, who was hearing the case, appointed a special master to evaluate Newman's machine. The special master, William Schuyler Jr., a former commissioner of the U.S. Patent Office, concluded that the machine did what Newman claimed and recommended that a patent be granted.
Jackson, in an action that many people familiar with similar patent cases claim was almost unheard of, refused to accept the recommendation of Schuyler and sent the issue back to the Patent Office for more study.
In October 1985, Jackson ordered Newman to turn his machine over to the NBS for testing. Jackson's order also prevented Newman or any of his representatives from attending the tests. But when the 30-day period passed and the machine had not been tested, Newman's attorney, John Flannery, attempted to retrieve the machine. Jackson ordered it impounded.
After finally testing it, the Patent Office on June 26 issued a report claiming that the machine does not do what Newman says it will. "The Bureau of Standards is coming into this tainted," Newman says, noting that he still has not recovered the machine the NBS has had since 1985. "I have spent 21 years working on this machine and seven trying to get it patented. I am devoted to this."
Why give away a billion-dollar theory?
So devoted is he that he has written a book outlining the secret of his machine. The red-covered, hard-bound book is titled in gold: "Joseph Newman's Revolutionary Energy Machine."
Inside, the pages are packed with diagrams, equations, theories and philosophies on the power of electromagnetics. "Anyone with any knowledge of electromagnetic energy can read this book and build a machine," Newman says.
They also can study Newman's theories about how the weather can be controlled by directing electromagnetic energy and how Newman believes the present educational system trains originality out of children.
Why would someone develop a theory that he claims will change the world, a theory worth billions of dollars, and then give it away in a book? "Because the technical process is 10,000 times more important than the machine itself," Newman says.
He points to his head. "If I keep the knowledge up here, what will happen to it if something happens to me? If you understand the technical process, then you don't just copy what I have done, you can apply it in many different ways."
Newman's machine, if it works, truly could change the face of the world. Energy would be dirt cheap and non-centralized. Multinational oil cartels would be restructured or collapse. Utility companies that have invested billions in nuclear energy would see the plants as costly millstones, dragging them into bankruptcy.
Great stockpiles of coal, as well as the companies that mine it, would lie almost useless. So it is little wonder that Newman, who says he has gotten mysterious, anonymous threatening telephone calls lately, thinks there is a tremendous conspiracy, worldwide in scope, to prevent his invention from coming into widespread usage.
"My machine is a threat in terms of changing the financial structure and the power structure of the world," he says calmly. "I believe this conspiracy goes all the way to the president."
Newman has written every president since Lyndon Johnson stating that this new energy technology was on the horizon. Most of his letters went unanswered, presumably ignored.
However, in 1983 Newman sent Reagan a package of material about his machine. In a letter he asked the administration's help "for the people of the world."
Included in the package was a videotape of the machine that had aired on a New Orleans television news show. Newman got the package back with a form letter indicating that it had not been opened.
But when he opened the package to file the material, Newman found something he had not included. "There was a video review sheet from an office in the White House," Newman says, showing the sheet. "It indicated that not only had the package been looked at, but it had been looked at rather closely."
The review sheet states, among other things: "Some scientists believe this invention could change the world."
"When I called to find out what the review sheet was all about, the fellow at the White House was furious that I had seen it," Newman says. "They wanted to know how I had gotten hold of a copy of that sheet."
A White House spokesman said hundreds of videos are received by the White House annually and that many of them are reviewed by volunteers.
"What is on the review sheet is not the opinion of anyone on the White House staff," the spokesman said. "It is merely a review of whatever is on the tape."
`People are trained not to accept change' ---
But Newman is sure that a conspiracy exists. He leans back in a chair in his workshop and ruminates. "It's strange that they are capping all these oil wells now," he says. "The reasons they are giving, the dropping prices and such, are the same ones you've heard for three, four years. I don't see one factual piece of evidence for this to be happening.
"I'll bet in the last two years, if you could find out who's buying the copper mines, who's buying material for magnets. . . I'd bet you anything that when the wash is out, the oil companies have bought them."
Newman says his machine is not a perpetual motion machine and that it does not create energy, two claims that have hurt its image.
Instead, it is a new way of tapping the electromagnetic energy field that is already there. Very simply put, the machine works like this:
Power is used to rotate two magnets wrapped in copper wire.
The rotating magnets and the atoms that align within the copper wire create an electromagnetic field that can be tapped.
The revolutionary aspect of the machine is that the amount of energy needed to align the atoms and rotate the magnets creating the energy field is less than the energy created. So there is a net gain in power created.
Theoretically, with Newman's technology you could produce an unlimited, self-perpetuating source of pollution-free energy.
"I expect to have one of these machines running a car within six months," Newman says matter-of-factly. The fight for a patent for the Revolutionary Energy Machine has become more than a fight to get an invention patented.
Newman says the battle with the government has given him a new insight into the way people are taught to think in this country.
The battle has defined for Newman a philosophy. "People have been trained, are being trained, not to accept change," he says. "My powers of reason are greater than many people's because my feet are not bound by traditional thought.
Newman sits back and looks out the window of his workshop, past his Revolutionary Energy Machine, out into the pine trees. "To be a good scientist, you have to be a humble person. You have to believe that you don't know everything," he says.
[ Unknown Title / Publication ]
by
Warren E. Leary
AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Government engineers say a backwoods inventor's amazing energy machine has a number of unique features but lacks a critical one -- it doesn't work.
The National Bureau of Standards said Thursday that more than two months of court-ordered testing has failed to prove Joseph W. Newman's claims that his controversial machine produces more energy than it consumes.
"At all conditions tested, the input power exceeded the output power," the government's standards-setting agency said in a report. "That is, the device did not deliver more energy than it used."
Newman, who terms himself a self-educated, backwoods inventor from Lucedale, Miss., who used common sense to come up with his machine, immediately rejected the test results as biased and meaningless.
The agency by its own admission used unconventional instruments and methods to reach its conclusions, said Newman, whose quest for a government patent has attracted national attention.
"I do not accept these results at all," Newman said in a telephone interview. "I predicted this decision. It's just another example of the injustice I'm fighting against."
The bureau's report said that because of unusual electrical characteristics of the machine, it had to design a test plan and combination of instruments specifically for Newman's non-standard device. But it said it carefully checked the instruments to assure the accuracy of the tests.
Newman said he would not accept results coming from unconventional testing that could not be repeated by others.
"If I built my own test equipment and said that it proves my machine worked, no one would give me much credit, no one would believe me," Newman said. "But that's what the Bureau of Standards has done and they expect people to believe them."
The inventor has been trying for six years to get the U.S. Office of Patents and Trademarks to issue a patent on an energy machine that defies accepted laws of physics.
Patent examiners say the invention looks like yet another proposal for a perpetual motion machine, one that would produce more energy than it uses so that, theoretically, it could run forever.
This has been the goal of inventors for centuries, but conventional science says it is impossible.
Newman contends his device is not a perpetual motion machine, but a revolutionary energy source that uses the previously unknown magnetic properties of copper coils to release more energy than it consumes.
U.S. District Judge Thomas P. Jackson, presiding over Newman's suit against the patent office, ordered a new trial date after getting results of the tests he ordered from the bureau.
John P. Flannery, Newman's lawyer, said Jackson set Dec. 8 as the date for a non-jury trial to determine if the inventor will be awarded the patent.
