The Dublin Inquirer’s site posted this article on Steorn today, featuring some interesting bits of conversation with Steorn CEO Shaun McCarthy.

Shaun has been tight lipped lately about the theoretical underpinnings of Orbo. In the article, he admits that as a company of engineers, Steorn has learned how to utilize the anomaly they’ve discovered, but do not have a good scientific understanding of it. He does volunteer his best guess, however:

I think what might be happening is that we are splitting time. I know that sounds absolutely nuts but I think that we are using the differences in the magnetic fields to manipulate time and that is leading to the creation of energy.

It’s premature to base any conclusions on a one sentence synopsis, but he’s right about one thing: a theory of an effect that can “manipulate time” is pretty far out there, to say the least. While this is wildly speculative, it’s worth noting that Noether’s theorem, which underlies the law of conservation of energy, requires that any system that is symmetrical in time (ie., works the same in the past, present, or future), exhibits conservation of energy. It follows a sort of logic, then, that creating energy from nothing (and so violating conservation of energy) might require some kind of manipulation of time. (Perhaps Steorn’s next product will be the OTardis?)

Also, Boing Boing published an article today reviewing Steorn’s adventures over the years and discussing the release of the OCube, written by yours truly.

Finally, I have no progress to report regarding the OCube order I attempted to place last week. The last I heard from Steorn was last Thursday (Dec. 3), when they told me they would send more information the next day.

Has anyone out there had any better success placing an order with Steorn? Has anyone actually received an OCube yet? If so I’m eager to hear about your experience. You can e-mail me at contactdispatchesfromthefuture.com