Doesn't have to violate anything. If it is what they claim it is, it does. It's not as if they're even ashamed of it: from http://www.steorn.com/orbo/claim/ [steorn.com]:
"The sum of these claims for our Orbo technology is a violation of the principle of conservation of energy"
"The technology has a coefficient of performance greater than 100%"
As for the rest of your list... Forgive me, but it seems to me like you're rather throwing out a lot of semi-science-fictiony buzzwords which sound like they have something to do with free energy. For example, Hawking radiation subtracts from the mass of the black hole (E=mc^2) perfectly in accordance with the laws of thermodynamics (theoretically, at least; AFAIK it's never been measured). And "Pulling energy from other universes" -- the only thing I can think of that this could refer to is the Many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, and pulling energy from other worlds in that interpretation is most definitely forbidden -- mathematically, no information can be transferred, let alone energy. Etc, etc.
I'm not a cosmologist, but from what I understand, if you assume general relativity you get a singularity at the Big Bang; a "pre-big bang mass" is not part of any theory I've ever heard about. A Google search only brings up a Legend of Zelda forum and the Holy Bible Message Board. Could you elaborate on what theory you're using that assumes a pre-big bang mass?
If you make a machine that violates the first law of thermodynamics, thus turning pretty much the whole of Physics and our current understanding of the universe on its head, I think fame is something you're going to get regardless of whether you want it...
Clearly energy generation systems that turn alternating magnetic fields into energy are possible without violating thermodynmics. I just doubt that they could produce useful amounts of energy or we would be hooking generators to our compass needles. Ummm... How exactly do you think generators work? Or transformers?
The reason we can't produce useful amounts of energy from compass needles is that the Earth's magnetic field isn't alternating; it's static. (Well, technically, it is changing; but it's doing so over a timescale of hundreds of thousands of years, so the energy you'd get would be very, very small).
they can get around this whole pesky conservative field thing which does on in magnets Not to get nitpicky, but magnetic fields aren't conservative. To be conservative, a field has to be irrotational, e.g. gravity; a magnetic field, by contrast, is solenoidal, which is pretty much the opposite of irrotational (irrotational = everywhere vanishing curl; solenoidal = everywhere vanishing divergence).
both positive and negative integers are contained within the set of real numbers, which are also infinite, but have a higher cardinality. Careful with what you're trying to imply there. Both the positive and negative integers are also contained within the set of all integers, which has exactly the same cardinality as the positive integers and the negative integers. The cardinality of the union of two sets of cardinality aleph-null is aleph-null. So your next sentence doesn't follow.
Not that trying to apply set theory to the question of the existence of God isn't just a bit ludicrous, IMHO. The same goes for the Axiom of Choice, Godel's incompleteness theorem, and Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle; all of which I've seen dragged into and horribly misused in philosophical and theological arguments.
Reminds me of this device, which took me a while to find the problem (it wasn't until I tried to mentally trace where the field lines would go that I saw the flaw).
My dear fellow, if you were to invent a free energy device, Big Oil would be rendered entirely irrelevent. No matter how much they offered you to keep quiet it would be a pittence compared to how much you (or they) could make by selling electricity to the World's governments directly, undercutting oil prices. More likely the oil companies would try to buy it off you -- after all, whichever company gets it would have an effectively instant monopoly on global energy, because they'd be able to undercut everyone else -- but any amount of money they offered you for it would be far less than you'd be able to make yourself, unless they offered you something equivalent to their entire revenue for the rest of your life.
Aristotle was hardly still accepted as current in the 16th and 17th centuries. Google John Philoponus -- "As regards the natural motion of bodies falling through a medium, Aristotle's verdict that the speed is proportional to the weight of the moving bodies and indirectly proportional to the density of the medium is disproved by Philoponus through appeal to the same kind of experiment that Galileo Galilei was to carry out [approximately 1000 years] later."
