Perpetual motion

[visionary]

Outside of pure mathematics, stating that things are absolutely impossible is considered un-scientific by many. Nevertheless, the term is commonly used to describe those things which absolutely cannot occur within the context of our current formulation of physical laws.

In other words, so long as the laws of physics (not simply the current understanding of them, but the actual laws, which may still be undiscovered) and the various physical constants remain invariant over time — so long as the laws of the universe are fixed — then the conservation laws must be true, in the sense that they follow from the presupposition using mathematical logic.

Now here is a revolutionary thought ... To put it the other way around: if perpetual motion machines were possible, then most of what we believe to be true about physics, mathematics, or both would have to be false. .. and that is what you are afraid of...

 

[visionary]

You want to outlaw.. thinking outside the box?

 

[peadar1987]

It's on the same level as alchemy. Just because we haven't yet discovered a combination of substances that will turn lead into gold doesn't mean that we aren't as sure as it is possible to be that it can't be done in this way.

 

[LightHorseman]

He also wants to run the gas through a fuel cell, but that's pretty much it, yeah. He loses any credibility the second he says that gravity is a form of energy, and it all goes downhill from there. Essentially what he has is a very convoluted way of turning elecricity into less electricity.

There's very simple way to deal with alternative enrgy claimants...

"build a working model, and allow full inspection by disinterested third parties".

The instant they start making claims about the conspiracy of big energy concerns, and similar reasons why they shouldn't have to demonstrate their system, you can be pretty sure that not only are they full of it, but that they know it too.

 

[LightHorseman]

Now here is a revolutionary thought ... To put it the other way around: if perpetual motion machines were possible, then most of what we believe to be true about physics, mathematics, or both would have to be false. ..

Quite true. However, assuming that our understandings of physics, mathematics or both are false BEFORE someone comes up with a working perpetual motion/alternate energy device is rather premature.

 

[keith99]

Now here is a revolutionary thought ... To put it the other way around: if perpetual motion machines were possible, then most of what we believe to be true about physics, mathematics, or both would have to be false. .. and that is what you are afraid of...

If unicorns exist, not meaning jsut some single horned animal, but something that only virgins can ride and whose horn has magical powers, then we need to revise our understanding of both theology and natural science.

I'm not even thinking of doing that until I see a unicorn and check that the girl riding it is really a virgin.

 

[LightHorseman]

If unicorns exist, not meaning jsut some single horned animal, but something that only virgins can ride and whose horn has magical powers, then we need to revise our understanding of both theology and natural science.

I'm not even thinking of doing that until I see a unicorn and check that the girl riding it is really a virgin.

*pssst, I hear she has a hide wearing white*

 

[Nostromo]

Now here is a revolutionary thought ... To put it the other way around: if perpetual motion machines were possible, then most of what we believe to be true about physics, mathematics, or both would have to be false. .. and that is what you are afraid of...

Why would anyone be afraid of that? If we found out that conservation of energy worked differently to how we think it does, what difference would that make to your life? However it works, it's been doing it since long before we were born and will do so long after we're dead. If lovely cheap, easy, green, widely available energy is made available by new discoveries, what is there to be afraid of?

Don't get yourself wrapped up in the (seemingly common) idea among fundies that science and scientists are stuck in an unchanging rut, an untouchable authority. These things are challenged every day, that's how new things are discovered. You should know what inflexible dogma looks like.

You want to outlaw.. thinking outside the box?

Bravo to people coming up with novel and useful ideas. Boo hiss to folk using the hopes and fears of others to ask for money under false pretenses.

 

[keith99]

Much thanks to others who took the time to plough through the crayon drawings on the site and make some sense out of them.

If I have it right This whole scheme comes down to this.

Perform hydrolysis under water and then use paddlewheels to capture the energy of the gas rising through the water. Then Recombine the H and O back into water thereby getting back the energy used to perform the original hydrolysis and all the energy from the rising gas is free.

There is an assumption that the energy at both ends of this is the same (though opposire sign). The problem is that the original hydrolysis is done under different conditions, a greater preasure. I'll wait until a real chemist or physical chemist comes in to give the details on that.

I do have to give points for just where they hid the flaw in their reasoning. They likely don;t even state it, the sucker does it for them.

On an engineering level the bigger flaw has already been pointed out. Even if they found a real 'loophole' the loss through resistance, and otehr ineffeciencies far outweighs any energy gain.

 

[LightHorseman]

Much thanks to others who took the time to plough through the crayon drawings on the site and make some sense out of them.