Flannery said he asked the judge to permit Newman to examine the special equipment used to test the energy machine, but that Jackson refused to order it. If the Patent Office does not allow examination of the test devices, Flannery said, he would seek another court order to do so.
The Bureau of Standards said that during the testing, it found that Newman's device "behaves in a manner which is entirely consistent with well-established laws of physics."
A device would be called 100 percent energy efficient if it simply transmitted all the energy coming into it back to the outside, the report said, and it would have to show an efficiency of greater than 100 percent to make more power than it consumed.
The bureau said the efficiency of Newman's machine ranged between 27 percent and 67 percent, depending upon the test being run.
Never did the energy coming out of the machine exceed the battery power going into the device to get it running, the report said.
A Description of the Newman Motor
by
Roger Hastings, Ph.D.
This document is intended to provide information regarding the energy device invented by Mr. Joseph Newman of Lucedale, Mississippi. I have prepared the material in response to numerous requests for information. The number of these requests has increased dramatically since Newman's public demonstration of his motor at Washington, D.C., in May, 1985. This paper provides a personal history to date of my involvement with Newman, presents data which was taken at the Washington demonstration, provides an analysis of the data, and presents my current thoughts regarding a mathmatical description of Newman's motor.
HISTORY
I first met Mr. Newman in September, 1981. Newman is an inventor, and he had travelled to Minnesota to present a toy invention to Tonka Toys Corp. My brother, John, was at the time in charge of new products for Tonka, and he interviewed Newman. John and Joe wound up discussing their respective theories of matter and energy, and Joe's motor. At that time, Joe was looking for people to verify the operation of his motor for the patent office. He invited John to Lucedale, but John said that his brother (me) had a Ph.D. in physics, and therefore better credentials to offer for the testing of a motor.
My first reaction to the news of Newman's energy producing motor was quite negative. I had been a professor for four years, and had encountered several people with "world saving" energy devices which they wanted evaluated by the University. In all cases such devices had proven to be inoperative as net energy producers. Newman offered to fly me to Lucedale to test his motor, and I responded that he would be wasting his money and our time because I would certainly prove him wrong. He insisted, and I complied.
The motor that I saw on that first visit was a monument to Rube Goldberg, and to an incredible personal effort at building such a large device. It consisted of five thousand pounds of #5 gauge wire wound as a solenoid. Within the solenoid, a 600 pound ceramic magnet rotated on questionable bearings. The bearings were mounted in a wooden structure. On the shaft of the rotor was a mechanical commutator consisting of three home made wheels, and brushes whose tension was adjusted with rubber bands. The commutator received its power from a bank of six volt lantern batteries. As the huge magnet rotated, the whole structure creaked and groaned. At that time, Newman was taking energy output from a secondary coil wrapped around the motor primary solenoid. I measured the voltage and current input simultaneously on an oscilloscope. The output load was a resistor, and I similarly measured the output voltage and current. Multiplying voltage and current to find power, I determined that the motor was about 90% efficient.
Newman claimed that his motor was not performing up to par on that day, and said that he would ask me back when he had the device tuned up properly. Although I had proven that the motor at that time was not producing a net energy gain, several aspects of Newman and his motor were fascinating. First, the motor was not designed efficiently. Large mechanical losses were evident, and a 90% efficiency seemed highly unusual. Second, the huge magnet was rotating at some 60 RPM with an input power of only a few watts. Finally, Newman himself, while unconventional, seemed highly intelligent, definately a creative thinker, and intensely dedicated to his scientific work. He informed me that he had evolved his theory and filed for a patent before he had built a prototype motor. (I will discuss his theory later.)
I travelled again to Lucedale and indeed Newman had tuned up his motor. From that point foreward I consistantly measured efficiencies in excess of 100%. At this point I began an effort to attract scientific interest in Newman's motor, and to aid him in obtaining a patent. I wrote several affidavits and documents describing my measurements and generally supporting Newman's efforts. I have spent countless hours of my spare time over the past four years on this effort, withour renumeration. It takes little immagination to understand the benefit to the human race which would result from an economical device which generates energy with no external input. In my opinion, Newman's motor has performed well enough that the scientific community should be showing great interest.
Over the years, a number of generic questions have repeatedly been asked. Is there a hidden energy source? The device can be viewed from all sides, and there are no external connections. The motor has been transported across country, and works equally well at all locations. The motor has been duplicated by at least one other person, who claims that it works. Newman would not be acting in his own self interest to simultaneously invite publicity and commit fraud. It is generally known that Newman is sincere and honest.
Why isn't the motor running itself without the need for batteries? While in concept the motor should be capable of running itself without batteries, the technological problems have
not been solved which would allow such operation. In a sense, however, the motor does run itself. The motor has shown the capacity to charge up the batteries which provide voltage to the motor. Tests have been run in which up to 15 amp-hours of output have been drawn from the motor, and in which the six volt lantern batteries powering the motor have shown no evidence of an energy loss (the battery condition was verified in the labs of Ray-O-Vac Battery Co.). Tests have been run in which apparently dead batteries have been connected to the motor. The motor has charged up these batteries to the point where they can power other devices. The same batteries can be drained down (e.g. through a resistor), then be re-connected to the Newman motor and be charged up while they run the motor.Why isn't Newman's motor powering a home or auto? In my opinion such a demonstration would convince all skeptics, and create a great demand for the motor. Newman has proceeded in this direction. He has built at least four prototype motors to study the effect of varying motor parameters. He has steadily improved upon his large prototype, and has succeded in generating up to about 200 watts of power. By contrast, an average home requires one to three thousand watts on the average, with peak demands of up to 20 thousand watts. In this regard, it would be extremely helpful for establishments with high tech capabilities to aid Joe in scaling up the motor output. His approach has been to reduce the physical size of the motor to make it economical, and the output power. His greatest technical problem has been high voltage switching.
Why does Newman keep his technical process a secret? This question was answered at Washington in May, when Newman revealed the construction details of his motor to the public. He has published a book ("The Energy Machine of Joseph Newman", available from Newman Publishing, Rt. 1, Box 52, Lucedale Mississippi 39452), in which he describes his theory and his motor. Joe had kept the process secret to avoid patent infringement. Although his patent is still pending in the U.S., it has issued in other countries. Presumably his patent rights will be protected in the U.S., although it should be noted that his motor is being copied by others, so that issuance of his patent in the U.S. is of immediate importance. Garland Robinnett of CBS news in New Orleans has run a number of reports on Newman's struggle with the U.S. Patent office.
I do not fully understand why the scientific community in this country has not shown more interest in Newman's motor. He has had support from about 30 independent scientists and engineers, most of whom own their own engineering or consulting firms. He has also received some financial support from investors, who represent a range of interests, including oil and electrical power interests. I know of no one who has observed Newman's motor and taken measurements who has been able to show that his claims are invalid. On the contrary, most observers come in as skeptics, and leave as believers. Over the years my colleagues have consistantly provided me with arguments questioning the validity of my measurements. I have responded to these questions by modifying the measurement proceedures and creating new tests. In all cases the Newman device has passed the tests to my satisfaction. In my opinion, Newman has at least discovered some interesting and unusual new phenomena, and at most has discovered a process which will end man's dependence upon limited and polluting energy resources.
Newman's Theory
by
Roger Hastings, Ph.D.
Transcribed By George W. Dahlberg P.E.
