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Correa: central claims

Source gap (updated after QE)

All three PDFs now have readable text. The two patent scans were OCR'd on all pages (38 and 36), and the compilation has a text layer. The earlier "image-only, page 1 read" note no longer applies. What remains: - Deep reads done: US 5,449,989 (drawing sheets pp.5-8 and Table 7 as page images); the compilation's pp.16-27 (the four measurement methods, Tables 5-9); and, in QE round 2, the compilation's pp.11-13 (US 5,416,391 motor Examples 1-5), pp.29-35 (US 5,502,354 Examples 1-6 and vacuum processing) and pp.36-43 (Tables 12-16, the worked reaction-force example; Tables 12-14 checked on a page image of p.42 and against the scan's OCR). Claims 1-6 now rest on these deep reads (see deep/Paul-Alexandra-Correa-Pulsed-Abnormal-Glow-Discharges-PAGD-8687ea.md). - Still not deep-read: the transcription check of Tables 1-9 against the scan, and compilation pp.1-5 and 36-39 beyond the tables (press release, Axelrad testimonial, Labofex excerpt; cathode-material text), which are digest only. - Figures absent: FIGS. 7-13 of US 5,416,391 (all rpm, torque and power plots for the motor examples) are not in the printout, so the motor examples' numbers cannot be read; the text itself gives almost none. Obtaining the patent drawing sheets would settle this. - OCR caveat: OCR drops superscripts, so exponents in the digests of the two scans are unreliable (QE found 4.8x10^9 eV for a true 4.8x10^5 eV; 10^8 for 10^9 cathode pulses). Use the compilation text for numbers. - Figures: FIG. 13-21 of 5,449,989 are not in the compilation printout. Only FIG. 8-11 were viewed as images. - Not obtained: original measurement records, Labofex report S3-001 in full, the 1996 Denver symposium paper, Aether Motor documentation, and any independent test report. All energy data are the inventors' own. A third-party PDF (rohnermachine.com/Files/CPAGD.pdf, 2007) found by the contrarian has not been read.

Central claims

  1. Low-field emission and self-pulsing. A cold-cathode tube with large plates (16 cm2 or more) and a large gap (2 cm or more), fed from a DC source through enough impedance to avoid a sustained arc, spontaneously self-pulses (a pulsed abnormal glow discharge, PAGD) by electron emission at fields of 2,730-30,000 V/m and emitter current densities 10-1000 times below what the Fowler-Nordheim law needs. The authors report this in two regimes: gas-pressure tubes (0.09-3 Torr, used for the energy runs) and sealed high-vacuum tubes (10^-6 to 2x10^-6 Torr at seal-off; Penning-gauge values on the pumping system, with the pressure and gas inside the sealed tube never re-measured and no getter described).
  2. Plate-area effect. At fixed pressure, gap and current, breakdown and sustaining voltage fall as plate area rises (16 to 256 cm2), which the authors say contradicts Paschen's law and space-charge scaling (Tables 2-6, area factors k_a of 17 and 21.5, which are linear extrapolations). The deep read confirms the area dependence in two datasets (argon pumpdown; sealed tubes, where a single 256 cm2 tube fires at 287 V while 64 cm2 tubes do not fire at 3.5 kV), but edge and wall fields (4 cm plates at a 5-5.5 cm gap) and the known area effect in vacuum breakdown are not excluded, and at 2x10^-6 Torr Paschen scaling is outside its domain.
  3. Ion energy and reaction force. Each PAGD pulse ejects cathode ions of about 0.5 MeV (4.8x10^5 eV as printed from a 86.4 J pulse and 5.8e-8 g of aluminum; the authors' own inputs give 4.2x10^5 eV, and the 86.4 J cannot be traced to Table 14) and gives a cathode reaction force of 143.6 dyn computed (245.2 dyn from an undescribed reaction balance with no method, error or controls), said to be 10-100 times that of vacuum arcs (a result that holds only if the pulse current stayed below about 12-16 A; the same text reports peaks above 150 A, where the constant k is about 1), as Aspden's Law of Electrodynamics predicts rather than the Lorentz force law. Note: the 86.4 J is a net pulse energy (output minus input), so the figure is not independent of the energy-gain claim in claim 4.
  4. Net energy gain in a double-ported circuit. A circuit that feeds the tube from a DC drive pack and collects pulses in a separate charge pack captures more electrical energy than it consumes. The reported breakeven efficiency depends on the method: Table 5 96-906% (one run 6,750%), Table 6 504-776%, Table 7 218-563%, Table 8 406-3,485%, operational check 485% +/-18%; per-pulse output 1.5 to 60 times the input (Table 14). Deep read of Tables 13-14: the 'input energy per pulse' is V x I x pulse conduction time, which omits the supply energy delivered between pulses (at 560 V, 1.6 A, 0.3 PPS about 2,987 J per period against 253.5 J output, if the current was continuous), the largest ratios occur at 0.2 PPS, the integration window is never stated, and the 'reactor energy' and 0.2-80 mF 'dynamic capacitance' match 1/2 C V^2 of the 17.5 mF external bank rather than a tube property. Deep reads find that Table 7's input column is the ballast dissipation (true input X x I gives 57-146%), Table 8's drive losses are below the physical floor and its 3,485% does not reproduce, and the 6,750% run is an artefact. Net gain overall has not been tested independently.
  5. Source of the surplus. The surplus energy is drawn from the vacuum (zero-point or aether energy), so the apparatus behaves as an open system despite appearing closed. The authors say they do not wish to be bound to one theory, and concede the output "is not directly related" to the energy used to trigger the pulses.
  6. DC-to-AC inverter and motor drive. The pulsing tube drives AC induction and synchronous motors from a DC source, with speed set by pulse frequency (US 5,416,391), with the motor examples (Examples 1-5) giving almost no rpm, torque or power numbers in the text (they are in FIGS. 7-13, absent from the printout) and torque measured only at standstill. The 2800-3000 rpm at 10 pps remark is not from US 5,416,391 but from US 5,449,989 Table 7 run 12, where a 2-pole synchronous motor at 10 PPS would run at 600 rpm; no input power, output power and rpm are given together, so no efficiency follows.
  7. Aether Motor. A related "Aether Motor" (testimonial only; no technical content in these files) produces electrical power with no external input other than orgone accumulators, insulated bodies or a ground connection, rediscovering Reich's "orgone motor".