YouTube and the Modern Mad Scientist (hackaday.com)

szczys writes: Making change for $1.00 and getting $1.10 back. That's the premise of overunity, free energy, and perpetual motion experiments. Using money as the the analogy is fitting because these concepts are heavily aligned with scams trying to land a payday for their "research". But there is another branch of people working on them: tinkerers who believe they can actually solve the problem. Laws of thermodynamics say otherwise, but this isn't necessarily wasted time. Other breakthroughs are waiting to be discovered as these mad scientists try to remove all efficiency losses from their doomed systems. YouTube can be an interesting place to look for ideas on low-friction, high efficiency fabrication.

Comments

Accusation through misunderstanding

[Aighearach]

It may be that they're not intending to "break the laws" of physics at all, but discover/uncover new ones. It may be that "overunity" sucks energy out of some sort of sub-space field (intentionally borrowing from sci-fi, calm down) that we haven't yet discovered. It seems that the pundits are the source of most of the perpetual-motion misconceptions, rather than the tinkerers themselves.

They aren't trying to create "free energy" in the physics domain. They're trying to create "free energy" in the economics domain; if we can suck energy out of dimension X, then until we're bombed by the inhabitants of that realm it will appear as (economically) "free."

They're talking about "free as in beer" not "free as in freedom."

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[Lab Rat Jason]

I came here to post the same thing... except that instead of sub-space sci-fi... I was going with mother nature... like your compass spinning when standing at magnetic north, I suspect they will stumble upon a method of extracting a minute amount of energy from the environment, and due to their lack of scientific understanding they will attribute it to perpetual motion rather than simple energy balance accounting. Then some scientist will come along and explain it in a few minutes and the "inventor" will be all sad because science crapped on their idea.

The bottom line is they spend years tinkering with an idea, that a scientist armed with a little math and chemistry can debunk in a matter of minutes... leaving the rest of the time to do real science.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[gstoddart]

It may be that they're not intending to "break the laws" of physics at all, but discover/uncover new ones. It may be that "overunity" sucks energy out of some sort of sub-space field

So ... what, we should watch every crank and snake oil salesman to see if they've uncovered any new physical laws?

No thanks, sounds like a colossal waste of time.

I mean, go ahead, try to find these new laws or watch these videos. But don't expect the rest of the world to treat it as anything credible.

Life is too short to listen to every crackpot theory as if it deserves it.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[ledow]

This is along the lines of:

"If I keep tossing this coin, eventually it will disappear into thin air and magically turn into a unicorn".

Scientifically speaking, there's virtually no difference, in fact. There's experimentation, there's pushing for new science, and then there's just bollocks.

It doesn't work like that. You find something unusual ("Hey, this part of the air is slightly warmer than expected... I wonder if...") and investigate the cause, or you hypothesise more accurate explanations of what we can observe and try to predict something entirely new (which you can then confirm by a single good experiment).

You don't just insist that flipping enough coins will make magic happen which will cause enough anomalies that will break existing laws that have held through countless billions of experiments consistently.

You are literally suggesting discovering new science by brute force, in an infinite-sized universe, with infinite levels of precision available.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[jbeaupre]

One of my favorite sci-fi short stories had a similar premise. Some guy discovers a way to make an inter-dimensional portal. No one knows where the other end is, but it's blazing hot on the other side. Everyone starts building simple heat engines to harvest the energy. And all is well until .... ... the Devil sues the guy. Heat was being drained from Hell and was predicted to cause widespread problems. Epistemological (as opposed to ecological) disaster of biblical proportions.

Funny stuff.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[Aighearach]

I suspect they will stumble upon a method of extracting a minute amount of energy from the environment, and due to their lack of scientific understanding they will attribute it to perpetual motion rather than simple energy balance accounting.

IMO it is equally likely that they will in fact have good ideas about where the energy comes from, but media pundits will invent a fake claim of perpetual motion to slander them. I mean, that is where things already are, they'd only have to keep saying the same things.

There was actually a propulsion device in that category tested by NASA recently. The inventor is probably wrong about the mechanism, but a valid hypothesis led to the (working) device. Then the media got started with it, and if you ask a random neckbeard they can explain to you that it was just snake oil "because perpetual motion."

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[lgw]

It's worth pointing out that "conservation of energy" is not a property of the universe we inhabit. Sure, at human-tinkering scale it is, and these guys won't achieve over-unity, but in the greater scheme of things: energy is not conserved in general relativity.

Conservation of energy is mathematically equivalent to "current age of the universe is not an input to the laws of motion" (time intervals are unrelated). It doesn't work out that way in GR, mostly because the idea of "current age" doesn't apply.

Relativity is odd that way. The mass of an object depends on it's total potential energy (a compressed spring is heavier). That concept of potential energy having some absolute total value, not just relative values to an arbitrary "floor", doesn't exist in "normal" physics. All that matters is potential difference (aka "force"). That change makes most of our intuitions, heck most of the stuff engineering is built on, wrong.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[avandesande]

Physicist are already working at this with things like LIGOS and LHC, except at a trillion + times the precision people monkeying around with magnets and wires are working with.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[MobyDisk]

What distinguishes science and pseudoscience is the scientific method.

The quack inventors aren't using science to propose a new idea like a sub-space field, then creating a test to confirm it. They are usually building something that science can already explain perfectly, then hand-waving away the difficult bits, and drawing an unsupported conclusion. By contrast, when someone asks a question, writes a theory, then builds a device to test that theory -- that's not a quack, that's a scientist.

Example: The EM drive. While everyone was skeptical, it was real scenc. It dealt with an area of physics that there wasn't 100% agreement on, there was a written formula, and it was testable.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[Lab Rat Jason]

I doubt the media can make it any worse than the explanations already offered by the perpmo crowd. If they had an actual scientific understanding of what was happening and allowed their work to be peer reviewed, then they would be.... wait for it... scientists.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[Howitzer86]

It may be that "overunity" sucks energy out of some sort of sub-space field (intentionally borrowing from sci-fi, calm down) that we haven't yet discovered.

We'll do that, and find that the process speeds along the Heat Death of the Universe, and that suddenly half of our Senators find something new to deny.

On the upside, we'll finally be able to pass meaningful legislation on Climate Change.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[Aighearach]

Naw, Newton for example didn't use the "scientific method." Back then "peer review" meant it was like youtube; there was no gatekeeper, the Natural Philosophers (there were not yet scientists or a scientific method) like Newton would read the things other people actually said, and they would be weighed by responding with their own comments.

If you want science to be based on the scientific method, you'll have to throw away the whole framework we have now.

And in many ways, what Newton was doing was better than the current system. They were successfully reducing the impact of the publishers on the accepted views, something considered a problem today that degrades the quality of science. The benefit of the scientific method is that is scaleable, and even the average students can participate successfully. I'm not convinced that speeds up the rate of discovery, but it clearly speeds up the rate of conversion of discovery to engineering.

If you get all religious about science like that, you wind up sweeping Newton into your "pseudoscience" bin. Is that really where you're trying to sweep these guys on youtube, into the Newton bin?

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[labnet]

Not sure why you were modded funny.
Most of the over unity devices claim the extra energy comes from the 'ether', ie some unnamed, undiscovered energy force that their special energy device can harness. A lot of great science was by accident or tinkerers. Some will be scam artists, some mentally ill, but most are probably just drinking their own cool aid; but I'm ok with that, because one day one of them might discover the real deal.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[Aighearach]

LOL if you remember the name, let me know. It sounds very familiar, but I can't place it.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[Aighearach]

We don't even know if the Universe is a closed system, and the "Big Bang" is pure hypothesis since nobody has done an experiment to make sure that photons look the way we expect after 10 billion years of travel. Subtle effects we couldn't detect on Earth because of local noise might easily alter the implications of that sort of work. It is largely speculative, because it represents the edge-data of the sensors. Edge data from every type of sensor is low quality. If you really honestly apply the scientific method, then if the Big Bang is true we could never establish it, because we'd never be able to do the needed experiments to verify the sensor calibration. That proponents of the hypothesis insist it is "proven" is a giant red flag for mindless consumption of received knowledge.

"In a closed system entropy always goes up." Great, now prove that any system that exists or ever existed is closed. It can't be done, it would require proving a negative. Even to the extent that we understand the laws of thermodynamics, we can't assess what they do or do not exclude. We can only assess the parts of in the middle that overlap our engineering capabilities.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[pjt33]

If you get all religious about science like that, you wind up sweeping Newton into your "pseudoscience" bin.

Some of Newton's work on alchemy does belong in the pseudoscience bin.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[Anonymous Coward]

You want to talk about the scientific method? Let's talk about the scientific method.

Let's start with the history of Chemistry. We'll go with this: (Z) Water is composed of two hydrogen atoms, and one oxygen atom.

Scientific method:

Hypothesize (Z). Come up with a test for it, etc.

How it really happened:

Cavendish was fiddling around with water and electricity, only he really knows why. For all we know he was trying to find a way to turn lead into gold or something weird like that.

Then he noticed hydrogen and oxygen bubbles, strangely electro-polar, collecting around his electrical apparatus. Why? Nobody knew. Nobody figured it out for a looong time.

This is the REAL scientific method, as it really is practiced in the real world. You mess around for your own private reasons, notice something strange, tell all of your friends about it, then they come in and you all puzzle on it for a long time until someone finally gets the idea that explains it. Then, and only then, do you do your hypothesis testing and all that modern scientific method jazz, because you want to build a strong argument that will convince your friends you've actually got the right explanation at last. That part comes late in the game. It's the refinement step. Up until that point, no experimenting happens. Just more fooling around, more "weird.." data gathering and observing, and lots and lots of armchair wild theorizing and all that stuff that we call 'wacko' today.

The quack inventors (like Cavendish was when he fiddled with water and electricity for god knows what reason) are happily messing around because that's what people do. If at any point they notice something strange and tell everyone about it, that's the instant we should jump on it and try to figure out what strange thing they've observed.

Example 2: Sonoluminescence.

