perpetual motion machines

[Shalmanese]

Sure, come back in 15 billion years and tell me if the oceans are still in motion or not?

 

[f95toli]

I have to be more carefull about what I write

1) 1+1=2 qas just an example, I know it is an axiom. What I meant was that it has the same status. Conservation of energy is not something you need to motivate or explain when you "use it" in for example a calculation, just as you don't need to explain why you can use 1+1=2

2) The laws of Newton are NOT wrong, they are a limiting case of a more general thory (in the limit v->0 I guess they are exact). A conservation law (conservation of energy, momentum, charge etc) can not be a limit, it is either correct or not.


3) And about "absolute" time and space, I know it was "understood" but It was not a law or a theory, it was an interpretation. There are plenty of cases where people have interpreted theories and laws in the wrong way, "good" physical theories are often more general than we think and can tell us things about the universe we did not understand when we wrote them. The EPR-paradox is a modern example, it is not a paradox at all, the math/theory is/was correct but the the intepretation was wrong because people assumed that "it could not work that way"; today you can buy commercial machines that use the exact same "paradox" to do usefull things.

 

[imgod2u]

Originally posted by: Fencer128

Originally posted by: imgod2u

Originally posted by: f95toli
You do "borrow" energy in a way. The point is that since the uncertainty principle tells us that energy can not be definied to within an arbitrary accuracy there are always zero-point flucutations even i vacuum, but the <EM>average</EM> enery is still zero. A good example of how this works is Hawking radiation, a pair of virtual particles are created (in vacuum) close to the event horizon of a black hole ; one particle can become real <EM>only</EM> if the other is sucked into the black hole, some energy is effectivly "stolen" from the black hole. The total energy is conserved even though a new particle has been created.

"Borrow" would indicate that something, somewhere else, was loosing the energy gained from the quantum flux. This has not been observed in lab tests. As for "averaging out". That does not mean energy is conserved. If I walked around in a circle and ended up in the same place, would you say I didn't move? I did move, I merely ended up in the end where I started. The same is of quantum flux. Energy is created, and then destroyed. It is not conserved. It merely averages out to be the same.

Casmir effect does not violate conservation of energy.

What would you call two metal plates that move towards eachother without any energy being added to the isolated environment or system then?

Here is a quick explanation of the Casimir effect that I googled.

The energy comes from the vacuum. Conservation of energy is not violated.

And where is this "vacuum" energy comming from? Is there anything else that looses energy? What is the force behind this? There are 3 fundamental forces, gravitational, electro-weak, and strong nuclear. Any of these cause the "vacuum" force? It's nice to put a name on something but that doesn't change the fact that without any external force or external energy, the plates in the Casimir effect move towards eachother. If you do a search for "vacuum" energy, you'll see how they're explained and energy is not conserved.

 

[TheInvincibleMustard]

Originally posted by: f95toli
I have to be more carefull about what I write

1) 1+1=2 qas just an example, I know it is an axiom. What I meant was that it has the same <EM>status</EM>. Conservation of energy is not something you need to motivate or explain when you "use it" in for example a calculation, just as you don't need to explain why you can use 1+1=2

My point, however, was that 1+1=2, being an axiom, can be completely thrown out and an entirely new system developed based off of different axioms, such as 1+1=3, or whatever. While your statement above is correct (just like I don't need to show that a "period" ends a sentence, or whatever), is Conservation of Energy a law or an axiom? Or is there a distinguishable difference? I would say "yes," since an axiom cannot be "proven" but a law can have physical evidence either for or against it ... either way, I would appreciate someone with more knowledge in physics than I currently have speaking up about this particular issue ...

 

[Fencer128]

And where is this "vacuum" energy comming from? Is there anything else that looses energy? What is the force behind this? There are 3 fundamental forces, gravitational, electro-weak, and strong nuclear. Any of these cause the "vacuum" force? It's nice to put a name on something but that doesn't change the fact that without any external force or external energy, the plates in the Casimir effect move towards eachother. If you do a search for "vacuum" energy, you'll see how they're explained and energy is not conserved.

Firstly, here is another good link dealing with ZPE and the Casimir effect - in fact it's better than the former one that I posted.

