Smith-Don: Arbiter (Step 3)

Project: Don (Donald L.) Smith, resonant air-core coil and capacitor "free energy" devices. Date: 2026-10-08. Inputs weighed: claims.md, facts.json, deep/, physicist.md, mathematician.md, contrarian.md, sites.md, research/. Tags: [read] project documents; [web] with URL; [memory] with confidence; [computed] my own arithmetic (run in the project venv).

Source gap (repeated from claims.md)

The folder holds no measurement, test report, witness statement, instrument reading or patent grant. The only evidence that hardware existed is seven uncaptioned photographs (binder pp.3-9) and Smith's statements. don-smith.pdf (Joel Lagace) is a secondary source, a later author's reconstruction, with no measurement. Every number in both documents is an illustrative calculation, not data. Binder pp.10-35 and 76-94 and Lagace pp.39-41, 46-50 rest on digests (parts re-read by reviewers). No verdict below on a Smith device rests on a measurement of one: none is on record in the files. Verdicts marked "Refuted by calculation" rest on the documents' own formulas and accepted laws; where a conclusion rests on [memory] alone it is said so. The recordings (1994-2005 lectures, the 1996 VCR tape, the uncut 2001 tape), about 170 pages of Smith originals held by Rick Friedrich and the 2026 Lagace videos were not reviewed by anyone; they are the deciding records.

How the three reviewers line up

All three agree on almost everything that can be computed. The differences are small and are settled below by recomputation: (1) the ionosphere-to-ground potential (250 vs 400 kV); (2) which "power density" number to quote for the atmospheric field (3x10^-10 vs 8x10^-7 W per square metre); (3) the label for the ideal-limit capacitor recovery in claim 6 (Established vs Plausible, untested); (4) the label for claim 5 (the physicist splits it; the mathematician says Not testable; the contrarian says Plausible, untested). No reviewer found a test of any Smith device, by anyone, with measured input and output.

Recomputed numbers where reviewers differ

Web checks done (budget 8; 3 used)

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_electricity: about 400 kV, about 2 pA/m^2, about 100-120 V/m, 500 MJ per flash. Retagged [web]. The page gives no total global current.
2. https://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0506077 (via search): potential 150-400 kV by standard estimate, balloon mean 278 kV, typical model 250 kV / 1.4 kA. Resolves the 250 vs 400 kV difference.
3. USPTO series-code table (https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/filingyr.htm, via search summary): series 08 covers 1 Jan 1993 to 31 Dec 1997; serial 000,001 of series 08 was assigned in 1993 and 176,047 had been reached in 1994. So serial 08/100,074 was almost certainly filed in 1993, not on 4 February 1992 (a 1992 filing would carry a 07/ series code). This raises the contrarian's [memory, low-medium] doubt to a [web]-supported finding; the exact filing date is not known without Patent Center. See Corrections. Not re-checked (not decisive for any verdict): the Morgan-Edison-Tesla meeting (contrarian searched and found only secondhand anecdote, no primary record [web: archive.longislandpress.com article]); MPEP 2107 (contrarian read the USPTO page: perpetual-motion devices are an example of "incredible" utility [web: https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2107.html]); Kurs et al. 2007, 60 W over 2 m at about 40% [web: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17556549/]; skin depth 65 um in copper at 1 MHz (mathematician [web: Wikipedia Skin_effect] and my own formula agree).

Corrected claim list

Each claim is given as the arbiter now states it, with the final verdict (Step 2 scale) and the reasoning. a-d (mathematics, experiment, tests, what would change) are condensed from the three reviews, which agree.

Claim 1. Delivered energy from resonant induction scales with the square of frequency, E = (1/2) C V^2 x f^2

• Reviewers: all three agree. Internally inconsistent; the f^2 form is Refuted by calculation; the f form is reactive power.
• a. The binder prints both f (p.44) and f^2 (p.47). Example A uses f^2 (0.072 J x 3,600 = 259.2). Example B's stated binder answer follows f. The p.56 "60 million cycles ... one million times the energy" is the first-power ratio (60 MHz / 60 Hz = 10^6; f^2 would give 10^12). Units: (1/2)CV^2 is joules; x f is watts; x f^2 is J/s^2, not an energy. p.38 "E = (V x A) x CPS^2" is J/s^3. "One henry and one farad equal one volt" is dimensionally false (H = V s/A, F = A s/V). f^2 is introduced by analogy with E = mc^2 and (1/2)mv^2 (pp.38, 43), not derived.
• b. No experiment shows delivered energy rising as f^2 at fixed stored energy. Real f and f^2 laws exist for other quantities (induced EMF proportional to f; power into a fixed load and small-dipole radiated power at fixed current proportional to f^2) but Smith does not invoke them. (1/2)CV^2 x f is, up to a factor 2 pi or 4 pi, the reactive power 2 pi f C V^2, which returns to the source every half cycle.
• Worked check [computed]: example B reactive current at 100 kV, 1 MHz is about 6.3x10^6 A (reactance 0.016 ohm); keeping 50 kJ ringing at Q = 100 costs about 3 GW. Higher frequency costs more to sustain, not less.
• c. Not tested by anyone; the folder holds no measurement of this formula.
• d. Energy conservation and Poynting's theorem would fail.
• Final verdict: Internally inconsistent (f vs f^2, four different printed results for example B, units). Strong form (net energy proportional to f^2): Refuted by calculation. Weak form (reactive power circulating at rate f): Established, but delivers no net energy.

Claim 2. Impedance becomes zero at resonance; room-temperature superconductor; Ohm's law does not apply

• Reviewers: all three agree.
• a. At series resonance Z = R, not zero; at parallel resonance |Z| is a maximum (about Q^2 R) [memory, high]. "Volts and amperes are equal" is unit-less. "Corrected" Ohm's law (p.71: volts = energy, amperes = rate of dissipation) is dimensionally wrong. Smith's own picture (electrons "encircle the conductor", p.48) is the skin effect, which raises resistance with frequency (depth 65 um in copper at 1 MHz [web: Wikipedia Skin_effect]). [QE revision: the appendix point moved to claim 3; the appendix is not Smith's writing.]
• b. Every measured resonator has finite Q (tens to thousands for air coils). Mathematician's worked case [computed]: L = 2.53 uH, C = 10 nF, R = 1 ohm, 10 V drive gives I = 10 A, Q = 15.9, 159 V across C, 50 W needed from the source to supply the loss. Resonance magnifies voltage; the source pays the loss.
• c. Not tested by Smith; routine Q measurements by others do not support zero.
• d. Q factor and the definition of superconductivity would have to be rewritten.
• Final verdict: Refuted by calculation (Z = R; Q finite; skin effect) and Internally inconsistent (units). [QE revision: the "own conversion table" point is withdrawn here; the pp.91-94 table is a textbook table bound into Smith's binder and the contradiction with "1 gauss = 100,000 volts" is now argued under claim 3.] Weak form (reactances cancel, large circulating current, voltage magnified by Q): Established.