I do not intend to recapitulate the theory presented in Newman's book, but rather to briefly provide my interpretation of his ideas. Newman began studying electricity and magnetism in the mid-1960's. He has a mechanical background, and was looking for a mechanical description of electromagnetic fields. That is, he assumed that there must be a mechanical interaction between, for example, two magnets. He could not find such a description in any book, and decided that he would have to provide his own explanation. He came to the conclusion that if electromagnetic fields consisted of tiny spinning particles moving at the speed of light along the field lines, then he could explain all standard electromagnetic phenomena through the interaction of spinning particles. Since the spinning particles interact in the same way as gyroscopes, he called the particles gyroscopic particles. In my opinion, such spinning particles do provide a qualitative description of electromagnetic phenomena, and his model is useful in understanding complex electrical situations (note that without a pictoral model one must rely solely upon mathematical equations which can become extremely complex).
Given that electromagnetic fields consist of matter in motion, or kinetic energy, Joe decided that it should be possible to tap this kinetic energy. He likes to say "How long did man sit next to a stream before he invented the paddle wheel?". Joe built a variety of unusual devices to tap the kinetic energy in electromagnetic fields before he arrived at his present motor
design. He likes to point out that both Maxwell and Faraday, the pioneers of electromagnitism, believed that the fields consisted of matter in motion. This is stated in no uncertain terms in Maxwell's book "A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field". In fact, Maxwell used a dynamical model to derive his famous equations. This fact has all but been lost in current books on electromagnetic theory. The quantity which Maxwell called "electromagnetic momentum" is now refered to as the "vector potential".Going further, Joe realized that when a magnetic field is created, its gyroscopic particles must come from the atoms of the materials which created the field. Thus he decided that all
matter must consist of the same gyroscopic particles. For example, when a voltage is applied to a wire, Newman pictures gyroscopic particles (which I will call gyrotons for short) moving down the wire at the speed of light. These gyrotons line up the electrons in the wire. The electrons themselves consist of a swirling mass of gyrotrons, and their matter fields combine when lined up to form the magnetic lines of force circulating around the wire. In this process, the wire has literally lost some of its mass to the magnetic field, and this is accounted for by Einstein's equation of energy equals mass times the square of the speed of light. According to Einstein, every conversion of energy involves a corresponding conversion of matter. According to Newman, this may be interpreted as an exchange of gyrotrons. For example, if two atoms combine to give off light, the atoms would weight slightly less after the reaction than before. According to Newman, the atoms have combined and given off some of their gyrotrons in the form of light. Thus Einstein's equation is interpreted as a matter of counting gyrotrons. These particles cannot be created or destroyed in Newman's theory, and they always move at the speed of light.My interpretation of Newman's original idea for his motor is as follows. As a thought experiment, suppose one made a coil consisting of 186,000 miles of wire. An electrical field would require one second to travel the length of the wire, or in Newman's language, it would take one second for gyrotons inserted at one end of the wire to reach the other end. Now suppose that the polarity of the applied voltage was switched before the one second has elapsed, and this polarity switching was repeated with a period less than one second. Gyrotons would become trapped in the wire, as their number increased, so would the alignment of electrons and the number of gyrotons in the magnetic field increase. The intensified magnetic field could be used to do work on an external magnet, while the input current to the coil would be small or non-existant. Newman's motors contain up to 55 miles of wire, and the voltage is rapidly switched as the magnet rotates. He elaborates upon his theory in his book, and uses it to interpret a variety of physical phenomena.
RECENT DATA ON THE NEWMAN MOTOR
In May of 1985 Joe Newman demonstrated his most recent motor prototype in Washington, D.C.. The motor consisted of a large coil wound as a solenoid, with a large magnet rotating within the bore of the solenoid. Power was supplied by a bank of six volt lantern batteries. The battery voltage was switched to the coil through a commutator mounted on the shaft of the rotating magnet. The commutator switched the polarity of the voltage across the coil each half cycle to keep a positive torque on the rotating magnet. In addition, the commutator was designed to break and remake the voltage contact about 30 times per cycle. Thus the voltage to the coil was pulsed. The speed of the magnet rotation was adjusted by covering up portions of the commutator so that pulsed voltage was applied for a fraction of a cycle. Two speeds were demonstrated: 12 R.P.M. for which 12 pulses occured each revolution; and 120 rpm for which all commutator segments were firing. The slower speed was used to provide clear oscilloscope pictures of currents and voltages. The fast speed was used to demonstrate the potential power of the motor. Energy outputs consisted of incandescent bulbs in series with the batteries, flourescent tubes across the coil, and a fan powered by a belt attached to the shaft of the rotor. Revelent motor parameters are given below:
Coil weight : 9000 lbs.
Coil length : 55 miles of copper wire
Coil Inductance: 1,100 Henries measured by observing the current rise time when a D.C. voltage was applied.
Coil resistance: 770 Ohms
Coil Height : about 4 ft.
Coil Diameter : slightly over 4 ft. I.D.Magnet weight : 700 lbs.
Magnet Radius : 2 feet
Magnet geometry: cylinder rotating about its perpendicular axis
Magnet Moment of Inertia: 40 kg-sq.m. (M.K.S.) computed as one third mass times radius squaredBattery Voltage: 590 volts under load
Battery Type : Six volt Ray-O-Vac lantern batteries connected in seriesA brief description of the measurements taken and distributed at the press conference follows. When the motor was rotating at 12 rpm, the average D.C. input current from the batteries was about 2 milli-amps, and the average battery input was then 1.2 watts. The back current (flowing against the direction of battery current) was about -55 milli-amps, for an average charging power of -32 watts. The forward and reverse current were clearly observable on the oscilloscope. It was noted that when the reverse current flowed, the battery voltage rose above its ambient value, varifying that the batteries were charging. The magnitude of the charging current was verified by heating water with a resistor connected in series with the batteries. A net charging power was the primary evidence used to show that the motor was generating energy internally, however output power was also observed. The 55 m-amp current flowing in the 770 ohm coil generates 2.3 watts of heat, which is in excess of the input power. In addition, the lights were blinking brightly as the coil was switched.
The back current from the coil switched from zero to negative several amps in about 1 milli-second, and then decayed to zero in about 0.1 second. Given the coil inductance of 1100 henries, the switching voltages were several million volts. Curiously, the back current did not switch on smoothly, but increased in a staircase. Each step in the staircase corresponded to an extremely fast switching of current, with each increase in the current larger than the previous increase. The width of the stairs was about 100 micro-seconds, which for reference is about one third of the travel time of light through the 55 mile coil.
Mechanical losses in the rotor were measured as follows: The rotor was spun up by hand with the coil open circuited. An inductive pick-up loop was attached to a chart recorder to measure the rate of decay of the rotor. The energy stored in the rotor (one half the moment of inertia times the square of the angular velocity) was plotted as a function of time. The slope of this curve was measured at various times and gave the power loss in the rotor as a function of rotor speed. The result of these measurements is given in the following table:
Rotor Speed Power Dissipation Power/(Speed Squared)
radian/sec --- watts --- watts/(rad/sec)^2
4.0 --- 6.3 --- 0.39
3.7 --- 5.8 --- 0.42
3.3 --- 5.0 --- 0.46
3.0 --- 3.5 --- 0.39
2.1 --- 2.0 --- 0.45
1.7 --- 1.2 --- 0.42
1.2 --- 0.7 --- 0.47The data is consistant with power loss proportional to the square of the angular speed, as would be expected at low speeds. When the rotor moves fast enough so that air resistance is important, the losses would begin to increase as the cube of the angular speed. Using power = 0.43 times the square of the angular speed will give a lower bound on mechanical power dissipation at all speeds. When the rotor is moving at 12 rpm, or 1.3 rad/sec, the mechanical loss is 0.7 watts.