Secondly, every description I have read of ZPE (vacuum energy being an example thereof) talks about the vacuum having energy. i.e. from the link above:

"In classical physics, if you have a particle that is acted on by some conservative force, the total energy is E = (1/2) mv2 + V(x). To find the classical ground state, set the velocity to zero to minimize the kinetic energy, (1/2)m v2, and put the particle at the point where it has the lowest potential energy V(x). But this result is only a classical approximation to the real world. Because the classical ground state completely specifies both the particle's speed (zero) and position (at the minimum), it violates the famous Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (m dv dx > hbar). Quantum physics, via the Uncertainty Principle, forces the particle to spread out both in position and velocity and so causes it to have an energy somewhat higher than the classical minimum. The ZPE is defined as this shift:"

Which (with further reading) gives you a definition of ZPE (i.e. where it comes from). ZPE as with the example of vacuum energy is outlined below:

"Zero-point energy refers to random quantum fluctuations of the electromagnetic (and other) force fields that are present everywhere in the vacuum; in other words, an 'empty' vacuum is actually a seething cauldron of energy. This energy is present even at absolute zero temperature (-273 Celsius),and of course, even when no matter is present. The effect of these vacuum fields has been detected just barely--the effect is very tiny--by the attraction they induce in a capacitor, which is really just two close parallel metal plates. This effect is the famous prediction of Hendrick B. G. Casimir (made in 1948); it was very crudely 'confirmed' experimentally by M. J. Sparnaay in 1958. A recent, widely noted experiment by Steven K. Lamoreaux (Physical Review Letters, Vol. 78, No.1, pages. 5-8; January 6, 1997) gave a very precise and unambiguous confirmation of the existence of the Casimir force."

and so with regard to conservation of energy:

"Putting the more exotic fantasies of the free lunch crowd aside, is there anything more plausible that we could use the ZPE for? It turns out that small-scale manipulations of the ZPE are indeed possible. By introducing a conductor or a dielectric, one can affect the electromagnetic field and thus induce changes in the quantum mechanical vacuum, leading to changes in the ZPE. This is what underlies a peculiar physical phenomenon called the Casimir effect. In a classical world, perfectly neutral conductors do not attract one another. In a quantum world, however, the neutral conductors disturb the quantum electromagnetic vacuum and produce finite measurable changes in the energy as the conductors move around. Sometimes we can even calculate the change in energy and compare it with experiment. These effects are all undoubtedly real and uncontroversial but tiny."

So, in my mind, I can understand somewhat that the vacuum has energy and the Casimir effect exploits that energy. The force exploited in the Casimir effect is also somewhat explained in the article. It is surmised with:

"...By introducing a conductor or a dielectric, one can affect the electromagnetic field and thus induce changes in the quantum mechanical vacuum..."

I recommend reading the entire article a couple of times to understand this better. Given this, I still hold that vacuum energy manipulations are not breaking conservation of energy.

Cheers,

Andy

 

[imgod2u]

While the article mentions "vacuum energy", it doesn't really explain what it is. This provides a slightly better explaination:

"The empty vacuum of older physics is today replaced by an active one in which virtual particles come into and go out of existence on timescales shorter than what would be inferred from Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. A concrete proof of this is the measurement of the distance (or energy) dependence of the fine-structure "constant". This is explained by vacuum polarization, wherein the electric charge of a (real) particle is partially screened by those of other (virtual) particles. In general, the physics of the quantum vacuum is a rich if complex subject. Apart from explaining the origin of apparently stable particles, such as the electron, it is also necessary to explain how they acquire mass and inertia (the resistance to acceleration). A formal approach to the origin of particle mass can be made via the Higgs mechanism, which involves the breakdown of quantum symmetries. (Though there are restrictions: for example, vector particles cannot acquire mass from nothing because of gauge invariance.) A better understanding of the origin of inertia would lead to new insights into the laws of motion, perhaps with practical applications such as to spacecraft propulsion. The laws of the quantum vacuum are not completely understood, but certainly their manifestations are frequently stochastic. Fluctuations of vacuum fields are irregular, but their averaged effects can be calculated using quantum field theory (QFT). Within the rather broad scope of the latter term, calculations agree with observations to great accuracy in processes where electrons interact with photons, i.e. quantum electrodynamics (QED). The basic formulation of QFT as a theory of quantum electrodynamics can be extended also to the theory of the strong or nuclear interaction, where under the term quantum chromodynamics (QCD) it may be a subject for study in the future. Right now, probably the best-studied consequence of QFT as applied to electrodynamics comes from measurements of the Casimir effect. This effect, wherein parallel plates in apparently empty space experience a force of attraction, clearly shows that the quantum vacuum is not passive. Useful calculations can also be done in this subject using a semiclassical approach to the interactions of charged particles with an electromagnetic field known as stochastic electrodynamics (SED). One version of the latter envisages a zero-point electromagnetic field whose quanta buffet charged particles, producing a microscopic "buzzing" motion ("zitterbewegung"). Using the techniques of SED an intriguing new theoretical approach is suggesting a deep connection between electrodynamics, the origin of inertia and the quantum wave nature of matter."