If I have it right This whole scheme comes down to this.

Perform hydrolysis under water and then use paddlewheels to capture the energy of the gas rising through the water. Then Recombine the H and O back into water thereby getting back the energy used to perform the original hydrolysis and all the energy from the rising gas is free.

There is an assumption that the energy at both ends of this is the same (though opposire sign). The problem is that the original hydrolysis is done under different conditions, a greater preasure. I'll wait until a real chemist or physical chemist comes in to give the details on that.

I do have to give points for just where they hid the flaw in their reasoning. They likely don;t even state it, the sucker does it for them.

On an engineering level the bigger flaw has already been pointed out. Even if they found a real 'loophole' the loss through resistance, and otehr ineffeciencies far outweighs any energy gain.

Friction in the paddle bearing and resistance in the electrical circuit... thermodynamics 2... you can't even break even.

 

[BrianOnEarth]

Here's my litmus test: would it work even if every energy conversion was 100% efficient and there were no losses of any sort?

If they use a fuel cell on the output to recombine the gas into water, it seems to me that the process essentially moves water from one tank to another, temporarily turning it into gas along the way. So at the start you have a full tank and an empty tank and at the end you have an empty tank and a full tank. Since the potential energy of the system is the same before and after, any energy output has to have come from energy input.

It cannot work.

Add in the real-world losses and it still cannot work, only moreso.

End of story, isn't it?

 

[pgp_protector]

I wonder what we would get first
1) Some form of Perpetual Motion System
2) Some form of ZPM

 

[Maxwell511]

For background, this is off an Irish website called "your country; your call", where people send in ideas they think can improve Irish society.

The core problem with our society is that the intelligent people left. I would be more concerned about the gibberish that comes from the Oireachtas than a website.

 

[Maxwell511]

If Newton and Einstein had wasted their lives pursuing millions of really dumb ideas, they would never have accomplished anything.

I am pretty sure it is the fact that "Newton and Einstein had(/did) wasted their lives pursuing millions of really dumb ideas" is why they are gods of science.

 

[peadar1987]

The core problem with our society is that the intelligent people left. I would be more concerned about the gibberish that comes from the Oireachtas than a website.

You get the politicians you vote for, and unfortunately people (and I know pretty much nobody who'll own up to it!) keep voting for the most corrupt and incompetent political party I have ever come across. Irish politics drives me mental sometimes!

Whereabouts in the country are you from?

 

[Maxwell511]

Whereabouts in the country are you from?

The south Dublin part.

 

[sfs]

I am pretty sure it is the fact that "Newton and Einstein had(/did) wasted their lives pursuing millions of really dumb ideas" is why they are gods of science.

Really? What dumb ideas are you thinking of? Newton and Einstein both focused their scientific pursuits on outstanding questions, uncertainties and inconsistencies in the physics of their time. Their ideas were sometimes highly speculative and sometimes wrong, but that doesn't make them dumb. So which ideas are you talking about? (And how would one fit pursuing millions of ideas into a single lifetime anyway?)

 

[peadar1987]

The south Dublin part.

Good man yourself. I'm from Shankill, just dodged the Wicklow bullet!

 

[LightHorseman]

Really? What dumb ideas are you thinking of? Newton and Einstein both focused their scientific pursuits on outstanding questions, uncertainties and inconsistencies in the physics of their time. Their ideas were sometimes highly speculative and sometimes wrong, but that doesn't make them dumb. So which ideas are you talking about? (And how would one fit pursuing millions of ideas into a single lifetime anyway?)

Newton's dabbling in alchemy, with hindsight, looks sorta dumb.

 

[Maxwell511]

Really? What dumb ideas are you thinking of?

You originally used the word "dumb" so I will let you define it.

Do you consider sticking a rod between the corner of your eye (and your eye) to see what would happen to be "dumb" or not?

Newton and Einstein both focused their scientific pursuits on outstanding questions, uncertainties and inconsistencies in the physics of their time. Their ideas were sometimes highly speculative and sometimes wrong, but that doesn't make them dumb.

Newton's and Einstein's ideas, that they had, were not "sometimes wrong and speculative" they were "almost always wrong and speculative".

Intelligence like theirs is not a magically thing, such that they receive an almost divine intervention that tells them how the world works. Instead they "peer review" their own thoughts with an ability and manner that we could not understand. We only get their "peer reviewed thoughts" on the matter.

So which ideas are you talking about? (And how would one fit pursuing millions of ideas into a single lifetime anyway?)

You said millions originally. I thought it was a metaphor.