Bearing Failure Sidelines Perpetual Motion Machine

Steorn (Ireland) was scheduled to unveil a ten-day demonstration of its Orbo perpetual motion machine at the Kinetica Museum [website] in London, beginning today.

Last year, the company grabbed headlines around the world after running a full-page ad in a respected conservative journal, The Economist, claiming to have developed a perpetual motion machine and inviting qualified scientific inspection.

Orbo uses "time variant magneto-mechanical interactions" to spin a clear wheel in a clear housing. Essentially, it is an armature with magnets around the circumference, which would spin inside a housing equipped with an opposing set of fixed magnets.

However, Steorn now claims heat from the Kinetica Museum's special lighting for the 24-hour video feeds caused bearing failure in the armature.

While true perpetual motion from Orbo would require it to be more than 100% efficient and violate the first and second laws of thermodynamics, Steorn advocates have been more vocal and upfront about their claims than any others in recent years.

If not an outright hoax, a number of people familiar with Steorn believe it is either an elaborate piece of performance art or simply an ad agency stunt for attention.

The Orbo's Kinetica Museum display has been "rescheduled", with no date set. But in fact, the Kinetica Museum of kinetic art and automata has moved on from its temporary home in London's Old Spitalfields Market; it is a touring museum set up for some length of time at a series of locations around the world.

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