People spotted this effect a while back, told everyone about it, and now we're busy trying to come up with explanations. Only once we've got enough explanations can we then begin to construct experiments to rule some of them out. We're in the "Not a clue. Any ideas, guys?" phase, and that's the forgotten part of the Scientific Method.

What upsets me is that this Forgotten part of the method is the most human part of all. This is the only part of the method that involves creative puzzling, curiosity, oddities, and genuine exploration. After that, it all becomes somewhat mechanical and non-human. There is some creativity involved in the hypothesis and experiment construction, but this puzzling phase of wild speculation is where the REAL human qualities shine.

Fun fact:

In the history of chemistry, pretty much all of the 'weird' effects that were observed ran /completely/ contrary to what the established scientific knowledge said was possible. In short, someone noticed an effect that was, according to all then-current scientific knowledge, absolutely and utterly ridiculous and 'quack'.

The science historian's rule of thumb is this: If the established science tells you that something can't be done and someone claims to have spotted something strange that runs counter to that, you should send someone to their place to see if it's true. If it is then begin the 'what the hell? Guys, does anyone know what might be going on here?' phase of science, and if it isn't, keep an eye on them for a while in case it was a fluke and they manage to set things up just right again (Dr. Jekyll never did manage to reproduce his formula. There was an unknown contaminant in his chemicals that was the /real/ cause of his effect) while (and this is important) saving a note of it for later, just in case of this situation:

"Guys, I saw ball lightning! It's real!" "We can't reproduce it. We've tried repeatedly. You must be delusional." It just turned out to be horrifically rare and difficult to reproduce.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[Aighearach]

And if they discover something that might lead to a new electrical generator, it will take 30 years to get to market and be tightly controlled by industry. You've in no way convinced me that the hobbyists are wasting their time. They have completely different goals than the people at the LHC.

Calling them monkeys just makes them sound cute. In Asian art, the monkey is often a symbol of fighting for the moral good. Like the monkey and the tiger, they have different goals. The monkey doesn't need to be philosophically concerned that the tiger doesn't understand his needs.

Normally I hate video links, but in this case I'll give you a link to a video of a monkey and a tiger, discussing a related issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[captaindomon]

Then some scientist will come along and explain it in a few minutes and the "inventor" will immediately claim that the scientist is working for Big Government or Big Oil or Big Solar or Big Pharma, or that the scientist is in league with aliens, or that the scientist is an alien in human form trying to prevent them from discovering the secret that makes UFOs fly. They will keep the same debunked machine going around and around in the conspiracy market for thirty or forty years, speak at conferences, and take any skepticism as proof that their alien hypothesis is right.

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[Aighearach]

Yeah, well. If we want "free as in beer" energy, I can give you specifics that work, and do something awful like you describe.

Just set up the electromagnet on a planetary scale, and suck electricity out of the Earth's motion. Sure, it will eventually slow the planet and ruin our orbit, but I won't live that long. If it works on a Prius, it will work on Spaceship Earth.

Or if that sounds like too big an engineering project, we could just tap into oceanic convection at the bottlenecks and use the oceans for hydropower. At first we won't be pulling out enough to ruin any ocean cycles, so we can sound the "all clear" and scale it up, right? Just figure out where the best bottlenecks are, and build some giant sea walls with generator ports. No problem.

Or speaking of climate change, President Bush liked the space umbrella idea. As an electronics tinkerer I really like the "just add a control loop" concept, but the failure states might need a bit of serious analysis.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[glitch!]

I would also be interested to know the title. You would probably enjoy a similar story by Asimov, "The Gods Themselves".
ROT13 semi-spoiler:
Gur uhznaf bcra n cbegny gb n havirefr jurer fhongbzvp sbeprf ner qvssrerag naq gurl vzcbeg znggre juvpu fybjyl nqwhfgf gb "bhe" ynjf naq eryrnfr raretl.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[Austerity Empowers]

So ... what, we should watch every crank and snake oil salesman to see if they've uncovered any new physical laws?

The most generous I can be is that someone may solve a useful problem in a novel way, while trying to do something else. Possibly elaborating the long list of potential and kinetic energy sources that exist in our environment that appear "free".

A common example of watches that never need batteries or winding. Yes, we know these aren't being powered by overunity/zeropoint black magic, but, watches that don't need winding under generally useful scenarios... I'll take it.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[TheCarp]

Yes but its not brute force. Some of these things are orthogonal to each other. You can not understand magnetism and thermodynamics to the point that you think your crazy idea works, yet still not reject all of modern physics well enough to contribute to other fields in your mad quest.

I was going to make up a fake example....but I realize I have one.

A while back I had a passing interest in water torches. What is a water torch? It is an oxy-hydrogen torch which uses electrical current to produce its input gasses via electrolysis. The real upside (for me) is that there is no need to store dangerous gasses, as they can be produced and used as needed. These are actually produced commercially, and have been for many years, you can buy one off craigslist for a few hundred bucks.

Problem comes in.... some people believe that they can produce some sort of free energy device by feeding oxyhydrogen gas into their car that they make from their alternator.... stupid....I know.... but, if you want to do this, a very natural first step is to make an oxyhydrogen torch to test your oxyhydrogen generator.

In fact, if you wanted to look at this as a DIY project....good luck finding many people doing it who are NOT these special car free energy crazies. However, they really have produced a lot of good info....in spite of their own stupidity.

So its not brute fore, because the problems they are solving are real, its just the problem they are trying so solve isn't....which means.... they will never stop solving problems trying to solve it....

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the allegorical chemical photography example. "Photography is a hoax. You're doing some trick there in the dark where we can't see it. Whenever we try to develop your so-called photgraphs with the lights on so we can see what's really happening, the experiment fails."

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[avandesande]

They are not going to discover anything. Scientists would have measured a discrepancy in their experiments with electricity and magnetism which probably number in the tens of thousands.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[operagost]

Ha ha, very funny. I'm sure you thought some schmuck was going to read your spoiler out loud and thereby release the undead to destroy the living, but I'm on to you.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[Aighearach]

If you read up on your Feynman, the "ether" is actually the closest to what quantum theory describes. According to that (the consensus theory), what we think of as "mass" is more like a bubble; like a negative pressure in an invisible medium. Different words than ether are used for historical reasons, but Feynman thought it was really funny the way people use the words.

The book Richard Feynman: A Life in Science explains it and gives the exact citations.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[Aighearach]

No, if you're selectively labeling failed experiments that way you've already fallen off the wagon.

That many of his experiments were successful proves that he was using some sort of process with non-zero potential. If you thought the failed experiments were pseudoscience, you'd be shocked at the actual scientific process.

Failed experiments are not less science-y than successful experiments. And in modern times, lead has been converted successfully into gold. Newton redeemed!

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[burtosis]

It's worth pointing out that "conservation of energy" is not a property of the universe we inhabit. Sure, at human-tinkering scale it is, and these guys won't achieve over-unity, but in the greater scheme of things: energy is not conserved in general relativity.

Incorrect. Macroscopically, and in general relativity energy is conserved. In quantum mechanics it's still conserved on average, but not conserved for specific cases which then average out in the long term or over multiple measurements/outcomes. It is a fundamental concept and not only has never been shown incorrect, but is a required underlying concept for all of physics.

Conservation of energy is mathematically equivalent to "current age of the universe is not an input to the laws of motion" (time intervals are unrelated). It doesn't work out that way in GR, mostly because the idea of "current age" doesn't apply.

Relativity is odd that way. The mass of an object depends on it's total potential energy (a compressed spring is heavier). That concept of potential energy having some absolute total value, not just relative values to an arbitrary "floor", doesn't exist in "normal" physics. All that matters is potential difference (aka "force"). That change makes most of our intuitions, heck most of the stuff engineering is built on, wrong.

There is a floor in relativity, and that is in the reference frame at rest with respect to the object. The relativity aspect is that you could imagine a moving reference frame which only adds to the energy. I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. Suffice to say that if the underlying principles of physics and engineering were significantly wrong in everyday energy levels and scale, even at 15 decimal places, we wouldn't have gps or any number of practical functioning devices that show - yes indeed it is correct. We all know physics is wrong, but only at energy levels and scales that don't apply to humans.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[Aighearach]

You're just handwaving, you don't actually have a calculation of something where there would be a discrepancy. If you had that, we could check it right now.

And if it turns out that the people at LHC are not even trying to build a home-scale electrical generation device, then it would be highly unlikely that they're spending their days checking the work of tinkerers. ;)

If you don't know, you don't know. If you didn't know, and said you did, that is a lie. You claim that these scientists are checking something that they themselves have not claimed to be checking.

And if you were to seek out more specifics, you would discover that science already knows that you can extract electricity from the physical structure of a magnet by constructing the right sort of mechanical device. The question these tinkerers are working on is, can you do it in the garage in a way that the Average Joe ends up paying less for electricity than he does now. And it is a known known that the scientists at LHC are not working on that problem. They're not average joes, and most of them are scientists not engineers. And the engineers are working on utility-scale ideas mostly. Pillaging the crystalline structure of magnets in novel ways is not likely to yield utility-level processes, but it could really mean "free energy" for people recycling magnets.

Just like a Joule Thief can mean "free energy" for people recycling disposable batteries. It just requires understanding that we mean "free as in beer."

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[serviscope_minor]

Not it was snake oil because "Nother's theorem".

Reactionless thrust means that momentum is not conserved and that means the physical laws are not uniform. The latter is a HUGE claim and so far all they have are some thrusts well within experimental error to justify what would be the result of the century.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[jeffb (2.718)]

A common example of watches that never need batteries or winding. Yes, we know these aren't being powered by overunity/zeropoint black magic, but, watches that don't need winding under generally useful scenarios... I'll take it.

So did I. The watch cost me less than 20 bucks, and all I have to do is replace the battery every five years or so. Beats the heck out of winding it every day. Magic! er, Science!

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[glitch!]

... And I would have gotten away with it, if it weren't for you meddling kids!

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[burtosis]

Not only is energy not conserved, but it keeps increasing as our universe full of dark energy keeps expanding.