When the rotor was sped up to 120 rpm by allowing the commutator to fire on all segments, the results were quite dramatic. The lights were blinking rapidly and brightly, and the fan was turning rapidly. The back current spikes were about ten amps, and still increased in a staircase, with the width of the stairs still about 100 micro-seconds. Accurate measurements of the input current were not obtained at that time, however I will report measurements communicated to me by Mr. Newman. At a rotation rate of 200 rpm (corresponding to mechanical losses of at least 190 watts), the input power was about 6 watts. The back current in this test was about 0.5 amps, corresponding to heating in the coil of 190 watts. As a final point of interest, note that the Q of his coil at 200 rpm is about 30. If his battery plus commutator is considered as an A.C. power source, then the impedance of the coil at 200 rpm is 23,000 henries, and the power factor is 0.03. In this light, the predicted input power at 700 volts is less than one watt!
MATHEMATICAL DESCRIPTION OF NEWMAN'S MOTOR
Since I am preparing this document on my home computer, it will be convenient to use the Basic computer language to write down formulas. The notation is * for multiply, / for divide, ^ for raising to a power, and I will use -dot to represent a derivative. Newton's second law of motion applied to Newman's rotor yields the following equation:
MI*TH-dot-dot + G*TH-dot = K*I*SIN(TH) (1)
where MI = rotor moment of inertia
TH = rotor angular position (radians)
G = rotor decay constant
K = torque coupling constant
I = coil currentIn general the constant G may depend upon rotor speed, as when air resistance becomes important. The term on the right hand side of the equation represents the torque delivered to the rotor when current flows through the coil. A constant friction term was found through measurement to be small compared to the TH-dot term at reasonable speeds, but can be included in the "constant" G. The equation for the current in the coil is given by:
L*I-dot + R*I = V(TH) - K*(TH-dot)*SIN(TH) (2)
where L = coil inductance
I = coil current
R = coil resistance
V(TH) = voltage applied to coil by the commutator which is a function of the angle TH
K = rotor induction constantIn general, the resistance R is a function of voltage, particularly during commutator switching when the air resistance breaks down creating a spark. Note that the constant K is the same in equations (1) and (2). This is required by energy conservation as discussed below. To examine energy considerations, multiply Equation (1) by TH-dot, and Equation (2) by I. Note that the last term in each equation is then identical if the K's are the same. Eliminating the last term between the two equations yields the instantaneous conservation law:
I*V=R*I^2 + G*(T,-dot)^2 + .5*L*(I^2)-dot =.5*MI*((TH-dot)^2)-dot
If this equation is averaged over one cycle of the rotor, then the last two terms vanish when steady state conditions are reached (i.e. when the current and speed repeat their values at angular positions which are separated by 360 degrees). Denoting averages by < >, the above equation becomes:
<IV> = <R*I^2> + <G*(TH-dot)^2> (3)
This result is entirely general, independent of any dependences of R and G on other quantities. The term on the left represents the input power. The first term on the right is the power dissipated in the coil, and the second term is the power delivered to the rotor. The efficiency, defined as power delivered to the rotor divided by input power is thus always less than one by Equation (3). This result does require, however, that the constants K in equation (1) and equation (2) are identical. If the constant K in equation (2) is smaller than the constant K appearing in equation (1), then it may be varified that the efficiency can mathmatecally be larger than unity.
What do the constants, K, mean? In the first equation, we have the torque delivered to the magnet, while in the second equation we have the back inductance or reaction of the magnet upon the coil. The equality of the constants is an expression of Newton's third law. How could the constants be unequal? Consider the sequence of events which occur during the firing of the commutator. First the contact breaks, and the magnetic field in the coil collapses, creating a huge forward spike of current through the coil and battery. This current spike provides an impulsive torque to the rotor. The rotor accelerates, and the acceleration produces a changing magnetic field which propagates through the coil, creating the back emf. Suppose that the commutator contacts have separated sufficiently when the last event occurs to prevent the back current from flowing to the battery. Then the back reaction is effectively smaller than the forward impulsive torque on the rotor. This suggestion invokes the finite propagation time of the electromagnetic fields, which has not been included in Equations (1) and (2).
A continued mathmatical modeling of the Newman motor should include the effects of finite propagation time, particularly in his extraordinary long coil of wire. I have solved Equations (1) and (2) numerically, and note that the solutions require finer and finer step size as the inductance, moment of inertia, and magnet strength are increased to large values. The solutions break down such that the motor "takes off" in the computer, and this may indicate instabilities, which could be mediated in practise by external pertubations. I am confident that Maxwell's equations , with the proper electro-mechanical coupling, can provide an explanation to the phenomena observed in the Newman device. The electro-mechanical coupling may be embedded in the Maxwell equations if a unified picture (such as Newman's picture of gyroscopic particles) is adopted.
Science (10 Feb. 1984), pp. 571-572
Newman's Impossible Motor
The patent office does not believe that Joseph Newman has built a generator that is more than 100 percent efficient, but New Orleans does.
by
Eliot Marshall
At least one physicist in Louisiana swears that the CBS News anchorman Dan Rather was smiling on 9 January when he reported that an inventor near New Orleans has built a generator that defies the second law of thermodynamics. Others did not see any smile. What they did see, to their surprise, was an earnest but fantastic news story that has been running on New Orleans' biggest television channel being repeated over the network news.
The story is about an inventor, a self-educated Missisippian named Joseph Wesley Newman. He was pleased with the CBS broadcast because it make help him in a fight with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which has denied him a patent on the grounds of his latest invention, "smacks of a perpetual motion machine", meaning by definition it cannot do what it claimed. On 25 June, the U.S District Court for the District of Columbia will hear a suit Newman has brought against the patant office arguing that his device does not aim at perpetual motion but converts mass to energy in a finite but very efficient manner. He simply wants a patent.
Newman's invention is hard to describe, partly because its behavior seems to be at odds with the laws of physics and partly because the details are being kept secret while the ligation goes on. Newman says his own theory of magnetism is "10,000 times more important" than the invention itself, which be built to demonstrate the concept. He claims to have discovered the mechanical principles of a gyroscopic particle of matter that orbits in a magnetic field much as an electron orbits in an atomic shell. Several readers of his theory say it is incomprehensible and would not get attention were it not for the illustrative devices. The patent Newman seeks is for an "Energy Generation System Having Larger Output than Input". Those who have seen it say it is a crude direct current motor powered by a bank of lantern batteries with a heavy, rotating magnet at its center.
Readings of the machine's performance, like those of Dan Rather's expression, depend on the reader. As a result of the TV coverage, the people of New Orleans may be convinced that Newman has invented a simple device that produces more energy than it consumes and could end the world's energy sqabbles if only an arrogant scientific community would pay attention. That is Newman's message. It has been taken up and broadcasted in a sort of crusade by Garland Robinette, the evening news anchorman at the CBS affiliate in New Orleans, WWL-TV.
Last autumn Robinette aired an eight-part series on Newman's device, charging that jealous academics and frightened executives tried to stifle information about it. Robinette concedes that his intense coverage of Newman's began on a slow news day when he was looking for a cute show-closer. He claims he was skeptical at first and saw Newman's invention as a curiosity. But the story soon grew into a "monster that I couldn't let go" when New Orleans viewers, facing a 200 percent increase in utility rates, demanded to know more. Furthermore, a Missisippi state energy offical and a credible scientist had recently vouched for Newman's claims. Robinette says that since he began reporting on the invention, no one has come forward to rebut Newman. He challenges people to come to "get this story off my back".