Also, refer to This:
"Before the advent of quantum theory, classical physics taught that any simple, real-world oscillator, such as a pendulum, when excited, would eventually come to rest if not continuously energized by some outside force, such as a spring. Friction kills momentum. Then quantum theory came along declaring that an oscillator does not come to total rest but that it actually continues to "jiggle" randomly about its resting point with a very small amount of energy always present. Scientists call the energy produced by fluctuations of the electromagnetic and gravitational force fields in the vacuum zero-point energy (ZPE)."

"Quantum mechanics asserts that just considering the fluctuation of the electromagnetic force, any given volume of empty space could contain an infinite number of vacuum-energy frequencies ? and, therefore, an infinite supply of energy. Proponents believe that ZPE is energy from the vacuum continuum and is responsible for gravity and inertia as well as the Lamb shift and Casimir force. Researchers have called ZPE "zero-point electromagnetic radiation energy" or referred to it as "a flux of virtual particles," but, most important, nearly all agree that the quantum mechanical zero-point oscillations are real."

While, on a macro level, the sum total of the fluxuations average out to 0 (negative infinity to counteract the positive infinity), that does not change the fact that there is a flux of positive infinity energy in there. Energy cannot be conserved if it is infinite. It can merely be created, then destroyed, with the average left over being conserved on a macro-level. This, again, does not mean that conventional ideas of conservation of energy is incorrect, they simply do not apply at the quantum level.
This also potentially means that that positive infinity amount of energy resulting from quantum flux could lead to perpetual motion machines (provided we found a way to harness it).

 

[Fencer128]

While, on a macro level, the sum total of the fluxuations average out to 0 (negative infinity to counteract the positive infinity), that does not change the fact that there is a flux of positive infinity energy in there. Energy cannot be conserved if it is infinite. It can merely be created, then destroyed, with the average left over being conserved on a macro-level. This, again, does not mean that conventional ideas of conservation of energy is incorrect, they simply do not apply at the quantum level.
This also potentially means that that positive infinity amount of energy resulting from quantum flux could lead to perpetual motion machines (provided we found a way to harness it).

I admit that I don't have any of the maths to hand to verify this - and if I did I'm not sure I'd be completely capable of doing so (I'm more an experimentalist than a theorist).

Your explanation as you put it here sounds compelling - but I'm not sure if this is the only valid interpretation of ZPE. I'll go along with that for now as I have no other reference to stand by, but since CoE has survived every physical model so far, inc. QED, QCD and GR - I'd be very hesitant to say that CoE does not apply at the quantum level.

Cheers for getting me thinking.

Andy

 

[Jeff7]

Something else about a perpetual motion device - you could never look at it, as shining a light on it would introduce energy into the system.
Maybe some kind of perfect orbiting particle or something, in a perfect orbit in a complete vacuum. But again, shining light on it would introduce chaos. If you had a device that would EMIT energy...well, that's just plain not possible anyway, to create energy out of absolutely nothing. Even if it takes energy out of spacetime itself, it's still just transferring energy.

I did think of a contraption, using a wormhole. I'll try to describe it:
A wormhole on the floor with an exit in a point above the entrance, like a few feet maybe. Drop a ball in it - it should fall due to gravity, enter the wormhole, then exit from above, fall again, and so on. Put something in the way that'll produce some energy.
So, all we have to do is find a good way of creating stable wormholes.

 

[TheInvincibleMustard]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
Something else about a perpetual motion device - you could never look at it, as shining a light on it would introduce energy into the system.
Maybe some kind of perfect orbiting particle or something, in a perfect orbit in a complete vacuum. But again, shining light on it would introduce chaos. If you had a device that would EMIT energy...well, that's just plain not possible anyway, to create energy out of absolutely nothing. Even if it takes energy out of spacetime itself, it's still just transferring energy.

