Perpetual motion device - Free Energy - Do you believe in it?

[mobodick]

As I said before, you can have extremely plentiful and cheap energy but from what I know so far, never free, unless someone stumbles on something like magic.

Perhaps we are just looking at the problem all wrong. Science has a way of doing that. Energy may not be the scarcity we think it is. We just need more raw science.

But Captain, we're already pumping over one YottaPlancks into the stratum! The engines just can't take that amount of science! They're gonna blow!

[Anon136]

i think you may be conflating the cosmos with the universe. It may be the case that the universe is the cosmos but it may also be the case that the cosmos is greater in scope than the universe. If it is the case that the cosmos is greater in scope than the universe than it still stands that the cosmos its self may be a perpetual motion devise because entropy may be a property specific to certain universes and not the cosmos its self.

Where can i find the definition of the difference between the word universe and cosmos?
In my definition they mean the same thing.
The universe includes the known univere so it is already defined as bigger than we can ever hope to see.

A universe has a specific set of laws, in our universe we call these the laws of physics. Theoretically there could be other structures similar to our universe that exist outside of our universe and have laws different than the ones we are used to. Cosmos is a term we use to describe all that is.

Aah, then i think your definition of the word 'Universe' is not wide enough.

We know that we cannot see (even in theory) the whole universe so we can only speculate about how our local laws of physics behave there. We know that a lot of the laws hold in the Observable Universe but we also know that that is not the whole Universe.
So in fact we cannot know if every part of the whole universe acts according to laws of physics.
Structures outside of the 'universe' are still considered to be part of the universe. You just have to consider a bigger, more complete universe. The universe used to be our earth with a sphere of lights around it. Now we know th universe is so big we only can see a small part of it.
Some theories have use new words like multiverse to avoid confusion but ultimately everything is part of the universe, or indeed, the cosmos.

i see what you are saying but its not just me. There are many "multiple universe theories" that are held by reputable scientists. Where as with the word cosmos by definition there can not be more than one of them. You say that i am using the word universe too narrowly but i think you are using the word universe when you in fact mean to use the word cosmos.

[nimda]

Casimir forces, anyone? (Never mind the "currently impractical" or "improbable" or "lowest energy point" naysayers)

[mobodick]

i think you may be conflating the cosmos with the universe. It may be the case that the universe is the cosmos but it may also be the case that the cosmos is greater in scope than the universe. If it is the case that the cosmos is greater in scope than the universe than it still stands that the cosmos its self may be a perpetual motion devise because entropy may be a property specific to certain universes and not the cosmos its self.

Where can i find the definition of the difference between the word universe and cosmos?
In my definition they mean the same thing.
The universe includes the known univere so it is already defined as bigger than we can ever hope to see.

A universe has a specific set of laws, in our universe we call these the laws of physics. Theoretically there could be other structures similar to our universe that exist outside of our universe and have laws different than the ones we are used to. Cosmos is a term we use to describe all that is.

Aah, then i think your definition of the word 'Universe' is not wide enough.

We know that we cannot see (even in theory) the whole universe so we can only speculate about how our local laws of physics behave there. We know that a lot of the laws hold in the Observable Universe but we also know that that is not the whole Universe.
So in fact we cannot know if every part of the whole universe acts according to laws of physics.
Structures outside of the 'universe' are still considered to be part of the universe. You just have to consider a bigger, more complete universe. The universe used to be our earth with a sphere of lights around it. Now we know th universe is so big we only can see a small part of it.
Some theories have use new words like multiverse to avoid confusion but ultimately everything is part of the universe, or indeed, the cosmos.

i see what you are saying but its not just me. There are many "multiple universe theories" that are held by reputable scientists. Where as with the word cosmos by definition there can not be more than one of them. You say that i am using the word universe too narrowly but i think you are using the word universe when you in fact mean to use the word cosmos.

Yes, that is why we invented the word multiverse.
Can you show where i can find the word cosmos defined broader than the word universe?
Where have you encountered this distinction?

In fact, the wiki pages are quite the opposite.
Cosmos is defined much more as the observable universe, so the part where laws of gravity apply etc while unviverse (and the extended multiverse) is considered as the more abstract supercontainer of everything.
So now i'm confused...

[Rassah]

I can completely miss a "What are you doing?" from a friend if I'm too focused doing something. It's like I have a 5 second hearing buffer. I can miss a question when it's asked but remember it after 5 seconds if I change focus to the person asking. Funny.

