The invention of Joe W Newman who designed what he claimed was a free-energy machine a massive direct-current motor driven by a large set of batteries. The idea of a “free” source of energy is a chimera that has attracted many inventors for obvious reasons. Newman said that if his idea were implemented, “there would be no more pollution, no more Ethiopias (for example, mass starvations). Deserts will become oases. People will work only one hour a week and have all the material goods they need, and so on. There are echoes here of many similar claims. It was initially claimed that nuclear power would be so cheap that it would not be worth metering; cold fusion had similar attractions. However, neither New-mans nor any other invention has yet given us free energy nor are they likely to.