What is Digg?122 Comments
- Neiby, on 10/12/2007, -9/+26"but that's the thing, these 'free energy' stories can never be true. the output of a machine can never be more than the input. the ratio is always 1. eg, with a car, the input is chemical potential energy through fuel. and the output is exactly the same. something like 25% is through mechanical energy, transfered to the wheels. but the rest goes to friction like the bearings, the pistons, axles, etc. whereas most of it goes to exertion of heat."
Arguments like this are completely missing the point and are looking at the problem from the wrong perspective. It's not that these sorts of devices produce more energy than they take in by *conversion*, it's that they someone tap into a separate unknown energy source that adds energy to the system and thereby increases the coefficient of performance (COP). Do not confuse COP with efficiency.
A perfect example of a real device with a huge over-unity COP is a waterwheel. I can build a waterwheel, install it, and get a continuous stream of power for very little work on my part. Yes, the extra energy comes from somewhere (the stream), but I'm not inputting any additional energy or work in order to benefit from this added energy. I have tapped into a separate source that basically does the work for me.
As I understand it, such is the case with zero point energy. It seems that it may be possible to tap into this hidden energy source in ways that add energy to certain systems and thereby increases the COP to over unity. In no way does this violate any thermodynamic laws any more than a waterwheel does. - tomboy501, on 10/12/2007, -9/+23Tesla promoted "free energy", too....look what happened to him. Co-opted by early corporate America :(
I'm afraid that the word "free" followed by the word energy disrupts the very fabric of our capitalistic soceity. They'll never let it happen. - xadhominemx, on 10/12/2007, -4/+18@djlosch
What? Tesla was the guy behind AC... - SonicRush, on 10/12/2007, -8/+20Free energy also happens to disrupt the fabric of physics and thermodynamics....
- MasterChi, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13@djlosch - You do know that Edison did not invent or even promote Alternating Current,it was Tesla, so you just nullified your own statement.
- sanman, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15Neiby,
I hear you, but what is the rule on when something will or will not tap into the separate hidden wellspring of energy?
In other words, there's plenty of opportunity for any scheister to make a fake claim, and attribute it to the "hidden separate wellspring".
Sorry, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
Otherwise, I can say that Monkeys Will Fly Out of My Butt, due to the hidden separate wellspring of monkeys that is totally independent of what I consume. - Yez70, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14Unlimited supply also disrupts capitalism and the laws of supply and demand. Why do you think the RIAA and MPAA are fighting digital content distribution so hard. It spells the end of their strangleholds and profits in a dieing industry.
Adapt or die. - gr4v3d1gg3r, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12I think it's the word "free".Free software does almost the same thing.
- MrBabyMan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10They actually cover Tesla quite a bit in this doco.
- curios, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12A tiny part of the wave function of every single quanta of energy in the universe exists in any given region of space. From the particle perspective, the amplitude of the wave function at any point represents the probability of detecting or finding that particle. This is how it can be interpreted that particles are popping in and out of existence in the vacuum and how it may be possible to extract energy from the vacuum indeffinately.
Also this helps in realizing that a particle, lets say an electron, considers every possible interaction and consequential interaction ad infitem, and every possible path in determining where and when it can go. This is what makes QED so fascinating and mind blowing.
It is "the most accurate theory in all of science" to quote R.Feynman. - Providence, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10I've seen this on Digg before. I wish there was a follow-up video, explaining if this was true or not.
- SakisRakis, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11This is almost 12 years old...
Shows how well it must work! - grazie, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9What worries me is that it's considered "the most accurate theory in all of science" because it incorporates something that is by its very nature inaccurate....uncertainty. I'm not a Quantum Physicist by any stretch of the imagination, but I enjoy reading and learning about it. Seems to me like science has been "accurate" all throughout history. Every age has believed it pretty much had it all covered, only to be proven wrong.
It's certainly something worth following up though! - jguy584, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8How can you think that energy companies would embrace free energy?!?!?!? Thats like saying that Microsoft embraces Linux!