Our brains work a bit like computers, in that they have short term memory, like RAM that stores about 7 seconds of mmemory, and long term memory, like a computer hard drive. Everything you experience gets recorded into your short term memory, and your brain selectively records stuff out of it into your long term. So, if you catch yourself fast enough, you can recall what you just heard even if you weren't actively listening to it.
I use it to count the number of coo-coos our clock makes to tell time, after it already chimed (as in, it starts going, half way through I realize it's coo.cooing, and after it stops I go back and count how many I heard, despite not noticing or counting them right away).

[Rassah]

... Ruining Nikola Tesla's reputation? You know he wanted to build a death ray right? LOL!

You mean a microwave generating magnetron? Yeah, we already built one. His death ray is now practically in every kitchen in America 

[mobodick]

I can completely miss a "What are you doing?" from a friend if I'm too focused doing something. It's like I have a 5 second hearing buffer. I can miss a question when it's asked but remember it after 5 seconds if I change focus to the person asking. Funny.

Our brains work a bit like computers, in that they have short term memory, like RAM that stores about 7 seconds of mmemory, and long term memory, like a computer hard drive. Everything you experience gets recorded into your short term memory, and your brain selectively records stuff out of it into your long term. So, if you catch yourself fast enough, you can recall what you just heard even if you weren't actively listening to it.
I use it to count the number of coo-coos our clock makes to tell time, after it already chimed (as in, it starts going, half way through I realize it's coo.cooing, and after it stops I go back and count how many I heard, despite not noticing or counting them right away).

I don't think that's yer actual normal short term memory:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echoic_memory
It's a separate bit of specialized memory (operates in the very short time domain).
Then after you become conscious of the sound it is stored in the usual short term memory as an experience from where it can pass to long term.
Normal short term memory operated on a range of about 5 minutes or so.,
Cool stuff alltogether.

[Foxpup]

Casimir forces, anyone? (Never mind the "currently impractical" or "improbable" or "lowest energy point" naysayers)

Same problem as producing energy from gravity or magnetic fields. Say you've got two plates attracted to each other by the Casimir force. They will move towards each other and you can extract energy from that movement (theoretically, at least). But they can only move a limited distance and then they stop producing energy, and the Casimir force will cause the plates to resist being moved back into their original position. Overcoming this force requires that you expend at least as much energy as you just produced. No free lunch there.

[cedivad]

What about this website?

http://www.free-energy-info.co.uk

Anyway, could someone please explain me because this isn't "free energy"? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo2-Qb3fUYs

[Meizirkki]

What about this website?

http://www.free-energy-info.co.uk

Anyway, could someone please explain me because this isn't "free energy"? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo2-Qb3fUYs

I can assure you none of the devices in that website give out more energy than is put in. Apart from the mechanical drawings, there appear to be mostly just oscillators and step-up transformers. Nothing special.

The video shows typical magnet behavior. Fascinating, but not breaking any laws of thermodynamics. Search youtube for "v gate" experiments and you will see that when a full circle of magnets is constructed in this manner, the magnet put in the rail will always stop at the point it started moving.

EDIT: Not sure if you were just trolling nevermind  

I was thinking more from the point of sustainability.
Not everyone has a cold lake in their back yard, but even if that was true then our sociaty would be warming up lakes at a massive scale and do other thermodynamical things to our atmosphere that are propably not so good.
You could make it not work on natural temperature differences but that needs a fuel to create an artifical temperature difference.
I think that there is a big future for heat engines in miniaturisation. Things like using body heat to drive personal electronics.

Stirling engine in your back yard is the last thing you should worry about. They are only moving existing energy from one point to another, speeding up a natural process. Constantly changing weather provides us with temperature differences. In the winter, the stirling engine would turn the other way, lake being 4C and air being -20C.

Since wind is a result of temperature differences on earth, we are already exploiting this particular energy source by means of wind turbines and wave power. It comes from the sun, and is therefor "renewable". If you are worried about atmosphere or temperature rising in anything, point your finger at the nucler power plants and fossil fuel burning stations. They are both turning enormous amounts of previously hidden energy into heat. Along the years that's hundreds of TWh of "new" thermal energy released into the atmosphere. A stirling engine does not introduce "new" heat, only moves the existing around.

..... Ruining Nikola Tesla's reputation? You know he wanted to build a death ray right? LOL!

Yes.

