Viktor Schauberger - Controversy

Controversy

Schauberger and his works have become part of an internet-based conspiracy theory claiming that Schauberger invented free energy/perpetual motion devices and that this was "covered up" by the US government. Schauberger never claimed to have invented perpetual motion machines, but instead stated that he used the Earth's natural power.

Due to issues with translation from German to English, a number of papers and publications are in broken English. In Implosion magazine, a magazine released by Schauberger's family, he said that aeronautical and marine engineers had incorrectly designed the propeller. He stated:

“As best demonstrated by Nature in the case of the aerofoil maple-seed, today’s propeller is a pressure-screw and therefore a braking screw, whose purpose is to allow the heavy maple-seed to fall parachute-like slowly towards the ground and to be carried away sideways by the wind in the process. No bird has such a whirling thing on its head, nor a fish on its tail. Only man made use of this natural brake-screw for forward propulsion. As the propeller rotates, so does the resistance rise by the square of the rotational velocity. This is also a sign that this supposed propulsive device is unnaturally constructed and therefore out of place.”

Whilst the notion of a propeller being natural or unnatural is subjective, the maximum efficiency of the propeller can be considered. As a comparison, the fastest propeller-driven aircraft ever to fly, the Tupolev Tu-114 had a top-speed of 871 km/h (242 m/s), but a jet engine using suction and internal compressive forces can break the sound barrier (in main because a jet engine is a reaction engine, relying on Newton's third law, not on pressure differences).

Not everything that undergoes air or water resistance experiences an increase in drag with the square of velocity. Some insect wings rely on turbulence created by a previous wing beat to increase the efficiency of the stroke, and hence decrease the acting drag which uses less energy.

He has also been quoted as making the claim:

"Water is a living substance!"

and some of his language using scientific terms has been translated in incorrect ways. In another edition of Implosion Magazine, he says:

"In contrast, all 'technical' machines, i.e. all dynamos, turbines, pressure pumps, propellers, explosion and steam driven engines, all furnaces, gas and electric heating appliances, all soil-tilling and harvesting machinery, etc. provide a developmentally harmful ex-pulse to initiate motion. Because of this and without exception, the atom lattice thus moved ruptures, resulting in the disintegration of the molecular (bacteriophagous) formations in suspension. In unnaturally moved air or water decadent stresses appear, causing the decay of the decisive energy-concentrates. This leads to the build-up of decadent potential and the decomposition of the blood of the Earth, and thus to a total economic collapse along the whole course of development."

The claim that a bacteriophage can exist in an atomic lattice is inaccurate, notably because a bacteriophage is approximately 1 thousand times larger than the gaps in a crystal structure. However it is evident that he had used the term atom generically to refer to particles, commonplace for his era, which contextually for his comment about bacteriophage in soil holds to be true as soil particles indeed host between them bacteria the disturbance of which breaks their bonds to surrounding material and organisms, thereby depleting soil's vitality.