If there was a machine that created free energy, then that would put every energy company on the planet out of business, and I'm sure we are all aware of how huge that market is (Exxon-Mobil is THE largest corporation in the US, with a yearly profit of 36 billion dollars, more then 3 times the amount of the number 2 company, walmart)
If you ran a $36 billion dollar a year company, not to mention the thousands of other disgustingly rich energy companies out there, I'm sure you would do A LOT to protect that money from free energy, A LOT. - rompom7, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9If it runs over unity, why don't they hook the output of steam to either a) a generator and power the small electric motor. or b) a turbine that spins the pump itself, by-passing the need for electricity and the motor?
As with the hydrogen thing, that looks pretty crazy. Would be very interesting if it works. - Neiby, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"In other words, there's plenty of opportunity for any scheister to make a fake claim, and attribute it to the "hidden separate wellspring".
Sorry, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof."
I agree completely. I just wanted to put an end to this "thermodynamics" hand waving that people do when these sorts of topics come up. The law of thermodynamics that is usually quoted is accurate with regard to efficiency, but it has no bearing on the coefficient of performance for the reasons I described before.
I tend to think that most of these ideas do not actually work. However, I think there's a good chance that some of them do actually work. All of them should be tested via the scientific method in capable test labs for verification. The problem is that these ideas are so taboo, mainstream scientists and labs usually dismiss them out of hand, often by using the same tired "thermodynamics" argument. They never stop the handwaving long enough to realize that we're talking about COP, not efficiency. - Jereome209, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7
http://www.steorn.net
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDA0oyAtNBA&eurl= - sanman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Regarding Zero Point Energy, it may be useful to look at it through Stochastics. After all, there is something that makes tiny particles jiggle. Just like when I was in highschool, and our biology teacher explained that the speck of dust jiggling while floating in the drop of water under our microscope was actually due to Brownian Motion (lots of invisible little water molecules battering the dust speck, causing it to jiggle)
Whatever is causing the jiggling, it may be a Stochastic process. The particle-antiparticle pairs blinking in and out of existence, perhaps. In chemistry, we'd call it Dynamic Equilibrium. Looks static and inactive from the macroscopic level, but when you zoom in there's actually activity going on, but producing net zero. - MrFlibble1, on 10/12/2007, -6/+12*Cough*THERMODYNAMICS*Cough*
- cvrti5, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7I watched the entire 50 minute video before it hit the Main Page. It is a good video! Watch it!
- schnitzi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6>Seems to me like science has been "accurate" all throughout history. Every age has believed it pretty much had it all covered, only to be proven wrong.
That's a fuzzy assessment at best. Science is only rarely proven wrong -- only inaccurate, or incomplete. Newton wasn't wrong, he just wasn't able to completely describe gravity or optics. Likewise QM will never really be proven wrong; it may, however, prove to not cover everything. How can a theory that predicts the magnetic moment of the electron to the equivalent of measuring the distance from NY to LA to the accuracy of the width of human hair ever be proven "wrong"? - CELTIC212, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Stan Meyer is Dead.
http://www.keelynet.com/energy/meyerx.htm - Fosnez, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Zero-Point Energy (ZPMs for the Stargate geeks here) is all well and good, but you need to be close enough to the event horizon of a black hole so that one of the virtual particles is sucked in and the other one not. Then and only then will the "virtual" particles become "real"... even then you only have a primitive particle, admittedly it may be anti-matter so you could get energy from that...
Direct Matter -> Energy conversion... now there is free energy without the pesky need for a black hole... - mtriper, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Sunday Times Innovation 1 Dec. 96 (http://www.sunday-times.co.uk)
End of road for car that ran on Water
American court finds inventor of water-powered car is guilty of fraud.
Report by Tony Edwards
It appears to be the end of the road for maverick inventor Stanley Meyer and
his water-powered car after a recent American court verdict.
The car was a wonderful, if unlikely, dream while it lasted, offering a
pollution-free future powered by a limitless source of energy. But the
dream was shattered when Meyer was found guilty of fraud after his Water
Fuel Cell was tested before an Ohio judge.
It is rare for an inventor to be prosecuted for an invention that does not
work, but Meyer's problem was that he had been selling "dealerships",
offering investors the "right to do business'' in Water Fuel Cell tech-
nology in anticipation of the day when water would power anything From
domestic boilers to cars and aircraft.
