Greetings. And arghh.
Your perpetuation (deliberate word choice … hint hint) of this morning’s “Oregon Man’s Invention: Commute Generates Electricity” in the Bend Bulletin is yet another example of how high energy prices makes reporters and editors stupid. Okay, perhaps not stupid … but certainly it seems to render them so un-critical that they fail to recognize a perpetual motion machine when they see it – or that they simply assume their sources are telling the truth or have a clue what they’re talking about.
Other recent horrid examples: (1) A New York Times reporter’s
acceptance without request for explanation of a hybrid land yacht
owner’s claim that she goes twice as long between fill-ups as with the
old behemoth, even though the new one only gets 50 percent better gas
mileage. (2) A different Bend Bulletin reporter’s acceptance last week
without apparent skepticism of a scooter salesman’s quote about
“average” drivers of four-wheeled vehicles spending $120/week on gas
compared to $6 per week for drivers of scooters – when even the most
generous look at the math shows the salesman has assumed for his
audience’s sake that the “average” driver gets just 5 miles per gallon
and that the average scooter gets 100 mpg.
My grandmother taught me long ago what happens when one assumes, and it ain’t pretty. (She also taught me how to change wheel bearings and stretch fence, but those are different stories altogether.)
The math isn’t hard; it’s all linear – simple enough that even third-graders understand it. The physics isn’t even that hard – middle-school stuff. Just one question in any of these examples would have made the stories much more informative – and much less worshipful of the perpetual-motion-hybrid-scooter miracle that will surely soon lift us from certain disaster to the land of promise and peace and organically produced honey.
Disclaimer: I was a physics major for one and a half years (entered at sophomore level) and for a decade operated a company called Perpetual Motion; when I was in fifth-grade, I submitted a drawing of an electric car powered by pedaled generator to Ford Motor Company. Nevertheless, I still know how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide, and I sincerely believe my math and physics claims will hold up to even the most diligent scrutiny.
Take care and be well,
Mike Van Meter
This article appears in Jul 3-9, 2008.
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Well said Mike! It is frustrating to see the Bulletin devote a big chunk of its business section to amateur pseudo-science while paying scant attention to the very real achievents of local technology companies in attracting high paid professional jobs to Central Oregon. This is the kind of article that gets Bend on the Letterman show.
Whenever I see such articles–or hear and see this type of coverage on the electronic media–I have to shake my head in amazement, too. One cannot get more out of any mechanical system than one puts into it. The goal is to find a source that does not involve fossil fuels. The choices are limited: hydro-electric (NO! No! Save the wild rivers!); nuclear (No! No! Save mankind from nuclear annihilation!); wind (No! No! Save the birds from these slicers and dicers! What about my view?); solar (No! No! Your tax subsidies do make it work for me–really!!); geo-thermal (No! No! You can’t look for a power source to save the planet in a location we find beautiful, pristine, undeveloped, and otherwise unused!).
Add your source and along will come an interest to fight and stop it.
Because things are complicated–and because our culture has downgraded intellect and learning as wasteful and unprofitable–we will continue to read and hear and see other such ‘inventions’ as possible solutions. An unknowing and undiscerning public will continue to drink it up–along with their bottled spring water.
For the sake of clarity, my original rant was directed at the Sightline Institute, which sends out top stories from the region on a daily basis; the perpetual motion machine bit was one such item. Since Sightline regularly begs me and others for money to help fund such (occasionally useful) efforts, I think they’re fair game — as is the so-called inventor, who told the Bulletin reporter he would be looking for investors (fraud alert!).
I have somewhat mixed feelings about the reporters and their equally guilty editors. Journalism has become a sad and rude business (some might argue sadder and ruder), and I know for myself that I’m incredibly privileged to work in one of my several professional lives with highly competent, compassionate and excited newsfolks. There’s not much of that going on these days, and good work doesn’t happen easily amid dysfunction.