I did think of a contraption, using a wormhole. I'll try to describe it:
A wormhole on the floor with an exit in a point above the entrance, like a few feet maybe. Drop a ball in it - it should fall due to gravity, enter the wormhole, then exit from above, fall again, and so on. Put something in the way that'll produce some energy.
So, all we have to do is find a good way of creating stable wormholes.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that NOT a perpetual motion machine, since it's receiving outside energy via the gravitational force? All that this wormhole situation would do is turn gravity into (say) electricity ... which actually wouldn't be that bad of a product, but still not "perpetual-motion" ... ?

 

[JetsFanatic]

just a theory

 

[Sideswipe001]

Isn't science, in reality, the search to define and understand the laws the govern the universe?

We are, after all, a very very small part of the universe. What humans believe or don't believe to be possible or not doesn't change how the universe works. The "science" of the world was the same when the first man arrived, and it remains the same today. All that changes is our way to percieve it.

I think of it as the same as the "world is flat" thing. Once upon a time, "everyone" believed that, and yet it ended up being proved false as humans got better at exporing and understanding their enviroment and world. I am not a scientist, but I don't believe that we "know" anything absolutely. Newton figured out laws that to him probably seemed true in all cases, and therefore absolute. That doesn't mean that he would have felt the same if he had the technology we have today. And it means we will probably think differently in 100 or 200 years when technology has moved forward again. Paradigm shifts happen.

Who's to say that someday humans will not know how to understand and mainipulate energy perfectly?

 

[BoogieQ]

I am starting to pick up on the whole problems with a perpetual motion machine so this thread is great! However, I think the persuit of a machine capable of using 'energy' much more efficiently for longer time would be great!

I always had this idea.. what if you had a generator, and an electric motor. Could it be possible to have them connected by say a chain and once you gave it the initial energy to begin motion, could you have a generator strong enough to power the electric motor which inturn was efficient enough to put out the torque needed to drive the generator to keep supplying it power?

Now think of this on a power station sized level. Even if the transfer was not 100% and it took say 30 days for it to run out of energy and needed to be spun up again it could be useful in this way.

We burn coal to heat water to drive turbines to generate electricity. How bout we wrap 'water jackets' around these giant generator / motor combos and run them for these 30 days, the heat given off by such a system could be transfered to these waterjackets that surround the motor/generator in turn boiling the water, this could then lead to a turbine where the steam is used to spin it and generate electricity. Obviously this is not perpetual motion, it would run out at some point and the cycle would need to be started, but even if this device could run for 24 hours and actually generate some electric output from the station, think of the ammount of coal that wouldn't be needed!

However, I do not think our current build methods would be able to supply a generator / electric motor capable of such a feat.

But I think it's along the right track... thoughts? *simply trying to find a way to use the heat energy wasted off of the machine (generator / motor ) and put it to good use*

Not really 'making energy out of nowhere' but trying to use what is there in a logical fassion in order to 'USE' it as much as possible.

 

[Fencer128]

Hi,

Originally posted by: BoogieQ
I am starting to pick up on the whole problems with a perpetual motion machine so this thread is great! However, I think the persuit of a machine capable of using 'energy' much more efficiently for longer time would be great!

I always had this idea.. what if you had a generator, and an electric motor. Could it be possible to have them connected by say a chain and once you gave it the initial energy to begin motion, could you have a generator strong enough to power the electric motor which inturn was efficient enough to put out the torque needed to drive the generator to keep supplying it power?

Now think of this on a power station sized level. Even if the transfer was not 100% and it took say 30 days for it to run out of energy and needed to be spun up again it could be useful in this way.

I'm afraid I don't believe that this would work. If I get you right, the generator powers the motor and the motor powers the generator in turn? One of the fundamental laws of physics is that you don't get out more energy than you put into such a system. Given that you lose energy going from the generator to the motor you'll always be down on what you started with - and so you'll never have enough energy to keep the generator going via the motor. If this were to be useful some of this energy needs to be extracted to do other work and so you'll be even further away from the equilibrium you need.

We burn coal to heat water to drive turbines to generate electricity. How bout we wrap 'water jackets' around these giant generator / motor combos and run them for these 30 days, the heat given off by such a system could be transfered to these waterjackets that surround the motor/generator in turn boiling the water, this could then lead to a turbine where the steam is used to spin it and generate electricity. Obviously this is not perpetual motion, it would run out at some point and the cycle would need to be started, but even if this device could run for 24 hours and actually generate some electric output from the station, think of the ammount of coal that wouldn't be needed!

