Free Energy

Discussion in 'Pseudoscience Archive' started by Read-Only, May 14, 2007.

  1. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    This is a topic that surfaces fairly regularly on just about every Internet forum and probably at least once a year in casual conversations among everyone's friends, family and co-workers. I'm more than certain that this attempt to try and clear the air a bit will have little effect on the problem but perhaps it will help some of the more reasonable people who are wondering about it. So let's make an effort to discuss it.

    First of all, the term "free energy" means different things to different people. To some, things like hydroelectric dams, solar panels, wind farms, etc. produce free energy. In one sense that's correct because one doesn't have to keep feeding them fuel as is done with generating plants that burn fossil fuels. And once they're built, the only thing that keeps the energy produced from being completely free is the repairs necessary because of ordinary wear and tear.

    But in the context that the term is normally used, it's taken to mean a device that produces energy from nothing - no wind, water, sun - and involves what's called a "over-unity" device. Simply put, that means a machine or electrical circuitry that does require an input of energy but that produces more than it consumes.

    One class of these over-unity devices/processes employs magnets in their design. And that's understandable because mankind has always had a certain fascination with magnets. They exert an invisible force and seems somewhat mysterious. And because of that and the inherent gullibility of a large segment of the world's population, there's been a whole plethora of magnetic devices sold to do everything from increasing the fuel economy of your vehicle (just attach this $100 miracle magnet to your fuel line) to relieving headaches and joint pain by affixing 'therapeutic' magnets to various parts of your body. These things show up on the market, fade out as people become disgusted from getting no results, and then show up again ten or twenty later to restart the whole cycle over again with a new crop of customers.

    Another class involves somewhat complex electrical circuitry that involves transformers, coils, capacitors and other components. Again, it's very similar to the magnet phenomenon. There's a large group of people to whom electricity is somewhat mysterious too. They know it exists and is useful but they really don't even understand the basics of it. So when these 'inventors' present their devices with all sorts of meters attached and pictures of waveforms taken from various points in the circuit, these people are impressed with the 'scientific-ness' of it all. It's SO complicated that it MUST work.

    Yet another is more like a perpetual-motion machine and will contain components from either or both of the two just described. Very often, they employ magnets. Sometimes on sliding axises or tilting, levered arms. And many include a wheel in which the inventor imagines that somehow one side can be kept heavier than the other so that the device will continue to rotate forever.

    I intend this post to simply be an introduction before going into such things as frictional losses and thermodynamics. Those will surface in due time if anyone is interested enough to participate in this discussion. Hopefully, we'll hear from both camps - the believers and the debunkers alike.
     
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  3. mikenostic Stop pretending you're smart! Registered Senior Member

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    Free energy is never free. Even if there was a perpetual motion machine, there would still have to be mechanical/electronic devices attached to it in order to produce energy (electricity/heat, etc.). And unless those machines were zero maintenance forever, those machines would have to be maintained by humans. Those humans would not maintain the machines for free, so we wouldn't get energy for free. So even if you factor out those greedy SOB executives, energy would still not be free. Even 'free' solar energy has to be harnessed somehow (solar panels/collectors, etc.) and they aren't free.
    Energy is like pussy; you will NEVER get it for free.
     
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  5. kwhilborn Banned Banned

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    O.K. I've been asking. So here is my input however factual or lack of.

    First of all I'd like to comment that the internet has only been popular since windows 95, and was not really present in peoples homes until windows 98. That is less than ten years.

    In years past we have had closet scientists working with the resources found in collections of books. Scientific breakthroughs have probably come and gone with the demise of their originators because of the lack of documentation or inherited documentation dismissed as rubish.

    These closet scientists in some cases may have approached authorities only to be guffawed away, similar to the way we behave on sciforum. A misplaced fact however may not discredit their entire theory.

    Now; finding authorities and convincing them to come to you has become redundant. Consulting a few patent lawyers could protect the idea, and then you are free to post this idea on utube, or a number of equal mediums so that the experts can find you.

    This is an entire new era of science. Not only are worldwide facts available instantly, we now have the medium to demonstrate the breakthrough in terms experts or the public can understand.

    Free energy is not desireable for companies that deliver energy for profit. It is also not in their interest to contribute to it's developement. Without sounding like a conspiracy theorist too much, I cannot help but wonder if Free energy has had possibilities that were swept under the carpet.

    We know for sure that J.P. Morgan withdrew funding from Nikola Tesla when he discovered that Nikola tesla had mislead him, and was using his funding to investigate "Free Energy" further.

