"What we have developed is a way to construct magnetic fields so that when you travel round the magnetic fields, starting and stopping at the same position, you have gained energy,"
"The energy isn't being converted from any other source such as the energy within the magnet. It's literally created. Once the technology operates it provides a constant stream of clean energy,"
Posts: 995 | Registered: May 2003
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: Do you have any idea how many perpetual motion patents there are?
I believe there are no laws of physics against perpetual motion (superconductors for example). However, there are some very strong ones about not being able to get more energy out of a system than exists in the system. I haven't been able to find enough information on this article to really explore the ideas.
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A perpetual motion machine is one which can be returned to its original state with no energy loss (and preferably an energy gain), not something that continues moving forever.
There are laws of physics against them, formulated that way.
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According to the McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms (5th Edition, 1994), there are 3 different kinds of perpetual motion machines.
1) A Perpetual Motion Machine of the First Kind is a mechanism which, once set in motion, continues to do useful work without an input of energy 2) A Perpetual Motion Machine of the Second Kind is a device that extracts heat from a source and then converts this heat completely into other forms of energy. 3)A Perpetual Motion Machine of the Third Kind is a device which has a component that can keep moving forever.
According to conservation of energy, the first is impossible, 2nd law of thermodynamics makes the second one impossible. However, a superconductor ring is of the 3rd type and is possible.
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Isn't energy input needed to keep a superconductor ring operating? If that's true for any such system (which I would bet it would be), then that's impossible, too, though it could go on for a Really Long Time (TM).
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I am fairly confident that any energy gained is not being created out of nothing, but if we're lucky its a new, easy way to convert from some handy but awkward source.
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Well, I'm shooting from the hip here, it's been awhile since physics. However, wouldn't creating a superconducting ring technically be removing energy from a system? You're probably right about needing external energy in the lab to remove the heat energy from the system, but that energy was added to the system by the sun. In deep space where the temperature is naturally near absolute zero things would be a bit more straightforward I think.
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in terms of basic scientific analysis BQT has most of the bases covered, primarily with the conservation of energy and 2nd law of thermodynamics.
I would suspect that (assuming the technology does what it claims to do in terms of energy output) it is in fact drawing energy from elsewhere and they are just failing to see where it's coming from (i.e. it's cooling the device and would eventually stop working)
I'm very leery that a supposedly already working/manufactured device doesn't seem to have been scientifically tested.
As for the 3rd kind, yes operating in space would reduce the number of factors (in general) that are preventing such a machine from working (i.e. gravity, air resistance, magnetic effects etc) but there are still external effects that would impact the device (solar radiation, cosmic background radiation, solar wind, spatial debris etc).
This isn't to say that you couldn't necessarily develop a device that would run entirely on solar power for instance, but the energy conservation is still maintained, just in a larger-scale system than you initially look at.
Posts: 1038 | Registered: Feb 2006
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Sorry, I wasn't too clear. I was just talking about deep space as an environment for a superconductor that wouldn't need energy to cool it, not perpetual motion machines in general.
As I did a little more Googling on the subject, it looks like there's not settled definition of perpetual motion. Porter and fugu were no doubt using one while I was using another. Certainly there are valid arguments on both sides, otherwise there wouldn't be a few sides. Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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BQT, that comment wasn't necessarily meant as a slight against your comment about the superconducting ring being more feasible in space it was just basically an examplifying (made-up-words are fun) statement about some of why the second law of thermodynamics is.
Basically, no matter what your exact definition of a perpetual motion machine is, all of them would hinge around defying the second law, while the particularly useful ones would have to defy the first.
If this is/were possible that would be great, but from our current understanding of physics it aint.
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But as the page explains, yes, the patent office will not allow perpetual motion machines to be patented (at least, not without a working model).
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If this is true, which I very strongly doubt, it violates the 1st law of thermodynamics. According to Noether's theorem, there is a direct correspondence between the proposition that the laws of physics are constant in time and the 1st law of thermodymics. If this discover proved true, it would be the most radical discover in Physics ever. Relativity, Special Relativity, Quantum mechanics, or you name it: they are all passe' compared to the revolution this would cause in physics.
