Athon's Comments
Anybody stop to think that maybe this is a sad demonstration of a poor-thinking journo than abusing the kid?
I've had kids of that age do all sorts of experiments which have been repeated a number of times before. So the 15 year old isn't breaking new ground. They obviously had an assignment, chose something that interested them, replicated it...and some desperate journalist thinks to sensationalise it. Kid's probably like a deer in headlights with the fame of it, but hardly entered it thinking he was Einstein.
If anything, I think it deserves praise for Australia's education system, while a wake-up call for science journalism.
Athon
I've had kids of that age do all sorts of experiments which have been repeated a number of times before. So the 15 year old isn't breaking new ground. They obviously had an assignment, chose something that interested them, replicated it...and some desperate journalist thinks to sensationalise it. Kid's probably like a deer in headlights with the fame of it, but hardly entered it thinking he was Einstein.
If anything, I think it deserves praise for Australia's education system, while a wake-up call for science journalism.
Athon
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Nobody is bagging the story, as such, but rather the presentation of it potentially being of a perpetual motion machine (when nothing insinuates anything of the sort).
By all means, bring on the interesting stories. Ask 'what is happening?' It seems we've already got some good answers - why wouldn't the fact putting a permanent magnet near a DC electrical motor account for it? Not the first time an academic has been stumped by something so simple (Uri Gellar has done it with cheap parlour tricks for years).
I use Neatorama as a net to catch some interesting stories I can pass on. This story subscribes to that, even for discussion value. But selling it with such a sensationalist slant makes for dishonest or just plain naive reporting.
By all means, bring on the interesting stories. Ask 'what is happening?' It seems we've already got some good answers - why wouldn't the fact putting a permanent magnet near a DC electrical motor account for it? Not the first time an academic has been stumped by something so simple (Uri Gellar has done it with cheap parlour tricks for years).
I use Neatorama as a net to catch some interesting stories I can pass on. This story subscribes to that, even for discussion value. But selling it with such a sensationalist slant makes for dishonest or just plain naive reporting.
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Is it more likely that well supported laws of thermodynamics need to be rewritten in the light of this observation or that there is an energy source contributing to the acceleration of the apparatus? The former is damn unlikely.
So, there's contributing energy coming in from somewhere. There's again two possibilities - one is it's trickery, the other is that it is a phenomena which truly has an MIT professor baffled.
Without knowing much about it, this is the furtherest anybody can speculate. However, I will say (as an ex-scientist) that scientists aren't used to being tricked by what they study. They aren't in the business of being fooled. Having a scientist admit they are baffled, especially when sensationalists love to play the 'phenomena baffles scientist' card, isn't quite enough yet to make me sit up and notice.
If it's really something special, we'll hear more about it. I'm not holding my breath though.
So, there's contributing energy coming in from somewhere. There's again two possibilities - one is it's trickery, the other is that it is a phenomena which truly has an MIT professor baffled.
Without knowing much about it, this is the furtherest anybody can speculate. However, I will say (as an ex-scientist) that scientists aren't used to being tricked by what they study. They aren't in the business of being fooled. Having a scientist admit they are baffled, especially when sensationalists love to play the 'phenomena baffles scientist' card, isn't quite enough yet to make me sit up and notice.
If it's really something special, we'll hear more about it. I'm not holding my breath though.
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Try this for one sentence - the author himself concedes that to adopt this hypothesis over the current continentual drift theory (which today is well supported by a number of observations) a shit-load of science, also all well supported by observations would have to be abandoned. So, is it easier to believe that this theory is correct AND we've made a massive number of mistakes on a whole lot of other distinct fields, or that this guy doesn't understand geology as well as he thinks?
Considering the silly things he says (subduction can't happen due to the density of the mantle? Bollocks! The density has nothing to do with it - the mantle is liquid and hot, which means the subduced rock is heated to liquid, allowing gradual mixing) I think we're safe in science.