    It was Nikola Tesla who first suggested Free energy is possible. He had two rather different views on this.

    a) One was to charge the ionosphere or earth with energy we could tap without wires (details in other posts by me) He called it "wireless transmission" however the price would be free so many confuse this as what he meant by "Free Energy", plus it is a over-unity concept. This idea seems both creepy, and very dangerous to me. Tesla partially abandoned this idea because he was worried about interfering with the 8 hertz frequency common in biological organisms.

    b) He later fully abandoned this concept in favour of his newer concept that there is something in the aether that we could tap into directly, without charging up our ionosphere or earth.

    The story goes that he replaced the engine of a pierce-arrow car with a 80hp electric motor, and used a device consiting of 12 tubes and several rods to power it for two weeks at a speeds up to 90mph.
    (more here)
    http://www.reformation.org/nikola-tesla.html (about tesla care)
    http://www.beotel.yu/~gmarjanovic/gwmm.html
    http://www.totse.com/en/fringe/tesla/theorybe.html

    IF there is free energy of a "over-unity" type. There are probably not an infinite number of them, so pursuit of this dream is often referred to as "teslas secret", etc.

    I have seen three distinct types of "over-unity" devices speculated about and/or demonstrated.

    1) Zero point energy - harnessed using the casimir effect. It has been speculation that zero point energy could be harnessed. I have not looked into this theory, but I will.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb62yykZ2Bw
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LhvpC2lsCs
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcwUDtzVJ4g

    2) Creating hydrogen with advanced water splitting techniques -including electricity/magnetism/pulses

    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-813727532577660991&q="meyer" free energy&hl=en
    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3953634519146582505&q="meyer" free energy&hl=en
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHkl0SqE0xs
    (ps - the water guy guy is rumoured to have been killed. anybody know if this is true?)

    3) Picking up energy straight from the aether - This is what the Tesla car thing seems to be about. Could he pull magnetic current or something directly from the air, and use a resonant rise type system to make it increase in power enough to power a car or house.?

    So there are the three possibilities. I'd like to comment more, but I am limited for time over the next few days.
     
    Last edited: May 15, 2007
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  7. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    Noob.
     
  8. Mosheh Thezion Registered Senior Member

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    at different hieghts in the atmosphere... there are different levels of positive charge...

    i.e... about 50 volts per foot of elevation...

    meaning using capacitors... we can charge them up, using nothing more than two plates seperated by a few meters....

    Tesla did so..


    the best source of free energy... is from the solarwind... which delivers billions of amps, all day... at like 50 to 100 million positive volts.


    now thats alot of free energy...

    unfortunately to use it.. we would have to risk, depleteing the earths negative charge.... which could do all kinds of damage we are not yet able to precieve.

    -MT
     
  9. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    Actually the mainstream commercialising of the internet was circa 1996. The internet at that time however wasn't so website/domain orientated, if you wanted to gain information you either had to know how to use Telnet or FTP to access many repositories or utilise certain ISP's software that contained enclosed communities (Aol and what was Compuserve).

    In fact I know people could access public data via Telnet in mid-1980's, however it required actually phoning up a persons server and making a connection. BBS (Bulletin Boards) were also run and were the run-up to USENET.

    The difference between a scientist and one of your mentioned "Closet scientists" is the latter is a hobbiest and isn't a scientist by profession, which is why to the most part they will not be listened to by scientists because true scientists will have gone through training whereas the hobbiest does not.

    It would be like a person making a diagnosis whos not a doctor and trying to contradict a doctor who has received training, or a person that doesn't know how to drive a car telling someone that learnt to drive a car how to drive.

    There is basically only two things the hobbiest can do, 1: Become a real scientists (Signup for courses and gain degrees) or 2: Class themselves as an alternative and always and forever be classed a woo-woo.

    Technically they should aspire to be real scientists, and should realise that part of the training is learn about the ethics and morality of science, which in turn should teach about the particular methods and conducted used in experimentation (i.e. The Nuremberg Code, How science councils have guidelines)
     
  10. kwhilborn Banned Banned

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    Yes. I agree that the internet has been around much longer. I was saying it never became popular in peoples homes until windows 98. I have had many earlier computers but like the majority I never got Internet until around 98.
    There are still many people who do not use it. I was trying to say it was not popular in homes until about ten years ago.

    "John Hutchison" has been in several programs, and is a good example of a "closet scientist". I am hoping that the majority of sci-forum are "closet scientists" in some areas, the world would be a scary place if some of the ideas I've heard here were accepted as fact.

