January 6 - 9, 2015 | Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, NV
AuroraTek Tried To Pitch Us A Gadget That Breaks The Laws Of Physics At CES
Posted by Kyle Russell (@kylebrussell)
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As we covered the startup-heavy Eureka Park at The Sands for our coverage of CES, one booth stood out to my colleague Darrell Etherington and myself. On top of a table rested a few electric scooters, and behind them was a sign that read “The MOST Advanced Technology on Planet Earth!”
We both kind of figured that it was a gag to get attention for really nice electric scooters, so I went over to have a chat with the guy running the booth: William Alek, President and CEO of AuroraTek. I was live on-camera, so you get to see exactly how our interaction went down in the video above.
While AuroraTek is indeed working on electric scooters, Alek told me that the real star of the booth was a very special electrical transformer that could output more power than you put in it.
“Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding,” went my bullshit-o-meter. That goes against the first law of thermodynamics, a fundamental rule in physics that’s taught to students in elementary school: basically, energy cannot be created or destroyed.
I tried to give Alek the benefit of the doubt since we were on live video and let him explain himself. He gave me some pseudoscience claptrap about quantum tunneling and couldn’t put the effect he described in layman’s terms when I asked him to. AuroraTek’s homepagehas an even better quote: “We call this NEGATIVE-to-POSITIVE Energy transformation FREE Energy or Overunity Technology because it has the appearance of Nothing Is Something.”
A sign at AuroraTek’s booth.
If I think a startup’s idea is dumb, I generally skip it and move on rather than lie or hate on something that a whole lot of people with different needs might find really useful. But selling the technological equivalent of snake oil? That, I cannot abide.
Part of me hopes that Alek is just a very dedicated troll.
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