There is also nothing so far showing that the Steorn device needs to falsifies the laws of thermodynamics to work as advertised Since they actually advertise that "our Orbo technology is a violation of the principle of conservation of energy", it would need to do so to work as advertised, rather by definition...
Funny you should say that. Because this IS not a perpetual energy machine, but is actually just using a "novel form" of acquiring energy.
And it doesn't break any laws of thermodynamics. Not more as a simple dynamo or a magnetic brake. Ummm, what?
"The sum of these claims for our Orbo technology is a violation of the principle of conservation of energy"
"The technology has a coefficient of performance greater than 100%"
That's 2 out of the three lawys of thermodynamics broken, by my count.
The only "catch" is that they tap the energy of Earth's magnetic field. You can't get energy from a static magnetic field. (You can get it from a changing magnetic field, and the Earth's magnetic field is changing; but it's doing so over a timescale of hundreds of thousands of years, so the energy you'd get would be very, very small.) Doing so would basically be tantamount to breaking the first law of thermodynamics.
but if you invented the solar cell and called it a 'perpetual energy' machine, then where would you be? Much like where this guy is I suspect, being called a scam artist before you even get a chance to exhibit, being ignored because you weren't in negotiations with governments and pushing for NDAs. Rubbish. People have known that our main source of energy is the sun for millenia (e.g. we eat plants that photosynthesise). Announcing that you have a more efficient way to harness the sun's energy is definitely very possible, and would certianly not get you ridiculed. That's a very different matter to announcing that you've just found a way to break the first law of Thermodynamics; which are probably the most widely accepted laws in the whole of Physics, ever.
perpetual energy isn't even really impossible, sub-atomic particles pop into and out of existence all the time and sometimes get separated, thus Hawking radiation and for all practical purposes, perhaps all purposes, demonstrate perpetual motion. A few points here: "perpetual motion" in the most literal sense is not at all impossible -- get a piece of rock into space, start it spinning, keep it clear of any stray hydrogen atoms that might impose any frictional forces on it, and bingo. Again, that is a very long way away from what TFA is suggesting, which is over-unity -- free energy, get more energy out than what you put it.
And your examples are not free energy. Hawking radiation subtracts from the mass of the black hole perfectly in accordance with E=Mc^2 (as far as anyone knows, at least; AFAIK it's never been measured). And a high-energy photon might well materialise into, say, an electron-positron pair, but the mass energy of that pair is still less than the energy of the photon. None of this vioaltes the laws of thermodynamics.
Failing any of the big payoff candidates like black holes or tapping the sun, maybe you could harness the magnetic properties of the earth? I think they're mostly a product of the earth's kinetic and maybe heat energy The Earth's magnetic field is a product of electric currents in the liquid outer core. And no, you can't get energy from a static magnetic field. You can get it from a changing magnetic field, however, and the Earth's magnetic field is changing; but it's doing so over a timescale of hundreds of thousands of years, so the energy you'd get would be very, very small.
Yes, I know, this has the earmarks of a scam, but why not wait until we get a chance to find out more before we dismiss it entirely? You're not spending anything but your time, and to my way of thinking, anything that makes you think and reconsider your notions of what is possible is not a waste. There have been hundreds of thousands of 'free energy' devices around. Most are scams; some are by honest people just don't understand the science of what they're doing. None (to my knowledge) has come out of actual scientific research; most are by lone 'entrepreneurs' who get investment money from guillable people and then disappear. At any particular time there are usually OTOO 10 or so 'free energy' companies around. There's nothing new or even particularly original about this one, trust me.
1. Buy Ubuntu Dell.
2. Pirate Vista.
3. ??? There is no ???! 4. Wait a few months.
5. Inadvertently install an update to Vista's version of WGA ("SPP") hidden in an innocuous looking "Update for Windows Vista" package, from Windows Update.
6. Boot Vista, only to find that it has entered into "Reduced Functionality Mode".
7. Discover that your task bar, desktop icons, and even wallpaper are gone; and that the only part of your system that works is your default web broswer. Which is helpfully pointing you to a page at Microsoft.com instructing you to buy a genuine copy online or be logged out automatically.