Claim 3. The extra energy comes from the Earth's and air's ambient electrical and magnetic background; conservation laws "excluded"; devices "self sustaining once started"

• Reviewers: agree on the verdict split; they differ only in the numbers (settled in the table above).
• a. Supporting numbers do not close: Earth energy 10^9 too large for its own inputs and about 10^3 above all solar energy received; "1 gamma = 10 volts" and "1 gauss = 100,000 volts" equate a magnetic flux density with a potential (an EMF needs an area and a rate of change; 1 nT through 1 m^2 at 1 MHz gives 6.3 mV [computed by the mathematician]); the 1,600-gamma example gives 1.6x10^9, not "1.6 trillion", and 1.6x10^10 V, not "16 trillion volts"; its premise of "more than a trillion gammas" is 1,000 tesla against Earth's 25-65 uT [memory, high]; lightning "ten trillion joules" is 2x10^4 times the 500 MJ average [web]. The one number of the right size is the ambient 200 kV, which matches the global-circuit potential (150-400 kV) but is a potential between the ionosphere and the ground, not a battery across a coil.
• b. Budget [computed, above]: the whole fair-weather global circuit delivers about 0.35-0.45 GW; per area about 8x10^-7 W/m^2 at the generous ceiling and about 3x10^-10 W/m^2 locally. A kilowatt would need about 1,000 km^2 of the whole circuit. Collectors (Franklin bells, Kelvin water dropper, antennas) work at nano- to microwatts. "Conservation laws are excluded for open systems" is wrong: open systems are accounted for by flows across the boundary.
• c. What the record contains, weighed as the sources describe it:
• Smith's account (NuEnergy group post, about 2001, written about five years after the event, one published source; no second account found): 12 V DC at 300 mA in, and "the Output measured by an Electrical Engineer, picked by the audience, was a continuous 120 V at 80 Amperes as Documented in the VCR Tape" [web: https://energyevo.org/2015/01/18/updated-compilation-of-important-info-don-smith-shared-to-nuenergy-yahoo-group/]. The workshop itself (18 July 1996, Colorado Springs) is independently listed in the symposium programme [read: research/files 1996 ExtraOrdinary Science]. The measurement is documented only by Smith's description; the engineer, meters, load and duration are not named. The tape is the deciding record and has not been watched by any reviewer. Possible readings, none established: a true continuous 9.6 kW real-power measurement; apparent power (V x A) of a reactive or pulsed load; a clamp-meter artefact; a hidden source. A source delivering 9.6 kW "continuous" needs 9.6 kWh per hour, which a 12 V gel cell cannot supply for more than about half a minute.
• 1994 demonstration as described by Rick Friedrich (interested party: sells a Smith-derived kit and course): flat-coil set-up ran "to the point of the neon bulbs", the four-secondary coil was not loaded, part failed, audience reacted negatively; his explanation is a 12 V battery on a 24 V module; Smith's battery-hold claim grew from a month to a year to two years [web: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHr3eDELyHk]. A battery that stays charged under no load shows nothing by itself.
• tswift (energeticforum, 24 Jul 2016): flyback at 30 kHz, battery, kickback diode, earth ground; about 1 W; "self-charging"; he flags a possible meter artefact himself [web: https://www.energeticforum.com/forum/energetic-forum-discussion/renewable-energy/13932-reproducing-the-don-smith-effect]. One uncontrolled amateur report. The binder p.36 schematic (a diode beside the battery, "will have to experiment for correct number") shows an obvious rectification path, which is input energy, not ambient energy (contrarian's reasoning, untested).
• Lagace 2026 videos: "input inverter stays completely cold", output "melts standard consumer power supplies" [web: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tiji0JqY90o]; no power figures in the part read. Author of the secondary document; interested.
• Planned neutral validation (Inventor's Weekend 2002, Perreault: Smith to bring "good test equipment to validate his claims") did not occur; Smith had a stroke [web: https://energyevo.org/2016/08/05/nuenergy-and-freeenergy-missing-posts/]. See absence-of-evidence analysis.
• d. Either a new energy reservoir thousands of times richer in current than anything measured, or conservation fails for a class of circuits. If the energy came from somewhere else (battery, rectified driver output, nearby transmitter) nothing in physics changes.
• Final verdict (split): Weak form (small energy collected from the atmospheric field or ambient RF): Established, at nano- to microwatt levels. Strong form as an ambient-field budget (kilowatts from the ambient atmospheric/earth electric field): Refuted by calculation. Smith's specific 1996 performance claim (3.6 W in, 9.6 kW out): Never properly tested (no neutral instrumented test on record; not tested and failed; not dismissed after a test; the tape has not been reviewed). Printed Earth-energy and gamma-volt figures: Internally inconsistent. "Conservation laws excluded for open systems": Refuted by calculation (accepted law applied correctly; the Einstein "direct quote" is given with no quotation, title or page, QE revision). "Self sustaining once started": Never properly tested (the construction on pp.32-33 needs a DC input and says nothing about removing it). The explanation that ambient levels cannot be measured because instruments use the ambient as reference: Not testable as stated, and in conflict with the fact that the atmospheric potential is measured by balloons and field mills.
• Arbiter note on the disagreement: the physicist labels the strong form both "Never properly tested" and "Refuted by calculation". These are compatible only if separated. The calculation refutes the ambient-field source named in Smith's documents; it cannot refute "this suitcase ran at 9.6 kW from some other hidden source", which is a measurement question the tape and a bench test would decide.

Claim 4. An air-core two-coil system gains energy through the turn ratio and by "squaring" flux

• Reviewers: all three agree.
• a. 8,000 V / 4 turns = 2,000 V per turn is correct arithmetic. With tight coupling volts per turn are equal on both windings, so N2 turns give N2 times the volts and 1/N2 the current: power unchanged. Flux is linear in V (V = N dPhi/dt); it is energy that goes as V^2, so the p.43 grid is a correct energy picture mislabelled as flux. "Hz doubled, induction squared" (p.61) is wrong: induced EMF is proportional to f. The text divides volts (p.61) in one place and energy (p.72) in another. No L-2 turns, coupling or current is given, so no output can be computed.
• Worked closure [computed by the mathematician]: 3.6 W in, 400-turn secondary, perfect coupling gives 800 kV but at most 4.5 uA. Tesla coils: gain about sqrt(L2/L1) in the ideal tuned case, energy conserved, with efficient coils moving over 85% of primary energy to the secondary [web: https://richieburnett.co.uk/operation.html].
• b-c. Voltage step-up by turns and resonance is tested daily. No Smith power measurement exists. The binder's own 1997 schematic note ("will have to experiment") marks the design as untested then.
• d. Poynting-theorem accounting for coupled coils would fail.
• Final verdict (split): Voltage step-up from turn ratio and resonance: Established. "Net gain" in energy or power from turn division or flux squaring: Refuted by calculation and Internally inconsistent. The experimental claim "his coil pair gave net gain": Never properly tested. [QE revision: the Builder's Guide (pp.76-79) is a voltage-gain recipe with no gain claim, but it is not a complete, checked recipe; see the QE revision section, item 6.]

