Its working principles were described a few years after the
OPEC Crude Oil Embargo of 1973 as a solution to the global energy crisis, but
does anyone know whatever happened to the Schadewald Gravity Engine?
By: Ringo Bones
The October 17, 1973 OPEC Crude Oil Embargo and its impact
on the energy hungry West finally made everyone realize that we are not only
addicted to crude oil – and still are until this very day – but are also very
dependent on non-renewable energy sources. Given that the still ongoing global
energy crisis and our desperate search for viable solutions had for sometime
established some so-called “perpetual motion energy religious cult” for
sometime now - as if devotees of the “Our Lady of Perpetual Motion” already has
the free energy problem already worked out. Speaking of energy generating
machines that relies on the principle of perpetual motion, does anyone still
remember the Schadewald Gravity Engine of the late 1970s?
The late, great physicist Paul A. M. Dirac conjectured that
the universal force of gravity slowly decreasing. If this is true, consider a
wheel with one heavy weight at the top. As the weight rotates to the bottom,
the wheel picks up kinetic energy, which transfers back to potential energy as
the weight swings up the other side. Since gravity is decreasing, the value of
g is less on the second part of the full revolution, it follows that there
should be a net gain in kinetic energy, causing the wheel to speed up indefinitely
with every revolution.
Science writer Robert Schadewald reported this breakthrough
as his own in Science Digest back in April 1, 1978 – a time where the 1973 OPEC
Crude Oil Embargo was still topically fresh in everyone’s minds. Schadewald
even closed the article by quoting: “As of April 1, 1978, I yield my invention
to the public domain, that it may solve the energy crisis and bring peace and
prosperity to the world. I ask only my initials be inscribed on the wheel of
every engine, so that my genius may get the sort of recognition it deserves. –
Bob Schadewald.” Given that he surrendered his invention to the public domain,
free energy devotees of the late 1970s became very euphoric after reading the
article.
Despite such bold hints that the article was intended as an
April Fools’ Joke, Schadewald was taken seriously, even by the scientific
community at the time. Some people wrote him and asked for more information. Others
sent drawings of their own machines that allegedly work on the same Dirac –
based principle and one person even offered to buy the plans quite convinced in
believing that the physics and mathematics behind the Schadewald Gravity Engine
were valid. Given the hints of “credibility” of the physics and mathematics
behind the device, whatever happened to the Schadewald Gravity Engine?
