Some of the Irish claim to have invented a perpetual motion machine.
As a young child I read this was impossible, but frankly I’ve long been convinced of the contrary. The universe itself seemed like a counterexample. It goes and goes and goes and goes. Lots of stuff happens. Stars explode, galaxies crash, planets get downgraded, etc. Where does a vacuum get its energy from anyway? And isn’t the "cosmological constant" a big free push?
Now perhaps our universe is not truly "perpetual." Or perhaps it involves "no net expenditure of energy." I’ve heard it called "a free lunch," through some kind of quantum effect and subsequent inflation.
But still, the universe, as a perpetual motion machine, seems to me like a good enough version of what people have been looking for. (Imagine your venture capital pitch: "Well, it’s not as Big or as Important as The Universe, but it does operate according to the same physical laws…") The universe was produced by some process, and perhaps a smaller and more local version of the idea is possible. Or does it come only in one size? Well…I’d better stop before I make any more scientific blunders…
I can’t get over the idea there is a free lunch floating around out there. Perhaps I read too much Julian Simon in my formative years.
Addendum: Here are the seven warning signs of bogus science.
I am told that “Cowen” was once “McGowan.”
or necessarily, were my brain working…
I think “Men In Black” beat you to this; the central McGuffin in the first movie was a galaxy contained in a marble-sized universe, which would give its owner an unlimited energy source.
Yeah, or the universe’s energy is like a punch of a marble on a frictionless surface in a vaccuum. One big starting impulse and it’s running on forever.
So what are the seven warning signs of bogus economics?
One of my favorite science fiction books is Isaac Asimov’s The Gods Themselves, in which at first it seems like a source of free energy has been created, but then it later turns out that the Second Law of Thermodynamics still holds after all.
In a sense you’re right, the universe itself is a big perpetual motion machine. The trick is that gravity behaves somewhat differently from the other forces. In particular, the gravitational field can be thought of as containing a negative amount of energy. (Intentionally vague language here, as the energy of the gravitational field isn’t well-defined.) But that means you can creat large amounts of “ordinary” energy through gravitational processes, like the expansion of the universe. That’s what inflation does.
But it’s not what the charming Irish entrepreneurs did. If a purported perpetual-motion machine doesn’t involve a gravitational field at least as substantial as a small black hole, I wouldn’t worry.
(to finish up) The universe is not a perpetual motion machine in either of the senses (a – entropy reversal) or (b – energy creation).
Economic and thermodynamics have much in common in that they both look for equilibrium solutions using similar mathematical techniques and their practitioners give names to partial derivatives.
@Joan:
I think it is even more than just a bit alike, because we can measure great scales good, but we can’t be too sure on a more detailed level (speaking about individuums). When we go to the microscopic level we also see that probability plays a big role in human action and in thermodynamic action.
So, we can calculate an equilibrium on a visible level, but we can’t perfectly reconstruct the steps that individually among the molecules led to this equlibirium except by generalizing(otherwise the amount of data would be too high).
“You might as well ask where my chair gets the energy to hold me up.”
Don’t have to ask. It is held up by a combination of the strong, weak, electrostatic, and magnetic forces at the atomic level. If we could switch any of them on that scale, then we could get your chair to do work too. Of course, just naming the forces doesn’t tell you where the energy for the force comes from, which we don’t yet know for any of these fundamental forces. So if you don’t know where the energy is coming from, how can you be so sure it can’t be tapped?
The difference between the chair holding you up and a magnet holding something up is that in the chair example all of the forces are internal to the matter, and on a scale too small for us to manipulate (yet), whereas in the magnet example, the magnetic force is external to the objects involved, and at a scale we can easily work with.
David,
It doesn’t *require* any energy for my chair to hold me up. In exactly the same way, it doesn’t require any energy for a magnetic field to hold an object at a constant height above the ground.
No motion means no work done by the force, means no energy required.
Maybe you’re confused by the fact that when humans exert a force on an object we *do* expend energy, even if we aren’t moving the object; our bodies have to do a lot of chemical work to produce the forces exerted by muscles.
But to the very best of our knowledge, the fundamental forces do not work like this.
Neel-
Finding equilibrium solutions usually reduces to the mathematical problem of finding the maximum/minimum of equations subject to constraints. The Largange method is widely use in both economics and thermodynamic.
The normal distribution used in economic analysis is identical to the Boltzman distribution used in thermodynamics to describe the behavior of gases.
So, Grad, why do magnets work? Why is there the gravitational force? Just curious.
