The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep but reference more thoroughly. ~ Riana ⁂ 14:23, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

John Kanzius[edit]

keep was tested by polymer engineers in akron ohio you can link to tv23.com to see the video of the test

John Kanzius (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

This person has proposed a fringe theory not accepted by the scientific community, and the article makes no other claim to notability. I might change my mind if someone can find a source for this theory in a credible scientific journal Shalom ^Hello 16:43, 5 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep even if the theory is fringe, just the fact that is being hawked in numerous media stories, is notable. It passes the google test with more than 18,000 pages indexed. It think that it is an interesting subject, on the basis of the novelty alone. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:46, 5 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak keep but include references to those numerous media stories.DGG 19:11, 5 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak keep. More external references would be good, but this man appears to be on the cusp of notability: whether his theory is scientifically accurate or not, it has received a moderate amount of media coverage, which is enough to make it notable. The article would benefit from a closer examination of Kanzius' claims, however. Terraxos 20:39, 5 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. This could develop into a big story. Wikipedia needs to un-clench and let things grow, it will be here in 2 years if you want to delete it then.
• Keep. I saw the vid on youtube and came to Wikipedia to find out about the physical processes involved, if any. If the energy comes from the microwave radiation, that's interesting too. If the whole thing turns out to be a hoax, then that's OK too. Either way the info needs to remain on wikipedia.--Ceriel Nosforit 17:28, 7 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete non-notable. Dan Gluck 13:36, 8 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment on google test: "Dan Gluck" gets, to my surprise, over one million hits! and my Wikipedia user page is almost top of the list. But that doesn't mean that I'm notable. If you want to keep this one, please make an article on myself too! Dan Gluck 13:36, 8 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I get 959 matches for "Dan Gluck" and 20,600 matches for "John Kanzius". ॐ Metta Bubble ^puff 10:49, 9 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak KeepMerge. per Jossi. Would like more references. ॐ Metta Bubble ^puff 10:49, 9 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Iain. Since he's claiming overunity I'm happy with a move of the article to overunity. I still think it's still notable and the patent should be included in the list of patents on the perpetual motion article and also on the History_of_perpetual_motion_machines. ॐ Metta Bubble ^puff 03:26, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak Keep A quick Google indicates that he is getting coverage in the national media, at least for his cancer treatment eg [1]. Obviously he'll never get his burning water into a credible journal, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's not notable. It would be nice to find a debunking to incorporate into the article. Iain99 00:47, 11 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Absolutely Keep. If the science is a farce or turns out to be useless, so be it. The fact that he stumbled upon it and the amount of potential energy that could be taken from this is exciting and I want to see how it progresses, if at all. Atrank 7/11/07

It has no potential as any freshman science student should be able to tell you. He is essentially just another inventor hawking a perpetual motion device. If I claimed that I was going to produce limitless energy by banging rocks together it would be great if it worked, but it wouldn't have potential, nor would it make me worth an encyclopaedia article. Iain99 14:09, 11 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

He isn't hawking a perpetual motion device at all. If you could convince me of that I'd change my vote. You see, here's a quote from a news story, "[skeptics] argue that at best the energy required to burn it would be greater than the energy produced by burning it. Kanzius admits that is the case now in this very early stage of development." ॐ Metta Bubble ^puff 23:15, 11 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"...in this very early stage in development" is a big clue - he thinks (or wants us to think) that it's going to change. It has to change for his invention to be of any value - otherwise he's just got an unusual way of electrolysing water, and certainly not an energy source which could power a car as he's claiming. [2] According to some sources he's now claiming that it already has changed - "Since it appears we now have now achieved [an energy yield of] more than unity, I am going to do an embargo on releasing all further information" [3] (sorry for using a blog as a source, but given his iffy notability there aren't many better ones out there - and if he's going quiet there are unlikely to be more any time soon). Iain99 23:50, 11 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete on reflection and on further reading and searching. His sporadic local news coverage and even more sporadic national news coverage puts him on the fringes of notability at best (WP:NOTNEWS), and the lack of non-credulous, reliable sources makes balanced coverage of his more outlandish ideas impossible. Iain99 14:09, 11 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak keep. The key for me is that his discovery has "lasting...interest" to use the language of the WP:NOTNEWS essay. People are going to hear about, ask about, and try to reproduce this phenomenon when they hear about it, even if they first hear about it years from now. BeeArkKey 03:51, 12 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• keep move

Two things.

One the "cancer cure" is old stuff. Most of the ideas for this were abandoned back in the ninties. http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/news/media/rel05/holt.htm

The free energy looks like an old hat perpetual motion device. Heat from his microwave oven seperates hydrogen and oxygen, then the hydrogen burns. Would probably be cheaper to use gasoline to burn the water apart than microwaves. Either way, it is hardly better than any other perpetual motion machine.

It is worth noting that like most hawkers of perpetual motion machines, he has a history of taking "donations to perfect his machine" from such things as firedepartments and other groups.

I think this page should be combined with the perpetual motion machines page. --John S Burns 19:40, 12 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Two observations. This is an excellent article for young physics students learning to use judgment and follow thermodynamics of processes. No perpetual motion. No laws of thermo are in jeopardy and the article as it stands on Wiki does not claim any outlandish violations. Second, this might be a slick way to make hydrogen from electricity if efficiency is high enough and if hydrogen is actually produced. Delivering hydrogen as a commodity makes much less sense than pushing electrons down a wire but with the unholy grail that the high efficiencies of internal combustion might be preserved. What is ruefully missing in this whole mess is enough information to reproduce the effect.

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.