Claim 5. Dipole / capacitor-plate collection ("Heaviside current component"); "mirror" plate effect

• Reviewers differ on the label: physicist splits it (capacitive collection Established; gain Never properly tested / Refuted if over unity); mathematician: Not testable as stated (no quantities) and Never properly tested; contrarian: weak form Plausible, untested, strong form Never properly tested.
• a. The binder pp.11-19 and the Mexican application MX NL02000035 A (filed 15 Nov 2002, published 20 May 2004, status "Application Discontinuation", family of one [web: https://patents.google.com/patent/MXNL02000035A/en]) contain no equations or numbers beyond a 4 ft x 6 in plasma tube. "Coulombs" is named as the unit of useful energy (a coulomb is charge). The physicist read claims 1-4: equipment with a potential generator and perpendicular capacitor plates; claim 4 says it can become self-sufficient by feeding back part of its output [read: research/files/MXNL02000035A.pdf]. Nothing to check but units, which fail.
• b. Capacitive and near-field coupling to resonant antennas is established (Tesla's demonstrations; Kurs et al. 60 W to a lamp over 2 m at about 40% efficiency [web: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17556549/]). A short dipole's radiation resistance is 80 pi^2 (l/lambda)^2 ohm: 0.0088 ohm for 1 m at 1 MHz, so 10 A radiates 0.44 W [computed by the mathematician; formula memory, high]. Most input to a small dipole is reactive near field returning to the source, so "radiated and wasted energy" is a small fraction. A collecting load reflects back to the source. The "mirror" effect (charged plate charges a distant plate; grounding gives current) is ordinary electrostatic induction: finite charge flows once.
• c. No measurement by anyone on record. The application says prototypes were "built, designed and functionally tested by the inventor", with no results.
• d. Weak form: nothing changes. Net gain: Poynting accounting would fail.
• Final verdict (split): Plates near a resonant coil or dipole pick up voltage and deliver power that the source supplies: Established (capacitive/near-field transfer), and the same is Plausible, untested as built in Smith's hardware (no data). Net generator that recovers "wasted" radiated energy with the source "not reduced": Not testable as stated (the deep read of pp.10-19 confirms there is no dimension, frequency, voltage or measurement to test) and so Never properly tested; if it means output above the source's own input, Refuted by calculation. Self-sufficient feedback (application claim 4): Never properly tested. "Mirror" effect as a steady source: Refuted by calculation; as a one-time charge transfer: Established. The arbiter prefers the physicist's split because it separates the part that is accepted physics from the part Smith claims.

Claim 6. Lagace's displacement-current capacitor scheme (reported as Smith's 1 F / 1 kW)

• Source status: secondary (Lagace); the 1 F / 1 kW statement has no source, date or occasion. Utkin (c.2012) attributes a similar idea to Smith: "the capacitor is charged by sparks and powerful displacement current is produced. The transformer with the ferromagnetic core is collecting this current" [web: http://www.free-energy-info.tuks.nl/VladimirUtkin.pdf; research/files]. This shows the idea predates Lagace in Smith's name; Utkin is a compiler with no numbers. [Orchestrator fix: quotation corrected from "is around" to the source's "is produced". The sentence is Utkin's caption for a 2006 rendering titled "Don Smith Device" and credited to Zero Point Films. What predates Lagace is the arrangement (spark gap, plate capacitor, MetGlas transformer); the "displacement current" reading is Utkin's. See the orchestrator-fix section below.]
• Reviewers: all three agree on the numbers; they differ on one label (see below).
• a. Verified by my reading of the three reviews and the 1 F case [computed]: 5 mJ initial energy is a x10 slip for 10 uF at 10 V (0.5 mJ); the figures draw 10 mF (0.5 J). Charge sharing of two equal capacitors loses exactly half the energy whatever R (correct). Chapters 3-4 close in the ideal limit: two transients each dissipate half of the starting energy, so up to 100% (5 mJ in, 5 mJ out) can be captured, not more. Printed defects: per-pulse 1.25 mJ vs loss 2.5 mJ vs total 2.5 + 2.5 = 5 mJ (factor 2); capacitor A at 0 V "holds all the energy" (E = 0); after step one the printed state already totals 6.25 mJ for 5 mJ in; 10 mJ "output" counts the recharged capacitor as output. Chapter 7 (1 F, 100 V) [computed]: A holds 5,000 J, battery adds 500 J (5,500 J total). Printed dispositions: 4,500 J returned to A + 2,500 J to C + 2,250 J to the auxiliary load = 9,250 J, against 5,500 J available. The 2,250 J is 90% of the 2,500 J already counted. Since A is back at 100 V at the end of a cycle, at most the 500 J top-up (less losses) can have left the loop, so 4,750 J out is 9.5 times too high; "950%" is a ratio of loop throughput to top-up. Contrarian: 4,250 J unaccounted, 8.5 times everything the system received. "The primary does not feel the secondary load because there is no closed current loop" is contradicted by Lagace's own Figure D (primary in the series loop C1-T1-C2-SW2) and by current continuity (displacement current in the gap equals conduction current in the leads) [memory, high]. The mathematician's simulation [computed by the mathematician; not re-run by me]: two 10 uF capacitors joined through 1 mH, loss R and load R_L as series resistance. With R = 0.1 and R_L = 10 ohm the load receives 49.5% of the starting energy (essentially the whole 50% transient loss) and the loop loss is 0.5%; with R = R_L = 1 ohm the share is 25%/25%. So the load takes the energy by acting as resistance in the primary loop, which the primary "feels". Lagace himself writes (p.17, p.38) that the primary must supply all energy transferred to the secondary.
• b. Inductive (LC) charge transfer and switched-mode recovery of the "lost half" are standard engineering with efficiencies of 90-95% [memory, high; not web-checked]. No measurement shows more than 100%.
• c. No measurement in the document (figures look like simulator screenshots, one 5.0 V reading). Lagace's 2026 videos claim a working "modified" replication; no input/output figures were found.
• d. For the over-unity form: energy conservation would fail unless an external source is identified and metered; none is entered with a number.
• Label disagreement: the physicist labels inductive recovery "Established"; the mathematician and contrarian label Lagace's chapters 3-4 "Plausible, untested". Arbiter: both are right about different things. The technique (recovering the half normally dissipated, by an inductor or transformer path and rectifier) is Established as general engineering. Lagace's particular circuit as drawn has never been built and measured in the document, so it is Plausible, untested.
• Final verdict (split): Energy recovery up to 100% of otherwise-dissipated energy: Established as a technique; Lagace's circuit: Plausible, untested. "Primary does not feel the secondary load": Refuted by calculation. Output above 100% (200%, 950%, 4.75 kW from 500 J per second): Refuted by calculation and Internally inconsistent as printed (x10 slip, factor-2 slips, double counting). Lagace's 2026 bench claims: Never properly tested (single-author video claims, no figures). The 1 F / 1 kW attribution to Smith: not sourced (Lagace p.2); the "Smith" label rests on Lagace and Utkin.

