Asri-unix.531 net.space utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!menlo70!sri-unix!POURNE@MIT-MC Sat Jan 16 01:12:48 1982 Analog 'hoaxes' From: Jerry E. Pournelle (1) John W. Campbell personally saw the Dean Machine and stated many times that he saw a (small) reduction in the apparent weighht as measured by a bathroom scale when the machine was turned on. The machine jumped around a lot, however. (2) G. Harry Stine actually touched it and states that when turned on, it had a much stronger resistance to horizontal motion (it was at that time turnd on its side with a push-rod along the axis of 'thrust') when turned on than when turned off. he took no measurements because he was not permittd to. (3) Several aserospace firms including Boeing and MMM attempted to purchase the dean Machine after the famous picture in LIFE of Dave garroway thrusting a peice of paper under the machine. Dean wanted about $1 million and a Nobel prize IN ADVANCE. i know for a fact that one aerospace firm sent an irrevocable letter of credit worth $500,000 if signed by all of a three-person team (two engineers and one lawyer); their instructions wer to buy the damn thing if there wwere ANY lift or thrust whatever, on the groudns that a major company would get it working (and i you build airplanes you can build spaceships if you have a drive./..) They were unable to examine the machine sufficiently to be able to form an infomred conclusion. (4) No one knows whata happened to the original Dean Machine. The one described in the patent is NOT the machine that we saw operate. ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.