If they can bump a hydrogen atom's electron orbit down to a lower energy state, then what are they going to do with all the leftover low-energy hydrogen, hmmmm???

They're going to have to find a place for all that useless, weak-ass hydrogen. It's not going to dispose of itself, you know.

As a side note, what if they made a giant wave-farm, and it managed to stop the waves from .... waving?

And then, the climate of the earth would be altered, initiating a world-wide cataclysm!

Then, a rag-tag team of top-notch scientists could be dispatched to save the earth -- but they would have to solve their inter-personal differences first!

Very interesting article.

I think the first test vehicle should be a 1974 Ford Pinto.

I took quantum as an undergraduate, and this guy sounds like a whack-a-mole to me.

You surface-dwellers will rue the day that you attempt to tame the ocean!

It would be nice if it wasn't one of those cold fusion debacles. That would be so neat. Would they finally start making flying cars then?

Black Manta,

Don't make me have to summon a bunch of albino salmon to kick your ass.

For about 15 years I've been wondering why nobody has tried to tap the tides with a lock/turbine affair.

A mile of coastal area * 4' * 200' is a lot of water.

"The problem is that according to the rules of quantum mechanics, the physics that governs the behaviour of atoms, the idea is theoretically impossible."

I am sure we could get some lawyers on this, and they'll have a solution whipped up by COB thursday.

This has got to be the dumbest science P.O.S. I have heard since "day after tomorrow." Quantum physics isn't that hard to figure out, especially with a hydrogen atom. Although thinking about how one would lower the energy of the electron below its groundstate makes my toes curl, the relationship between the proton and the electron remains constant, if you could bring the thing in closer, you are just creating a new ground state. Its still a cold atom. The quantum states are just a measure of how much energy its absorbed. Merely saying, now it can get even colder ignores that the thing will "warm" up just like everything else in the universe. Its like saying an ice cube is 400Kelvin, there's 400 degrees of temperature in there, lets burn down the house.

Iiiiinteresting. There is a Space.com article about this guy. He doesn't buy the current 10-million-dimension super vibro string theory of the universe, either:

Current theories bridging the Big Bang and quantum mechanics go so far afield as to speculate that matter trapped in other dimensions or other universes is affecting gravity in our realm. Mills maintains that there are only three dimensions (plus time) and no universes interacting with our own.

"Why is it that claiming dark matter is normal matter trapped in other dimensions is okay, but saying that it's normal matter trapped in a lower energy state is considered nuts?" Mills asked.

Only slightly related...

It was inevitable. Someone has seriously tried to explain how Bush et al have a Death Weather Machine.

I am deeply depressed over the fact that I found this article on a conservative website.

Aquaman,

I have not only a totally sweet submarine but a helmet with laser beam eyes. You have a jetski. Just go home.

Could we just have one post where the comments section doesn't degenerate into a name-calling session between Aqua Man and Black Manta?

Just one?

Manta,

You will pay for your insolence to the King of Atlantis! Right after I scratch this itch....AH! My Eye!

Yeah, that's why we quit the Superfriends and went into home decorating.

Power of an aquarium! Shape of a really interesting fish!

I was always waiting for Jana to get pissed off at Zan and say "Form of an only child!"

Okay, guys, the super friends shit is getting really queer.

The only thing queer about the Superfriends was Apache Chief. What a homo.

Here's a nice cartoon about the Wonder Twins:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2002-06-12&res=l

I'm taking a graduate level quantum class at the moment.

The idea that someone out there may make everything I'm studying obsolete . . .

Well, it's mixed feelings, to be sure.

Was that Black Vulcan/Black Lightning making fun of other Super Friends? Like you have any room to talk in that leave-nothing-to-the-imagination outfit.

Who wears short shorts? I think we all know.

We're all real men in the Legion of Doom. Except Brainiac, who I think buys from the same tailor as Samurai. And Sinestro, but c'mon, he's an alien.

Give me break Manta. Doesn't Captain Cold know that fur is murder? Solomon Grundy is so a fashion don't, and must I even mention The Toyman?

I took quantum in grad school. It wouldn't break my heart if it turned out to be a little off here and there. I probably wouldn't understand the tweaks to it any better than I did the old fashioned stuff.

I looked carefully at the data and correspondence on the Blacklight site. The effect, if it is real, isn't spectacular thus far. I think that they do see "excess heat". However, they cannot rule out hydrogen combining with oxygen at the surface of their catalysts. This is well known, and is the way hydrogen fuel cells work. I know firsthand that this kind of electrochemical stuff can be hellish to figure out.

With all the successes of QM (like lasers, LEDs, transistors, nuclear power, and so on) Mills will just have to excuse science types if we won't just take his word for it just because he can produce a little heat. We'll see. Something interesting is going on. Figuring out what is likely to be hard.

I suppose it should be pointed out that at some point physicists and chemists believed that nobel gasses could not bond with other atoms under any circumstances

Could not or SHOULD NOT?

Those damn scientists and their oh-so-noble gasses make me sick. Like other gasses weren't fit to lick their shoes much less bond with them.

I'm so glad someone finally stuck it to them and dirtied up their precious little gasses - turned those stuck up bitches into the sluts they really are. Hah!

Hey, let's not paint all the "noble" gases with the same brush. Helium still hasn't bonded with anybody yet, not even fluorine... Xenon, on the other hand, has been getting around for 43 years...

(Damn, even I'm filled with heart-ache at how gobsmackingly nerdtastic this is. I promise to stop.)