Newman has benefited from the television coverage and from several weighty endorsements. For example, the television engineers watched him. Last year, Robinette dragged two reluctant engineers on WWL-TV staff to Newman's garage in Lucedale, Missisippi., about 2 1/2 hours from New Orleans. They werde sceptics at first, but, after looking at oscilloscope readings and watching the machine recharge batteries, they agreed with their anchorman that the claims seemed valid.
Engineer Ralph Hartwell described the tests he ran. When he arrived at Newman's House, he connected some weak penlight batteries he had brought along to a small conventional motor in Newman's back yard. It was allowed to run until the batteries were drained of power, taking about 1 minute. He then moved the dead batteries over to the smallest of Newman's demonstration motors, connected them as a power source, and started this motor spinning. It ran until it was time for the camera crew to leave, for something between 1 ans 2 hours. Finally, the batteries were taken fram Newman's machine back to the conventional motor and reconnected. This time the motor ran for about 3 minutes. Hartwell ran annother experiment on a large device and concluded that it also appeared to generate more power than it used. Other measurements were taken with oscilloscopes and current meters, but these readings have been questioned. After signing a confidential pledge, Hartwell was allowed to examine the machine's inner wiring. He is certain that there is no hidden source of energy. Although he feels uncomfortable about it, he says he could not disprove Newman's claim and would like to see a universtity run a controlled test.
Newman's key endorsement comes from Roger Hastings, a solid-state physicist for the Sperry Univac Company in Minneapolis. A colleague who knew him as a postdoc fellow at the University of Virginia says Hastings was regarded as an adventurous and excellent theorist. Hasting's brother, a screener for new ideas for Tonka Toys, met Newman when he
submitted an invention to Tonka. Although sceptical, Hastings (the physician) was persuaded to make a trip to Lucedale. "I used to teach physics at North Dakota University", says Hastings, "and we would get three or four people a year who had some kind of device that was going to save the world. I assumed it was the same." Newman talked Hastings into fly down for a visit anyway. He returned five times, testing and retesting the motors, until he was satisfied that he had made no mistake. He eventually signed an affidatvit describing the invention in detail and stating unequivocally that it runs at greater than 100 percent efficency, producing more power than it consumes. "I'm sticking my neck out," he says, "because this is an important issue that should be resolved."Endorsements such as this are essential for the credibility of the patent application. Although Newman has read the works of the great electrical thinkers Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell, he is not proficent in math or physics.
Newman is collecting seval more endorsements. He claims to have won the backing recently of, a Geman aerospace engineer and a liaison officer between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European space consortium. Gerald Miller, a mechanical engineer, student of advanced physics, and electical industiy consultant in California, has inspected the devices and says, "I saw things that I cannot explain in conventional terms." He found that the device produced more energy than it used, adding, "I am absolutely certain that there is no hidden energy source. Milton Everett, a mechanical Engineer and director of the biomass program for the Missisippi Department of Energy and Transportation, says, "I think Joe has discovered something that the world is going to benefit from. It's nor a perpetual motion machine; it converts mass to energy." Excluding inverstors, Newman claims to have about 27 such endorsers.
But there have been and continue to be prominent doubters. Oddly, TV anchorman Robinette has given little attention or credence to the only thorough analysis ever performed on Newman's device. It was aranged by Everett (before he became a full convert to Newman's cause) and was paid for by the Missisippi energy department. Two electrical engineers from Missisippi State University (MSU), --- Karl Carlson and Donald Fitzgerald --- tested one of the Newman's devices last March. The conditions were unfavourable, because the motor kept breaking down every "couple of minutes," says Carlson, as a huge spark from the induction coil shorted out a switch on the commutator. Thus, while it war fairly easy to measure the power going in, it was not easy to tell what was coming out. Newman has built a smaller, less quirky motor since then.
The pattern on the oscilloscope at the output end of a cycle was difficult to read because as one observer says, the discharge spark appeared as "a bright flash" or "a mess" on the face of the screen. Newman sweeps this point aside as a quibble, saying it merely indicates his machine's tremendous power. The efficiency claimed for this device is anywhere from
the impossible (slightly over 100 percent) to the fantastic (800 percent and up). A normal electric motor may be 80 percent efficient, Carlson says, and transformers are generally in the 90's. Carlson and Fitzgerald found that Newman's machine was between 55 and 76 percent efficient, based on their reading of the most favourable oscillograms.They wrote that they found "an output which is definitely less than the input." However, they hedged by saying it was impossible to measure the mechanical energy lost in the machine, which could affect the rating. They declined to call Newman's invention a breakthrough but reported that it was remakably efficient given its "obvious crude configuration." In a standard tag line, they wrote that "further investigation is in order." Newman reads this qualified rejection as a qualified endorsement, explaining when it comes to praising new discoveries, academisc are mean. He speaks of Carlson and Fitzgerald with harsher adjectives.
The physics faculties of Loyola and Tulane Universities, both in New Orleans, have protested Robinette's reports. Daniel Purrington, Tulane's physics chairman, says: "We all dispute it. A number of us have told him [Robinette] we think what he's doing is irresponsible. I talked to him for about 2 hours about the principles involved." Carl Brans, a theorist at Loyola, wrote Robinette a two-page letter of protest. "It's just sensational journalism. In our opinion, it's not worth the cost," to try to take the measurements that would end the discussion.
David Keiffer, an experimental physicist at Loyola, along with other faculty member, offered to check Newman's device if he would bring it to the laboratory. (Newman's patent attorney is a physics graduate of Loyola.) But in the preliminary talks, Keiffer says, Newman insisted that he be present during the entire procedure. Then he and Keiffer got into an argument. Newman packed up and left, never to return. The Loyola physicist also sought to advise WWL-TV's engineers on testing the device, but this proved to be a touchy proposition, because WWL is owned by Loyola and was originally founded by Loyola's physics department. No one wanted the advice to be interpreted as pressure.
"I have a fairly good reputation here," Robinette says of his science reporting, "and this thing just has the potential to make me look like an absolute ignoranmus. So I've tried desperately to disprove this and all I've done so far is get more and more people who are convinced."
What about the negative conclusion reached by the MSU engineers? Robinette maintains (like Newman and Everett) that while the engineers were testing the machine, they agreed that it was producing more energy than it used. But "when they went back, they wrote an ambigous response that didn't say it didn't work and didn't say it did." Robinette mentions that the MSU engineers are retired, as though to diminish their reliability. He finds it "very surprising that they never called to challenge his report, which gave the Newman-Everett version of events.
Some who might otherwis voice scepticism seem to sypathize with Newman because of the way the patent office rebuffed him. In court filings, the patent office concedes that Newman is correct that it rejected his claims without fully reading the documents he submitted; that his application was handled by an examiner --- Donovan Duggan --- who seems to specialize in rejecting perpetual machines; that Duggan said he would not allow a patent on Newman's device, no matter how much supportive evidence was submited; that the office officials never tested the Newman device for efficacy and refused to observe oscilloscope readings of its input and output; and finally, that the office issued a patent 1979 to a man named Howard Johnson for a perpetual motion machine that Johnson since then agreed is inoperable.
