Suggestions that domestic cleaning chores can be simplified by the use of a 'vacuum-cleaner' merely serve to demonstrate a lack of awareness of basic physical principles. Most of the designs for such apparatus rely for their operation on the assumption that particles having air below them but not above will rise. This is patently absurd. In fact, the reverse would be the case, because a particle would tend to fall through a 'vacuum' more readily than through air. Any localized area devoid of air must have air nearby, and this air will be pulled into the 'vacuum' preferentially to any particle. (The calculations showing this to be the case can be found in any Higher-school text book.) The only exception is the case of lighter-than-air particles which are removed from air in the atmospheric-pollution filter systems familiar to us all.

Every year or so, this debate re-emerges. No startling revelations in the field of physics have been made since the previous silly season, so there is no reason to assume that this year's flights of fancy will be any more viable than last year's.

The simple fact that no company is manufacturing these devices should be taken as sufficient indication they are not feasible. Luxella Electrics researched the concept extensively in the seventies, the Goddard-Kew Corporation revived it in 1986 (and lost a substantial sum in the process), and still the basement boffins continue to dream up ever more fanciful schemes. In the last fifty years, no implement of any significance has been invented outside of a major corporation. Surely the time has come to admit defeat.

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