Claim 7. Smith's account of suppression (Morgan/Edison/Tesla meeting; Patent Office "metering group")

• Reviewers: all three agree: Not testable as stated; underlying records not obtained.
• Smith's stake: holder of a pending application (08/100,074) and a business; his statements (binder pp.21, 37, 50-51) give no date, place, art unit, examiner or office action. They are his characterization and are reported with that stake.
• a. The chain (referred to metering group, so accepts log meters, so accepts square law, so knows over-unity exists) has non sequiturs; log scales are a convenience for dynamic range.
• b. What is documented: the USPTO treats incredible-utility claims, with "perpetual motion machine" as an example, under MPEP 2107 [web: https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2107.html, read by the contrarian]; this is a published rule the applicant can answer with a working demonstration, and it is consistent with over-unity applications being singled out for scrutiny. It is not evidence that the Office believes such devices work, and nothing found shows a "metering group". The three-way Morgan-Edison-Tesla meeting has no primary source found; the standard record has Morgan financing and then withdrawing from Wardenclyffe (1901-1906) [web: archive.longislandpress.com/2010/09/16/teslas-last-stand-on-long-island/2/, secondary]. Smith's story resembles a popular "where do we put the meter" anecdote with no primary document.
• c. The Mexican application was discontinued; whether by IMPI action or abandonment is unknown. Perreault (2002) relayed Smith saying his Mexican patents "have been approved" and Kelly says "granted May 2004"; the record is an application. Neither statement is confirmed; neither is shown false beyond the application status.
• d. Nothing in physics changes; it would be an administrative finding.
• Final verdict: Not testable as stated. The underlying factual questions (the file wrapper of the US application, the IMPI file history, the Mexican outcome) are Never properly tested only in the sense that no one has obtained the records. Retained in the record: Smith's account, the MPEP practice, the application status, the unmatched TransWorld Energy company record.

Corrections to earlier documents

1. claims.md claim 7 and facts.json, "pending application 08/100,074 (4 February 1992)". Serial prefix 08 was assigned from 1 January 1993 and number 100,074 falls in 1993 [web: https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/filingyr.htm, via search]. A 4 February 1992 filing would carry a 07/ prefix. Either the binder's date is Smith's date for an earlier parent filing, or the date or number is a slip. The wording should read: "application serial 08/100,074; the binder gives 4 February 1992, but the serial number indicates a 1993 filing; unresolved without the file wrapper". Check the binder passage (pp.56 and 50-51 per the reviewers) before editing.
2. claims.md claim 1 and facts.json, example B. State "four printed numbers" not "two versions": 5x10^8 J (1996 magazine, with an intermediate "500" that should be 50,000), 5x10^10 (binder), 5x10^14 (magazine's own intermediate carried through), 5x10^16 (formula with the binder's numbers). Evidence: page images of binder p.49 and magazine p.37 (mathematician, physicist, contrarian) and [computed] above.
3. claims.md claim 1 should add that p.56 ("60 million cycles ... one million times") uses the first power of f, contradicting the squared law elsewhere (mathematician).
4. claims.md claim 3 (a) add Smith's 1996 suitcase claim (12 V x 0.3 A in; 120 V x 80 A out) as the one quantitative performance claim, with its source and limits; (b) the Earth figure exceeds all solar energy received by about 10^3 and is 10^9 above its own inputs; (c) lightning "ten trillion joules" is 2x10^4 times the 500 MJ average [web].
5. Deep read pp.54-75, "ionosphere about 200-300 kV" [memory, high]. Retag [web] with the range: 150-400 kV by standard estimate, balloon mean 278 kV, Wikipedia 400 kV. Smith's 200 kV is inside the range; the deep read's number was not wrong, it was untagged.
6. claims.md claim 6 says "the printed balances do not close"; qualify: chapters 3-4 close in the ideal limit (100% recovery, not gain); the over-unity begins in chapters 6-7. Also the physicist's "Established" for the recovery technique and the mathematician's "Plausible, untested" for Lagace's circuit are both kept (above).
7. Deep read of binder p.11-19 (digest only) was not deepened by any reviewer; two reviewers said so. The physicist read the Mexican application, which duplicates the content. Claim 5 verdict rests on the application text plus digest, not on a deep read of pp.10-19.
8. Patent status: Kelly's "granted" and Perreault's "approved" are not supported by the located record (application, "Application Discontinuation"). Do not repeat "patented" without that qualification. (Investigator and all reviewers agree.)
9. Lagace p.47 "peaked over 35 years ago" conflicts with the dated record of 1994-2005 public activity (Investigator).
10. Reactive-power factor (deep read): "Q = 4 pi x (1/2) C V^2 f" holds for V rms; for V peak the factor is 2 pi (mathematician). Clarify when quoting.

What would settle it

Open questions

1. What was measured on 18 July 1996, with what instruments, into what load? (Recording not reviewed.)
2. Was the 1994 demonstration's failure caused by a 12 V battery on a 24 V module, as Friedrich says, or by something else? (Interested source; tape exists.)
3. What do Smith's remaining originals (about 170 pages with Friedrich; "CAPACITOR FUNCTIONS", 14 Feb 2004) say that the 96-page binder does not, and do they contain measured data?
4. Why was the Mexican application discontinued, and did Smith ever receive any grant?
5. What is the true date and fate of US serial 08/100,074, and does an earlier 1992 parent exist?
6. Is the "self-charging battery" observed by tswift, Smith and others an artefact of rectified module output or of mis-averaging meters?
7. Is the Lagace 2026 "modified replication" a measured gain, and if so with which instruments? (His videos are the first claims since 2005, from the author of the secondary source.)
8. What did Smith mean by the "Heaviside current component"? Undefined in the documents; the contrarian notes the term's use in the Bearden literature [memory, medium] but does not read it into Smith.
9. Was there a company called TransWorld Energy? No active Texas entity found for 1992-2002 (OpenCorporates, partial); an assumed name is possible.
10. Is the death date 22 Nov 2010 correct? One forum snippet only; no obituary found.

Absence-of-evidence analysis

Where the record goes dark, and what could explain it. All explanations below are competing; the files decide none of them.

A. No neutral, instrumented test of any Smith device after the 1996 suitcase claim; the 2002 validation did not happen; the record of Smith effectively ends after 2005. - Facts: Perreault announced that Smith would bring "good test equipment to validate his claims" to Inventor's Weekend 2002; Smith had a stroke after artery surgery and did not present [web: energyevo 2016/08/05]. Public lectures then run to 2005 (TeslaTech/ExtraOrdinary Technology Conference, Salt Lake City; some sources say 2006). A forum snippet gives his death as 22 November 2010. No obituary, newspaper item or company wind-up found. His web site altenergy-pro.com is gone; Kelly says it was "taken over by Big Oil" (Kelly's characterization, no evidence); a lapsed domain bought by a reseller is the other explanation. The Wayback check was blocked. - Explanation 1, illness and death. For: documented stroke in 2002 (single published source, the event organiser, who is an interested party as organiser and video seller), the dated sequence, and a death date from a forum snippet. Against: he lectured in 2005, three years after the stroke, so illness alone does not explain absent testing in 2003-2005. Would decide: death certificate or obituary, medical statements, a 2003-2005 test request on file. - Explanation 2, no working device (measurement artefact, misreading of VA as W, rectified battery charging). For: binder arithmetic errors, apparent-power ambiguity in the suitcase report, the 1994 partial failure, the self-flagged meter artefact in tswift's replication, the unloaded secondary at the 1994 demo, "will have to experiment" on the 1997 schematic, no measured data in 96 pages. Against: it is not demonstrated by any test; absence of a test is not a failed test. Would decide: the 1996 tape, a neutral bench test. - Explanation 3, commercial or contractual secrecy. For: the mention of "Don's personal security and contract obligations" in an unsigned passage about Smith in the Kelly part of the archive.org compilation (orchestrator fix: not in Smith's voice); the 2002 cover letter's "TransWorld Energy, CEO" presentation; the MX filing is the only patent attempt found. Against: no contract, licensee, customer or investor has been identified; no Texas entity matches. Would decide: assumed-name and county records, contractual or litigation records, former associates' accounts. - Explanation 4, suppression or takeover (Smith's own and Kelly's reading). For: Smith's statements, Kelly's "Big Oil", the discontinued Mexican application, the unreviewed US file. Against: no document identifies any actor; the contrarian found no record of blocked publication or funding (Smith published in ExtraOrdinary Science in 1996 and spoke at the Tesla Society conventions in 1994 and 1996). Would decide: the US and IMPI file wrappers (which show who did what to the applications), correspondence, a 2003-2010 record of any company approach. - Explanation 5, absorption by another entity under another name. No evidence for or against; the Investigator found no corporate trail. Would decide: assumed-name and licensing records.