8. Experience helplessness, anger, and rage.
9. Boot into Dell's recovery partion, and reinstall Ubuntu with it over the top of the Vista partition.
10....
11. Profit!
Is Microsoft's clipart library no longer largely WMF? Even if that's the case, modern OOXML implementations will need to implement these ancient, antiquated formats I've just checked (Word 2007), and the most of the clipart is, indeed, in WMF. Which isn't that surprising: it's a relatively compact vector graphics format that also allows the inclusion of raster graphics. What else can say the same? MS is hardly going to adopt Adobe or Corel's own proprietry vector formats. EPS is a possibility, but it's hardly very convenient. SVG is a relatively new entry, and doesn't support the inclusion of raster graphics. The only one I can think of is Open-Document Graphics; which I've never used, but is presumably perfectly capable. I assume that if MS ever did switch to OpenDocument formats, it would go over to ODG; but until then, WMF/EMF is hardly some ancient, deprecated, now useless format.
I ask you, what moron (l)user in this day and age is going to use a WMF file instead of jpg, bmp, gif, or png when creating a word document? Ummm... Someone who wants to keep an image in a vector format instead of rasterizing it? Neither jpg, nor bmp, nor gif, nor png, are vector formats. If you're arguing that there are never any reasons to use vector graphics over raster graphics, a lot of people are going to disagree with you.
SVG is an alternative, but it's still a relatively new format and has only just begun to gain a foothold.
I hate to burst your bubble, but a massive percentage of those "Vista" sales figures are from companies like mine. We buy a Vista license for all new PCs [...] When the PC arrives we blow away the pre-installed Vista and install XP on the system Impeccible logic!...At least, it would be if I had actually used sales figures to support my argument. Which... I didn't. See the words "w3schools" in square brackets after the market share link? That means that that's the source of the data -- amassed from the user-agent part of people's browser headers. Not sales figures.
Gotta keep the propaganda fed with distorted data, so the Microserfs can paint as rosy a picture as possible. You're accusing W3schools... of being a Microsoft propoganda outlet.
Yo, moron...
32 bit Vista and 64 bit Vista are two different things. Having them both on the same disc means exactly nothing. You still have to install one or the other. Blizzard ships Mac and PC versions of their games on the same disc. Amazingly they turn out to be different too!
Why does Microsoft have a web page covering 64 bit Vista if it's the same as 32 bit Vista? Ummm...
Duh.
Of course it's not "the same" as the 32-bit version. No-one, except your rather silly straw man, ever said they were.
The point was a simple one, but since it seems to have eluded you, I'll explain it again. However different they may be under the hood, they are both marketed and sold under the same name: "Windows Vista [Ultimate|etc]". If you go to Amazon and want to buy a retail copy of, say, Vista Ultimate, there is only one product. "Windows Vista Ultimate". This includes both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions, meaning that, whether you end up installing the 32-bit or the 64-bit version, the name of the product you have bought is "Windows Vista Ultimate".
So if a user buys a product called "Windows Vista Ultimate", and a company offers a product that claims to support "Windows Vista Ultimate", the expectation is that it will support the OS that the user installed. Not that it will support the OS but-only-if-the-user-happened-to-install-the-32-bi t-one-not-the-64-bit-one.
Let me put this simply. A company (lets call them Microsoft for the sake of argument) have two products. They decide to call the two products: Windows XP Professional; Windows XP Professional x64 Edition.
Another company (lets call them Apple shall we?) releases a product thats compatible with "Windows XP Professional" and a user is surprised that it doesn't magically work with the other product? Er... These are two separate products and you shouldn't assume that because the names are similar that they are automatically compatible. Let me put this even more simply. A user (let's call him Bob for the sake of argument) buys one product. The product is called Windows Vista Ultimate. Let's clarify: he has bought one product. It just says "Vista Ultimate".
