Free Energy

stevemcol

superscaper wrote:

I think the patent office still receive many applications for perpetual motion machines

Perpetual motion isn't a problem and is happening all the time. Perpetual acceleration is the problem.

superscaper

stevemcol wrote:

Perpetual motion isn't a problem and is happening all the time. Perpetual acceleration is the problem.

My thermodynamics text book disagrees. "Perpetual Motion machines of the first kind is impossible". It says the same about PMMs of the 2nd kind. The Rogers & Mayhew Engineering Thermodynamics is a pretty commonly used text.

stevemcol

chuck a cricket ball into space fast enough and it will go forever.

superscaper

stevemcol wrote:

chuck a cricket ball into space fast enough and it will go forever.

Not quite, as a PMM of 1st kind you can't extract any energy from the system and won't have reached 100% efficiency either. As a PMM of 2nd kind the impact of both real and virtual particles and various gravity wells will affect the system and so it is not enclosed. If you think I'm being pedantic, I'm not really, PMM of 2nd kind is all about the actual practicality of the machines. And because it is all about 100%+ energy efficiency from an enclosed system with no external addition of energy then it can only be talking about motion in the energy sense and not acceleration.

superscaper

Hypothetically you are correct if we assumed we were living in a completely empty Newtonian universe, even then it still would never be above 100% efficiency. Since our universe is neither empty nor Newtonian, the current laws of physics don't allow for a real PMM to be built.

marleyboy

I suppose that would depend on which dimensional theory we are looking at, as we are limited to our own dimension of TSI, we can only perceive that which is entwind within it, we are thus limited to our own boundaries. the superstring theory and black hole theories lean towards the idea and concept of a multiverse, which would indicate there is more to it than the current laws of physics. Even Einstien and Hawkins both admit, there is more to nature than we can comprehend, so the idea of PMM is not entirely ruled out.

thor

superscaper wrote:

It just doesn't gel with me, that an oil company would want to suppress it when they're putting so much research money into renewable energy/fuel technology and it would be to their own long term advantage to exploit the technology.

Perhaps but let's say that someone stumbled upon an idea that could produce almost limitless energy very easily and it COULD be reproduced by the average man(not just in the lab) then would it not be in the oil companies interest to make sure that this idea was not publicised? I'm not saying that is has happened but if they were faced with such a threat then they would have all the motive in the world to keep it quiet.

BillScarab

Wouldn't it be more in the interests of whichever oil company came across this to buy up the rights, patent it and then sell it, thus making themselves a fortune and putting every other energy company out of business?

superscaper

thor wrote:

then would it not be in the oil companies interest to make sure that this idea was not publicised? I'm not saying that is has happened but if they were faced with such a threat then they would have all the motive in the world to keep it quiet.

I still don't get it, if I was an oil company exec I'd still be personally far better off releasing the technology (even for free) than suppressing it from a personal wealth point of view. From an oil company, the execs can only make a finite amount of money from very finite resources. Something like "free" energy would be beneficial to them even if they shared it with their competitors.

superscaper

marleyboy wrote:

I suppose that would depend on which dimensional theory we are looking at, as we are limited to our own dimension of TSI, we can only perceive that which is entwind within it, we are thus limited to our own boundaries. the superstring theory and black hole theories lean towards the idea and concept of a multiverse, which would indicate there is more to it than the current laws of physics. Even Einstien and Hawkins both admit, there is more to nature than we can comprehend, so the idea of PMM is not entirely ruled out.

While I agree that our current understanding of the laws of physics may change I very much doubt that anyone could build a device to take advantage of a science that hasn't even been discovered yet. That's not really the way around things tend to happen. Pretty much all of today's inventions were built based on scientific principles decades or even centuries old. Technology is an extrapolation of science. I can't think of a single example where someone made a useful device before we already had the science to describe it. As for things like superstrings (not actually a theory but a philosophy) and blackholes (doesn't actually imply multiverses) we are getting to such extremes of science that it would require more and more understanding and more complex built devices that would ever take advantage of that science and highly unlikely that someone building something in their garage would have anywhere near the amount of resources and skill to come across an invention that tooks advantage of such a fringe or even overturn current science.

As a side although Einstein was indeed a genius he has been proven wrong in his view on quantum theory so his own acceptance of new ideas wasn't particularly good and Hawking's pursuit of GUT I think shows that's what he actually means by there being more to nature and nothing to do with the fundamentals of science may be overturned.