    If the "Closet scientist" had an interesting idea, and built something like the first airplane, it is not going to go unnoticed, and it would not matter how many times your teacher said you could not do it. There have been scientists a.k.a. "natural philosophers" for many years before science was a profession.

    I'm responding to a Free Energy thread question. This is not enough to get me hired researching it. Where was that free energy research place again?

    Yes, I also agree that all scientists should back up their work with the math, and should therefore learn guidelines as you suggest.

    I am not comfortable with the notion that all future science come from a set breed. Much of todays research is financially motivated by coming up with better products, if these researchers want to build a time machine in their spare time because they are tired of looking at tire rubber all day then power to them.

    My point is that in my opinion more science is going to come out of utube in the next ten years than we have seen in a lifetime.

    Once these things are "outted" on utube, hundreds of websites pop up about them. You will see the methods, experiments, math.

    I don't just accept these things for real. I am pretty skeptical in the sense that it would be a good idea for someone to "fake" having free energy or a over-unity device. According to conspiracy theorists they might get offered a few million to go to hawaii and forget physics. Sounds like good motivation, what ever happenned to "stan meyers" though?

    Also many great educational websites and videos that can teach people almost anything at whatever level you are at help these "closet scientists" when they are stuck.

    Type in "free Energy" on utube and have fun. A trained scientific eye would be good to research on utube.
     
  11. ashpwner Registered Senior Member

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    1,665
    yay free enrgy!
     
  12. guthrie paradox generator Registered Senior Member

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    I'm with Stryder on this. I foresee no science at all coming out of utube. Some people might get educated by science videos put on utube, but there is very little chance anyone will make any kind of scientific breakthrough and then find that the best way to get it across to anyone is by utube.
     
  13. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    Sorry, Kwhilborn, but there are quite a few unsubstantiated 'facts' in the things you've mentioned. Please understand that I don't mean that as anything personal in the least! There's quite a few people out there that think in a vein similar to what you've presented.

    First off, there's no such thing as "magnetic current." Magnetic fields are static, not dynamic (unless you are talking about electromagnetic fields which are different animals altogether). There's no energy stored in a static (ordinary) magnetic field, thus no energy can be extracted from it. It's produced by an alignment of tiny magnetic domains and anything that disturbs their alignment will degrade the field they produce. "Inventors' and others who talk about 'magnetic current' are speaking non-scientific doubletalk and actually exposing the fact that they know very little about real science. Just like that guy down in Florida who simply made up his own explanation of magnetism and electricity to suit his own uneducated mind. He has been compared to a child explaining - from it's own limited abilities - why things happen as they do.

    Also, I need to point out that zero-point energy is, in fact, a real and accepted thing. A number of physicists have acknowledged it's existence and also pointed out the serious problem in trying to use it as an energy source - it's far too weak to be of any value. One well-known Asian physicist (who's name escapes me at the moment) compared using zero-point energy to trying to heat your house in the winter by striking matches. (I've used his expression in other places because I think it works well at putting things into perspective.)

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    Now let's talk just bit about Tesla. Yes, the man was a prolific inventor and had several good ideas - other, not so good. Simply because he did develop a lot of practical things didn't keep him from becoming a bonified crackpot in later life. And it's not all that uncommon among brilliant people. Do you happen to remember Dr. Linus Pauling? He won a Nobel Prize in chemistry and published many, many college-level chemistry textbooks. But today he is best remembered for something he did in the 1980s (a later stage in his life) - stating that beyond a doubt his research proved that taking large doses of vitamin C was an effective means of preventing the common cold. There were many clinical trials run independent of his work and none of them showed it to be effective.

    The "closet scientists" you mentioned are, for the most part people who haven't learned enough to know their ideas can't work. They are simply deluding themselves. Due to their lack of knowledge, some of them like to point to the time Edison was trying to develop a better filament for his light bulb. He has been using carbonized strips of bamboo and cotton thread but, of course, they had a short life. One of the fellows working for him finally tried tungsten and it worked. He wasn't a metallurgist and later said that if he had known then what he knows now about tungsten (lack of malleability, brittle, difficult to draw into wire, etc.) that he would never have tried it. That gives the "closet scientist" hope because it shows that we don't know everything. However, most of their attempts (actually closer to 99.99%) are in direct violation of well-known and understood scientific principles. Like trying to extract energy from a magnet or developing an over-unity device.

    And that field is full of hucksters, too. Many try to attract 'capital' to invest in their invention when the real motive is just to rip off investors.

