There is a goal of $15000, but only 400 slots of $25 available, which means best case scenario, he will be $5000 short...

Nice. Maybe he's doing a research project on how people fund things that are ridiculous, but doesn't want the possibility of accidentally really taking money from anyone.

Or maybe he's SO BAD AT MATH that he didn't realize.

400 slots of $25 or more.

It's weird indeed but note that, as a backer, you are free not to select a reward, no matter how much you contribute.

You just need to apply heat to the top of the piggy bank while keeping the bottom cold. Its all in the theory.

I am not sure how serious Kickstarter is in regards of its review process. I submitted a project half a year ago - the website(http://klekr.com) was designed to help amateur photographers expand art taste by showing them photos taken by their favorite photographers as well as photos liked by their favorite photographers. A rep from Kickstarter rejected it claiming it's not a creativity project which Kickstarter is trying to focus on.

Now this antigrativity. Really? I mean really?

Well, it certainly shows creativity.

To be fair, he isn't selling the device. He's basically asking for funding for an experiment. Why should he be removed from Kickstarter? If someone wants to throw their money down that hole they should be free to.

I'mma start a breathmint birth control kickstarter.

They'll be made with honey and you won't have any babies if you donate $25 or more.

Homeopathic asthma rescue?!

D-:

Photograph that and spread the photo far and wide. I'm asthmatic and I'm horrified.

google for safecare asthmacare.

Note that they are smart enough to put in bold print "not a rescue inhaler" but then there's a page or two of weasel words about "might" and "may" cause virtually any miracle a sufferer could desire.

They claim the bottle is BPA free but diluting the BPA actually makes the effect stronger according to homeopathic theory so I am not sure about all that.

I just saw a homeopathic asthma rescue inhaler on the shelves of the local Walgreens the other day.

So, you might as well do it. Looks like you'd be able to get the big retailers to sell it for you.

Because it's a really, really obvious scam. That or just plain lunacy, but I feel a certain reluctance to assume good faith when he's asking people for actual money rather than even just putting up something coherent on arXiv, not even peer review.

Sorry, I must correct myself: he's got a piece up not on arXiv, but on viXra. http://vixra.org/abs/0907.0018 viXra also has a bloglike comments section below the abstract, where the author has been responding.

I like his answer to the first question of the FAQ:

What evidence do you have that this actually works even though it defies the laws of physics?

"You are going to have to spend some time figuring what I mean."

I honestly want to know, who is his target audience? Does all of that talking in circles he does in his description really sound like science to an absolute layperson? More importantly, does he believe what he is saying? We'll probably never get the answers.

Whats odd about it is most psuedo-science involves magnets and conspiracy theories and this has neither. I can see a new fresh startup trying one at a time, but trying to innovate by giving it a go without both, seems a bit over ambitious. He really needs to add magnets and the CIA if he wants other alternative scientists to take him seriously.

He does have luminiferous aether, which is a plus.

Also don't waste your time on reverse image searches, I didn't find anything interesting.

On the other hand he is playing games with heat and calorimetry is notorious both semi-professionally and in psuedoscience land as being some hard to interpret stuff. So that is semi-traditional.

If you google him you'll find his G+ which has photos one of which is a scan of some UFO book.

Thank you for this analysis. "no magnets... no conspiracy theories". Priceless.

Spotted by antfarmer12 on Reddit /r/skeptic: http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/1ch8zd/a_kickstarte...

Did a little bit of Googling about the person behind the Kickstarter and came across this: http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2010/06/08/gravity-shmavity...

Considering he couldn't (or wouldn't) even publish his results to arXiv makes me very sceptical about the merits behind his theory.

I feel like the statement:

"Neither Einstein's fundamental premise that mass can warp space nor Newton's fundamental premise that mass can attract other mass can comprehend this easily repeatable table top experiment."

is the crazy person way of saying:

"This experiment disproves classical mechanics and relativity."

I'd be more apt to believe the crazy assertion if it weren't worded crazily.

Kickstarter is probably hasn't finished reading his description. I could see that taking days.

I don't see how this is "anti-gravity" - making something that floats isn't necessarily anti-gravity. He wants to create a microversion of a weather system, so I don't see how this is going to work beyond being a few cms over the ground.

Is it me or is it just a metallic hot air balloon?

He has a FAQ entry about that:

> With my device I bring the "cold parcel of air outside the balloon" inside my device.... The pressure difference between the the two parcels provides the force that lifts my device. By being able to bring the cold parcel of air inside my device two advantages are obtained over the hot air balloon. First, my device is not restricted to only moving in the atmosphere as is the hot air balloon.... Second, I am able to control how cold the cold parcel of air can get. Thus a greater pressure difference can be obtained which will in turn provide a much greater upward force.

Sounds to me like he's essentially hooking up a fan to a sail boat like in a Looney Tunes cartoon.

I think he's trying to describe a pulse jet with an external heat / fuel source?

I don't think he understands Brownian Motion.

I concur. But it could be interesting to have hot-air balloon technology innovated.

I hope he publishes his results in the Journal of Irreproducible Results [1]

[1] http://www.jir.com/

Maybe I can start a project "A simple angle trisection" or something like that.

The problem has already been solved: http://goo.gl/NLdou

Not the compass and straightedge construction. It has been proven impossible: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angle_trisection

I know, I was being facetious. I just like the thought of the campaign finishing and runn1ng posting each of his sponsors a $0.99 protractor.

Hypothesis: The thermoelectric effect is screwing with his force sensor.

Reported to Kickstarter as "Miscategorized: Comics"