The Sterling Stirling Atmospheric Engine is now a working hypothesis

 The most important thing with the Scientific Method is to have a hypothesis that can pass or fail.  Nobody wants to do that any more, because of influencers ready to pounce.  For all my scientific work during my working phase, I always had a hypothesis.  The neat thing is that you can break it down into smaller chunks to direct investigations.  These days, it's always, let's wander down this road and see what we can see.  To make money, they always do a simple extrapolation on observations.

To have a hypothesis means I have nailed down the main mechanism of the Sterling Stirling, which is a vortex heat engine.  The main points are that it needs a spin to set it off, and then it whirls away on its own, as long as it has a heat source.

I have been lucky to see the videos of the 'spin start' of these heat engines.  They show a 'ying yang' pattern of the cold and hot feeds.  You can see the compression buds at the ends.  These evolve into a continuous compression and release for the engine.  The phase change of the moist air adds to the efficiency.  

This comes from a first-principle study of a Stirling engine.  The trouble with these engineers is that they use the laws of thermodynamics, which are a convenient construct on the 'billiard ball' concept.  Same as in earthquake engineering.  Using constructs to simplify computation allows drift.

The key to the engine is the flash pressure increase that drives the little piston.  All the billiard balls are compressed in a non-yielding zone, flash and increase the pressure at the speed of sound.  I could model a sterling with finite differences if I still had a brain.

Knowing all this about a self-standing vortex engine allows one to see the inputs and outputs and chart the path.  If anybody did physics any more, you would pass or fail the hypothesis with internal measurements using instrumented beach balls.

This could be a major thing for energy.  I envision a giant vortex heat engine using waste heat from steel plants, etc.  The standard Stirling suffers from poor power density and numerous tricky seals, and tricky timing on the pistons.

All in all, this is a wonderful dead end.  

ps a long time ago, people were working on a hypothesis of the reproduction cycle of cockroaches.  Old Newty seized on a single aspect as 'The Sex Life of Cockroaches'.  thus destroying the Scientific Method forever.

ps I shall officially declare this as one of my "Monumental Discoveries"  It shall be suitably encased in concrete, like my many others.