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2026-10-09 WorldRadioHistory.com: Electronics World + Wireless World, January 1991

The Google query site:worldradiohistory.com "Meyer" "Electronics World" 1991 "Free energy for ever" gave no direct hit. The issue PDF was then fetched by its URL pattern: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/UK/Wireless-World/90s/Wireless-World-1991-01.pdf [web] Saved copy: research/files/Electronics-World-1991-01.pdf (whole issue). The article is on pp.10-12.

"Free energy for ever?" (Update section; editor Frank Ogden, with an eyewitness account by Dr Keith Hindley)

  • Witnesses at Grove City: Prof. Michael Laughton (Dean of Engineering, Queen Mary College, London), Admiral Sir Anthony Griffin (former Controller of the Navy) and Dr Keith Hindley (UK research chemist). Meyer's cell "produced far more hydrogen/oxygen mixture than could have been expected by simple electrolysis".
  • Hindley's account: one cell had two parallel-plate excitors in tap water. It "generated gas at very low current levels no greater than a tenth of an amp on the ammeter, and claimed to be milliamps by Meyer". Gas output rose as the plates were moved closer. The DC voltage "appeared to be pulsed at tens of thousands of volts". A second cell held nine double-tube units. The tap water discoloured with a "pale cream and dark brown precipitate", which Hindley attributes to chlorine attacking the steel. A burner fed from the cell melted a steel bar. Witnesses report the cell stayed cold.
  • Interested-party characterization: Hindley wrote that the patents "were granted under Section 101 ... the hardware involved in the patents has been examined experimentally by Patent Office experts ... This raises the granted patents to the level of independent, critical, scientific and engineering confirmation". This is Hindley's characterization. The magazine repeats it. The review should check it against USPTO practice (the physicist's job).
  • Editorial reservations, quoted: "nearly all the obvious questions remain unanswered and the experimental technique has more holes in it than a sieve. First among these is this: what is the precise total cell energy input required to deliver a unit volume of dry gas mixture?"
  • The magazine's description of the circuit: an external inductance resonating with the cell capacitance (it gives "dielectric constant of about 5" for pure water, a figure the reviewers should check), plus a rectifier diode, forming a charge pump. A "rising staircase DC potential" builds until the water breaks down. A current-sensing circuit then removes the drive for a few cycles.
  • Meyer claimed to have run a converted VW on a chain of six cylindrical cells "for the last four years". He also claimed laser stimulation through optical fibre raises gas output.

Later issues checked

Feb to Jun 1991 (Wireless-World-1991-02 to -06.pdf, fetched to /tmp only). A text search for "Meyer" found 0 hits in each, so no follow-up letters turned up in those months. The OCR may be incomplete. Jul-Dec 1991 not checked: not reached.

How this bears on the claims

  • Claim 1 (water capacitor splitting): this is a contemporaneous published eyewitness account. It confirms the setting (Grove City, Oct 1990), the people present, and a reading of up to about 0.1 A on the ammeter. It also shows the witnesses did not measure energy input against gas volume.
  • It is the source of the "Griffin committee" statements Meyer later quotes.