B. The edited 2001 recording. Perreault says he cut about five minutes where Monroe Fischer questioned Smith, to protect a speaker weakened by a stroke; a critic web site called the event report misleading. Both are the organiser's account (interested party). Competing readings: kindness to a frail speaker, or removal of an unfavourable exchange. The uncut tape and the critic's report (not found) would decide.

C. The Mexican application's discontinuation. Application filed 15 Nov 2002, published 20 May 2004, discontinued, no stated reason. Possible: non-payment, unfavourable examination, abandonment after the stroke, a deliberate decision. The IMPI file history (not reached) would decide.

D. Smith's absence from independent test literature and replication reports. No replication report with measured input and output exists in the files; the tswift thread and Lagace videos are uncontrolled. This is not "tested and failed": it is "never properly tested". The mainstream silence is silence of not being asked, rather than of refusal; no one is on record as having declined a test, and Smith's only announced validation was cancelled.

Final verdicts in brief

Web checks used: 3 of 8 (atmospheric electricity page; global-circuit potential and current; USPTO series-code table), plus the reviewers' own sourced checks. Medium/low-confidence [memory] items that no verdict depends on and were not re-checked: d'Arsonval dates and the Ruhmkorff/Oudin history (low weight), the Morgan-Edison-Tesla meeting (no primary source found by the contrarian), ambient RF power (medium).

QE revision (2026-10-08)

Inputs: qe.md (verdict MINOR); the three new deep reads in deep/Resonance-Energy-Methods-Don-Smith-e82b7e.md (pp.21-35; pp.73 and 76-79; pp.10-19 compared with MX NL02000035 A); the Investigator's research notes and sites.md; claims.md as corrected. Tags: [read] project documents; [web] with URL; [memory] with confidence; [computed] my arithmetic (project venv). Web checks this round: 2 more (running total 5 of 8). Not done and still open: the QE's deep reads 4-6 (the full 1996 ExtraOrdinary Science article, the Kelly part of the 119-page compilation, the Utkin Smith sections); no verdict below rests on them. [Done later: see "QE revision (orchestrator fix, 2026-10-08)" below.] QE found no change to claims 1, 2, 4, 6 or 7; the changes are below.

What changed in the verdicts

Claim 5 restated after the deep read of pp.10-19

• What the binder specifies [read: deep read, pp.11-19]: a high-voltage-driven coil on an iron rod or plasma tube, a stack of two dissimilar metal sheets with a plastic dielectric through which the rod passes, a deep-cycle battery and a 120 V / 60 Hz inverter. The only hardware numbers are the 4 ft x 6 in plasma tube and the inverter output. The input is "a neon tube transformer" with no voltage given.
• "Heaviside current component" is used three times (key item 4, claim 4, abstract) and defined nowhere; it is drawn as dashed lines parallel to the rod crossing the plates. The Mexican translation renders it "Campo pesado del componente de corriente" ("heavy field") and the abstract "induction current component". The reader cannot tell whether it means conduction current, displacement current or an energy-flow component.
• Testing statements, all of them by the inventor, none with data: "fully functional prototypes ... engineer constructed and fully tested for utility by the Inventor" (p.12); Drawing 3 "Proof of Principal Device"; Drawing 4 "Manufactures Prototype, Constructed and fully tested". The Mexican text weakens this to "functionally tested by the inventor" and drops "fully tested" from Fig.5.
• Differences between the two texts (Smith's own, or his Mexican representative's): the MX adds self-powering ("once the invention is started, it can feed itself, by means of a coil connected to the electrical output"), "90 degrees", coils around the plasma tube, other plate metals, and "almost all" (English: "much") of the energy radiated back; it reverses the plate-metal order (English: aluminium upper, copper lower; MX: copper upper) and drops the 120 V / 60 Hz inverter figure. Neither text says why dissimilar metals are used.
• p.10 is a different device: a printout (ionvalve.com, 17 Aug 2003) of "Don Smith's Rotating Seperator Coil". It is not part of the specification. Earlier files that treat pp.10-19 as one document should note this.
• The earlier arbiter statement "no equations or numbers beyond a 4 ft x 6 in plasma tube" is corrected to include the 120 V / 60 Hz inverter output.
• Verdict: the split in claim 5 stands, with the change in the table above. Self-sufficiency (MX claim 4) is now seen to be an addition to the English text, which says only battery plus inverter.

Claim 3: additions from the deep read of pp.21-35

• Source-of-energy statements [read: pp.23, 25, 29, 35]: electrons spun by resonant magnetic waves yield "both magnetic and electric waves in equal proportion"; the electrical part is "a closed system limited by Ohms Law", the magnetic part "an open system not limited" that "replicates multiple copies of the energy present". These are the claims behind the budget in claim 3 and the model in claim 8. p.23 ("Ohmic resistance does no[t] apply to Magnetic Resonance") and p.25 ("The electrical component is a closed system limited by Ohms Law") are in tension within Smith's own text.
• "Multi Billions of Volts" (p.35) has no derivation; "reconstruction from indirect information" is claimed and not shown.
• Analogies offered for "more energy out than in" [read: pp.23, 26]: the piano, levers, pulleys, hydraulics, gasoline and atomic explosions. Mainstream view: levers and pulleys trade force for distance with work conserved; combustibles release stored chemical or nuclear energy, which is an input. The piano's soundboard radiates energy the hammer stored. None is an output exceeding all inputs. [memory, high]
• p.28 is a vendor catalogue entry (The Science Source, "Resonance Circuits Demo", 1.5 V transmitter lighting a 70 V neon lamp, $49.95), reproduced with no comment. A 1.5 V input lighting a 70 V lamp is a resonant voltage rise, not an energy statement; the page gives no power.
• Units conflict, moved here from claim 2: the binder bound in a textbook appendix (1 gauss = 10^-4 weber/m^2) that contradicts its own "1 gauss = 100,000 volts" (pp.55, 68). Smith did not write the appendix; the conflict is within the compiled binder.