However, I do not think our current build methods would be able to supply a generator / electric motor capable of such a feat.

But I think it's along the right track... thoughts? *simply trying to find a way to use the heat energy wasted off of the machine (generator / motor ) and put it to good use*

Not really 'making energy out of nowhere' but trying to use what is there in a logical fassion in order to 'USE' it as much as possible.

With regard to the water jackets around turbines - I'm sure this has merit. Waste heat energy from the generation process could indeed be harnessed to heat the water (or at least to keep the turbines cool!). How economically efficient it is to build another set of pipes and a turbine to work off this depends on how much heat you lose. I couldn't tell you without some numbers.

Cheers and good thinking,

Andy

 

[BoogieQ]

Yup, I always had the idea for the Generator to power the motor and the motor to in turn power the Generator.

I do see now that it could never susstain it'self forever, but, how long could it last? Would it not spin at all? Would it slowly decrease in speed over X amount of time? Like if you spin a wheel on a bike, it takes say 30 seconds to come to a stop. Well if you got the Generator / Motor combo up to a high enough speed using an external device of some kind *putting energy into the system*, could the Motor push the generator enough to susstain the spin for a longer period of time say taking 24 hours for it to begin to move to slow as to not be effective anymore and needing to be spun up again?

My guess is the energy it would take to put into the system to get the Generator / Motor moving would be such a large amount that the power made by the generator/motor through steam driven turbines wouldn't be enough to counteract the amount put into it.

There has to be a way to achive a closed loop to keep energy put into a system in it as long as possible and put it to work in a useable way such as generating electricity without polution *IE coal*.


Just had a thought, couldn't you use like a form of torque multiplication on the motor to help it supply the generator?? Using some form of gear box setup to multiply the torque up to very large levels? After all, with the right gear set a human turning a crank could lift up a million ton piece of equipment that is on a platform connected to the gears.

*shrug* Fun stuff to think about

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: BoogieQ
My guess is the energy it would take to put into the system to get the Generator / Motor moving would be such a large amount that the power made by the generator/motor through steam driven turbines wouldn't be enough to counteract the amount put into it.

Exactly. IIRC this has been discussed before. Maybe that was in the going upstream with the current thread, but I know I'm feeling deja vu.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: gururu
oceans are in perpetual motion. if you don't believe it, prove that they are not.:moon:

They aren't in a 'closed system' so it doesn't really apply here. Oceans get energy from the sun to produce their motion..

 

[sgtroyer]

How many times do we have to shout this?

YOU CANNOT GET SOMETHING FOR NOTHING!

The generator idea might be plausible. You spin it up, and it takes a long time to spin down. So it's kind of like a flywheel. Why not just build a flywheel? You seem to think that all the while this machine is spinning, you're getting useful power out of it. If you're pulling power out of the system, then you're not maintaining the speed. If you put in 100 Joules, you can either leave it in there and wait for losses to eventually use it all up, stopping the machine, or you can connect the machine to a lightbulb, and get something less than 100 Joules back out. It will store energy for awhile, but it will not create energy. Let me say it again.

IT WILL NOT CREATE ENERGY!

If it seems to good to be true, it is.

I'm going to go into a little rant about engineering and invention. People seem to think that with a clever idea we will revolutionize power generation, or computer science, or something like that. Now I'm not saying it's not possible, but think of the chances. Thousands of very, very smart people have been throwing money at power generation for 100 years. If there was an easier way, you can bet they've probably thought of it. Many more people have thrown many more dollars at computer science for the last 50 years. That doesn't mean we can't continue to make improvements, but it's hard. Really really hard. If you have what seems like a clever idea, count on the fact that ten people have already thought of it. If it's not being used, that's because there was some problem. To overcome that problem, you're going to have to work very very hard.

Think of the number of recent computer hardware improvements resulting from a clever idea leading to a simple solution. I can't come up with any. Electrical engineering these days takes work and money. Being clever helps, but you end up being clever in little incremental ways, not in big revolutionary ways.

End of rant. Sorry. But please, if anybody suggests shining a light bulb on a solar cell powering the light bulb shining on the solar cell powering the light bulb, I'm going to scream.

 

[BoogieQ]

Thousands of very, very smart people have been throwing money at power generation for 100 years.

Allow me to counter, A semi drives under a bridge and gets stuck because it is too tall. Tons of engineers and local officials come out to try to solve how the heck they are going to get it out from under the bridge. Hours pass and no ideas and they are ready to break the bridge appart to get it out. A kid riding by on a bike stops and says to one of the guys "why don't you just deflate the tires?".

