Make: Technology on Your Time Volume 09

FRINGE

Patently Curious

One sunny morning in the environs of Washington, D.C., I’m standing in an overgrown suburban backyard, slapping mosquitoes while trying to get a photograph of a “free energy” model railroad car on a small folding table. Tom Valone lines up the car, lets it go, and an array of cunningly oriented magnets draws it forward. The little car accelerates, runs off the end of its track, and tumbles into the grass.

This is more impressive than I had expected. But what would happen if the track were circular? Would the magnets on either side of the track push the little car around and around indefinitely?

Valone isn’t sure about that. “You should look at a different patent from the same inventor,” he says. “It uses magnets in the ...