You mean a microwave generating magnetron? Yeah, we already built one. His death ray is now practically in every kitchen in America  

No.
Tesla's "Death Ray" was not a magnetron. It was a particle projection device. His idea was to have a tesla turbine operated tower (similar to van de graaff generator but more powerful), able to sustain hundreds of millions of volts static charge. Picture below:

This static charge could then be used to accelerate small particles of mercury to speeds of >600 000Km/h. The whole thing would take less than 25Kw to operate, since the stream of particles is very small. (yet, very deadly). He had this apparatus drawn as well. A vacuum tube open to atmosphere. Makes no sense? Take a look:

It's quite genius. Pressurized air was used to create a vacuum inside the projector. I can't see a flaw in this concept either.

He wanted to provide unlimited and unmetered (read: free) power to everyone. The death ray was just an offshoot of that.

Unlimited? No. His idea was to exploit the atmospheric heat differences. Very much like the idea I've proposed here, except he had it much better. Tesla wanted to use sun collector like vacuum tubes on earth and a turbine instead of a stirling motor. Something much more efficient than a bunch of heat pumps and a stirling engine, but also much more complex.

Unmetered? Yes. Because Tesla towers he designed would transmit energy through the earth. Anybody can construct a receiver and plug it in the ground. There is no way to know who spends the energy transmitted.

Don't ridicule him. He was just born a few decades too early.

[cedivad]

EDIT: Not sure if you were just trolling nevermind  

No, i wasn't trolling. I was sure of the answer, but now i know why, so thank you.

[usagi]

Perpetual motion devices using magnets are not perpetual beacuse magnets wear out.

This is the simplest and clearest explanation I've seen so far. It also helps us understand what a "free energy" device would really entail. It would entail a source of power that was unlimited in comparison to our lives/the lifespan of the earth. Such as solar power. The sun will die, in billions of years, but we don't have to worry about that now.

I like physics so I'd like to ramble about this a bit.

There is another kind of "free energy" which is not free energy but comes from a self-sustaining exothermic reaction. This means the process tends to be explosive (produces more energy than the process of 'combustion' requires). Burning fossil fuels is (iirc) a chemical reaction of this type, and beyond that we have nuclear power. Such kinds of "free energy" are extremely dangerous. So take a look at any such perpetual energy machine and ask yourself a simple question: is it's source of power dangerously explosive? If not, then it uses an endothermic reaction and is not a free energy device (the machine itself is a load). This is why batteries heat up with no load; the batteries themselves are a load. I call it the battery principle. If it heats up or has any kind of friction or noise or light it's not a perpetual machine. If it's explosive it may be free energy but it's not perpetual either (it's just explosive and therefore can be made self-sustaining given enough fuel).

The holy grail of renewable/unlimited energy would probably be about drawing out some kind of strength from a large deep-ocean of energy like background radiation, cosmic rays, the curvature of space, etc. But it would not be a source of "perpetual energy". The reason is because in the conversion of energy from one form to another (such as, say, combustion) some energy is lost from the process (for example as heat or light or pressure) and this energy cannot be repaired into the original source of energy. That's why even recycling energy back into the original source doesn't ever work, because as soon as you try to use the energy the load you place on the original energy source is converted into heat via friction (or some other thing like light).

This lends itself to a simple trick in evaluating perpetual energy machines. All such machines must do work. For example to power a drive a belt that runs a car. The load placed on this machine must cause it to "work harder" in some regard. This will cause the machine to generate more heat via friction. Identify this source of heat/friction and you will have discovered why the machine is not a perpetual energy device. Like the battery principle, above. The machine itself which converts the energy is itself a load. Even chemical/nuclear reactions are themselves a sort of machine -- the only interesting principle being whether they are endothermic or exothermic.

If you want to do your best to design a free energy machine I think you are going to want to look at gravity (the curvature of space). We enter the realm of deep-end physics here. The problem with gravity is that it pulls mass, and there's no way to make it pull mass less on the way up than on the way down. So any kind of physical machine which relies merely on the force of gravity will never work. You would want to derive some sort of energy from the pressure it exerts on stationary objects. I can't remember where I read so but I think this is actually impossible. I.E. getting energy from a system that is at rest. I'm thinking quartz crystals here but quartz crystals require a change in pressure to generate electricity.

If you're interested in theoretical physics I can recommend "The Black Hole War" by Susskind. It's a pretty cool book that discusses some key points regarding gravity and mass as information. I'd also recommend the Feynman lectures on physics. His explanation of how to determine how many dimensions we live in is a classic and will help you understand gravity (the curvature of space) a lot more. But I doubt we will be designing any kind of perpetual motion device any time soon.

[Rassah]

Perpetual motion devices using magnets are not perpetual beacuse magnets wear out.

