Welcome
FRINGE BENEFITS
STEWART BRAND, FOUNDER OF THE seminal Whole Earth Review, once famously said, “You’ve got to explore the edges to see where the middle is going.” It’s good advice because interesting changes often occur where cultures, ideas, and disciplines merge and mutate.
The special section in this volume of MAKE explores ideas on the edge. For example, Bob Parks’ article on the Global Consciousness Project in Princeton, N.J., looks at the heretical notion that random number generators might be able to predict catastrophic events hours before they happen. We also show you how to take Kirlian photographs, which reveal the “auras” surrounding objects and living things. The principle behind Kirlian photography is well understood, and there’s nothing supernatural about it, but the history of the process is interestingly laced with pseudoscientific speculation, and the resulting photographs are beautiful.
In this issue we also explore ideas that go way beyond the edge of traditionally accepted notions into the domain of the inexplicable, the unreasonable, and the impossible. Why should we be interested in this outer fringe? Is there anything of value being made there? More often than not, the answer is no. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth making the occasional foray into the murky areas where it is difficult to distinguish between quackery and the genuine-but-inexplicable.
The most obvious reason for exploring the outer fringe is to discover the limits of the natural world. Take perpetual motion, for instance. To this day, a curious subculture of cockeyed optimists are tinkering away in self-funded laboratories, trying to make perpetual motion machines that defy the cardinal rules of physics (which say you can’t get something for nothing). Occasionally, some of these inventors even get funding and public attention for their outlandish contraptions. The most recent free-energy company to shine under a surprisingly uncritical media spotlight is the Dublin-based Steorn, which claims to have developed a technology that uses magnetism to produce more energy than it consumes. If Steorn’s claims prove true, it would mean the end of the energy crisis, and the potential to raise the standard of living of every person on the planet to the kind enjoyed by Halliburton’s board of directors.
Anyone who thinks Steorn might be onto something would do well to read Donald Simanek’s article on the history of perpetual motion machines in this volume (page 70). Simanek explains why making a perpetual motion machine is a worthwhile experience — not because it will work, but because you will gain firsthand knowledge learning why it does not work.
Rest assured, this issue contains plenty of projects that do work, like the amazing Hilsch vortex tube, which uses compressed air to push hot air out one side of the tube and cold air out the other side, and a pinhole camera that doesn’t require your own darkroom to develop the photos. (We leave it up to you to come up with a way to take Kirlian photos with a pinhole camera.) Our nifty, easy-to-make Curie heat engine looks like something that could be found merrily swinging back and forth in the corner of a perpetual motionist’s laboratory, but its operation depends on the energy of a candle to heat up a nickel-iron alloy wire so that it temporarily loses its attraction to a magnet. You might be able to use it as a metronome when you play your cigar box guitar (from MAKE, Volume 04) through the cracker box amplifier we’ll show you how to make in this issue (page 104).
Finally, I’d like to remind you to mark your calendars for this year’s Maker Faire, which will be held at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds in Northern California on the weekend of May 19–20, 2007. Last year over 20,000 people came to participate in demonstrations, projects, entertainment, and learning. If you’re a maker and have something you’d like to show at the faire, visit makerfaire.com for information. I hope I see you there!
Mark Frauenfelder ([email protected]) is editor-in-chief of MAKE.