This energy could be mined:

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1995ApJ...446...63H

Again incorrect. When you total all energy in the universe, including that from gravitational fields it is likely zero. It has always been zero, and will continue to be zero. Even if you were to somehow harvest dark energy (which btw only is a meaningful amount when you talk about millions of light years) you would essentially be bringing two masses together and is exploiting gravitational potential energy.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[Aighearach]

I'm as healthy as a loon, anyways. Real loons can't type, though. What health problems do you have that you're worried about my health? How special a snowflake do you have to be to diagnose illness via proximity to electrons that were in proximity to my electrons?

If somebody makes an personal, insulting attack on some random unfortunate on youtube, and I had a cough, would that make it less lame? How about less stupid?

What I want to know is, why is this group of talking apes so upset that that other group of apes is talking? Would it help if I rephrased it? Ah, AH AH AH AH AH AH AHAH AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! *thump*thump*thump*

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[Aighearach]

However, they really have produced a lot of good info....in spite of their own stupidity.

So its not brute fore, because the problems they are solving are real, its just the problem they are trying so solve isn't....which means.... they will never stop solving problems trying to solve it....

Interestingly, the same is true of science.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[Nazlfrag]

Well it goes back to the ultimate question, if mass/energy/momentum is conserved, where did it come from in the first place? If creation of energy is forbidden, then creation itself is also forbidden, therefore there must be a way to create energy.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[Stuarticus]

http://www.seiko.co.uk/discove... Tada!

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[Lab Rat Jason]

Best FTFY Evar!

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[pjt33]

I'm not selectively labelling failed experiments. I'm not even talking about experiments. I'm talking about his theoretical writings which assert properties based on metals having souls or on interpretations of Greek mythology.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[MobyDisk]

Cavendish was fiddling around with water and electricity, only he really knows why. For all we know he was trying to find a way to turn lead into gold or something weird like that. Then he noticed hydrogen and oxygen bubbles, strangely electro-polar, collecting around his electrical apparatus. Why? Nobody knew. Nobody figured it out for a looong time.

So where is the line between "fiddling around" and "science?"

This example becomes science as soon as someone asks "Why did this happen?" That starts the process of hypothesizing and testing and getting closer to an explanation. When someone says "scientific method" that doesn't mean it can't start with experimentation. But it can't be: experiment, hand-wave and throw jargon around, beg for money, repeat. At some point someone has to document what happened, ask "why," and create a theory. The quacks are the ones that don't ask why. They want instant gratification. Well science is hard! They have to do the real work! At least document what you did and what was surprising about it! Or they have to come up with an idea for the theory, and defer the math and science to others who knew those areas better.

someone claims to have spotted something strange that runs counter to that, you should send someone to their place to see if it's true

Absolutely! The ones called "quacks" either: never see anything strange, or claim that they have, but can't reproduce it. A hallmark of a quack is refusal to document their experiment so that it can be reproduced. Many of them build machines that do exactly what the established science says they will do. They are not creating new science, they are arguing established science with no experiments to back it up.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[Agent0013]

I came here to post the same thing... except that instead of sub-space sci-fi... I was going with mother nature... like your compass spinning when standing at magnetic north, I suspect they will stumble upon a method of extracting a minute amount of energy from the environment, and due to their lack of scientific understanding they will attribute it to perpetual motion rather than simple energy balance accounting. Then some scientist will come along and explain it in a few minutes and the "inventor" will be all sad because science crapped on their idea.

The bottom line is they spend years tinkering with an idea, that a scientist armed with a little math and chemistry can debunk in a matter of minutes... leaving the rest of the time to do real science.

I have heard of a examples where the scientist experts said something was impossible. And if something is not possible in physics then people who have the knowledge will not be so stupid to waste their time on it. Except sometimes the experts are wrong. The Frazier lens is an example of such a thing. Everybody who knew the physics about light and lenses said it was not possible to get a lens with near infinite depth of field. The guy didn't listen to them and spent 10 years tinkering with lenses in his garage before coming up with the Frazier lens and it is amazing. I'm glad he wasn't a scientist who would have debunked the whole idea before even starting on it.

Now the descriptions of the lens state how it is just a so and so and fits the physics just fine. I think the physicists have updated their worldview to accept the new discovery already. And that is not the only example of this sort I have heard of, just the one I can think of right now.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[doccus]

Indeed. "free energy" isn't breaking the laws of theremodynamics or physics at all. Tesla knew that a century ago. There'sn\ other sources of energy all around us (such as "dark energy") that simply haven't been tapped. Consider a century ago how they would have reacted to solar power. "Getting something from nothing" I bet they would have said...

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[KGIII]

The question is not if they can create perpetual motion but, if in their effort, they will discover a novel process that does result in making that energy productive. Does it matter if it is perpetual motion or not, if it results in some new method of power generation that is efficient and financially viable?

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[KGIII]

If I understand correctly, and I believe I do, the device was not tested "by NASA" but at a facility, rented, and shared by NASA. The only thing NASA associated with that device, as of yet, is some general interest and a name on a building placard. I'm also given to understand that it's still a bit of a black box and that there's some dubious measurement mechanism in place - as in the force being generated is so minute that the measuring equipment may not be sensitive enough to accurately measure it and that means that the force might exist, might not, or might be explained by some other mechanism entirely.

In other words, I'd not get your hopes up to high. It'd be exciting, if true, and would certainly mean that we'd have a whole lot of work to do in physics. Not that we don't still have a lot of work to do but we'd either need to find the reaction (there appears to be no known reaction) or that we have to rework the Standard Model a whole lot.

I'm hopeful but not overly optimistic. I'm more interested in what the mechanism is, I guess, than any possible effect. Given the tiny amount of force being generated (maybe) that means that any benefit from it will be many years to fruition. Even finding a realistic use for that force will be problematic unless they can find a way to scale it up. I guess, in theory, it'd make generational ships possible but they'd be awfully slow in their acceleration. I guess they could be coupled with other devices?

Ah well... We'll see... If this is real, if the force is real, then I'd suspect there's a mechanism where reaction is taking place and we're just not yet aware of that or how it is happening. That being the most simple of means (I should think) and would mean we'd not need to rework the entirety of physics. Of course, the latter is always possible. I'm also assuming we're talking about the same thing. Of great importance is that it was not all that long ago we were certain of the four ethers, phlogiston, and that we had fire inside of us. We could well be wrong today, yet we're as certain about our correctness today as they were of phlogiston.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[KGIII]

I'm half tempted, no - very tempted, to write out one of my novellas but I suspect I'd be preaching to the choir. How very, very odd.

What I will share is this: I find it funny that people will say stuff like, "I believe in the science!" As if it is an authoritative thing. By its very nature, and given any understanding of science (the results of the scientific method) one would have to be very stupid to "believe in the science." It has become, to some, a religion. And no, I don't mean that the scientists themselves are the main practitioners of this.

"Well I believe the science!" Well, if you believed "the science" you'd (and that's a generic you, not you personally) would know that not only is it possibly wrong, it's probably wrong, or at least incomplete. "The science is settled!" No, the science is *never* settled, or at least it shouldn't be. While there are some things that we believe to be true, there are very few things that we know to be true. There are things that we've demonstrated to be likely true given the reproducibility of certain experiments but that never means it's settled. It simply means we have a current understanding that we believe to be true. I'd hardly call that settled.

What we can say, with some certainty, is that when we perform this experiment, these results are consistent. Extrapolating beyond that is not a certainty. When we do A and B happens then it may be natural that C follows but it is not a certainty. Science, the method or practice of it, doesn't do anything more than say that - at it's very root. Yes, we then make predictions about what is probably true, but very little is truly proven. We can not, for example, even prove that we exist - if we want to get down to the nitty-gritty. We can observe, we can measure, and we can make predictions and give our current understanding of what we believe to be the most likely to be true.

One of my favorites is the people who say, "Do you see that computer, car, or your glasses? Science!" Yeah, while we were "settled" on phlogiston we could have pointed out iron, bronze, the plow, leeches, witchcraft, the Philosopher's Stone, and said "Science!" The presumption that what we now "know" is correct, the truth, and final is silly. Yet people believe it, just like a religion, and think they're more intelligent because of it. What we now believe to be true, may well look as silly as phlogiston in as many years.

But there are those who will swear it is the absolute truth. I have to wonder if they're just afraid to say, "I don't know?" There's nothing wrong with saying that we can't be certain. It's usually people who don't actually really understand the scientific method (or any of the sciences) that seem to be the most vocal proponents. They really remind me of the religious bunch. It doesn't help that some people, often scientist themselves, will present theoretical things as fact. I consume a lot of documentaries and am overly fond of those who do not present things as fact but say things like, "If the Standard Model is correct then..." Or, "What we currently believe to be true is..."

You get people who present the Big Bang as fact, as settled science, and will absolutely swear by it - and defend it as so. And you get those who don't actually understand the philosophy which is the scientific method who champion it, as religious zealots, while not actually understanding (or even knowing) that there are competing theories for almost all of those things. Hell, we've got everything from a multiverse theory to a holographic universe theory and everything in between. I have to wonder if there's a strong urge for humans to believe they know the answers and why it is so difficult for people to say, "We don't fully understand the mechanism."

I could go on, elaborate, but I suspect you understand where I'm going with this. It's remarkable how many times, just today, I've read your posts and found myself shaking my head in agreement or feeling compelled to respond. Fortunately, the house is noisy and active - so I can sit idle, off in the corner, and mostly be left alone for a while longer. It's nice sometimes.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[KGIII]

Wait, what? Pointing out that the Big Bang is entirely theoretical and incapable of being proven by its very nature makes one a creationist, be default? Well, I think I found one of those people that I referenced in my prior post.

It's nice that you have a belief system but it's not nice that you're insulting when your belief system is challenged. Please leave the science to the scientists. Thanks. You're not helping nearly as much as you think you are. (Nor are you likely as intelligent as you believe yourself to be.)

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[KGIII]

Eh? What makes you believe that, in an equal amount of time, we'll not be looking back at the science done today and making much the same comments? It was not that long ago where we had phlogiston, ethers, and the spirit of elements - even the formal idea of elements isn't all that old and the periodic table is even younger. (I'm not sure if the new elements that they recently agreed on, they exist only for a short time and are made entirely by processes done by man - not found in nature, at all as I recall, will be added to the table or not.)