So, is it 32-bit or 64-bit?
Answer: both. You can choose which one to install. Because they're not two seperate products. They were with XP. They aren't in Vista.
So, back to Bob. He picks the 64-bit option, because he has a 64-bit processor. Then he buys an iPhone. It won't work with his computer. The iPhone website says that it works with "Widnows Vista Ultimate". His box says "Windows Vista Ultimate". The webpage where he bought Vista says "Windows Vista Ultimate". But it doesn't work. And the user would be perfectly justified in complaining.
Nowhere in the specs (http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html) does it say it supports Windows 64, it mentions Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, or Ultimate Edition; or Windows XP Home or Professional with Service Pack 2 or later. Yeah, that's the point. In XP the 64-bit edition was a seperate product; in Vista it is no longer (for the retail version; doesn't apply to OEM discs for obvious reasons). Go have a look at what you see when you buy Vista Ultimate. Both the 32-bit and 64-bit editions are included in the package. Whether your installation is 32 or 64-bit is just another decision to make whilst installing Windows. If I bought a copy of Vista labelled "Windows Vista Ultimate" (See any mention of 64-bit? No, me neither), decided to go for 64-bit because my hardware supports it, and later buy a product that claims to support "Windows Vista Ultimate", only to find that it does not do so, I'd be fairly annoyed, and rightly so.
Do you see any mention of iPhone working with 64 bit Windows? Me either. Um... So? You seem to be under the impression that the 32 and 64-bit editions of Windows are marketed as different products, sold seperately, and generally kept distinct. While this was true with XP, it is no longer true with Vista: -- if you buy a retail copy of Vista, both the 32-bit and 64-bit editions are included (OEM copies are still sold seperately, for obvious reasons). Whether your installation is 32 or 64-bit is just another decision to make whilst installing Windows. If I bought a copy of Vista labelled "Windows Vista Ultimate" (See any mention of 64-bit? No, me neither), decided to go for 64-bit because my hardware supports it, and later buy a product that claims to support "Windows Vista Ultimate", only to find that it does not do so, I'd be fairly annoyed, and rightly so.
Honestly, Microsoft is lucky Apple bothered to support 32 bit Vista given it's tiny market share and all MacOS/Vista market share (percent) for March: 3.8/1.9. April: 3.8/2.6. May: 3.8/3.1. Figures for June aren't out yet, but it's now July; I'd be surprised if the market shares aren't approximately equal by now. For Apple to proclaim that Vista market share is too small to bother with would be perhaps a little humiliating for them...
Why does the iPhone software need a driver? Why don't they make it an application? Just about any standard Win32 app will work on Win64. Why do drivers need to be involved? Mozilla doesn't need a driver, why should iPhone? A driver is a program that allows you (i.e. the OS) to interface with a piece of hardware. Driver is short for "device driver". The iPhone is a hardware device, so it needs a device driver to allow the OS and software to control it. The question about Mozilla doesn't make any sense: Mozilla is not a hardware device, it's a web browser (your network card or modem do need device drivers).
In that case, your original comment puzzles me: what is this action that Vista wants authentication for, Ubuntu doesn't, and "the user is prompted every few minutes" for? There aren't many things that Vista prompts for and Ubuntu doesn't -- the only one that comes to mind is running Task Scheduler, plus a few things that don't apply to Ubuntu (e.g. installing ActiveX controls, configuring parental controls) -- and none of them are things that you'd do "every few minutes"...?
Slashdot Mirror
"The sum of these claims for our Orbo technology is a violation of the principle of conservation of energy"
"The technology has a coefficient of performance greater than 100%"
As for the rest of your list... Forgive me, but it seems to me like you're rather throwing out a lot of semi-science-fictiony buzzwords which sound like they have something to do with free energy. For example, Hawking radiation subtracts from the mass of the black hole (E=mc^2) perfectly in accordance with the laws of thermodynamics (theoretically, at least; AFAIK it's never been measured). And "Pulling energy from other universes" -- the only thing I can think of that this could refer to is the Many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, and pulling energy from other worlds in that interpretation is most definitely forbidden -- mathematically, no information can be transferred, let alone energy. Etc, etc.