Claim 4: the Builder's Guide is not a complete, checked recipe

The earlier text called it "an ordinary, usable coil recipe". The deep read of pp.73 and 76-79 shows [read: page images pp.76-77, 79; computed]: - "Chart A" is cited and is not in the document. - Full-wave constant 998 should read 988 (4 x 247); the quarter- and half-wave constants (247, 494) agree with free space to 0.5%. - Step 4 calculates 26.67 turns (640 V / 24 V) and then selects 30 turns, which gives 720 V, unstated. - 10 ft of wire is 120 in, which is 120 / (pi x 2) = 19.1 turns on a 2-inch form, not 26.67 or 30. The guide's turn count and its frequency (24.7 MHz) cannot both hold. - Steps 2 and 4 use different inputs (2,400 V and an unstated one; 24 V per turn x 10 turns = 240 V). - No wire gauge, capacitor value, spark-gap width or module current; no instruction to measure input or output power. The step-up arithmetic (240 V per turn x 100 turns = 24,000 V) is the ideal turns ratio and ignores coupling and load [memory, high]. - The sheet tells the builder to probe the live coil with a hand as ground and gives no safety warning [memory, high]. - p.79, Figure 3, is an iron-core, oil-filled impulse transformer (laminated core, primary on 2-inch PVC, secondary on 3-inch PVC), not an air-core coil, and it reverses the guide's inside/outside arrangement. - p.73 gives "Energy Potential as Volts / Dissipation" "expected" against "actual" with "RESISTIVITY BECOMES ZERO AT RESONANCE" and compares 60 Hz with Smith's "220 Mhz" device. [computed] (2.2x10^8 / 60)^2 = 1.3x10^13; the first power of the ratio is 3.7x10^6. This repeats claim 2 and claim 1; no verdict changes. Verdict effect on claim 4: none. The Builder's Guide offers the reader a voltage-gain build only, and cannot test over-unity as written. Any primer text that calls it complete should be corrected.

Claim 8 (new). Smith's physical model: electron "doublets", handed spin as the source of volts and amperes, gravity from spin, the Earth spun by incoming flux

• Stated by Smith [read: pp.24-25, 27, 29-30, 37-42, 70, 75]: electrons are "doublets"; left-hand spin is the "source of volts", right-hand spin the "source of amperes", separated at a "Bloch wall" in a bar magnet and at the two ends of a Tesla coil; gravity is a "function of spin" (milk and cream separating when spun) and "frictional drag from inflow current"; "Magnetic imbalance causes the gravitational effect"; spinning fields are "a functional motor source as in flying saucer's"; the Earth is spun by deflected magnetic flux ("the Watts of Electricity Required may be calculated!", never calculated); ocean waves on windless days are "visible Proof of the overhead incoming magnetic flux"; a hot Earth interior is "cooked from the inside out" by a microwave background.
• Mainstream view, stated plainly. An electron's spin is a two-state property measured along a chosen axis (up or down); it is not a voltage or a current. A Bloch wall is the boundary layer, tens to hundreds of nanometres thick, between two magnetic domains of a ferromagnet; it separates regions of magnetization, not two kinds of electron [memory, high]. Gravity is sourced by mass-energy and shows no dependence on composition or on spin or magnetization at the precision of Eotvos-type tests [memory, high]. Milk and cream separate by centrifugation of densities, which needs gravity or acceleration already present.
• Earth rotation, computed [computed, project venv]: moment of inertia 0.33 M R^2 = 8.0x10^37 kg m^2; angular momentum 5.85x10^33 kg m^2/s; rotational kinetic energy 2.1x10^29 J. A spinning body needs no sustaining torque unless something brakes it. The braking is tidal friction, usually quoted at roughly 2.6-3.75 TW with a slowing of roughly 1.6-2 ms per century [web: search summary, secondary sources of unequal quality, e.g. https://physics-arena.duckdns.org/problems/884 and forum posts; treat as order of magnitude]. At 3.7 TW the stored rotational energy would last about 1.8 Gyr, and the Earth is observed to slow, not to be driven. So "the Watts required" is, at most, the tidal loss, already accounted for by the Moon's orbital recession; the Earth does not need a flux motor, and an inflow motor would be seen as spin-up. Refuted by calculation.
• Ocean waves on windless days are ordinary swell from distant storms [memory, high]; Smith's reading offers no measurement, wave height or location.
• Verdicts: handed-spin "source of volts and amperes", the Bloch-wall location and the gravity-from-spin and magnetic-imbalance statements: Not testable as stated (no definition, formula or measurable prediction; where a part is testable, such as gravity depending on magnetization, standard tests show none). "Open, replicating magnetic energy" and "Earth spun by incoming flux": Refuted by calculation (energy and angular-momentum accounting). This is the physical picture Smith gives for where claim 3's energy comes from; it adds no number that could close the claim 3 budget.

Claim 9 (new). The magnetostrictive "Magnetic Resonance Power System" (pp.32-33), with the "Negative Magnetic Permeability" table

• What is drawn [read: page images pp.32-33]: a transistor oscillator (items 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9) whose "NEGATIVE MAGNETOSTRICTIVE ROD" carries two windings, powered by a "POSITIVE DC INPUT", with an output labelled "NEGATIVE PULSATING DC". No value is given for any component, turns or frequency. Terfenol-D, 1.5 in by 10 in, "over $5,000. Each" is the "ideal" rod. Smith's text: "Magnetic permeability is the counterpart of negative resistance. Resonate with negative magnetic resistance it pumps energy from the Earth's ambient background." The table lists Permalloy >80,000, Sendust 30,000-120,000, Metglas >200,000, iron with 34% cobalt 13,000 and "New Technology" >1,000,000 under the heading "Negative Magnetic Permeability" with no unit, condition or source; the same page defines permeability as the ratio of flux density to magnetizing force. Smith's p.32 claims a sonar "to see approximately 50 miles" and that it "works better at higher frequencies into the Gigahertz".
• Mainstream view: magnetostrictive oscillators and transducers exist; Terfenol-D was developed for U.S. Navy sonar and is used in underwater projectors [web: search results, e.g. the Terfenol-D development history in https://www.machinedesign.com/news/precision-moves-magnetostriction; accuracy of the individual figures not verified]. Sonar sends sound, not an electromagnetic disturbance, so "radiating 50 miles" of "electromagnetic disturbance" mixes two things [memory, medium]. Terfenol-D has a low relative permeability and needs a bias field [web: same search]. Negative effective permeability is real but is a metamaterial effect: arrays of split-ring resonators give a negative real part just above their resonance over a narrow band, in a passive, lossy structure; it is not a bulk property of metals like Permalloy [web: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-ring_resonator and the arXiv paper https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.13861]. A negative-resistance oscillator draws its power from its bias supply; the "negative" is a small-signal slope, not a power source [memory, high]. The circuit as drawn has a DC input; the output has a rectifying path; the energy is the input's.
• Verdicts: magnetostrictive oscillator or transducer as such: Established. The table: Internally inconsistent (heading "Negative", all entries positive, and the page's own definition makes permeability positive for these materials). "Permeability is the counterpart of negative resistance" and pumping energy from the ambient background: Refuted by calculation (same budget as claim 3; the DC input accounts for the output). Any output above input from this circuit: Never properly tested (no component values, no measurement).