It's odd that so many people seem to think that our current understanding is correct when we actually know it isn't correct. Yes, the Standard Model works at human-scale levels but not so when you get into smaller things. We may laugh at our simplistic understanding in just a few generations. Remember, they too thought they were correct. If they didn't, then why would they be doing the work?

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[KGIII]

I've only one nit to pick. The Earth would not still be flat. Indeed, the Earth would still be spherical(ish). We'd just *think* it was flat. What we think is often wrong (or not completely understood) as you well know, or at least indicate you know. That doesn't change its nature, it just means we've got shitty understanding. Thus, the Earth would not still be flat. When we believed the Earth was flat, the Earth was no more (or less) flat than it is now. We were just wrong. ;-)

The good thing to acknowledge is that we're not only probably wrong today, about many things, but we straight up KNOW we're wrong. My issue is with some many who think we're at the pinnacle of knowledge. The sad part is that two hundred years ago, we felt the same way. There are people who use science as a crutch, as a belief system, to achieve the point where they state, with confidence, that the science is settled. They state, with assurance, that they know the answers because a scientist told them so.

I don't think a scientist told them any such thing. They probably said something like, "Our current understanding is..." Which then got filtered down and interpreted as, "We know for a fact..." As I stated above, it's as if people have a problem with the idea of saying, "We don't currently understand..." It has truly become like a religion which, while nice - I guess, is missing the part where we admit that we do not, in fact, know much of anything to be completely certain. People then accept these extrapolations as gospel, complete with prophets and priests, and are strict adherents with a variety of sects. I'm actually a bit disturbed by the trend and I've no idea what caused it.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[delt0r]

Err no. They don't claim any such thing. Since these people are the poster child of willful ignorance, they are hardly going to come up with a legitimate theory. Even worst they don't even understand really simple physics or electronics. Like how to measure power flow in an AC circuit. Here is a hint, it is *not* RMS V multiplied by the RMS current!

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[delt0r]

I think a better question is, name even just once such discovery from a "crank"? These people will not find anything. they can't even measure power correctly. They are idiots.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[delt0r]

If you look like a duck, quack like a duck, i am going to call you a fucking duck. Loon.

They don't understand anything. Why do you think there is something about there goals that need understanding.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[delt0r]

My ecodrive is going strong after almost 20 years. Never needed to open it up and ruin the water proofing.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[delt0r]

Example: The EM drive. While everyone was skeptical, it was real scenc. It dealt with an area of physics that there wasn't 100% agreement on, there was a written formula, and it was testable.

Absolutely not. It does not have any valid science theory behind it. the experiments show no such force outside errors and noise. And if it works, *IT WOULD BE A OVER UNITY ENERGY DEVICE*. Conservation of momentum and energy are related. They are aspects of the same conservation.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[MiSaunaSnob]

I hate to burst your bubble but Big Government, Big Oil, and Big Pharma are not in control of the truth about perpetual motion... its the lizard people living inside the earth...

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[Aighearach]

So? What is the name of the mental illness where you lash out and call people names, names that are not even designed to say anything other than "you have a medical problem, be cast out from society!" I neither have the illness you imagine, nor have I been cast out. You're a guy on the internet. What benefit do you perceive to get for yourself by "accusing" people of having medical problems? Is that likely to be a successful part of your treatment plan? Is it likely to lead to people valuing your contribution?

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[delt0r]

Context dumb ass. Use it. Loon is not a freaking medical term. God dam no wonder /. is so willing to run with the lunatics with posters like you around.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[Aighearach]

The experiment was verified, sorry you understood incorrectly. What is not correct is the breathless overstatement in the media. All sorts of idiotic things have been said, like that it doesn't use "fuel," even though it claims to be using electricity, which is a real physical thing, and a known energy carrier. Others, even people with letters next to their names, claimed it violates Newton's Third Law, primarily because they forgot how electrons maintain an orbit (photon exchange) and that General Relativity states that it is no violation at all to convert between electricity and momentum.

A lot of stupid things have been said on the subject, and I'm sure a lot more stupid things will be said on it. The lack of veracity in statements by lettered speakers should give a person pause before accepting dismissive proclamations by lettered mobs.

Even when they're pointing at snake oil, they have a hard time not tripping over their own feet and citing the wrong reasons why it isn't what people think.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[Aighearach]

Obviously establishing a boundary wouldn't be the same thing as measuring actual usage. Local tinfoil hats have been protesting about this issue for decades; the electrical meters aren't even accurate!

Your comment reminds me of the wag who asked Edison how many engineering formulas he had memorized. I encourage you to consider your own comments in the context of Edison's well-known answer.

Re:Accusation through misunderstanding

[Aighearach]

Ahhh, how cute, the little newbie learned how to call names.

Yes, Mr Genius, people with lower user-id numbers than you are the reason why /. is what it is, for good or bad. If you didn't like it, you shouldn't have stayed. Deal with it somewhere other than on my lawn.

It is bad news

[Anonymous Coward]

look at one free energy video and they will top the suggested video for you for months. Stay away from them as long that you want suggestions of things that you actually wish to see

Re:It is bad news

[Aighearach]

look at one free energy video and they will top the suggested video for you for months.

Just watch more soft p0rn and kittens, those are more popular than snake oil and so can displace it.

Re:It is bad news

[thinkwaitfast]

Try watching a reptilian conspiracy video.

On the upside, some of them are mildly amusing. In a pathetic sort of way. I have a theory that the people making some of these are trying to out absurd one another or as a personal inside joke...

Re:It is bad news

[epyT-R]

This is slashdot not reddit, failboat, or twatter. We expect you to know about and use private browsing, or at least clear cookies on occasion.

not break'n the law

[zerosomething]

If you are harvesting unused energy, seemingly from nowhere, you aren't breaking any laws of thermodynamics. Geothermal is just a tube in the ground that makes a motor run.

Re:not break'n the law

[Aighearach]

I just finished actually reading the article, (I thought it would be acceptable in this case since it is hackaday) and I realized more clearly the mistaken accusation they're hurtling.

The energy is presumed to be harvested from the physical magnets in most cases. You can indeed harvest energy in that way, weakening the magnet as you extract energy. If this is economically useful or not depends on very specific non-physics-violating math involving not only the devices themselves but also various supply chains. It may be that heat is plentiful enough, and conversion of heat to electricity inefficient enough, that there is a way to extract more electricity from magnets than would be recovered from the heat needed to align that much metallic crystal. That is without even just mining pre-aligned iron.

It is unlikely to be a money-maker other than for the oil peddlers, but there are not any fundamental problems with the goal.

Re:not break'n the law

[amRadioHed]

Sure, but the examples given in this article aren't attempting to do that. Discovering a new and unknown source of potential energy would require basic physics research, not tinkering with magnets, something that is well understood to not be a source of free energy.

This is not a closed system

[aepervius]

Law of thermodynamic pertaining on PPM only works on closed system. Your geothermal is actually an open system. A closed one would be earth+geothermal+motor+sun. That system is closed and you only shift energy from one part to another with loss and the entropy of the whole rises. PPM are more like I have an box, put stuff in it, close it hermetically, say "shazam" and when I open the box I have more than what I put in.

Re:This is not a closed system

[mark-t]

PPM is more like building an open system that only coincidentally appears closed because we don't yet know how it it is not closed.

Waiting for lightning to strike me....

[JargonScott]

Sat down to this article after coming back from the break room, where I found out our vending machine has an issue. If I feed it a very new quarter 50% of the time it spits it out, and the other 50% it will increment by .25 and STILL spit it out. Bought a $1.10 candy bar and got .15 in change. So I guess I'm doing better than the analogy?

I'm one of these guys...

[bcware]

Yeah, I perform my own "perpetual" motion experiments, but I have never shared my inventions with anyone. I have a PhD... in pharmacy, but I've never seriously entertained the idea that I might succeed. My goal has always simply been to come close. We don't need true perpetual motion, for example, just something that doesn't need to be reset very often. If I only have to raise a weight, reset a machine, wind a clock, etc, etc, weekly who cares. It's a minor inconvenience. For some reason these machines are dismissed and treated as black or white; complete success or complete failure. I live in the grey area.

Re:I'm one of these guys...

[Beck_Neard]

If you're just talking about highly efficient machines, we already know what the limits are to a large extent. A heat engine can never exceed the Carnot limit, for instance. All machines are entropy limited.

Re:I'm one of these guys...

[Jarik C-Bol]

Yeah, and you might stumble on to some neat new applications in the process. People forget, that probably half of what we know about chemistry was discovered by crazy people fumble-dicking around trying to turn lead into gold by mixing random shit together, and happening upon fantastic new chemical reactions, which they managed to write down.

Re:I'm one of these guys...

[110010001000]

No, that isn't how half of chemistry was discovered. Chemists don't just "mix random shit together".

Re:I'm one of these guys...

[sbaker]

Sure, you can build machines that store energy and release it slowly - or store it slowly and release it rapidly - or convert energy from one form to another. But the difference between that and a machine that'll run "perpetually" is more definitely a black and white distinction. The former is merely some kind of clever system - possibly interesting, possibly beautiful, possibly useful. But the latter would shatter the laws of physics and require a radical re-think of everything we think we know about the universe.

The existence of a for-real perpetual motion machine would be astounding - more surprising than the arrival of a starship full of aliens, more surprising than the proof of God. Nobel prize material for sure. The inventor could be an overnight billionaire (well, assuming (s)he could manage to patent the beast - which might be a challenge!) - world energy markets would be in total upheaval.

Coming within 99.999999999999% of making a perpetual motion machine ain't that.

You don't live in a grey area - there is no grey area. It's a very clear, bright-line distinction.

Re:I'm one of these guys...

[edtice1559]

The other half was people trying to turn things into methamphetamine!

Re:I'm one of these guys...

[swb]

I lost the better part of an afternoon watching videos on mechanical storage of energy. It was kind of amazing some of the contraptions people had built that would raise weights or wind a collection of springs which would spin a generator as they wound down.