    And a brief word about what's to be found on utube. Most of that would qualify as outright fake - more like cartoons than documentaries. A few of the film producers might actually think they're on to something but the VAST majority are just pulling a hoax for the fun of it.

    Now let's talk for just a moment about invention suppression and all the conspiracy theories. If someone actually came up with a device which could put out more electricity than it took to power it, guess what? The power companies would JUMP at it!!!! They'd buy it, patent the thing and build them by the thousands! It would save them millions every single month that they're currently paying for coal, gas, oil, etc. to fuel their plants. And why people cannot understand that, I'll never know.The best I can figure is that most people actually enjoy juicy conspiracy theories and lot of them distrust big business anyway.

    Enough for now.

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    I'll pick this up again later after you've had a chance to digest this installment and reply.
     
  14. kwhilborn Banned Banned

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    Installment. lol

    Yes, that was quite an essay.

    So is all that stuff about "ion wind" on utube bogus as well?
    There are many experiments on utube that are not related to free energy, free energy just happenned to be the subject of late.

    Pick a subject.

    I'm not as enthusiastic about the gas companies jumping at over-unity possibilities. If they want to patent it first then they should throw some R&D at it. I am sure as technology improves there will be over-unity options, and the odds of the gas companies patenting it first are I'd wager is slim.

    I'd like to learn more about these ideas before I write them off. I want to understand every angle. If nothing else, for my own educational purposes. The Internet is not just about utube, there is also MIT physics classes available to be audited on line.
     
  15. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    Yep, we have to take this subject in installments since there's so much information and disinformation to cover. Tons of it.

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    Yes, the ionic breeze/wind effect is real, just not as effective as The Sharper Image and others would have you believe. Anytime air molecules are given an electric charge they will migrate to a plate/region of opposite polarity. And speaking of ionic breeze, that's the principle (that and electric charge repulsion) behind J. Naudin's "anti-gravity lifter." By his broad definition, airplanes, helicopters and even leaves being blown by the wind would qualify as 'anti-gravity.'

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    And by all means keep searching and researching. Just remember to treat most everything you see and read with a hefty dose of skepticism. The old saying, "If it sounds to good to be true..." should be your constant companion and friend.

    As to over-unity devices, it would be helpful to you do also a do a bit of studying in thermodynamics, particularly the Second Law. Anyone who accepts claims that you can get more energy out of a device than you put into it is headed for a big disappointment. Energy cannot be created form nothing so where is such a device getting this extra energy, eh?

    And speaking of J. (Jean) Naudlin, he's pretty much at the top of a rouge's gallery of con men. Chased out of France by angry investors who lost millions, he finally fled Europe altogether and set up operations in the U.S. (New Jersey) where people hadn't heard of him. But he soon met a bitter end there as well when investors complained and the state Attorney General prosecuted him for fraud. He was convicted, paid the fine and ran away again. This time, he resurfaced in Huntsville, Al to give himself an association with a space-age address. Huntsville is the home of Redstone Arsenal and has been the workspace for several famous rocket scientists including Werner Von Braun. Naudin hoped some of that fame would rub off and help him. To the best of my knowledge he's still there today. But he did learn SOMETHING from his past experience. Instead of trying to attract large sums of investment money, he's had to settle for paltry sums he can make from selling a few novelty plans - and thereby avoid going to jail.

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    You can check up on his latest stuff here: http://jnaudin.free.fr/

    While you're researching your stuff you should also check up on Naudin and his crowd. Others are Joseph Newman (sometimes misspelled "Neuman), Evan Soule', Tom Bearden and a few more. Searching on those names or on the topic "Free Energy" will lead you to others.
     
  16. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    Stillborn is a noob and knows very little it seems. Internet development is not marked in milestones of Windows releases, and some of us have been using it for a very long time, on mainframes and midrange servers, running Operating systems such as VMS and Unix, not Windows. I used JANET which had Internet connectivity long before it was popularised. I logged into mainframes over the Internet in the 80's, using a PAD! (tricky syntax to learn to connect to different gateways!)

    I think Stillborn is conflating the WWW with the Internet. The WWW is an application of the Internet, but some of us used other internet tools long before Mosaic. As you pointed out, telnet and ftp, but there was also UUCP, WAIS, and Gopher. Mosaic was just a natural development of previous tools.
     
  17. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    I agree but he's not TOO far off when it comes to the average home user. I was there too, before Mosaic (using VMS and Unix). One of the first 'public' access methods was through Delphi though even then it was still "Greek" to most people that had a computer. Mom, Dad, Jr. and sis just weren't computer literate enough to move through directories and subdirectories. Besides, before the WWW there was very little content that was of interest to the general public. A fair amount of my time was spent visiting CERN - hardly something the general public was interested in.

