List of spurious inventions

Not to be confused with List of lost inventions or List of obsolete technology.

This is a list of spurious inventions - technologies which are generally considered to not possess their claimed capabilities, to be hoaxes, or to not have ever existed in the first place.

• Angel Light- according to its inventor, this device could make walls, hands, and stealth shielding transparent.
• Black box- popular name for a diagnostic machine made by Albert Abrams. It supposedly could diagnose diseases based on their special vibrations that can be sensed along someone's spine.^[1]
• Chronovisor- a time viewer claimed to have produced photographs and recordings of the ancient past.
• Cloudbuster- a device that could purportedly make rain through manipulating atmospheric orgone, a kind of energy considered to be pseudoscientific.^[2]
• Teleforce- a weapon, also known as Nikola Tesla's death ray or peace ray, that would accelerate pellets of material to a high velocity so as to cause significant damage from a long distance.^[3]
• Nikola Tesla electric car hoax- alleged advanced electric car.
• Fleischmann–Pons cold fusion experiment- attempt to cause nuclear fusion using electrolysis to achieve the high compression ratio and mobility of deuterium.^[4]
• Kryakutnoy- fictional inventor of hot air balloons.^[5]
• Newman energy machine- supposed free-energy machine invented by Joe W. Newman.^[6]
• Perpetual motion machines- hypothetical machines that do not need any added energy or force to continue motion. All attempts as of yet are considered spurious, and such a machine is considered impossible by modern thermodynamics.^[7]

See also

• List of hoaxes

References

1. Williams, William F., ed. (2000). Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. Book Builders Incorporated. p. 37. ISBN 0-8160-3351-X.
2. Williams, William F., ed. (2000). Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. Book Builders Incorporated. p. 55. ISBN 0-8160-3351-X.
3. Reece, Gregory L. (2009). Weird science and bizarre beliefs : mysterious creatures, lost worlds, and amazing inventions. I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd. pp. 200, 203. ISBN 978 1 84511 756 6.
4. Williams, William F., ed. (2000). Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. Book Builders Incorporated. pp. 56–57. ISBN 0-8160-3351-X.
5. Williams, William F., ed. (2000). Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. Book Builders Incorporated. p. 236. ISBN 0-8160-3351-X.
6. Williams, William F., ed. (2000). Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. Book Builders Incorporated. p. 236. ISBN 0-8160-3351-X.
7. Williams, William F., ed. (2000). Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. Book Builders Incorporated. pp. 248, 262. ISBN 0-8160-3351-X.