I seem to recall even seeing something being done on a larger scale involving old railcars filled with rocks at some old mine site. They tow empty rail cars a mile up a hill and fill them with rocks at the top and when they need energy they have some means of sending the cars down hill attached to some mechanism or other that generates electricity.

Some seemed to use water as the mass, which gave them the advantage of raising an empty vessel (reducing the use of power) and then using flowing water to fill the elevated vessel.

I still think it's a fascinating take on the battery or, maybe better, "dry" pumped storage, and wonder why, out in the desert where you have the space to build a giant solar array you couldn't store excess capacity in some kind of raised mass clockwork machine that could be discharged at night.

I'm sure they're all hugely inefficient relative to batteries, molten salt and other more exotic storage methods, but they seem appealing because they have near infinite charge/discharge cycles and extremely low maintenance requirements.

Re:I'm one of these guys...

[Jarik C-Bol]

The first half. The early half. I know actual "Chemists" don't "mix random shit together" but I'm talking about back when they where called "Alchemists", and the periodic table was a half dozen or so centuries away from being invented.

Re:I'm one of these guys...

[Jarik C-Bol]

Not really, i'm just looking back farther than you are. I'm not talking about 17th century chemistry, with actual scientific method, Robert Boyle, and the like, I'm talking about 420ish B.C. when the idea that everything was made up of some combination of the four elements earth, fire, air and water was considered serious 'science'
we've come a damn long way, but to discount the people who came before, and gave everything names, isolated elements for the first time, and found out that this weird yellow substance burns blue, and seems to keep that fungus from growing on our grape vines when we dust them with it. (sulfur) Many of those people, despite our best efforts to deify them, where fumble fucking around, and learned valuable things, and lived long enough to write them down.

Re:I'm one of these guys...

[Teckla]

I'm sure they're all hugely inefficient relative to batteries...

Being hugely (astonishingly) inefficient relative to batteries seems to be correct:

Why not just use the gravitational potential energy of a really heavy weight as a battery?

Re:I'm one of these guys...

[inasity_rules]

A lot of power companies use pumped storage. Pump water up a hill with excess power, run it back down when demand is high.

Re:I'm one of these guys...

[swb]

I guess I'm enough of a dreamer not to be swayed by those answers.

Yes, lifting a single weight a zillion miles is impractical, which is why I think a clockwork kind of mechanism that lifted many weights a lesser distance makes more sense, like lifting two ton concrete slabs 50 feet, but hundreds of them. The power requirements of lifting the individual weights is less, allowing smaller amounts of excess capacity to be put to useful storage work as opposed to needing the entire output of the generation capacity to do a single large amount of work. Plus a distributed mass system could be engineered to work even if some masses were out of commission.

It's not something like batteries that could be more-or-less easily scaled up/down from garage to industrial scale. You may be able to come up with a fridge sized unit that could run a handful of LEDs for an hour, but the ideal application seems to be the kind of acreage footprints available in the desert or rural areas.

Part of the reason it seems appealing to me probably is my absolute lack of understanding of the maths associated with such a system. I'm sure the math of how many X ton weights need to drop Y distance over Z time to generate N watts of power would cause me to reconsider it as totally impractical.

But that ignorance coupled with the relatively simple nature of such a storage system versus a large scale battery system or the more exotic molten-salt type systems still makes me wonder if it would be viable when applied to a renewable energy source with an excess capacity capability and "dark windows" when the renewable source wasn't available, like solar at night or wind during calm weather.

Re:I'm one of these guys...

[swb]

OK, doing some basic (likely wrong) math:

Wolfram Alpha says a 10 ton mass @ 30 meters has a potential energy of 741 watt-hours.

A megawatt-hour of electricity at 80% mechanical efficiency would require 1,620 masses to be lowered. If each mass required 10 square feet, that's 16,200 square feet of surface area. Call it 20,000 to include the spatial overhead of the rest of the system.

It's a lot of individual masses, but not a lot of area. Maybe it would make sense to make the masses larger to reduce the count or some other similar optimization.

To me the biggest selling point would be the relative simplicity and low maintenance of such a system. You're talking pullies, gears and maybe some flywheels, not a complex high temperature process or a volatile, short-life chemical storage system. In a desert environment it would be extremely low maintenance as corrosion wouldn't be a big problem. In a non-desert environment, you could optimize for square footage and enclose the system to reduce corrosion to a minimum.

Energy bank

[penguinoid]

Invest your energy in my energy bank, and I'll give you 1% return yearly. You get more Joules out than you put in!

Somethin' from nothin'

[fahrbot-bot]

Making change for $1.00 and getting $1.10 back. That's the premise of overunity, free energy, and perpetual motion experiments.

And any Republican tax plan: lower taxes == more revenue. [ No wonder they hate science and math. :-) ]

Re:Somethin' from nothin'

[fahrbot-bot]

It's not actually that hard to understand. 20% of a bigger number is better than 25% of a smaller one. (Or one that goes overseas to pay the 20% instead of staying here.)

Pretty sure "voodoo economics" has been well debunked by now, unless you're a Republican, who doesn't understand history and math.

Re:Somethin' from nothin'

[zapadnik]

Wow. You don't understand economics at all, do you?

Where do taxes come from? the Real Economy (outside the Government).

Every dollar taken out of the productive Real Economy and put into unproductive and wasteful Government Economy means there is less dollar for investment and growing the economy. Which means, in the long term, less economic growth and a lower tax haul.

Now , it is obvious that if you lower taxes too much you get less Government Revenue (as if this was a bad thing - when the State steals money from the industrious and innovative). Also, if you raise taxes too much it also strangles the economy too, resulting in lower economic growth which means lower tax take in the long term.

So this is a 'Goldilocks Problem' where you want some tax but not too much. It turns out that optimal tax rate to maximize Government tax income while simultaneously maximizing economic growth (which helps citizens, as well as increasing future tax take) is around 23%. Most Governments are filled with economic illiterates that are strangling their economies (when they aren't simultaneously debasing their currency through inflationary printing).

It turns out that Republicans understand this, but you apparently do not. Disclaimer: I'm not a Republican, nor an American - but I LISTEN to what the Republican and Democrat arguments are (unfiltered) from the source. The Scientific Method requires this of me.

Unfortunately too many people do not LISTEN to the other side's arguments and reasoning. They listen to the propaganda one side makes against the other, and they form very strong opinions based on their ignorance. We all need to get out of this bad habit. From what I can see, Democrats mean well but never check whether their policies actually produce more harm than good, thus they cannot understand the Republicans who also mean well but have to temper idealism with practicality. Thus, Republicans cannot understand the ignorance of Democrats (like the silly, economically-ignorant argument made by the parent), and likewise the Democrats consider the Republicans "meanies" because they don't understand the Republican arguments at all.

How about we all learn to LISTEN with OPEN MINDS to the arguments made by people we disagree with. This is not only required by the Scientific Method, but is the true root to wisdom. Diversity of Opinion is the only diversity that actually matters - so let us embrace it.

Re:Somethin' from nothin'

[DogDude]

Put down the Ayn Rand, and slowly back away.

Re:Somethin' from nothin'

[fahrbot-bot]

Now , it is obvious that if you lower taxes too much you get less Government Revenue (as if this was a bad thing - when the State steals money from the industrious and innovative). Also, if you raise taxes too much it also strangles the economy too, resulting in lower economic growth which means lower tax take in the long term.

You'd think so, but check the US deficit and national debt during Republican vs Democratic terms and you'll see this isn't (necessarily) true. Our economy, debt and deficit have fared worse under Republican terms than Democratic. Perhaps this was a result of the Goldilocks effect you describe, maybe not. In any case, the Republicans want to substantially lower taxes on the Rich in the mistaken belief that they will reinvest that money into the economy, by hiring and expanding, when history and studies have shown that they tend to (mainly) squirrel that away or spend it on themselves. Their companies are now getting along with fewer of those pesky employees; why hire more when you can simply work the ones you have to death - who are scared to leave because the "economy is bad" and no one's hiring...

Perhaps a little hyperbolic, but there's more truth in the above than there should be.

Re:Somethin' from nothin'

[zapadnik]

Ad hominem much? how about you check the actual facts, amigo. Ya know, do a little research on the topic.

Re:Somethin' from nothin'

[Anonymous Coward]

Republicans understand how to turn a profit. That requires running a tight ship. Democrats want to siphon wealth from the populace and waste it on things that are at best of questionable value. You Bernietards sure are good at moving the goalposts to support your ridiculous claims.

Re:Somethin' from nothin'

[zapadnik]

Ah, this is another fallacy you might like to think about: "You'd think so, but check the US deficit and national debt during Republican vs Democratic terms". Does the party of the President matter when the Power of the Purse is assigned to the Congress? how about you check national debt as a function of the party dominating the Congress :)

If a Democrat President is in power with a Republican-dominated Congress then spending will be resisted. If a Republican President is in power with a Democrat-dominated Congress then spending will be unopposed and debt will mount quickly. However, we could probably agree that in terms of spending habits today's 'Establishment' Republicans and Democrats are both Big State parties who want to tax more and more money and power from the citizens (the Government has no money nor power except that which it takes from individual citizens who are powerless to resist it).

This is why the USA stands on the brink of financial collapse (perhaps Cloward-Piven in action?). The only difference between two parties is one is taking you to bankruptcy quickly, and the other is also taking you to bankruptcy but just a little more slowly. Either way, the result will be the same - and if you care about the poor (as I do) then you understand that a financial collapse of the USA is bad for everyone except ISIS and the Extreme Left, especially the poor (not only in America, but for workers around the globe).

To me, the fundamental problem is not even the politicians and their parties, nor self-serving corporations (although both of those have their part), but the majority of irresponsible citizenry who will not elect anyone who doesn't give them vote bribes (using the citizens own money, as well as unethical promises that their children and grandchildren will pay off debt for which these children and grand children will receive no benefit from, nor could they vote to approve or disapprove of this great robbery).