    Yes, dial-up BBSs were first before the Internet became widely popular (two of my sons ran boards from home with multiple phone lines) and many of them moved to the 'net. But it wasn't until HTML and Netscape came along (about 1994?) that Jack & Jill could do much navigating on the Web.
     
  18. kwhilborn Banned Banned

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    Yeah. What he said.

    phlog. If you actually READ what I said.


    You will find that I said it did not become popular in peoples HOMES until the 90's. Late 90's at that. Yes; it does show how brilliant you are that you were aware of its existence before then. None of my friends ever had a mainframe in their home. I have had a computer in my home for over 30 years since 1975. The good old 16k TRS-80 was my first.

    10 print"Nobodys Noob ";
    20 peek 68487=x
    30 if x=1 then goto 50
    40 goto 10
    50 Print"stupid basic"

    This is the third such post trying to correct the popular view of when the internet became popular, it has nothing to do with the topic. It would be different if I said, "The internet started in the 90's", but I qualified my statement by saying it did not become POPULAR in HOMES until then.

    I understand if english is your second language plogistian, however if you are going to start namecalling "Noob" WTF, at least make sure you read things correctly. I'll send you a Dr. Seuss.
     
  19. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    I think the "Noob" reference wasn't so much name calling, it was just in regards to where you drew the line at when the internet became accessible.

    By net jargon standards you would be defined a net "Noob" circa >=1996

    I wouldn't of course take it as being meant to be a harsh comment, I'm sure phlogistician meant it in a joking manner, not completely malicious like some suggest he's all about.

    Still this thread wasn't about when the internet started, but when it was believed that people have the freedom to gain "science(or pseudoscience) information" via an electronic means.

    In regards to your usage of John Hutchison as a reference to a "Closet Scientist", I don't think it's right to use him as an example since it would require more information from Hutchison himself.

    (For instance I think he has a Phd or equivalent that he acquired from a course, which means he has had training, although I could be wrong.
    I won't be able to contact him again until I'm back in England, however from things like Wiki it's currently undefined if what he is known for is in fact a hoax or a reality.

    I do admit I have my own theories that either support his argument or they themselves would be supported by his arguments being factual. However without the ability to test either his or my theories, they are currently just that... theory and therefore seen to those that like hard facts as being fantasy.)

    As for why scientists should be "Trained" and not just left to be "home grown". It's pretty much due to something called an Industry Standard, although you'll probably not hear it called that.

    If Scientists are trained to document things in a specific way and carry out a myriad of experiments with specific perimeters, it means that such experiments, theories and research can be retested, evaluated and a consensus reported to the scientific community as a whole.

    This is usually referred to as a "Peer Review" which unfortunately some people have misinterpreted as just "posting a writeup on their pet theory on the internet so that others (who are usually uninterested and not scientists) might read".

    Now this should give you a clue as to why scientists might give the time of day to fellow scholars (if only to disagree with them) over "closet homegrown hobbiest self-termed scientists" who have never covered the standardized industrial practices were holding a conversation uncovers a persons ignorance.

    When some scientists mock such ignorance, it's notible that the offended parties become way to personal and not so professional. Remember that professionalism is proportion to the Scientists training without it they could never work with one another.
     
  20. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    Spot on Stryder. Referencing Windows products and the mainstream acceptance of the Internet is exactly why I called him a by 'noob'. As you know, it's a corruption, stemming from 'newb' or 'new boy'.

    Anyway, Stillborn, got a graph to show the step change in Internet adoption coinciding with the release of Windows 98 yet? ;-) I think that will be hard to find, somehow!
     
  21. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    My issue is the way he phrased the claim, as if Windows 98 was responsible for a step change in people adopting the Internet. That's just not true, it was web browsers. People adopt computers because of the applications that run on them, not for the Operating System (unless they buy Macs, but then they probably also believe in Feng Shui, and are beyong hope).

    Take the IBM PC. Affordable small computing nobody actually wanted, until small businesses saw the utility of spreadsheet programs, and word processing. They didn't buy them to play with DOS or CP/M! (or Xenix, if you ever did, ah, bless Tandy!)
     
  22. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    Well, here's something: http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cach... statistics historic&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

    It would appear to show that the greatest increase in online users occurred between 1997 and 1998.
     
  23. phlogistician Banned Banned

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