David,
I thought you were talking about a free lunch. In your original post you said:
“Magnetism is a free lunch. Neither Parks nor any other physicist can explain where the energy comes from that allows a magnet to hold a weight perpetually against the force of gravity without any observable energy input.”
Are you retracting this now?
“Now, as I said before, if you can switch a permanent magnet’s field, as Flynn does, or partially block it as I presume Steorn is doing, then you can do work with that energy.”
OK, but this isn’t *free* energy. You’re not getting back more than you put in. There are plenty of ways to take the energy stored in a magnetic field and use it to do work (for example, you described an inductor). Maybe these Flynn guys have a particularly *efficient* way to do this, but I don’t see any free lunch here.
Can you explain the source of the free lunch more clearly (if in fact you do believe that there is one)?
Grad,
Flynn is getting 4 times the output of regular electric motors from the same amount of input. Since regular motors are at least 85% efficient, you do the math. Flynn is smart enough not to claim free energy, as you can see what a storm that produces. But look at their basic technology. You can reproduce it for yourself with a couple of magnets, a battery, and a coil of wire. You seem scientifically literate enough to be able to do that or at least see that they are getting 3.85 times the force for the same amount of electrical input. Note, also that they are working with, and endorsed by, Boeing Phantom Works. Not bad for a reference.
Steorn in an interview demonstrates to the interviewer a 2.85 times increase, and indicates they have gotten as much as 4 times. http://environment.guardian.co.uk/energy/story/0,,1858172,00.html
Both of these are free lunches.
Clean energy
The entire world is looking for a source of clean energy. I have discovered a certain paradox basing on which a machine called METOZ can be built which by harnessing the gravitation of our EARTH can produce clean energy.
The energy producing process is demonstrated in:
http://www.nets.pl/~metozor/paradox.html
and can be very easily confirmed by an experiment.
I am also in possession of a set of calculations which prove that the METOZ machine:
1/ does not consume water / 39 A5-pictures /;
2/ does not consume compressed air / 39 A5-pictures /;
3/ produces energy to the outside = 4 839 kGm during a „swing cycle† /39 A5-pictures /;
/ this is a „weight cycle† = the centre of gravity of the water in the METOZ machine sinks ( downward movement ) /
4/ energy is produced / released to the outside = 44 600 kGm during the „straightening cycle† / 39 A5-pictures /.
/ this is a “pressure cycle† = the water mass centre of gravity inside the METOZ machine travels upwards (upward movement) /
Features: 1/; 2/; 3/; 4/, of the machine owing to appropriate dimensions of individual elements of the lever mechanism.
The METOZ has an even-arm lever of a 1.72 m length. The centre of gravity of the lever lies beneath the lever suspension point. The METOZ is equipped with two cylinders of a 1.6 m diameter each. Piston sidewalls do not contact directly with cylinder walls. The lever swing changes between and .
Figures ( 3 x 13 x 4 = 156 ) present temporary, consecutive action situations at intervals of . The middle figure presents the machine and the side figures the position of the left and right cylinder and the mathematical description of these situations.
In the past I have made two models, which confirmed the legitimacy of my theoretical assumptions concerning the METOZ machine. I have got photographs.
I am looking for a person who would be interested in my invention. I can offer ample information. I look forward to hearing from you.
http://www.nets.pl/~metozor/three_levers.html
13 – 03 -2005 Gdynia, Polska Zygmunt Or³owski
P.S. The term “gravitational paradox† use in this description relates to the mathematical and physical description of the action of the METOZ-machine.
THE EARTH GRAVITATION CAN BE THE SOURCE OF CLEAN ENERGY.
Comment for METOZ
——————————————————————————–
By
Orlowski Zygmunt
Poland 2005
index html
Comments concerning machine “METOZ”
“METOZ” is able to realize the cycle “deflection” and the cycle “straighening.” Both cycles are in accordance with current physic’s laws. “METOZ” as machine can not work and hand over the energy because it would be inconsonant to the law of conservation of energy.
I propose to execute the following intelectual process:
we have found ourselves in the Europe of XVII century. We know the trigonometry in the scope of being occured for “METOZ.” We know what is the even-arm lever and moment of force too. Just appeears Mr. Baise Pascal / 1623–1662/ and he publishes his hydraulics law with adequated experiment. All thinkers are sure that this law is correct and quite real. This time someone invents machine “METOZ”. Now turn up the following questions:
1/ why the implementation of the cycle “deflection” is impossible?
2/ why the implementation of the cycle “straightening” is impossible?Both groups: opponents and followers of bulding “METOZ” live in XVII–th century and they not know that:
a/ the idea of an “energy” will be introduced into science scarlerly in mid. of XIX century,
b/ the law of conservation of the energy will be exist scarlerly after 1847 y.