The only people in the USA who are preaching financial discipline seem to me (as an outsider) as the citizen-initiated 'Tea Party' - they are the only ones trying to turn the bus around from its current trajectory over the financial cliff which would be disastrous to everyone (except ISIS and the Extreme Left). But unfortunately most citizens seem neither to understand how bad the situation in the US is (and it's not actually due to wars, but due to massive unfunded liabilities from 'entitlement' vote-bribes and the cost of Big Government pensions etc), nor how you got to this position.

But humans being humans most cannot think strategically, and will try and enjoy the party as long as you can until the economic collapse - all the while demonizing those who are trying to talk financial sense. Unfortunately, too many Slashdotters also fall into this trap of wanting more handouts and Bigger Government while demonizing those who are saying "Do you think that's really a good idea?". We can only lead horses to water, but we cannot make them think.

Peace - and when the collapse happens, please don't come to my country and bring your insanity (we nearly made the same mistake as Greece and Europe and the USA - but rejected that madness with great pain the 1980 and 90's and have done pretty well economically and socially ever since).

Re:Somethin' from nothin'

[fahrbot-bot]

I don't generally disagree with any of your points. However, before you idolize the Tea Party - or those that support them - too much, you might want to read The Truth About the Tea Party. There's a lot of financial ignorance and hypocrisy lurking there... [short excerpt follows]

As Palin launches into her Ronald Reagan impression — "Government's not the solution! Government's the problem!" — the person sitting next to me leans over and explains.

"The scooters are because of Medicare," he whispers helpfully. "They have these commercials down here: 'You won't even have to pay for your scooter! Medicare will pay!' Practically everyone in Kentucky has one."

A hall full of elderly white people in Medicare-paid scooters, railing against government spending and imagining themselves revolutionaries as they cheer on the vice-presidential puppet hand-picked by the GOP establishment. If there exists a better snapshot of everything the Tea Party represents, I can't imagine it.

After Palin wraps up, I race to the parking lot in search of departing Medicare-motor-scooter conservatives. I come upon an elderly couple, Janice and David Wheelock, who are fairly itching to share their views.

"I'm anti-spending and anti-government," crows David, as scooter-bound Janice looks on. "The welfare state is out of control."

"OK," I say. "And what do you do for a living?"

"Me?" he says proudly. "Oh, I'm a property appraiser. Have been my whole life."

I frown. "Are either of you on Medicare?"

Silence: Then Janice, a nice enough woman, it seems, slowly raises her hand, offering a faint smile, as if to say, You got me!

"Let me get this straight," I say to David. "You've been picking up a check from the government for decades, as a tax assessor, and your wife is on Medicare. How can you complain about the welfare state?"

"Well," he says, "there's a lot of people on welfare who don't deserve it. Too many people are living off the government."

"But," I protest, "you live off the government. And have been your whole life!"

"Yeah," he says, "but I don't make very much."

Cheers.

Re:Somethin' from nothin'

[DogDude]

when the State steals money from the industrious and innovative

I read Atlas Shrugged, and I agreed with it when I was a teenager. When I grew up, I realized how silly it all was. As far as I know, no other writer calls taxes, "stealing", because they're not. It's simplistic, lazy thinking, and has been refuted countless times by countless people. I have no interest in re-hashing the same obvious arguments as to how taxes are not "stealing".

Re:Somethin' from nothin'

[Teckla]

Every dollar taken out of the productive Real Economy and put into unproductive and wasteful Government Economy means there is less dollar for investment and growing the economy.

You managed to beg the question twice in a single sentence. Impressive!

Re:Somethin' from nothin'

[zapadnik]

"Rolling Stone" ? you mean the Far Left rag that lionized the Tsarnaev's? *that* is your argument for wanting Big Government, financial bankruptcy and subsequent social collapse? all so you can avoid the economic FACT that decreasing taxes to around 23% produces a higher long-term tax take? wow, just wow.

Re:Somethin' from nothin'

[zapadnik]

Great. You pay all the taxes you want. But you are WRONG to use the coercive power of the STATE (implicit threat of violence) to FORCE other citizens to FUND ***YOUR*** sanctimony. I didn't call for 0% tax - although clearly your only argument requires you to parse my statement that way - I said that 23% is the optimum tax rate that balances tax take verses long-term growth. But you don't address that, because you cannot, so instead you bring out a straw man. It is you that is silly.

If high tax is so grand, then why can the State not persuade citizens to pay more to fund illegal wars, gunrunning, corruption, cronyism, boondoggles, and propaganda against its own citizens?

Why don't you VOLUNTARILY pay more tax to show us how 'superior' you are. But hey, chances are you are one of the 47% that has no skin in the game and is looking for more handouts.

Re:Somethin' from nothin'

[fahrbot-bot]

"Rolling Stone" ? you mean the Far Left rag that lionized the Tsarnaev's? *that* is your argument for wanting Big Government, financial bankruptcy and subsequent social collapse? all so you can avoid the economic FACT that decreasing taxes to around 23% produces a higher long-term tax take? wow, just wow.

No, obtuse guy I'm not arguing that. Simply pointing out that the Tea Party isn't all you think it is. Read *this* article, the interviews and reporting are sound. So, wow just wow, your fucking self. As far as your 23%, the effective tax rate is already less than then in the US for many (most?) individuals and most corporations pay *way* less than the official rate (if they pay any taxes at all).

Re:Somethin' from nothin'

[zapadnik]

As far as your 23%, the effective tax rate is already less than then in the US for many (most?) individuals and most corporations pay *way* less than the official rate (if they pay any taxes at all).

I agree. Make sure the tax rate is lowered, make tax simple (removing loopholes), and make sure *everyone* pays the same rate (both those who are rich enough to currently avoid it, as well as the 47% who currently do not contribute at all). Don't you think that is more fair and just this way?

Therefore, wouldn't you then concede that your initial statement

And any Republican tax plan: lower taxes == more revenue.

is indeed FALSE. That lowering taxes to 23% actually produces more revenue in the long term as the economy grows at a faster rate. Or, in terms so simple even Statist Collectivists can understand: rather than try and get a bigger slice of the pie, the Free Market solution of voluntary win-win exchange is to simply bake more pies (grow the economy).

I'm simply calling out your statement as false and counter to actual economic reality. No need to get upset when your error is pointed out.

With regard to the Tea Party, I'm not a member nor do I care. What I have noticed as an outsider is they are the only ones whose leadership is serious about discussing the USA's impending financial collapse. Every other political group (and groupies) are living in a La-La Land where it is about spending more rather than avoiding a collapse - which is INEVITABLE given your current trajectory. You can call me "obtuse" all you want, but the reality remains you are simply not serious about crashing the system, which will hurt the poor disproportionally (and it is these people I care about).

In short, you can condemn me, but I'm trying to tell you that you need to get real. The economic collapse of the USA is much, much closer than you think once the rest of the World loses confidence in your bonds - thanks to a citizenry that is completely economically illiterate and trying to defy the iron laws of economics (of which your initial statement is an example).

Call me "Troll" if you wish. I'll burn the karma if it wakes but a few Americans up to the fact to the economic reality of your situation. Big Government and Keynsian policies are digging your hole deeper, not getting you out. Bye Bye America, you had such great potential until your citizens lost their grip on economic reality and crashed you.

Re:Somethin' from nothin'

[fahrbot-bot]

(a) My initial statement was meant as more of a joke - and was modded as such. (b) Republicans assume that lowering taxes - usually and mainly on the rich - stimulates the economy as those "job creators" reinvest that money back into the economy. History and studies have shown that not to be the case. Reducing taxes on the rich, just makes them richer. The way Republicans like to reduce taxes shifts the burden to the middle-class, who then end up paying for Government services used by not only the poor, but the middle-class themselves. In addition, making everyone pay the same rate and, assuming by loopholes you also mean deductions, eliminating all "loopholes" disproportionately injures the poor as a larger proportion of there basic earnings is spent on necessities as opposed to the wealthier. Hardly fair.

The Tea Party only cares about reducing spending on things that (a) they, themselves, don't care about and (b) doesn't affect them. They're not quite the paragons of virtue and fiscal responsibility you perceive them to be through your rose-colored glasses. For example, to quote from the Rolling Stone article (from 2010 mind you):

(Rand) Paul ... denounced Medicare as "socialized medicine." But this spring, when confronted with the idea of reducing Medicare payments to doctors like himself — half of his patients are on Medicare — he balked. This candidate, a man ostensibly so against government power in all its forms that he wants to gut the Americans With Disabilities Act and abolish the departments of Education and Energy, was unwilling to reduce his own government compensation, for a very logical reason. "Physicians," he said, "should be allowed to make a comfortable living."

Quite the self-serving hypocrite, Rand Paul. His father, Ron Paul, on the other hand, was probably closer to the real thing for which you yearn.

Cheers.

Re:Somethin' from nothin'

[zapadnik]

Rand Paul is not Tea Party. Oh, you were ignorant of this?

You use the cultural Marxist meme of "fair". Define what "fair" means to you? Furthermore, you seem UTTERLY ignorant of the ACTUAL effect of the policies you espouse. Have you not seen the ENORMOUS damage President Holland did to France when he implemented the exact policy you are talking about in your ignorance? the rich simply move to countries where beta males like you don't rip them off for producing wealth and jobs for less talented people.

Your whole shtick is based on the Marxist assumption that the rich only get rich by exploiting the poor. This is stupid, and shows you don't understand the fundamental principle of economics: WEALTH IS ****CREATED***.

Wealth is created through inspiration and perspiration. When Steve Jobs created massive wealth for himself AND OTHERS through mere ideas he took nothing from his workers but gave them jobs and lives. Same with the innovators in many industries.

But because you cannot yet see through the cultural Marxist indoctrination you've received your whole life you think the Free Market system of voluntary win-win exchange is inferior to involuntary (and thus immoral) Statist Collectivist wealth confiscation that impoverishes the country relative to where it could be (although you are not insightful enough to understand the Opportunity Cost).