If there were an association of militant patent rejectees, Newman's battle with the patent office could be its rallying cause. But there is no such association. However, Newman has done reasonably well attracting attention by himself, especially in New Orleans. In a few months, he will get his day in court.
Science (16 Nov. 1984), p. 817
An Endless Siege of Implausible Inventions
by
R. Jeffrey Smith
In the modern world of commerce, the U.S. patent and trademark office is a street-corner cop with the power to arrest the development of any product that promises the impossible. Its book of statutes contains the basic laws of physics, the axioms of mathematics, the fundamental principles of mechanical engineering. With particular enthusiasm, its employees serve as guardians of the public in a never-ending battle against mechanical devices allegedly capable of perpetual motion.
This, at least, is how they see themselves. Inventors such as Joseph Newman are more apt to view them as "a bunch of narrow-minded people who have conducted themselves outside the federal law and the human race". For more than 5 years, Newman, 48, has been frustrated in his efforts to obtain a patent for an "Energy System Having Higher Output Than Input". In 1982, the patent office told him that because such a device is simply infeasible, his application was denied after something less than a comprehensive, time-consuming review (Science, 10 February 1984, p. 571).
Recently, however, with the help of some unexpected scientific endorsements, Newman persuaded the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to order that his application be granted a full review by an examiner --- in short, a second chance. Newman believes that the decision is a slap in the face for the patant office and a partial vindication of his claims. Actually, the dispute reveals how easy it can be for inventors to jerk the patent office around. The ruling, made by Judge Thomas Jackson on 31 October, places the office in the difficult position of determining whether Newman's "energy generation system" -- a powerful electric motor -- is adequately described in his application, and whether it is similar or identical to motors with existing patants. Neither topic was given serious consideration on the first go-around, for reasons the patent office believes obvious.
The decision resulted from an unusual hearing in which a phalanx of attorneys in Newman's employ repeatedly cited patent case law, while Jere Sears, deputy solicitor in the patent office, repeatedly invoked the second law of thermodynamics. In its essence, that law states that the energy produced by a mechanical device such as Newman's will always be less than the energy needed to operate it. In addition to basing the case on "all of recorded science", as Sears put it, he relied heavily on an affidavit from Jacod Rainbow, a former chief research engineer at the National Bureau of Standards and well-known debunker of perpetual motion machines. Rainbow has several objections to the patent application, but his primary claim is that the motor's output of energy has been measured incorrectly. Although he has not seen the device or tested himself, he is willing to bet "any money" that it operates at well under 100 percent efiicency.
As strong as the gouverment's argument was, it was sharply undercut by two affidavits. One was written by Mort Zimmerman, the president of Commercial Technology, Inc., in Dallas. Zimmerman said his 400-person firm "has independently ... constructed, operated, and tested several crude prototype devices based on the Newman invention, and has confirmed for itself that these prototype devices which embody the Newman invention operate and produce power as claimed by Newman" at more than 111 percent efficiency. Zimmerman was enthusiastic enough to purchase an option for the right to manufacture and sell Newman's motor in north Texas. (Recently, he told Science that the motor "needs further development for practical utilization, and we're not completely convinced that we can get there.")
The second affidavit was prepared from Lawrence E. Wharton, a physicist in the Laboratory For Atmospheric Sciences at the Goddart Flight Space Center in Maryland. Initially, Wharton, who volunteered his services to the patent office as a sceptic of Newman's claims, vigorously attacked Zimmerman's statement. Shortly before the court hearing, however, he recanted some of his arguments, and declared that the motor's efficiency "is in substantial excess of 100 percent" and perhaps as high as 600 percent, if Newman's measurements are correct. The change of heart came, he said, after Newman argued with him in a long telephone conversation.
Both of these statements apparently made a strong impression on William Schuyler, an attorney and one-time commissioner of U.S. patents who was appointed by the judge as a "special master" to help resolve some of the technical disputes. In his report, Schuyler agreed that the operation of Newman's motor "seems clearly to conflict with recognized scientific principles relating to thermodynamics and conservation of energy." But he insisted ther was an "overwhelming" evidence that the motor's output energy exceeded the external input energy, adding that "there is no contradictory factual evidence." He went so far as to state that Newman was entitled to a patent as long as it did not conflict with any existing patents.
All of this came as a great shock to Sears. It was he, not Newman, who nominated Schuyler. "We felt reasonably safe with a person of his background," he explains. In a final pleading to the judge, Sears asked, "Why are we still paying power bills if Newman has actually achieved his claims? The Court should exercise some common sense and refrain from joining those who apparently believe in the tooth fairy... Manifestly, this court has no power to abrogate a natural law."
In his ruling, Judge Jackson accepted the major points of Schuyler's report, but said he was unwilling to conclude as yet that Newman has produced a "truly pioneering invention." That decision awaits aanother hearing, now set for January. Sears denies that this decision has any implications for the general patent review process. But one effect may be to bar the office from dealing summarily whith such unusual claims in the future -- a development that could sharply increase the examination delays experienced by inventors with more plausible claims.
To Newman, the dispute has become a crusade. Having spent thousands of dollars already in lawyer's fees, consulting fees, and court costs, he will soon pay to publish a book describing both his invention and the patent fight. He says that "the world is fortunate that I'm not afraid of a ruckus, I intend to fight this untill hell freezes over."
Science (July 11, 1986), Vol. 233
Newman's " Energy Output" Machine Put to the Test
by
Marjorie Sun
What's a device with a battery pack, a magnet, and a coil wired together?
For the past 6 years, Joseph Newman, an inventor from Mississippi, has been loudly proclaiming that it's a revolutionary machine which produces more power than it uses. The National Bureau of Standards recently issued its own verdict after analyzing Newman's machine: "In none of tests did the device's approach 100%.... Our results are clear and unequivocal," the bureau said.
Newman has gone to great lengths to try to win a patent on his energy output machine. When the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office indicated in 1984 that the device did not work, Newman sued the agency. He hired a publicist, and the media often portrayed him as an underdog pitted against the scientific establishment. Then the court ordered Newman to submit the machine to the National Bureau of Standards for testing. Newman reluctantly complied.
A physicist and two electrical engineers from the bureau tested the machine in a variety of ways to measure its energy input and output and used instrumentation that is common in research engineering laboratories. The sole power source of the device was 116 9-volt batteries. According to the test results, the device's efficiency ranged from 27 to 67%, depending on the voltage, the power drawn from the device, and the condition of insulating tape on one of the parts. (The tape kept burning from sparks generated by the machine, which caused the efficiency to drop and had to be replaced frequently.)
According to John Lyons, director of the bureau's National Engineering Laboratory, the device basically converted direct current to alternating current. He noted that there are several machines already on the market that do the same thing, but they run at 90% efficiency or higher.
Newman had court permission to observe the bureau's tests, but never appeared for any of the experiments, which were conducted between March and June. His spokesman Evan Soule said Newman will ask the court to order the testing of the test equipment. Newman said in an interview, "I have no respect for the National Bureau of Standards. This is a conspiracy against me."
The testing cost the bureau $75,000, which it hopes to recoup from the patent office. The patent office will submit the results to U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which will try the case in December.
Measurement & Analysis of Joseph Newman's Energy Generator
by
Dr. Roger Hastings, Ph.D.