I'm not a cosmologist, but from what I understand, if you assume general relativity you get a singularity at the Big Bang; a "pre-big bang mass" is not part of any theory I've ever heard about. A Google search only brings up a Legend of Zelda forum and the Holy Bible Message Board. Could you elaborate on what theory you're using that assumes a pre-big bang mass?
If you make a machine that violates the first law of thermodynamics, thus turning pretty much the whole of Physics and our current understanding of the universe on its head, I think fame is something you're going to get regardless of whether you want it...
The reason we can't produce useful amounts of energy from compass needles is that the Earth's magnetic field isn't alternating; it's static. (Well, technically, it is changing; but it's doing so over a timescale of hundreds of thousands of years, so the energy you'd get would be very, very small).
Not that trying to apply set theory to the question of the existence of God isn't just a bit ludicrous, IMHO. The same goes for the Axiom of Choice, Godel's incompleteness theorem, and Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle; all of which I've seen dragged into and horribly misused in philosophical and theological arguments.
Reminds me of this device, which took me a while to find the problem (it wasn't until I tried to mentally trace where the field lines would go that I saw the flaw).
My dear fellow, if you were to invent a free energy device, Big Oil would be rendered entirely irrelevent. No matter how much they offered you to keep quiet it would be a pittence compared to how much you (or they) could make by selling electricity to the World's governments directly, undercutting oil prices. More likely the oil companies would try to buy it off you -- after all, whichever company gets it would have an effectively instant monopoly on global energy, because they'd be able to undercut everyone else -- but any amount of money they offered you for it would be far less than you'd be able to make yourself, unless they offered you something equivalent to their entire revenue for the rest of your life.
Aristotle was hardly still accepted as current in the 16th and 17th centuries. Google John Philoponus -- "As regards the natural motion of bodies falling through a medium, Aristotle's verdict that the speed is proportional to the weight of the moving bodies and indirectly proportional to the density of the medium is disproved by Philoponus through appeal to the same kind of experiment that Galileo Galilei was to carry out [approximately 1000 years] later."
And it doesn't break any laws of thermodynamics. Not more as a simple dynamo or a magnetic brake. Ummm, what?
From http://www.steorn.com/orbo/claim/:
"The sum of these claims for our Orbo technology is a violation of the principle of conservation of energy"
"The technology has a coefficient of performance greater than 100%"
That's 2 out of the three lawys of thermodynamics broken, by my count.
The only "catch" is that they tap the energy of Earth's magnetic field. You can't get energy from a static magnetic field. (You can get it from a changing magnetic field, and the Earth's magnetic field is changing; but it's doing so over a timescale of hundreds of thousands of years, so the energy you'd get would be very, very small.) Doing so would basically be tantamount to breaking the first law of thermodynamics.
And your examples are not free energy. Hawking radiation subtracts from the mass of the black hole perfectly in accordance with E=Mc^2 (as far as anyone knows, at least; AFAIK it's never been measured). And a high-energy photon might well materialise into, say, an electron-positron pair, but the mass energy of that pair is still less than the energy of the photon. None of this vioaltes the laws of thermodynamics. Failing any of the big payoff candidates like black holes or tapping the sun, maybe you could harness the magnetic properties of the earth? I think they're mostly a product of the earth's kinetic and maybe heat energy The Earth's magnetic field is a product of electric currents in the liquid outer core. And no, you can't get energy from a static magnetic field. You can get it from a changing magnetic field, however, and the Earth's magnetic field is changing; but it's doing so over a timescale of hundreds of thousands of years, so the energy you'd get would be very, very small. Yes, I know, this has the earmarks of a scam, but why not wait until we get a chance to find out more before we dismiss it entirely? You're not spending anything but your time, and to my way of thinking, anything that makes you think and reconsider your notions of what is possible is not a waste. There have been hundreds of thousands of 'free energy' devices around. Most are scams; some are by honest people just don't understand the science of what they're doing. None (to my knowledge) has come out of actual scientific research; most are by lone 'entrepreneurs' who get investment money from guillable people and then disappear. At any particular time there are usually OTOO 10 or so 'free energy' companies around. There's nothing new or even particularly original about this one, trust me.