This is the simplest and clearest explanation I've seen so far. It also helps us understand what a "free energy" device would really entail. It would entail a source of power that was unlimited in comparison to our lives/the lifespan of the earth. Such as solar power. The sun will die, in billions of years, but we don't have to worry about that now.

Oh godamnit. Let me say it again, using the words of the simple sentence you quoted:

Perpetual motion devices using magnets are not perpetual because MAGNETS ARE NOT A SOURCE OF ENERGY

Neither is gravity. Background radiation might be, but there is so little energy in that radiation that it would take an ENORMOUS collector to collect any useful amount of it. In all your examples, it's not a question of "how do we tap it," it's "how much energy is actually in it?" And all your endo/exo-thermic examples are not "free" energy, they are engines that take in energy and covert it into another energy, whether solar to motion, or explosions to heat. This whole think with perpetual motions is actually really quite simple: that energy can not be created or destroyed is a law, and anything that uses energy only converts it into some other form of energy. No other options or "but's." You just can't have something that is moving perpetually. Even in the vacuum of space, not connected to anything, just the fact that you are able to look at it moving around means that light is exerting a force on it and is causing it to slow down. And you can't have something that is generating energy from nothing. It ALWAYS has to come from somewhere.
So our ONLY options are cheap energy generators that convert energy from something else (solar power, chemical reactions, etc), or... nothing. That's pretty much it. If anyone claims they have created a perpetual motion machine or a source of free energy, just ask him where that energy comes from. If he says "magnets," or some other fancy physics gobledegook, he's an idiot.

[justusranvier]

I really want to ridicule the OP for posting about perpetual motion but considering that I'm posting rooster / cock pictures can I really take the moral high ground here?

At least roosters and cocks actually exist.

[mobodick]

Perpetual motion devices using magnets are not perpetual beacuse magnets wear out.

This is the simplest and clearest explanation I've seen so far. It also helps us understand what a "free energy" device would really entail. It would entail a source of power that was unlimited in comparison to our lives/the lifespan of the earth. Such as solar power. The sun will die, in billions of years, but we don't have to worry about that now.

Oh godamnit. Let me say it again, using the words of the simple sentence you quoted:

Perpetual motion devices using magnets are not perpetual because MAGNETS ARE NOT A SOURCE OF ENERGY

Neither is gravity. Background radiation might be, but there is so little energy in that radiation that it would take an ENORMOUS collector to collect any useful amount of it. In all your examples, it's not a question of "how do we tap it," it's "how much energy is actually in it?" And all your endo/exo-thermic examples are not "free" energy, they are engines that take in energy and covert it into another energy, whether solar to motion, or explosions to heat. This whole think with perpetual motions is actually really quite simple: that energy can not be created or destroyed is a law, and anything that uses energy only converts it into some other form of energy. No other options or "but's." You just can't have something that is moving perpetually. Even in the vacuum of space, not connected to anything, just the fact that you are able to look at it moving around means that light is exerting a force on it and is causing it to slow down. And you can't have something that is generating energy from nothing. It ALWAYS has to come from somewhere.
So our ONLY options are cheap energy generators that convert energy from something else (solar power, chemical reactions, etc), or... nothing. That's pretty much it. If anyone claims they have created a perpetual motion machine or a source of free energy, just ask him where that energy comes from. If he says "magnets," or some other fancy physics gobledegook, he's an idiot.

Except for those stupid electrons that keep on spinning around the nucleus.
The thing is that on our macro scale stuff has friction and that is a form of energy conversion. Moreover, macro-scale systems are extremely leaky and have to be designed specifically to conserve energy.
On the nano scale things are completely different and you can have frictionless movement which results in perpetual motion in most atoms we know.
As long as you can perfectly isolate a certain energy loop in a system you can have your perpetual motion machine. But measuring it would be a problem because you would be interacting with the system and messing with its energies.
And that is the difference between free energy and perpetual motion.
Perpetual motion is not about generating energy but about containing energy.
Free energy is an 'infinite' energy potential that we can safely tap at large enough bandwidths.

[myrkul]

Perpetual motion devices using magnets are not perpetual beacuse magnets wear out.

This is the simplest and clearest explanation I've seen so far. It also helps us understand what a "free energy" device would really entail. It would entail a source of power that was unlimited in comparison to our lives/the lifespan of the earth. Such as solar power. The sun will die, in billions of years, but we don't have to worry about that now.