Just because thousands of very smart people research something doesn't mean a blonde walking down the street might suddenly solve it before they do.

The lightbulb shining on a solar cell powering the lightbulb isn't plauseable, nor is my generator/motor idea, however I think logically and to my brain it says it will work. Now that I have an understanding of the Energy cannot be created part, I now understand my idea won't ever work correctly, or should I say, won't ever be usefull enough to do anything with it.

However, to rip appart people because they don't have the understanding level of electricity and energy that you do isn't fair. There could be the next Einstien out there but they are working in a factory and simply never worked in the field they should be in and have never been giving the basic set of principals that would allow their mind to invent just crazy cool stuff.

I now see we cannot simply create energy, however, my idea and the lightbulb idea are trying to get at a solution to basically take what energy there is and convert it into electricity as efficiently as possible. We use the energy in coal right now to heat the water to make the steam to drive the turbine... however there is NO reason why we cannot take existing energy and put it to better use through some form of machine to have IT drive the turbines to make power. Basically converting existing 'no poluting' energy into electricity.

There HAS to be a way, and I find it hard to believe someone has not come up with it yet.. or they have, and big business says it can't be used because all the coal mines etc. would be out of work.

I am basically after the breaking system on some Honda car I think, where it runs a generator when slowing down to charge the batteries if I recall. This is the sort of thing I am talking about, taking engergy, putting it to work and keeping it in the system as close to 100% as possible. If you DID reach 100% you would have a 'perpetual motion' machine would you not? However, we can never reach that 100%, but we can reach 99.9999%........

 

[sgtroyer]

I apologize. I don't mean to rip you apart and I was perhaps a bit harsh.

The reason I wrote was to try and shed a little light on the subject, and on the general principle that you can't extract energy from a system without first putting more energy in. My goal was to educate, but I got a little worked up, and for that, I'm sorry.

 

[BoogieQ]

Not a problem! I understood what you were after

All I'm saying is not just me, but a lot of people with a logical state of mind would think the lighbulb/solar pannel idea to work.

I know you can't 'make' energy now. And as you said you can't extract more energy than you put into a given system. However, I would think you can keep the energy IN the system as much as possible and try to manipulate that energy to do useful things, such as getting 1000 miles to a charge on a electric car using a series of batteries and generators and heat collection systems etc. to help it travel that far before all the initial energy put into the system is exhausted from said system.

In doing this, you would be basically after a perpetual motion machine would you not? If you could retain the initial energy put into the system and keep it in the system and use it to do work and then collect the energy from that work being from heat/friction etc and somehow keep it in the system, you would be on your way to a perpetual motion machine. However, by simple nature with the car idea, just the friction of the tires on the road would cause a loss of energy you could not retain, however, you may be able to susstain travel for quite a long distance.

Just interesting I don't get much chance through the day to use my brain at all *I work tech support lol* so this site is pretty cool.

 

[BoogieQ]

Idea. What if the road way this 'efficient car system' was driving on was a giant magnet? If the wheels were magnets also or had say metal coils within them, could the magnetic field the car would be driving through be used to obtain more energy somehow? If the tired itself was tightly wound coil of wire could it basically become a generator in itself?

I'm not 100% certain on how generators work though.

I know you would be inputing energy into the 'closed' system using this roadway therefore it is not a true Perpetual Motion Machine, but ... what if?

Heck the entire road wouldn't even need to be a magnet, just having say 50% of the composition be magnet... enough to generate a strong field.

 

[ProviaFan]

A potential problem with the magnetic road idea might be that the magnetic road pulls the car toward it, causing friction and potentially lessening the value of the energy gained from the generation by the tires. But if that could be overcome or wouldn't be a problem, then the only other issue I could think of at the moment would be the high cost to build an infrastructure of magnetic roads.

 

[PrinceXizor]

I also think your missing BoogieQ's point. Let's take his concept of a generator being powered by a motor. Now let's throw out all current "achievable" science but keep all known scientific discoveries (i.e. conservation of energy, by the way, the whole discussion of ZPE by research physicists is based ENTIRELY on the concept of conservation of energy, so it definitely is NOT throwing that law out the window. Its discussed in the numerous articles linked in this thread, if you've read them.)