Hence, you make a counter-factual joke that slanders a segment of society that is more economically literate than you are, and pat yourself on the back to advancing a cultural Marxist meme that is pretty close to bankrupting your country. Sorry amigo, you are just dumb in this regard - but your ego overrides your reason so you refuse to acknowledge the truth - there is an optimal tax rate that is lower than your present tax rate, and this optimal tax rate ****creates wealth**** that makes everyone's standard of life better. Which is why even the poorest person in the USA lives better than the richest did one century ago (medical innovations, communications innovations, choices in clothing and food and transport, etc etc - all possible because of entrepreneurs and innovators whose self-interest also helps society far more than the sanctimonious bleating of wimpy beta males whose reproductive strategy is to get the State to steal on their behalf).

Re:Somethin' from nothin'

[Taser]

Tax cuts (outside of the neighborhoods of the minimum of 0% and maximum of 100%) are the least-significant factor in terms of economic growth. Cultural attitudes, technological advances and the public narrative are a much larger influence than tax cuts will ever be, as seen in the last half-century.

Re:Somethin' from nothin'

[CanadianMacFan]

Reagen and Thatcher pretty much showed that it doesn't work because the economy doesn't grow fast enough to pay for the tax decrease. Plus the benefits don't reach down to all levels of society so it just creates greater inequality.

Re:Somethin' from nothin'

[fahrbot-bot]

Dial down the Autism dude.

Re:Somethin' from nothin'

[zapadnik]

Pure ad hominem. Of course, you must do this because you cannot refute the economic FACT: decreasing tax rates from the current levels of most countries produces a greater total tax take over the long term. The Republicans and Tea Party (for all their flaws) understand this. Statist Collectivists (Democrats and other Borg) do not. This is FACT - no matter how much you Borg drones try and deflect from the truth.

Like many Slashdotters, you appear to be this person:
http://www.brennerbrief.com/wp...

Re:Somethin' from nothin'

[fahrbot-bot]

Admittedly, you make some good points that can, at least in theory, be valuable some of the time, but you don't seem to really understand what the word "fact" means. I guess I really shouldn't try engaging you; another poster responded to you best -- back slowly away from the Ayn Rand -- and there's really no talking with people like you, because you're so dogmatically attached to beliefs that actual, demonstrable facts don't matter. For better or worse, the world doesn't work the way you believe it does or would like it to. That's not directly your fault, of course, but your failure to understand that is - and makes you part of the problem, not the solution. Wanting to change toe world is admirable, but you need to really understand it, how things are and how they got that way, before you can offer any useful help and not just make things worse. I'm not an expert, by any stretch, but know enough to see plainly that neither are you - by any stretch. I know my limits; you, apparently, need to learn yours.

Have a nice day.

Re:Somethin' from nothin'

[zapadnik]

Thanks, you have a nice day too. I'm not a reader of Rand - I just look at the economics of optimization. This is simply a matter of balancing short-term tax take and long-term tax take, and finding the optimum constraint conditions. It should be simple for people to consider this - but no, because out cultures have been marinated in cultural Marxism for a century it turns out that "common sense" is not so common. Hence, I burn karma trying to share some new perspectives for my fellow Slashdotters.

I recommend you check out "Yuri Bezmenov" on YouTube. He's an ex-KGB guy that explains *exactly* why you think the way you do - how you've been lied to your whole life, and now the population of the West is unable to see straight (all the while thinking they are doing good). If you prefer book form them Lt Gen Ion Mihai Pacepa's "Disinformation" corroborates this story (Pacepa was the highest-ranked defector to the West during the Cold War). Not only will you start to see through the Matrix around you, you also get to understand who killed JFK, from the *inside* (it's quite simple really - and obvious once explained - the Conspiracy Theories are the conspiracy to cover the truth, as you will see).

I simply ask you to think about the mathematics of constraint optimization, and balancing short-term extraction versus long-term growth and which results in the greatest production in the long term. To get away from the cultural Marxist disinformation in economics perhaps you could think about fish population: take a lot more fish in the short term (overfishing), or take less fish in order to grow the fish stocks - and this latter strategy results in a sustainable system that produces more fish overall. This is the Republican/Tea Party argument.

Now I agree that the Republicans (especially the 'Establishment' Republicans) and Tea Party have their fair share of hypocrites (just like the Democrats, who work to further the interests of their Billionaire donors, eg. Warren Buffet setting Democrat policy to block of Keystone XL so he can get more money from his railroad investments in moving oil - the corruption is vile). However I recommend that when you judge Republican and Tea Party policy you get it from the source, just as you ought to get Democrat policy directly from Hillary Clinton etc. It is good to *also* read critiques from their opponents, but that should not be your only source. This is simply the Scientific Method applied to economics (and, unfortunately, the inextricable politics).

What is clear, is that Big Government/bureaucracy/politicians/crony corporates are not your friend and it have their own agendas that only occasionally coincide with that of the Free citizen. The Free People of the World have to realize that Government only gets money and power by taking those from citizens. Governments don't create prosperity and tolerance/liberty, citizens do! Government is a necessary evil, but they are still evil and need to be kept on a tight leash. This is necessary for the liberty and prosperity of all human beings.

Agree with me or not, please keep thinking about this. I'm not your enemy. I'm trying to give you a perspective from someone who thinks I can decide how to live my life much better than wasteful and insatiable bureaucracies lead by self-selecting sociopaths ("politicians") can. Thank you at least for reading my posts without resorting to "TL". I commend you for that.

Peace, prosperity and most-important of all, *Liberty* to you.

They still play with magnets and coils because

[mark_reh]

they have yet to discover the power of monatomic gold! Once they do they will set aside their toys...

This goes way deeper than youtube..

[Anonymous Coward]

there's tons of information about "scientists" who pursued these ideas with their entire passion (such as bruce depalma and his n-machine, google it.) Modern theories exploring this are mostly related to using the energy of the vacuum of space, and by my standards are quite an interesting read.

/. editors know less science than mad scientists

[angel'o'sphere]

The laws of thermodynamics only say: a heat engine can not be a 'perpetum mobile'.

Other perpetium mobiles might be possible, or not, who cares. They are certainly not covered by the laws of thermodynamics. Oh, you mean the law of energy conservation? Unfortunately, that is an universal law and strictly speaking not a law of thermodynamics (those guys have their own variation of it, as in 'the sum of all energies in a closed system is constant' etc.)

Getting boring meanwhile that 99% of all posts and articles containing the magic words 'thermodynamics' are either simply wrong or grossly misleading.

Any evidence for that ?

[aepervius]

PPM is more like building an open system that only coincidentally appears closed because we don't yet know how it it is not closed.

Once a PPM has been built we can discuss the merit of your statement. Until then I think it is safe to say that ppm are only a nice idea but impossible with the known evidenced law of physic.

Re: Wat

[Anonymous Coward]

Obligatory Mark Twain quote: "It's better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt."

YouTube "science"

[sbaker]

About a year ago, I watched 100 randomly chosen "Science Demo" videos on YouTube.

80% of them were faked, misleading or failed to demonstrate some kind of wild claim.

Of the remaining 20% about half did a "Oooohhh! Cooooool!" kind of a demo - but didn't say what was going on.

So, honestly - you have about a one in ten chance of learning some actual science by watching YouTube videos - and about an 80% chance of being mislead by idiots. This is even worse odds than watching Fox News!

Re:YouTube "science"

[theIsovist]

So, honestly - you have about a one in ten chance of learning some actual science by watching YouTube videos - and about an 80% chance of being mislead by idiots.

While I appreciate your study, I feel your math, like the math of these videos, may be flawed...

Re: /. editors know less science than mad scientis

[sbaker]

Hmmm - Wikipedia has an article entitled "Laws of thermodynamics" and it says:

    "First law of thermodynamics: When energy passes, as work, as heat, or with matter,
      into or out from a system, its internal energy changes in accord with the law of
      conservation of energy. Equivalently, perpetual motion machines of the first kind
      are impossible."

    "Second law of thermodynamics: In a natural thermodynamic process, the sum of
      the entropies of the interacting thermodynamic systems increases. Equivalently,
      perpetual motion machines of the second kind are impossible."

It backs up those statements with no less than five scholarly references.

No mention of heat engines there...and an explicit statement that conservation of energy and the first law are equivalent. So, no - you're wrong - it's equally valid to discuss the first law and conservation...but conservation laws don't forbid perpetual motion machines of the second kind (the kind that operate perpetually - but produce no energy output) - so talking about thermodynamics makes a little more sense in this context.

Magnets

[PvtVoid]

How to they fucking work?

Re:Magnets

[110010001000]

Just like how babby is formed. Magic.

Re:Magnets

[wonkey_monkey]

Same way babby is made.

Re:Magnets

[belthize]

Much like the tides. Tides go in, tides go out, how does it work, nobody know.s. At least according to papa bear.

Ahhh hahahah hahaha!!

[DrStrangluv]

Ahhh hahahah hahahah!!.... ... so that's coming along.

Also gyroscopes

[wonkey_monkey]

For extra nuttiness, read the comments under any video on gyroscopes.

Thermodynamics and time

[mveloso]

Theoretically, everything will balance eventually. Eventually can be a really long time, but it's usually a really short time.

How to test an overunity device ..

[tetraverse]

Here's a simple unambiguous test that could be run to test an overunity device. Connect the output back into the input and disconnect the external power supply, then wait for it to not run down. Fame and fortune awaits the inventor not to mention the money and the babes. Requiring the experimenter to discount centuries of scientific progress and believe in some undetectable 'effect' doesn't count, just do the frickin' experiment.

Re:How to test an overunity device ..

[burtosis]

I submit to you an electron around a hydrogen atom. It's been in perpetual motion for billions of years already, and will likely be for many many billions more.
In a properly controlled environment near perpetual macroscopic motion is achievable (Simple - orbit two rocks around them selves in space away from other gravitational disturbances), but obviously you can't pull power from nowhere on a statistically averaged and continuous basis.

Re: /. editors know less science than mad scientis

[sbaker]

OK - so how about http://www.genchem.net/thermo/... or http://www.physlink.com/Educat... or https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k...

None of them are talking only about heat engines - they carefully point out that historically, thermodynamics was all about steam engines. But nowadays, it's realized that the laws are far more universal than that.

