[meteorite-list] Nut finds fake meteorite with fake technology!

From: Francis Graham <francisgraham_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2007 06:46:44 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <888017.53823.qm_at_web58702.mail.re1.yahoo.com>

 The story reminds me of a strange pseudomachine to
detect minerals in rocks featured in G. Harry Stine's
book "Frontiers of Science: Strange Machines You Can
Build" called a Heironymous Machine. It supposedly
examined a mineral with an electric field of some sort
and placed some kind of charge on a tactile plate, so
the user could "feel" what was in the rock. It was
covered by US Patent 2482772.
  I never tried to build it, because the vacuum tubes
used no longer exist, so I won't go so far as to stick
my neck out and assert absolutely it won't work, but I
don't understand how it could, physical laws being
what they are. But I will be charitable and allow,
unless the patent examiner was wacked, he or she must
have seen some merit in it I suppose.
  But why bother when for the same expense, I can
build a little electric arc and prism spectroscope and
see the spectral lines and will use my sense of sight
(not touch) to learn what trace elements might be in
the rock, if I had to do it from scratch. And of
course a thin section and a petrographic microscope
are proven technology for these sorts of
investigations for the gross minerals in rocks
themselves. This technology is taught in every
geology program in every college or University. It's
worth a thousand bucks at State U. to take this
particular lab course, dear meteorite colleagues.
(plug,plug).
   But then G. Harry Stine then makes the
(conservatively) outrageous claim that a Heironymous
Machine made of paper symbols for the electrical
components also works. This, if true, would be so
jarring to my sense of reality I am not sure I want to
try it! Actually, he gives credit to John Campbell,
who said the same in "Astounding Science Fiction" in
the 1950s. Stine wrote for Campbell. Some of this is
rehashed on many websites.
   But if anyone has experimented with the actual
Heironymous Machine G. Harry Stine outlined, or even
with meteorites, please educate me on how it could
work. I just don't see how with physical laws it can.
Unless MAYBE (and I am being charitable again) two
rocks greatly different in composition might be
distinguished by the amplified differences in field
they make on the plate, like meteoric iron and quartz.

Perhaps this type of device (diagrams get around) is
what the gentleman used to try to find "meteorites".
If he started to find real meteorites, then, well,
that's the clincher.

Francis Graham







       
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Received on Wed 08 Aug 2007 09:46:44 AM PDT