[paul cotter (OP)]

Randall mills claims he can lower the ground state 1s electron of a hydrogen atom to a lower level producing energy in the process(gasp!!). The new entity he calls a "hydrino". Lots of crazy claims crop up on a regular basis but this has been going on for 30 years and has been funded to ~$100000000. Commercialisation is always one year away(jam tomorrow, but not today).I am lost for words, how can people be so stupid?     Mods: mills is apparently litigious and if there is any worries about this post, feel free to scrub it. 

[Bored chemist]

Randall mills claims he can lower the ground state 1s electron of a hydrogen atom to a lower level producing energy in the process

Maybe.
But he hasn't shown anyone else that he can do it, not has he shown anyone else how to do it.
So his claim looks a lot like saying there are fairies at the bottom of the garden.

[evan_au]

If you produced energy by lowering the ground state of hydrogen, this would produce a nasty waste stream: Toxic hydrogen.

Hydrogen is very useful in our bodies because:
-  it engages in reactions at specific energies: If you change that energy, enzymes won't work, and metabolism would stop
- Hydrogen takes up a certain amount of volume, which determines the shape of biological molecules. Change this, and you have a toxic product.

Or is he proposing a form of "Hydrino capture and restoration", where you generate energy from the Hydrogen atoms, then capture the Hydrinos and put the energy back so it is now safe Hydrogen (but losing some energy in the process)?
- Hydrinos would be very difficult to store, because they would be even harder to contain than Hydrogen

[paul cotter (OP)]

It's 100% nonsense, as far as i'm concerned, that's not in question. How has he kept this going for 30 years? I'm beyond baffled.

[chiralSPO]

It's 100% nonsense, as far as i'm concerned, that's not in question. How has he kept this going for 30 years? I'm beyond baffled.

Well, there are still people out there selling (and buying!) "free energy" devices... (and horoscopes for that matter!)

People are easily fooled into believing something they dearly wish to be true. And that goes for multi-zillionaire investors as well as regular folks.

It is obvious (and mathematically derivable!) to anybody who understands college-level chemistry and physics that there is no energy level below the 1s. But many people have never gone to college, and even those who have never took (or passed) any serious chemistry or physics classes, and even those who have may not really remember after a few years... Anybody without such an intimate understanding would only accept that the 1s is the lowest energy level on faith, or based on oversimplified models, either of which can be overcome by a smooth-talking charlatan. (especially since the reality is quite counterintuitive and not easily tested or examined by a typical person.)