I'm a sucker for these kinds of stories too, but after a little reflection I'm usually just left disappointed. I don't think he's really using scientific principles, unfortunately. Science would require a constant attempt to falsify his results, at least enough to ensure he's not fooling himself. This capacity for genuine self reflection is exceedingly rare. The guy has the academic background to carefully test and verify his own conclusions, and lay people typically assume those credentials in themselves are sufficient when really they are worthless by themselves. I understand being driven by something like this. When you work alone on a long shot, you've got to go through periods of speculation, exploration, driving ahead somewhat heedlessly. But you also have to go through periods of withdrawal, reflection, checking the assumptions that you made in your wild flight forward, and making course corrections as required. What happens when you find you've reached a dead-end? Some people change course or give up. Others just keep plodding ahead as though it weren't the case. This has the feeling of the latter, and it makes me sad. I wish all the best for the guy, but I'd put my money on a lotto ticket.
Look, it's very easy. Just like those Steorn guys, you either produce something that's big and does something really strange -- or you don't. What usually happens, as you know, is that the experimenter creates something that is basically reproducible lab error. So it's there, but it's small, and there doesn't seem to be an easy way to make it macro-sized. They run out of money, still convinced they're on to something. At that point you have the newspaper articles, the full-page ads, and so on.
It's a well-trodden path, no doubt. But I don't see any of these guys appealing to mysticism or supernatural forces. All of them think that either they'll make something of wonder or it will fail. So both the people in question and the audience share some common framework. Just like watching people argue politics, it makes for a nice example of how really smart people can fool themselves. That's something we all can learn from.
Plus I have unshakable faith that some sort of field propulsion possible, although I have no idea how far away it might be. I base this on many years of watching science fiction shows on TV <g>
