Posted by Darren (208.143.232.66) on June 06, 2003 at 13:17:52:
In Reply to: Re: Anyone see this? posted by Lurker on June 04, 2003 at 17:08:54:
: Well, the problem with today's information based society is that there is so much information available that people do not have the time or energy to keep up with it all.
Your argument is extremey weak... information is so quick and easy to access that many people know about things minutes after they happen. Many people keep up on more information now than ever before because it's gotten so easy and fast. It's now possible to read all the top stories, minutes old, off Routers, AP, and others each morning in about ten minutes.
: Thus, it is very easy to keep a secret from becoming widely known simply by burying it within a large quantity of useless information that few people are interested in.
That's not what I was even talking about... I said that if "the secret" was already discovered by someone it would have leaked out already because communications and information sharing is so easy and fast (and in some cases totally anonymous.) If it already existed, having been found (as you speculated) by many people already, it would definitely be common knowledge by know. The gov't has a hard enough time hiding one alien, how do you think they'd hide all those inventors :-)
: That would essentially be the purpose of producing large quantities of fraudulent cases of perpetual motion. As people become weary of all of the scams, they begin to see everything having to do with it as being useless, and therefore a waste of time. That being the case, they are unwilling to spend any time examining it.
Huge conspiracy theory. Sounds like "if we make enough movies about aliens then people will think the real aliens are just fake movie effects."
: This reminds me of Drake's equation for determining the number of technological civilizations within the galaxy at any given time. It goes something like this:
: (# of technological civilizations within the galaxy) = (# of stars in the galaxy)X(% of stars with planets)X(% of planets capable of supporting life)X(chance of life arising on a planet)X(chance of intelligence evolving)X(chance of intelligence life surviving self-destruction)
: This equation isn't exactly right, but I am trying to re-create it from memory. An analogous equation for YOUR theory would go something like this:
: (# of people who discover perpetual motion) = (% of people who have the skills to figure it out)X(% who spend at least 30 years working on the problem)X(% who do not simply miss the answer)X(% who have not died)X(% who have not gone bankrupt)X(% who have not lost interest)
: A very interesting point of view, Darren. I will consider it.
I feel priveledged
: However, I think there are a few other important considerations as well, now that I think about it. A certain percentage of the people who DO discover perpetual motion and try to tell the world about it will be ignored, misunderstood, etc. They will then simply stop trying to tell other people about what they have discovered because it is not worth the effort.
Nope, sorry, if a person proves (in a *proper*, reproducible, scientific way) that their wheel actually works then the news will instantly spread like wildfire. I mean think about it... even the false claims from the scam artists spread like crazy.... a real wheel would be heard round the world in a day or two at most.
That's the real reason I haven't published my design here, I don't want to kill this cool site :-)
: A certain percentage of the discoverers will not even try to tell the world in the first place because they already know it will not be worth the effort.
I doubt that anyone would put the effort required into finding the answer if they didn't think it was worth telling anyone. The percentage of people who strive to solve OU just for the fun of it, never expecting to release it, would be so small as to be insignificant to the equation (in my opinion.)
: A certain percentage of the discoverers will be so paranoid of someone stealing their idea, that they will go to their deaths before they reveal it to