Abstract ~
The author has made numerous measurements on the Energy Machines developed by Joseph Newman of Lucedale, Mississippi. The machines are large, air core, permanent magnet motors. The most important design rule specified by the inventor is that the length of wire in the motor coil be very long; preferably long enough so that the switching time between current reversals is shorter than the time required for propagation of the current wavefront through the coil. Various models contain up to 55 miles of wire, with air core coil inductances of up to 20,000 Henries. The permanent magnet armatures have very large magnetic moments. Thus the motors exhibit high torque with low current inputs. The motors generate large back current spikes consisting of pulsed rf in the 10-20 MHz frequency range. These spikes provide large mechanical impulses to the rotor, energize fluorescent tubes placed across the motor, and tend to charge the dry cell battery pack. The total generated energy --- consisting of mechanical work, mechanical friction, ohmic heating, and light --- is many times larger than the battery input energy.
Newman's theories and machines will be described. Measurements indicating net energy gain from the devices will be presented. A phenomenological mathematical description of the motor will also be presented. Finally, the author will present his personal impressions of Newman's work.
Newman's Theory ---
Joseph Newman is an inventor who lives and works at his home in Lucedale, MS. He became interested in electromagnetic energy some 25 years ago, and began a self-study program. After searching standard texts for a mechanical description of electromagnetic interactions, he concluded that no such description existed. Newman decided that he would have to generate his own mechanical theory of electromagnetism, and over the following several years he evolved his gyroscopic particle theory. This theory, or model states that all matter and energy is composed of a single elementary spinning particle which always moves at the speed of light. The gyroscopic particle has mass, and it can neither be created or destroyed. All energy conversions, in this theory, involve an exchange of gyroscopic particles. E = mc^2 is the expression of this concept, and simply represents an accounting of gyroscopic particles during an energy conversion.
Electric and magnetic fields consist of gyroscopic particles flowing at the speed of light along the field lines. When an electric or magnetic field is created, the particles initially come from the materials which energized the field. For example, when a battery is connected to a wire, gyroscopic particles flow at the speed of light down the wire, and they tend to align the gyroscopic particle flow fields of the electrons in the wire. The electricgyroscopic particle flow field extends outside the wire creating the circumferential magnetic field of the wire. The energy in the magnetic field is Nmc^2, where N is the number of particles in the field, and m is the mass of an individual particle. This energy, or these particles, came from the electrons of the copper.
Thus, Newman considers the current flowing in the wire to be a catalyst which energy to emanate from the atoms of the wire. He claims that he has developed a mechanism whereby field energy can be pumped out of the copper atoms in the wire, thereby reducing their mass without consuming the voltage source which has supplied the catalytic current flow. Since the mass is consumed totally, there is no pollution in this process. One gram mass, if totally consumed,could supply enough energy to power a home for one thousand years. Newman describes his theory and its applications in his book, THE ENERGY MACHINE OF JOSEPH NEWMAN [1].
Description of Newman Motors ---
Newman's motors may be described as two-pole, single phase, permanent magnet armature, DC motors. That is, the armature consists of a single permanent magnet which either rotates or reciprocates within a single coil of copper wire. The coil is energized with a bank of dry cell, carbon zinc batteries. In the rotating models, which will be emphasized in this paper, the battery voltage to the coil is reversed each half cycle of rotation by a mechanical commutator attached to the shaft of the rotating armature. Motor operation is sensitive to the angle at which the voltage is switched, and this is optimized experimentally. On some models, the commutator also interrupts the voltage several times per cycle, creating a pulsed input to the coil.
The coils are constructed with a very large number of turns of copper wire. In all models, the coil inductive reactance is much larger than the coil resistance at operating speed. However, the coil resistance is large enough so that even in the locked rotor condition, very little current flows through the coil. The motors typically draw less than ten milliampere so that small capacity batteries (e.g., 9 volt transistor batteries) can be used in series for the power supply. Self resonant frequencies (frequency at which the coil inductive reactance equals the coil distributed capacitive reactance) are typically on the order of the armature rotation frequency. The permanent magnet armature is very strong, and TIGHT COUPLING TO THE COIL is emphasized in Newman's later models [emphasis added]. His early models used up to 700 pounds of ceramic magnets, while later models used smaller armatures made with powerful neodymium-boron-iron magnets. The commutator is protected by fluorescent tubes placed across the motor. Enough tubes are placed in series so that the battery voltage will not break them down. When the coil is switched, the tubes are lit by the resulting high voltage, minimizing arcing across the commutator.
Newman's motors exhibit the following extraordinary characteristics:
1) High torque is realized with very little input current and very little input power. The battery input power is typically several times smaller than the measured frictional power losses occurring when the armature rotates at its operating speed. His motors are at least ten times more efficient than commercial electric motors (perform the same work with one tenth the input power.)
2) The batteries last much longer than would be expected for the current input. It has been demonstrated that "dead" dry cell batteries will charge up while operating a Newman Motor, and subsequently be able to deliver significant power to normal loads (e.g., lights). The batteries fail by internal shorting rather than be depletion of their internal energy.
3) Significant rf power is generated by the motor (primarily in the ten to twenty megahertz range). The rf is a high voltage relative to ground, and will light fluorescent or neon tubes placed between the motor and ground in addition to lighting the tubes placed across the motor coil. The rf current flows through the entire system, and has been measured calorimetrically to have an rms value many times larger than the battery input current.
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
A large amount of data has been collected by many individuals on the various Newman Motors. While Newman's most recent prototypes are perhaps the most interesting because of their reduced volume, I will present data on his original prototype large machine which has been more extensively investigated. Measured motor parameters are listed below:
COIL PARAMETERS:
Weight ........................... 9,000 pounds
Copper Wire Length ...... 55 miles
Coil Inductance ............. 1,100 Henries
Coil Resistance .............. 770 Ohms
Coil Inside Diameter ...... 4 feet
Coil Height .................... 4 feetROTOR PARAMETERS:
Rotor Weight ..................... 700 lbs. ceramic magnets
Rotor Length ..................... 4 feet
Moment of Inertia .............. 40 Kg-sq.m.
Magnetic Moment ............. 100 Tesla-cu.inBATTERY PARAMETERS:
Battery Type ..................... 6 Volt Ray-O-Vac Lantern
Total Series Voltage .......... 590 VoltsDYNAMIC PARAMETERS:
Torque Constant ................ 15,400 oz. in./amp
Drag Coefficient ................. 0.005 Watts/sq.rpm.
Q at 200 rpm ..................... 30
Power Factor, 200 rpm ...... 0.03The torque constant was measured at DC and agrees with calculations. The drag coefficient was measured by plotting the motor speed versus time after disconnecting the batteries. It was found that the decay is exponential with the drag torque being proportional to the angular speed. With the motor operating at 200 rpm, the following measurements and calculations were obtained:
RESULTS: 200 RPM at 590 VOLTS
Battery Input Current ............ 10 milliampere
Battery Input Power .............. 6 Watts
Rotor Frictional Losses .......... 200 Watts
RF Current (rms) ................. 500 milliampere
RF Ohmic Losses in Coil .......... 190 Watts
Additional Loads ................. Fluorescent Tubes
Incandescent Bulbs
Fan (belt driven)The frictional losses are computed from the measured drag coefficient. The ohmic losses are computed from the coil resistance. Without considering the additional loads, it is seen that the output energy of the machine exceeded the input by a factor of 65!
Oscillograph photos show that the current waveform is dominated by the very large spike which occurs when the magnetic field of the coil collapses. The leading edge of this spike is shown in Figure 1. The staircase current rise is typical of the Newman Motors, with the width of the stairs in all cases being approximately equal to the length of the coil winding divided by the speed of light. Although the average current in the spike is at DC, the actual current waveform under the stairs is pulsing at a frequency of about 13 megahertz. The time average current in the waveform agrees with the calorimeter measurement of the rf current.