Claim 10 (new). Smith's claims of commercial availability and scale

All are Smith's statements; Smith and TransWorld Energy have a commercial stake (the book, the web site, the devices). Evidence listed with its source: - p.21 (cover letter, 23 Sept 2002, 227 W. Airtex Blvd, Houston): R&D "for more than 15 years"; "Numerous successful Energy Producing Devices have been produced and demonstrated throughout the World"; the book has ">40,000 copies" in seven editions and many languages. p.22: "in the developmental stage during the past seven years" and "Patent Pending # 08/100,074 ... No prior art exist based on the Patent Office response. The System is presently being introduced into the World Market." The 15 and 7 years are in tension in the same binder (p.22 may be an older page than the 2002 letter; undated). - p.62: "Small mobile E.E.S. II units are presently available as replacements for the batteries used in electric automobiles"; pp.64-65: a "Domestic Use Range Module, up to two million volt-amperes-reactive output", larger modules "10 million plus"; pp.45, 49: "A megawatt sized unit will sit comfortably on a breakfast table". - Kelly part of the 119-page compilation, in Smith's voice [orchestrator fix: an unsigned passage that refers to "Don" in the third person; its author is not stated]: "newer versions have atomic batteries and power output ranges of Gigawatts ... Commercial units of Boulder Dam size are currently being installed at several major locations throughout the world", with the information shared "incomplete" for "Don's personal security and contract obligations" [read: research/files/Resonance-Energy-Methods-119p_djvu.txt lines 9239-9241; Kelly compiled it and has his own stake in his site]. Kelly's own statements: "at least forty eight different devices ... in most cases they do not require any input energy", and Smith "never did disclose the full details of his designs" but left enough "for somebody who is experienced in radio-frequency electronics" to deduce the rest [read: research/2026-10-08-kelly-free-energy-info.md]. Against the stated currents, Kelly reports a reader's point that an output choke in one photograph "appears to be wound with wire that is far too small diameter" [same note]. - Mainstream view: a volt-ampere-reactive (VAR) is reactive power, which circulates between the source and the field and does no net work; "two million VAR" is a statement about circulating energy, not an output of 2 MW [memory, high]; the same confusion affects the 9,600 VA suitcase figure (claim 3). A megawatt-class converter is not physically impossible to make small at high frequency (compare kilowatt switched-mode supplies), but the question is the energy source, not the size. - Verdict: Never properly tested. No unit, customer, site, import, sale or interconnection record has been found, and none was searched for beyond the Investigator's TransWorld company check. This is not "tested and failed" and not "dismissed after testing": the records that would decide it have not been obtained.

Absence-of-evidence analysis, addition (E): the commercial silence

Smith's own statements say units were "presently available", "being introduced into the World Market" and "currently being installed at several major locations". If true, such units would leave records. The record found contains none. - Explanation 1, promotional overstatement or aspiration. For: the statements are by an interested party; 15 versus 7 years of development; the binder carries no customer, price, specification sheet or compliance mark; the cover letter's closing is sales language ("The Good News is that the problem is solved"). Against: it is not shown that no unit was ever sold; the record is thin by nature for a one-person business. Would decide: sales, invoices, customer testimony. - Explanation 2, contractual or security secrecy (Smith's and Kelly's own account: "contract obligations", "personal security"). For: Smith's words. Against: no contract, licensee, customer or investor has been identified; large utility-scale installations would be hard to hide from interconnection and permitting records. Would decide: utility interconnection, permit and customs records; litigation records. - Explanation 3, small demonstration units described in grand terms (VAR counted as power, battery-replacement modules that were only voltage converters). For: the VA/W ambiguity in the suitcase report and the VAR wording on pp.64-65. Against: no unit has been examined. Would decide: a surviving unit, or the 1996 tape. - Explanation 4, units sold under another name or by another company. No evidence either way; the Investigator found no corporate trail. Would decide: assumed-name and company records for Houston and Spring, Texas. - Explanation 5, deployed and suppressed or taken over (Kelly: "taken over by Big Oil"). For: Kelly's characterization. Against: no document names an actor. Would decide: the same file wrappers and correspondence as in A.

Retention: material the QE found missing, restored here

• Smith's link to Bearden. In his 9 Nov 2001 e-mail Smith cited the Canadian patent CIPO 2172240 ("An apparatus in the form of a generator with no moving parts for direct conversion of magnetostatic energy ...") and wrote that his device is "a close relative of Tom Bearden's Device. However I used a different Coupling System" [web: https://energyevo.org/2015/01/18/updated-compilation-of-important-info-don-smith-shared-to-nuenergy-yahoo-group/; research/2026-10-08-energyevo-nuenergy.md]. [Orchestrator fix, applying primer correction 4: the "close relative" sentence is in a separate, undated post about the suitcase device that sits just before the 9 Nov 2001 e-mail; the CIPO citation is in the e-mail itself (research/2026-10-08-energyevo-nuenergy.md, lines 11 and 13).] This places Smith in the motionless-electromagnetic-generator line; the physicist and mathematician reviews mention it and neither analyses the patent.
• Utkin (about 2012) gives Smith's arrangement as "the capacitor is charged by sparks and powerful displacement current is produced. The transformer with the ferromagnetic core is collecting this current" and records Smith calling the technology "Bird on the wire" [web: research/pages/utkin.txt line 331, via the Investigator]. [Orchestrator fix: quotation corrected from "is around" to the source's "is produced"; it is Utkin's caption for a 2006 Zero Point Films rendering, and Utkin gives no source for "Bird on the wire". See the orchestrator-fix section below.] Smith's binder uses a related image (p.35: "the bird sitting on the million volt power line and sensing nothing").
• J. E. Dalton II, "Radiant Energy Induction Using RF Pulsed Plasma" (2014), discusses Smith's Electrical Energy Generating System [web: http://gratisenergi.se/rfplasma, found by search; not opened].
• Other claimed replicators named by tswift: Marc Belanger (with a 60 Hz neon-sign-transformer video) and "Zilano". Energeticforum thread 13434 (2015): weighing-scale experiments on capacitor banks (the poster notes possible interference with a kitchen scale) and "dielectric pulsation" seen on a scope near the spark gap [web: research/2026-10-08-energeticforum.md]. Uncontrolled amateur reports; none gives input and output energy.
• Influence record, relevant to Curator criterion D: the energeticforum megathread opened in 2009 and running to over 790 pages; Russian translations of the binder (narod.ru, 51 pp.; studfile; x-faq.ru 2011) and Spanish Kelly translations [web: research/2026-10-08-google-search-records.md]. The cover letter's circulation claim (40,000 copies, seven editions) is Smith's own and is not independently confirmed.
• Smith's 1995 "Tesla Coil Geometry" sheet (2 November 1995, binder p.42) is the earliest dated form of the two-ended "dipole" coil in the files.
• The reasoned objection to the stated currents (the thin choke wire) and Kelly's non-disclosure statement bear on why replicators disagree: Smith is reported to have disclosed only enough for an RF engineer to deduce the rest. This is Kelly's report of a lecture, not a document from Smith.