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I'm prepared to entertain the possibility that they've discovered a novel way to extract energy from magnets. Complicated little things, they are; it's quite possible there's some way to get energy out of them. I'm also completely convinced they are not 'creating' energy. But if they are indeed producing energy, from whatever source (even if it is the little Magnet Gnomes, who knows?) then all they have to do is start marketing their device, suitably packaged to give standard voltages. A mobile cellphone charger, perhaps? Everlasting flashlights? Laptops with infinite 'battery' lives? There's no end to the applications, if things are as they say. I think it's more likely they've got a very low frictional loss, and perhaps some source of energy input that they haven't considered. It's easy to fool yourself, even if you are truly honest. (And incidentally, it does them credit that they're asking to have it verified. But the best verification is to start selling the power.)
On the subject of superconductor rings, it's been a while since I did electromagnetism, and superconduction is more of a QM phenomenon anyway. But as far as I can see from a quick look at it, they won't run forever. That's a current in a ring, after all; it must be putting out radiation. Not to mention 'frictional' losses from whatever magnetic fields are in the vicinity. Now, it's true that the decay time might be on the order of centuries or millennia, or even longer - you'd have to do the math. But it's certainly not forever.
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KOM- QM explains superconductive behavior, but electrical current is a macroscopic event, larger than the traditional scope of quantum mechanics. I've heard superconductivity described as a macroscopic quantum effect.
In regards to magnetic fields, remember that superconductors do some fascinating things with them like the Meisser effect for example. Basically a superconductor expels all magnetic fields, so there would be not 'friction' between the current and the fields (unless the fields exceed a certain critical force of course).
I could be wrong about radiation, but I believe the current in a superconductive ring does not change emits no radiation. I remember reading an article about superconductors and they mentioned that the rings have been running for years with no detectable energy loss, and that theoretically they should keep going forever.
However, I haven't taken graduate courses in QM or on this subject, so my knowledge is my no means expert.
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I was referring to 'friction' between the magnetic field produced by the superconducting current, and other currents in the vicinity, but I see where my post was not clear on that. Also, while I'm on fairly shaky ground here, it seems to me that the Meissner effect uses some energy - you move magnetic fields around, you're also going to move whatever was generating those fields. And anyway it's not a perfect exclusion, there's an exponential decay inside the superconductor.
For the radiation, it is not obvious to me that the effect would be measureable even over several years; your data can at most set an upper bound. It might be a good one, though. However, superconductivity is, as you pointed out, a really weird phenomenon; it is possible, now I think about it, that the QM effects take over and you do not get radiative decays, same as in an atomic 'orbit'. I'm really not sure what the electrons are doing in there; I recall they are bound in Cooper pairs by electron-atom-electron interactions, and the Cooper pairs have no spin and can therefore all occupy the same quantum state. But I'm not sure what that quantum state is, so it's not clear to me whether there can be radiation losses or not. If there exist states of lower energy, then sooner or later the electrons will fall into them. If not, not. Basically, we've reached the point where a non-specialist just has to throw up his hands and say "Ask the theorists."
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I'm prepared to entertain the possibility that they've discovered a novel way to extract energy from magnets. Complicated little things, they are; it's quite possible there's some way to get energy out of them. I'm also completely convinced they are not 'creating' energy. But if they are indeed producing energy, from whatever source (even if it is the little Magnet Gnomes, who knows?) then all they have to do is start marketing their device, suitably packaged to give standard voltages. A mobile cellphone charger, perhaps? Everlasting flashlights? Laptops with infinite 'battery' lives? There's no end to the applications, if things are as they say. I think it's more likely they've got a very low frictional loss, and perhaps some source of energy input that they haven't considered. It's easy to fool yourself, even if you are truly honest. (And incidentally, it does them credit that they're asking to have it verified. But the best verification is to start selling the power.)
Agreed. And why are they advertising for experimental physicists in The Economist?
If this works so well, develop useful applications, and use some of the profits to sponsor grants to determine exactly what is happening. I suspect that it actually does not work all that well (notice that they say nowhere just how much above 100% they are supposedly getting out).
Can anyone say cold fusion?
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posted
I know. I was referring less to the concept (which absolutely holds some promise, and I hope some of the newer research pans out), and more to the hubbub and related nonsense.
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