2. Pirate Vista.
3. ??? There is no ???!
4. Wait a few months.
5. Inadvertently install an update to Vista's version of WGA ("SPP") hidden in an innocuous looking "Update for Windows Vista" package, from Windows Update.
6. Boot Vista, only to find that it has entered into "Reduced Functionality Mode".
7. Discover that your task bar, desktop icons, and even wallpaper are gone; and that the only part of your system that works is your default web broswer. Which is helpfully pointing you to a page at Microsoft.com instructing you to buy a genuine copy online or be logged out automatically.
8. Experience helplessness, anger, and rage.
9. Boot into Dell's recovery partion, and reinstall Ubuntu with it over the top of the Vista partition.
10.
11. Profit!
Not only did that not make the slightest bit of sense ("hundreds of different os'"?), it wasn't even a haiku. Haiku's are 5-7-5.
SVG is an alternative, but it's still a relatively new format and has only just begun to gain a foothold.
You're an idiot.
32 bit Vista and 64 bit Vista are two different things. Having them both on the same disc means exactly nothing. You still have to install one or the other. Blizzard ships Mac and PC versions of their games on the same disc. Amazingly they turn out to be different too!
Why does Microsoft have a web page covering 64 bit Vista if it's the same as 32 bit Vista? Ummm...
Duh.
Of course it's not "the same" as the 32-bit version. No-one, except your rather silly straw man, ever said they were.
The point was a simple one, but since it seems to have eluded you, I'll explain it again. However different they may be under the hood, they are both marketed and sold under the same name: "Windows Vista [Ultimate|etc]". If you go to Amazon and want to buy a retail copy of, say, Vista Ultimate, there is only one product. "Windows Vista Ultimate". This includes both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions, meaning that, whether you end up installing the 32-bit or the 64-bit version, the name of the product you have bought is "Windows Vista Ultimate".
So if a user buys a product called "Windows Vista Ultimate", and a company offers a product that claims to support "Windows Vista Ultimate", the expectation is that it will support the OS that the user installed. Not that it will support the OS but-only-if-the-user-happened-to-install-the-32-b
Another company (lets call them Apple shall we?) releases a product thats compatible with "Windows XP Professional" and a user is surprised that it doesn't magically work with the other product? Er... These are two separate products and you shouldn't assume that because the names are similar that they are automatically compatible. Let me put this even more simply. A user (let's call him Bob for the sake of argument) buys one product. The product is called Windows Vista Ultimate. Let's clarify: he has bought one product. It just says "Vista Ultimate".
So, is it 32-bit or 64-bit?
Answer: both. You can choose which one to install. Because they're not two seperate products. They were with XP. They aren't in Vista.
So, back to Bob. He picks the 64-bit option, because he has a 64-bit processor. Then he buys an iPhone. It won't work with his computer. The iPhone website says that it works with "Widnows Vista Ultimate". His box says "Windows Vista Ultimate". The webpage where he bought Vista says "Windows Vista Ultimate". But it doesn't work. And the user would be perfectly justified in complaining.
In that case, your original comment puzzles me: what is this action that Vista wants authentication for, Ubuntu doesn't, and "the user is prompted every few minutes" for? There aren't many things that Vista prompts for and Ubuntu doesn't -- the only one that comes to mind is running Task Scheduler, plus a few things that don't apply to Ubuntu (e.g. installing ActiveX controls, configuring parental controls) -- and none of them are things that you'd do "every few minutes"...?
No, thought not.