Figure 1 [Not shown]. Reproduction of oscillographs showing Newman Motor switching current spike. Spike leading edge is shown with the magnified time base in second and third oscillograph. Rotor speed was 120 rpm.
PHENOMENOLOGICAL THEORY
A phenomenological theory of operation is suggested here, which involves the following sequence of events:
1) The battery is switched across the coil and a current wavefront (gyroscopic particles) propagates into the coil at a speed determined by the coil's propagation time constant.
2) Before the wavefront completes its journey through the coil, the battery voltage is switched open. At this point the coil contains a charge equal to the current times the on-time.
3) When the switch is opened, all of this charge leaves the coil in a very short time, creating a very large current pulse in the coil.
4) The magnetic field generated by this current pulse (gyroscopic particle flow) propagates out to the permanent magnet armature, and gives it an impulsive torque.
5) The magnet accelerates, and the resulting magnetic field disturbance of the permanent magnet is propagated back to the coil, creating a back-emf. However, by the time this occurs, the switch is open so that the back emf does not impede the current flowing in the battery circuit.
These notions agree qualitatively with the measured waveforms. After one-half cycle of rotation, a charge on the order of 0.01 Coulombs will be contained within the coil. From the oscillograph this is seen to be dumped in a few milliseconds, creating a current of several amps. This current continues to flow for some ten milliseconds before decaying to zero.
Newman's Motor can be described by the following set of equations:
(1) J? + F(?) = K(sub t)I sin (?)
(2) LI = RI = V(?) - K(sub i)? sin (?)
where:
J = Rotor Moment of Inertia
F = Friction and Load Torque
K(sub t) = Torque Constant
I = Coil Current
L = Coil Inductance
V = Applied Voltage
K(sub i) = Induction Constant
? = Rotation AngleThe first equation is Newton's second law applied to the rotating magnet, the second is the coil current circuit equation. The voltage is the value applied to the coil within the commutator. If the first equation is multiplied by ? and the second equation is multiplied by I, and both equations are averaged over one cycle, the sum of the resulting equations gives:
(3) <IV> = <?F> + <I^2R> + (K(sub i) - K(sub t) <?Isin ?)
where the brackets indicate a time average over one cycle of rotation.
The term on the left is the power input. The first two terms on the right represent the mechanical power output (combined frictional losses and load power), and the ohmic heating in the coil windings. The last term is zero if the torque constant is equal to the induction constant, as would be the case in a conventional motor. However, as postulated above, if the induction constant is smaller than the torque constant, the last term supplies the negative power.
To view this another way, assume that the input voltage, through the commutator action varies as V = V(sub o)sin (?). If we also assume that the rotor angular
speed, ?, is nearly a constant, w, the following expression applies for the motor efficiency:<wF> K(sub t)w<Isin ?> K(sub t)w
(4) E = ______ = __________________ = ___________
<IV> V(sub o)<Isin ?> V (sub o)The following two equations can now be solved for the presumed constant motor speed:
(5) LI + RI = (V(sub o) - K(sub i)w)sin(wt)
(6) <F(w)> = K(sub t)<I sin(wt)>
The solution depends upon the details of the mechanical load function, F(w). If, however, the torque constant and voltage are both very large (as they are in Newman's Motor), then the angular speed is approximately [2]:
V(sub o)
w apr.= __________
K(sub i)and the expression for the efficiency becomes:
K(sub t)
E apr.= __________
K(sub i)If the torque and induction constants are equal, the motor is nearly one hundred percent efficient. If the torque constant exceeds the induction constant, the efficiency* exceeds 100%.
[*Note: the PRODUCTION efficiency can exceed 100% the CONVERSION efficiency cannot exceed 100%]
CONCLUSIONS:
Joseph Newman has demonstrated that his Theory is a useful tool by which predictions of circuit function can be made without mathematics. For example, his gyroscopic particles interact as spinning particles (through the cross product of their spins), and this qualitatively describes magnetic induction. In complicated electromagnetic systems, exact solutions to Maxwell's equations may be difficult or impossible to obtain, while a phenomenological mechanical picture can be visualized to give qualitatively correct results. Mechanical models of electromagnetic interactions were considered essential by scientists of the 19th century. Maxwell originally derived his famous equations by using a mechanical model of the electromagnetic field, and stated the following [3]:
"The theory I propose may therefore be called a theory of the electromagnetic field because it has to do with the space in the neighborhood of the electric or magnetic bodies, and it may be called a dynamical theory because it assumes that in that space there is MATTER IN MOTION, by which the observed electro-magnetic phenomena are produced .... In speaking of the energy of the field, I wish to be understood literally: ALL ENERGY IS THE SAME AS MECHANICAL ENERGY.." [Emphasis added.]
Regarding Joseph Newman's Motor, I have no doubt about its performance or about the profound importance of its future applications.
**AT THIS TIME IT APPEARS THAT THE FIRST APPLICATIONS WILL BE REPLACEMENTS FOR EXISTING ELECTRIC MOTORS. [Editor: Emphasis added.]
Regarding a rigorous mathematical description of the underlying phenomena, it is clear that much effort, both theoretical and experimental, will be required to achieve this end.
REFERENCES:
[1] THE ENERGY MACHINE OF JOSEPH NEWMAN, Joseph W. Newman author, Evan Soule, editor. Joseph Newman Publishing Company, Rt 1, Bx 52, Lucedale, MS 39452 [1st Edition published in 1984.]
[2] The precise condition for this approximation to be valid is that the locked rotor torque be much larger than the applied mechanical torque at speed multiplied by one plus the square of the ratio of inductive reactance and resistance. This condition applied to some of Newman's Motors, and in particular to the most recent small volume devices. In the larger motors the voltage is applied with a phase shift chosen to optimize efficiency, and it can be shown that Equation 8 still applies in the limit of large inductance.
[3] A DYNAMICAL THEORY OF THE ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD. James Clerk Maxwell, T.F. Torrance, ed., Scottish Academic Press Ltd., Edinburgh (1982). [From Maxwell's Presentation to the Royal Society, 1864).
The above was written by Dr. Roger Hastings, Ph.D., in 1987 for apresentation before a National Conference of the International Tesla Society.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Dr. Roger Hastings has a Ph.D. in Physics, University of Minnesota, 1975; MS in Physics, University of Denver, 1971; BS in Physics, University of Denver, 1969.
Dr. Hastings was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Virginia, 1975-77 with research in organic superconductors and the physical properties of solutions of macro-ions and viruses. Currently, Dr. Hastings is a Principal Physicist with the UNISYS Corporation. As a consultant, Dr. Hastings also designs electric motors for other corporations.
*The latest commutator design enables higher voltages to be utilized.
Note: The above article was written several years ago. The principles described above are generally applicable "across the breadth of the technology." However, considerable improvements to the commutator design have been made in the recent past. These improvements are intended to actually reduce the intensity of the sparking by distributing the physical connections over a wider area. The reader should bear in mind that there are TWO totally different design systems (but many sub-configurations within each basic design): there is one commutator design when the energy machine is intended to function as a GENERATOR and a totally different commutator design when the energy machine is intended to function as a MOTOR. The latest design improvements to the commutator system apply to the machine operating as a MOTOR. Subsequent torque can be utilized for mechanical systems or can be used in conjunction with a conventional generator.