Oh godamnit. Let me say it again, using the words of the simple sentence you quoted:

Perpetual motion devices using magnets are not perpetual because MAGNETS ARE NOT A SOURCE OF ENERGY

Neither is gravity. Background radiation might be, but there is so little energy in that radiation that it would take an ENORMOUS collector to collect any useful amount of it. In all your examples, it's not a question of "how do we tap it," it's "how much energy is actually in it?" And all your endo/exo-thermic examples are not "free" energy, they are engines that take in energy and covert it into another energy, whether solar to motion, or explosions to heat. This whole think with perpetual motions is actually really quite simple: that energy can not be created or destroyed is a law, and anything that uses energy only converts it into some other form of energy. No other options or "but's." You just can't have something that is moving perpetually. Even in the vacuum of space, not connected to anything, just the fact that you are able to look at it moving around means that light is exerting a force on it and is causing it to slow down. And you can't have something that is generating energy from nothing. It ALWAYS has to come from somewhere.
So our ONLY options are cheap energy generators that convert energy from something else (solar power, chemical reactions, etc), or... nothing. That's pretty much it. If anyone claims they have created a perpetual motion machine or a source of free energy, just ask him where that energy comes from. If he says "magnets," or some other fancy physics gobledegook, he's an idiot.

Except for those stupid electrons that keep on spinning around the nucleus.

Except they don't "spin." They actually exist in a "shell" around the nucleus, with more energetic electrons existing in higher energy levels, higher "shells." They actually move around pretty randomly in that shell.

[mobodick]

Perpetual motion devices using magnets are not perpetual beacuse magnets wear out.

This is the simplest and clearest explanation I've seen so far. It also helps us understand what a "free energy" device would really entail. It would entail a source of power that was unlimited in comparison to our lives/the lifespan of the earth. Such as solar power. The sun will die, in billions of years, but we don't have to worry about that now.

Oh godamnit. Let me say it again, using the words of the simple sentence you quoted:

Perpetual motion devices using magnets are not perpetual because MAGNETS ARE NOT A SOURCE OF ENERGY

Neither is gravity. Background radiation might be, but there is so little energy in that radiation that it would take an ENORMOUS collector to collect any useful amount of it. In all your examples, it's not a question of "how do we tap it," it's "how much energy is actually in it?" And all your endo/exo-thermic examples are not "free" energy, they are engines that take in energy and covert it into another energy, whether solar to motion, or explosions to heat. This whole think with perpetual motions is actually really quite simple: that energy can not be created or destroyed is a law, and anything that uses energy only converts it into some other form of energy. No other options or "but's." You just can't have something that is moving perpetually. Even in the vacuum of space, not connected to anything, just the fact that you are able to look at it moving around means that light is exerting a force on it and is causing it to slow down. And you can't have something that is generating energy from nothing. It ALWAYS has to come from somewhere.
So our ONLY options are cheap energy generators that convert energy from something else (solar power, chemical reactions, etc), or... nothing. That's pretty much it. If anyone claims they have created a perpetual motion machine or a source of free energy, just ask him where that energy comes from. If he says "magnets," or some other fancy physics gobledegook, he's an idiot.

Except for those stupid electrons that keep on spinning around the nucleus.

Except they don't "spin." They actually exist in a "shell" around the nucleus, with more energetic electrons existing in higher energy levels, higher "shells." They actually move around pretty randomly in that shell.

You only have a chance to find an electron in any given place which means the charge always moves.
The charge oscillates around the nucleus untill energy is injected or extracted.
This oscillation is perpetual motion.
 

[myrkul]

You only have a chance to find an electron in any given place which means the charge always moves.
The charge oscillates around the nucleus untill energy is injected or extracted.
This oscillation is perpetual motion.

Think about how you determine where an electron is (or rather, was), and you might understand where energy is coming from in that system.

[Meizirkki]

[Alt-science warning]
Nobody can know what exactly atoms are. We only have theories and a bunch of statistics. I do not think the electrons are spinning around nucleus like pictured in countless text books. I think the entire atom is rolling around it's axis, or better, is itself just a whirl, with it's center rolling fast and the outer parts moving slower (just like our solar system). The speed of the whirl depends on temperature, at absolute zero all motion ceases and and matter decays back to background of space. Opinions welcome

[justusranvier]

[Alt-science warning]
Nobody can know what exactly atoms are. We only have theories and a bunch of statistics. I do not think the electrons are spinning around nucleus like pictured in countless text books. I think the entire atom is rolling around it's axis, or better, is itself just a whirl, with it's center rolling fast and the outer parts moving slower (just like our solar system). The speed of the whirl depends on temperature, at absolute zero all motion ceases and and matter decays back to background of space. Opinions welcome

Learn what epistemology is so that you can understand the difference between science and just making up a story.