QVESTION!!!
WHAT KIND OF RATIONALY ENTERELY / ARGUMENT/ CAN BE DREAMED UP THE OPPONENTS OF BUILDING THE MACHINE “METOZ’ IN XVII CENTURY.
——————————————————————————–
It is something METOZ about.
http://www.nets.pl/~metozor/not_for_idiot.html
http://www.nets.pl/~metozor/cycle_str.html
http://www.nets.pl/~metozor/work_deflection.html
http://www.metozor.nets.pl/metoz.htm
http://www.nets.pl/~metozor/energy_exper.html
Thanks for understanding.
THE MOST MYSTERIOUS FORCE IN SCIENCE
If you insert a SOLID dielectric between two opposite charges, the polarization in the dielectric INCREASES the original force of attraction between the charges.
However if you insert a LIQUID dielectric (e.g. water) that wets the charges, the polarization in the dielectric generates a PRESSURE that pushes the charges apart and so DECREASES the original force of attraction between them. The decrease “cannot be explained by electrical forces alone”, as Panofsky and Phillips put it in 1962. In my view, this pressure is the most mysterious force in science – see more in:
http://www.wbabin.net/valev/valev2.htm
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
Something new METOZ machine about:
http://www.nets.pl/~metozor/prolog_for_metoz.html
THE GUILTY CONSCIENCE OF RUDOLF CLAUSIUS
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/
Jos Uffink, “Bluff your Way in the Second Law of Thermodynamics”:
pp. 39-40: “On many occasions Clausius was criticised by his contemporaries. I do not know if, in his own time, he was criticised in particular for his famous formulation of the second law as the increase of the entropy of the universe. However, Kuhn (1978, pp.13-15, p. 260) has pointed out the remarkable fact that in the book (Clausius 1876) he eventually composed from his collected articles, every reference to the entropy of the universe and even to the idea that entropy never decreases in irreversible processes in adiabatically isolated systems is deleted! The most general formulation given to the second law in this book, which may be regarded as the mature presentation of Clausius’ ideas, is again the relation (10), where the system is supposed to undergo a cycle, and entropy increase is out of the question.”
The relation (10) referred to by Uffink is a fundamental relation of thermodynamics, the so-called Clausius inequality:
Cyclic integral dQ/T =< 0 (10)
Clausius obtained it by using a proof described by Uffink on p. 34:
p. 34: "His argument is as follows: for an umkehrbar [reversible] cyclic process the result (9) [Cyclic integral dQ/T = 0] rests on the argument that according to the modified version of the second law the integral cannot be positive. The reversed cyclic process, where the integral has the opposite sign, must also satisfy this condition, and the integral is therefore also not negative.Therefore it must vanish. In the case of the nicht umkehrbar [irreversible] cyclic process the second part of this argument is not applicable, but the first part remains valid. Hence we obtain (10)."
Is Clausius proof correct? That is, is Clausius inequality true? The problem is difficult but those who wish to resolve it may find useful this:
http://www.chem.umd.edu/~devoe/thermo/3steps.pdf
Note that Clapeyron equation has been used in the calculations. Is this use legitimate?
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
THE FUNDAMENTAL OXYMORON OF THERMODYNAMICS
The absurdity that entropy always increases would not hold “the supreme position among the laws of Nature” (A. Eddington, 1935) if Clausius had not deduced it gloriously from the fundamental oxymoron of thermodynamics:
THE FUNDAMENTAL OXYMORON OF THERMODYNAMICS: Any irreversible process is reversible; that is, any irreversible process can be closed by a reversible process to become a cycle.
Any textbook author who relishes deducing the supreme absurdity should initially introduce the fundamental oxymoron:
Peter Atkins, Physical Chemistry, 5th ed., p. 127: “Let the original change in the entropy of the system when the process of interest occurs be dS (this is the change we want to measure). The process need not be reversible, but we suppose that we can find a path that joins the same initial and final states and which is reversible.”
For 140 years (Clausius deduced the supreme absurdity in 1865) the fundamental oxymoron of thermodynamics has been questioned once:
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/ p.39: “A more important objection, it seems to me, is that Clausius bases his conclusion that the entropy increases in a nicht umkehrbar [irreversible] process on the assumption that such a process can be closed by an umkehrbar [reversible] process to become a cycle. This is essential for the definition of the entropy difference between the initial and final states. But the assumption is far from obvious for a system more complex than an ideal gas, or for states far from equilibrium, or for processes other than the simple exchange of heat and work.”
Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com
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