Not one of them talks about "the triple of volume, pressure and temperature" - that stuff is a tiny, tiny subset of what modern thermodynamics covers. You're still back in the Victorian era of steam engines.

Anyway - I'm done arguing with you. I guess that 99% of other people here agree with me.

Show me HOW, kthanks. Perhaps I'd even pay a LOT

[xiando]

The "free energy" devices on YoTub are all videos of some guy showing some "invention" from one side and various totally unverifiable random claims about the device. What I would like to see is a step by step video. This is what we are going to show you how to build. This is how it will work. This is what parts you need. This is how you build it. This is how you maintain it. Good luck and if you like or product then please donate.

Are there ANY videos like that on YouTube? No, there's not (please, please do correct me if I am wrong!). There is probably a reason for that.

Re: /. editors know less science than mad scientis

[nuckfuts]

They are certainly not covered by the laws of thermodynamics.

The entire universe is covered by the laws of thermodynamics, therefore so are all things in it.

"...low-friction, high efficiency fabrication"

[Applehu Akbar]

I don't look on YouTube for this. I can get as much of it as I want from any of the political debates.

Re:"...low-friction, high efficiency fabrication"

[jeffb (2.718)]

Bravo. And me without mod points. Posting AC just in case more arrive.

Re:"...low-friction, high efficiency fabrication"

[jeffb (2.718)]

Or setting out to post AC and failing, which I seem to be developing as a minor specialty. Turns out I'd already posted in the thread anyhow, so nothing lost but a bit of dignity.

The sum total of energy in the universe is zero

[burtosis]

If you add up all the energy in the universe, including that through gravitational fields, the sum of energy in the universe is actually zero. There is no free lunch and if the laws of physics were wrong at human useable levels of energy, even in the 15th decimal place, many of the real world practical inventions like gps would not work. We all know the laws of physics are an approximation, but no competent sane scientist thinks we can actually get an over unity energy return from springs, magnets and some wire.

It would be one thing if these people were actually trying to form a hypothesis and test it; Or experiment with various process cycles to try to further their understanding. But the reality is 90%+ can't explain the physics of how a hammer works nor correctly recite even 15% of the high school level physics they never actually passed. It's an embarrassment in ignorance. It's like they don't even bother to learn the principles they are trying to refute.

Re: /. editors know less science than mad scientis

[angel'o'sphere]

No ... the only thing you can rightful say is: in the universe are plenty of spots and situations where the laws of thermodynamics is relevant.
Exaggerating this to 'the enter universe is covered' is nonsense.
The only thing you could argue (and likely would be wrong) is: the whole universe is a closed system, the total energy in the universe is constant (and finite?).
However that has nothing to do with topic, or has it?

Lots-o-views

[AndyKron]

If anything, I've noticed they get a huge number of views.

Re: /. editors know less science than mad scientis

[vemene]

Other, non-heat perpetual-motion/over-unity mechanical models have not only been proposed, they have become -- without direct evidence, I should add -- widely-accepted by physicists and journalists worldwide.

Google the term "Dark Energy" for any number of examples.

Re:Wat

[Lord Bitman]

Yeah, the impracticality of a permanent moon-base also meant that the Space Race was a complete waste of time

"Awesome builds", maybe...

[Lisandro]

...but no actual results. The number of videos with home hackers attempting to build an overunity device is simply staggering to me.

"laws"

[ooloorie]

Laws of thermodynamics say otherwise

Some "laws" of physics are mathematical in nature; that is, they are logically true, like the laws of arithmetic.

Some "laws" of physics are experimentally verified; that is, you can run experiments and observe the results directly, like inverse square laws at macroscopic scales.

The "laws of thermodynamics" aren't either of those; they are instead a statement about the non-existence of certain physical effects. As such, they are the weakest of the three kinds of laws. It would probably be better to call them "the conjectures of thermodynamics". In principle, there might by physical effects that allow you to circumvent those "laws".

Think of an alien observing a modern encoded and encrypted communications channel; they might formulate a "law" that says "the values on this channel are random and unpredictable". However, if you explained to them the compression algorithm and gave them the decryption key, they would discover that their "law" is in fact false. It might be the same with the universe: things that look random and unpredictable might well not be if we only got the "decryption key".

Having said that, however, there are strong limits on how you could produces such physical effects. Maybe you could produce them with a quantum computer or near a black hole. You are not going to produce them with a bunch of gears, however. So, for almost everybody, the "laws" of thermodynamics might actually be "laws", although they aren't quite as bullet-proof as the name suggests.

Re:"laws"

[burtosis]

Laws of thermodynamics say otherwise

Some "laws" of physics are mathematical in nature; that is, they are logically true, like the laws of arithmetic.

Some "laws" of physics are experimentally verified; that is, you can run experiments and observe the results directly, like inverse square laws at macroscopic scales.

The "laws of thermodynamics" aren't either of those; they are instead a statement about the non-existence of certain physical effects. As such, they are the weakest of the three kinds of laws. It would probably be better to call them "the conjectures of thermodynamics". In principle, there might by physical effects that allow you to circumvent those "laws".

Bollocks. The laws of thermodynamics can be shown to be statistically true and hold for all real world cases using nothing but the standard model and statistics. Further it has been rigorously tested for over a hundred years and not only has successfully predicted results but not once has been shown to be incorrect on macroscopic scales nor exploitable for free energy in any way on microscopic scales. In fact it can and has been shown that any attempt to circumvent the statical process requires more energy than you save.

Re:"laws"

[ooloorie]

The laws of thermodynamics can be shown to be statistically true and hold for all real world cases using nothing but the standard model and statistics

Within classical physics or standard quantum mechanics and finite systems, that's mostly true. Even there, it's not actually a law, because over very long time scales, you do get spontaneous entropy decreases, so those "laws" are simply statements about what you are likely to see, not what you are guaranteed to see.

We don't know whether it's true for black holes, general relativity, cosmology, or a ToE. Heck, we don't even know whether it's true for a more complete version of quantum mechanics.

Bollocks.

You said it: your response is bollocks. You're thinking like a designer of steam engines, and I suppose in that domain, you are right.

Re:"laws"

[burtosis]

Your response is hilarious. You said there are no experiments you can run to verify the first law of thermodynamics and you don't typically graduate high school without being shown examples of this.

Re:"laws"

[ooloorie]

You said there are no experiments you can run to verify the first law of thermodynamics and you don't typically graduate high school without being shown examples of this.

You can't ever "verify" physical laws, all you can do is fail to falsify them experimentally. What those high school experiments did was "fail to falsify" the laws of thermodynamics under the conditions that existed at your high school (which presumably lacked black holes or bubble universes).

I was actually talking about the second law, not the first law. But even for the first law, conservation of energy probably doesn't hold once you look at cosmology.

Your response is hilarious.

Your response, however, is simply depressing, since clearly you graduated college without even a basic understanding of the scientific method.

Re:You don't know; don't claim you do ...

[burtosis]

It is rigorously justified through measurement. Honestly a 5 second Google search would do you good.

DREADCO FTW!

[Dusty101]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

For fake perpetual motion machines, accept no substitutes!

Creating $1 and expecting $1.10 back ?

[drsmithy]

Like the basic business model of a bank ?

Should make like a physicist

[CanadianMacFan]

Find something unknown, call it dark, and apply for funding.

Vonnegut's take

[cellocgw]

I think it's in schlachthof fünf that Vonnegut describes a superduper spaceship drive which gets energy from nowhere, except that it turns out to be grabbing all the energy from stars in a different universe. When the last star is exhausted, all spaceships come to a screeching halt^H^H^H^H nonacceleration.

Its not perpetual motion, its energy access

[kevin7314]

As usual, everyone gets this wrong(including the perpetual motion guys); its about accessing energy in new ways, not perpetual motion. Faraday was viewed in the same way as these investigators; its the initial human response.

Re: /. editors know less science than mad scientis

[sbaker]

I agree that the 2nd law is pretty much a statement about statistics - and the 1st law is just a restatement of the conservation laws.

The issue of whether the 1st law might be incorrect is interesting.

Obviously, science knows of no situations where mass/energy is not conserved - and discovering such a situation would be a truly monumental discovery...perhaps more important than things like relativity.

What this means for the perpetual motion nuts is more nuanced.

Firstly, the realms of physics which are attainable by amateur tinkerers are very well explored indeed - there is simply no possibility that some fiendishly clever arrangement of mechanical parts, magnets, coils, hydrogen flames, water electrolysis and so forth is going to break the most fundamental law of physics we know of. All of the science involved in those systems are far too deeply explored and well-understood for that.

If a perpetual motion machine (or anything else that breaks the 1st law) is possible - it's going to be far outside the realms of normal existence - something in the quantum range - or involving black holes and singularities of other kinds - gravity waves, dark matter/energy - things that AREN'T well-understood yet. Sadly, these are things that lie outside the range of amateur tinkerers.

It's possible to overturn major scientific laws - as Einstein did to Newton's laws of motion. But (as with Einstein) - you have to do that outside the realms that have already been tested. When Einstein proposed relativity - we did not have the ability to send super-precise clocks out into orbit to measure how they fared in reduced gravity and high relative velocities - and the flaws in Newton's laws only show up under those kinds of extreme situation.

If the flaws in Newton's laws were noticeable in the realms that amateur tinkerers could reach - they'd have been overturned a century earlier - but only with advanced technology could we actually prove that Einstein was right.

The same thing happened with conservation-of-energy - every experiment open to a Victorian scientist shows that energy is indeed perfectly conserved. It's only when you have nuclear reactors and exotic radioactive materials that the fact that energy can be interchanged with mass became evident that caused us to have to talk about "the conservation of mass/energy" instead. Again, the experimental evidence to overturn this very old "law" only came about with cutting edge instruments and experiments that the average person could never undertake.

So these tinkerers with magnets and such are really wasting their time. It's probably impossible to make a perpetual motion machine - but if there will EVER be a machine that breaks the 1st law of thermodynamics, it'll have something exceedingly exotic going on inside...and it'll come from the bowels of a research lab - or perhaps a cosmologist's telescope.