On the Soapbox

There was a beautiful full-page color ad in the August 19 issue of The Economist that I received yesterday. "All great truths begin as blasphemies", it claims. And what blasphemy is this? "[A] technology that produces free, clean and constant energy." Riiiiight. This company, named Steorn, is now inviting scientists to test their technology, basically daring academia to prove them wrong. This is also starting to generate a buzz in the news.

So what the heck are they doing?! A full-page color ad in a publication like that is not cheap (only big corporations use full-page color ads in The Economist; most ads are black-and-white), so they must feel like that they could get something out of it. But what? They know that their challenge will fail, and there is no product to sell and profit from. It doesn't look like a scam because it doesn't appear that they are asking people for money, and even then, they'd have to make a lot off of this con to make up for the costs that they've incurred. A writer at the Houston Chronicle suggests that this may be a publicity stunt to show off this company's marketing and buzz-generating prowess. But this is a demonstration of how the public reacts to something so outrageous and not one of marketing brilliance; what, is this company going to make ads for various products that try to draw attention by claiming perpetual motion?

Or maybe they're just incredibly confused and stupid and actually believe what they're spewing out...