So let's say I have a machine in front of me that I created that can generate electricity from direct sunlight (not a solar cell) and a minimally small current from ambient heat. Yep, I just made that up (though I'm currently doing research into such a system). Now let's say I have a motor, generator system as described by BoogieQ. The efficiency of this motor generator system is some ridiculously high number like 95%. So for every 100Watts put out by my motor, I get 95Watts from my generator. Now my heat -> elec. generator requires 2 Watts of Electrical energy and 10 Watts of Solar energy to output 8 watts of electrical energy and 4 watts of heat. So, I now prime my motor with some plain old gasoline. It uses some Gasoline to power itself at first and we are at 100 watts and outputting 95 watts (combining are motor/generator into one system now, 100wats in, 95 watts out). So we take our 95 watts and siphon off 2 watts to my new-fangled machine, which then itslef outputs 8 watts. So we now have 93 Watts of electrical power + 8 watts of electrical power - 100 watts back into our motor = 1 watt of electrical energy which is basically solar powered. Now it gets more complicated than that of course, but I don't think the concept is flawed. Just like VanGogh's concept for a calculating machine was not flawed, just impossible to implement at his time.

P-X

 

[sgtroyer]

Let's talk about this electric car idea. I think you're trying to make the problem more complicated than it actually is. Let's break it down. An electric car has stored energy in the form of batteries. This energy is used to do work: making the car go. Now, in the absence of friction and other losses, you could get infinite mileage on a single charge. (Ignoring thermodynamics for now). It would take some energy to get the car going, but then you would coast all the way there, and recoup the energy with your brakes when you got there.

In the real world, there are losses. At highway speeds, the largest loss by far is air resistance. Other losses are inefficiencies in the motors and brakes and rolling resistance. So say you go for a drive. You accelerate to 50 mph, which requires 100 joules. Because of losses, the kinetic energy of the car is now, maybe, 80 Joules. But because of air and rolling resistance, you have to supply 10 Joules per minute just to maintain speed. You drive for fifteen minutes, and then stop. You get 75 of the 80 stored Joules back out from your regenerative brakes. So in all, you've used 100+10*15-75=175 Joules getting where you need to go. This energy is lost. It's converted to heat, and you can't get it back. So, how can you improve your mileage? Better aerodynamics, more efficient motors and generators, and low rolling resistance tires.

It's an important to note that once energy has been used to achieve something useful, in general you can't get it back. Energy can be stored, and that's what a battery or flywheel or generator/motor combination will do for you, but it won't make any system more efficient. On the contrary, it will make it less efficient. Storage will always involve losses.

Now for the magnet road idea. I'm not sure I fully understand, but I think you're proposing permanent magnets in the road? And in the tires? This won't really do anything because a permanent magnet is always on. It's always pulling. It will pull you forward until you pass it, and then it will pull you back. It won't do any net work on the car. If the tire were a coil, and you were to push the car along the road, I suppose you could create electric current. But you would have to push the car. If the car is rolling, and the tires are creating current, and that current is doing something, it will slow the car down unless something else is inputting energy into the system.

Do you see what I'm getting at? Nothing useful can ever be done without inputting energy. When a useful task is performed, that energy will be used up. A car cannot generate the electricity used to propel itself down the road. It's no different than the motor/generator, which is no different than the light bulb solar cell. The details differ but the essence is the same: looking for a free lunch. There is no loophole.

Suppose you kept the permanent magnets in the tires, but replaced the magnets in the road with electromagnets. Turn on the magnet as the car approaches it, then turn it off after the car has passed. Now you can accelerate the car (It's called a linear induction motor). There's a key difference. Power is used in this scheme to turn on and off the magnets. Always ask yourself, where does the power enter the system. If you don't know, or it comes from within the system, nothing useful will come of it.

Prince, you kind of lost me on your machine, but it sounds like the essence involves turning light into power. Why is the motor/generator necessary? It does nothing extra. Just set your solar machine out in the sunlight and let it generate its 8W.

 

[Smilin]

The electric car brought something to mind - relatively unrelated to all this though -

Bush's initiative to get electric and/or hydrogen powered cars on the road has one very fatal flaw: The electricity (or hydrogen) has to be created somewhere and currently that somewhere is from our energy sector which is predominately COAL powered. Until we get our power plants to be more energy efficient and pollution free we'll actually make overall emmisions worse by going electric/hydrogen. Put saddles on all us fat Americans and you'll solve the transportation AND obesity problem here.