Corrections to earlier documents (QE round)

1. arbiter.md claim 2 and the verdict table: "own conversion table" withdrawn (see above). physicist.md claim 2 and primer.md section 4 still say "Smith's own"; the orchestrator should correct them to "a standard table bound into Smith's binder" (qe.md correction 2).
2. physicist.md tag "[read: deep read pp.91-94 per facts.json]": those pages were digest-only (qe.md correction 3).
3. arbiter.md claim 3, "Refuted" replaced by "Refuted by calculation" (here and in the primer's row 3b).
4. arbiter.md claim 4: "an ordinary, usable coil recipe" is overstated; see the Claim 4 item above. The primer, which offers this build as a reader's test, should say it is a voltage-gain recipe with Chart A missing and three numeric defects.
5. arbiter.md claim 5: "no equations or numbers beyond a 4 ft x 6 in plasma tube" should include the 120 V / 60 Hz inverter output; the Mexican PDF has 15 pages, not 10 (research/2026-10-08-patents-mx-espacenet.md and sites.md are the Investigator's files to correct).
6. facts.json, don-smith.pdf summary lacks Lagace's x10 energy slip (0.5 mJ, not 5 mJ); the arbiter's claim 6 has it (qe.md correction 4).
7. Binder p.10 is not part of the Dipole Transformer Generator specification (it is the "Rotating Seperator Coil" printout, 17 Aug 2003); pp.11-19 are the specification and drawings.
8. Done (orchestrator fix, 2026-10-08): the QE's reads of the full 1996 ExtraOrdinary Science article (all 9 pp., page images), the Kelly part of the 119-page compilation (lines 8,509-10,344 in full) and the Utkin PDF (all 93 pp., Smith pages rendered) are now in deep/further-investigator-files.md. What they add or change is in "QE revision (orchestrator fix, 2026-10-08)" below. No verdict changed. Two of the quotations above are corrected there: Utkin's "is around" should read "is produced", and the Boulder Dam passage is not in Smith's voice.

QE revision (orchestrator fix, 2026-10-08)

Inputs: deep/further-investigator-files.md, the deep read of the three Investigator files that qe.md (remediation B, items 4-6; Recheck item 4) and Corrections item 8 above listed as read only in part. The three files are the 1996 ExtraOrdinary Science article (ES, all 9 pp., read from page images), the Kelly part of the archive.org 119-page compilation (K, lines 8,509-10,344, Kelly pp.3-1 to 3-27) and Utkin's PDF (U, 93 pp.). Tags as in that file. No web checks this round (running total 5 of 8).

Verdicts: none changed. The three files contain no measurement, test, witness or instrument reading for any Smith device. Everything they add is either further claims by Smith or by his compilers, or further internal inconsistencies that strengthen verdicts already given. The source status of claim 6's Smith attribution is weaker than stated, but that verdict concerns Lagace's arithmetic.

What each file adds or changes, by claim

Other additions to the record

• Perreault in 1996. The 1996 symposium programme lists "Bruce Perrault - The Radiant Energy Device" (Saturday 20 July, 2:00 pm) at the same event as Smith's workshop (Thursday 18 July) [read: ES p.2]. If this is the Bruce Perreault who later organised Inventor's Weekend (the spelling differs; the identification is the arbiter's inference), the reporter of the 2002 cancelled validation and the 2001 edited tape was a fellow presenter in 1996. That is part of his stake, as already noted.
• "An Answer to America's Energy Deficit", binder pp.54-59, is cited in K's reference list as "fifth edition. Pub. International Tesla Society, Colorado Springs, Co., 1996" [read: K p.3-12]. It was a Tesla Society publication by 1996, which bears on the cover letter's "seven editions" (Smith's figure).
• "Bird on the wire." Utkin gives no source for "Don Smith named this technology 'Bird on the wire'" [read: U p.16]. In Smith's own texts the bird is an image for being unaware of the ambient potential: binder p.35, and "Humans are like the bird sitting unaware on a high voltage line" [read: K p.3-6]. The reading "safe ... until a spark occurs" is Utkin's. Kept as Utkin's report, with that qualification.
• Utkin's own measurements. Utkin reports bench tests of a "switchable inductance" (47 nF, about 2 mH, 12 V; "the remaining energy is more than the capacitor gives to the coil (with an accuracy of 20%)", later 10% and 5%) and a 4x "current amplification" [read: U pp.58-60, 90]. They are related work (Investigator priority 3), not tests of Smith's devices. Utkin metered no input energy, and his thesis is that "asymmetrical systems are outside the area covered by the Energy-Conservation Law" [read: U p.93]. No reviewer has assessed them, and they carry no Smith verdict.
• Kelly's battery-recharge statements (battery leads "exactly one quarter of the wave length"; a rectified winding on the output choke whose power "is substantially greater than the minor current drain") belong with row 3e (self-charging battery) as Smith's statements relayed by Kelly. [computed] A quarter wave at the 35.1 kHz drive frequency is about 2.1 km. Never properly tested.

Absence-of-evidence analysis, addition (F): two hundred replications and a Russian production unit

Smith is reported to have said that "some two hundred replications have already been built" of the simplified board circuit [read: K p.3-23, Kelly's report]. Kelly says a 400 kW table-top unit was "commercially produced in Russia" [read: K p.3-4]. Two hundred builds would normally leave forum reports, photographs or measurements. A production unit would leave a maker, a price and a buyer. The Investigator's searches found uncontrolled forum reports (tswift, Belanger, "Zilano", thread 13434) and no build with metered input and output; no Russian maker was found or searched for. - Explanation 1, an overstatement by an interested party (or Kelly's misunderstanding). For: no builder, place or date is named; Kelly's numbers rest on Smith's statements; the 2019 Chapter 31 keeps the Russia and 160 kW passages but drops "replications" (term count). Against: not shown; forum records are incomplete. Would decide: a list of builders, or any build log with measurements. - Explanation 2, builds were made and did not work, so nothing was published. For: the uncontrolled reports that exist flag meter artefacts (tswift). Against: no failure report has been found either. Would decide: the energeticforum megathread read in full; the NuEnergy group archive. - Explanation 3, builds were made and worked, but were not published (secrecy, personal use). For: Smith's "contract obligations" statement. Against: two hundred private successes would be very hard to keep out of a 790-page public thread. Would decide: the same records. - Explanation 4, the Russian unit exists under another description. For: Russian translations of the binder circulate (Investigator). Against: no maker named. Would decide: Russian-language searches for the device (PVC pipes, a vinyl disc with neodymium powder, 400 kW), a later Investigator lead.

Corrections (orchestrator fix)

1. Utkin's sentence reads "powerful displacement current is produced", not "is around". It is Utkin's caption for a 2006 Zero Point Films rendering titled "Don Smith Device", not Smith's words. It is misquoted in sites.md line 76, research/2026-10-08-energeticforum.md item 4, physicist.md, mathematician.md, contrarian.md ("Utkin quotes Smith") and arbiter.md claim 6 and Retention. Corrected in place (orchestrator fix) in arbiter.md, mathematician.md, contrarian.md and research/2026-10-08-energeticforum.md; sites.md line 76 and physicist.md were being edited by another agent at the time and still carry "is around".
2. The Boulder Dam / atomic-battery / contract-obligations passage is an unsigned paragraph that refers to "Don" in the third person, not a statement in Smith's voice. It is corrected here (claim 10, marked in place), in claims.md claim 3 and in primer.md row 10. The arbiter's Explanation 3 in section A is corrected in place; qe.md section 3A keeps its original wording, and this correction stands beside it.
3. The 12 V, 7 Ah gel cell is named in the suitcase schematic: [read], not [memory, medium] (arbiter recomputed-numbers table, marked in place; primer step 6).
4. "Bird on the wire" is Utkin's attribution, with no source (arbiter Retention, marked in place; primer).
5. sites.md and research/2026-10-08-archive-org.md record the ES PDF with only p.7 read. All 9 pp. are now read; the article contains no demonstration or measurement. These are the Investigator's files, for the orchestrator to note.