THE Indus magnet as an alternative energy source, invented by Aziz Rehman Shaikh of Suparco, if it works may be the answer to severe energy shortages (electricity, gas and petroleum) faced by Pakistan today.  Reviewing the history of similar inventions (Nikola Tesla in 1900, Howard Johnson in 1977, Sanjay Amin in 1999, Thomas Bearden and his associates in 2000), none of them has ever worked, and all of them are inconsistent with the first law of thermodynamics.

Despite this incongruity, several of these inventions were awarded patents. It is interesting that in 1974 an American inventor made a low-cost permanent magnet motor which on demonstration ran for over a month without any power supply.

This was refused a patent, so the inventor published, in the ‘Popular Mechanics’ monthly magazine, details of how to make it in the public domain.

However, all references to this — the only permanent magnet motor that was cheap, easy to build and really worked — have been expunged from the literature by the oil, gas, and electric companies as it would decimate their profits.

It may be that this electro-mechanical device works by tapping into vacuum energy present in superstrings in the other 7.3 dimensions (other than the known four mass-energy space time dimensions).

This was predicted by the late great scientist and philosopher, Arthur C. Clarke of Sri Lanka, who also predicted the use of satellites for communication decades before it became commonplace.

I would advise Mr Shaikh to seek funding for making and selling such units in place of UPS units and generators from someone incorruptible. I say this because of accounts that I have heard from middle-level persons in oil and gas exploration in the past 50 years.

This includes European companies capping (closing) nine out of 12 oil-producing wells discovered in Pakistan and paying off politicians to keep the prices up of the oil from the gulf countries, and paying off successive governments by the Iranians not to drill for offshore oil in the Balochistan region adjacent to Iran.

DR FAROOQ ALI United States