But recently two suspicious investors could not wait for that day to dawn
and sued Meyer to get their money back.
Meyer defended, maintaining his long-held claim that the Water Fuel Cell was a truly
revolutionary invention that could split water into its two constituent
gases of hydrogen and oxygen far more efficiently than conventional
electrolysis. The secret, he said, was to "resonate" electricity at a very
high voltage through water and so "fracture" the hydrogen/oxygen molecular
bond. This, he claimed, opened the way for a car which would "run on wat-
er", powered simply by a car battery. The car would even run for ever since
the energy needed to continue the "fracturing" was so low that the bat-
tery could be recharged: from the engine's dynamo.
Meyer claimed to have adapted a 1.6-litre Volkswagen Dune Buggy to run on
water. He replaced the sparkplugs with "injectors" which, he said, sprayed
water as a fine mist in a "resonant cavity" where it was bombarded by a
succession of high-voltage electrical pulses. He claimed this instantly
converted the water into a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen that could be
combusted in the cylinders, driving the pistons just as in an ordinary
petrol engine.
One of the experts due toexamine the car was Michael Laughton, professor
of electrical engineering at Queen Mary and Westfield University, London,
but he was not allowed to see it. "Although Meyer had known about our
visit weeks in advance, when we arrived he made some lame excuse about why
the car wasn't working, so it was impossible to evaluate it," said
Laughton.
However, the one thing Meyer had built that appeared to work was his Water
Fuel Cell, and it was this device that the Ohio judge called as evidence in
the recent lawsuit.
The cell had been the centrepiece of Meyer's sales pitches. It was a
transparent cylinder of water inside which was a core of stainless steel
electrodes. When plugged into an electrical supply,the cell bubbled away
merrily, producing apparently copious amounts of gas that Meyer ignited
through a welding torch.To the layman it was an impressive performance and
hundreds of small investors signed up, but it did not impress three expert
witnesses in court.
They decided that there was nothing revolutionary about the cell at all and
that it was simply using conventional electrolysis.
Meyer was found guilty of "gross and egregious fraud" and ordered to repay
the investors their $25,000 (£15,000). - lemac, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Why can't they try to prove or disprove it instead of just saying since it is not possible according to what we believe so we are not even going to bother.
- thcobbs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Hell, I get free energy whenever I want it.
I just stick an antenna under high voltage power lines and do some electromagnetic conversions and WAM!
Free electricity... for a while. - MrFlibble1, on 10/12/2007, -9/+14You may want to check out Milton Friedmans TV series "Free to Choose". (Friedman died a few days back, great man) It is a great show. Well worth your time.
Capitalism would actually support free energy if it worked. It does not work, Thermodynamics can tell you why it won't work if you choose to study it.
Would it be great if it worked? It sure would be. It would end a dependency on oil, it would negate the need for fusion, it would negate the need for nuclear power, it would negate the need for hydroelectric dams. It would be, in short, a wonderful thing.
However, no one is "suppressing" this technology. People have been going on and on and on about free energy for hundreds of years, and not one, not ONE case has proven to be true.
Everyone suggests that the energy companies are "Suppressing" this stuff. SUPPRESSING? Would you suppress this stuff if you ran an energy company? No, you would BUY it if it worked. Why? Because you could set up power stations that were considerably safer, would not need external sources, and you would become so rich you would make Bill Gates look like a pauper. You could lay off most of your workforce, keep costs down, and profits high. However, no energy companies are doing this because it does not work. As simple as that.
Capitalism supports ideas that work. So does science. Ideas that don't work are dumped by Science and Capitalism. Simple as that. - curios, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4You do not know that there is no way, it is that you are not clever enough to figure out a way.
- Neiby, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"more than 100% efficiency means a 99% probability of a flaw in measurement or knowledge deficit"
Like I said in a different response, do not confuse efficiency with COP, or coefficient of performance. These sorts of devices are not more than 100% efficient. However, they do claim to have a COP greater than 1. It's an important distinction. - cvrti5, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7Oh, U muss be one dem fancy shmancy scientost boys?
/sarcasm/ - herculez, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The point is, the earth used to be flat, the sun revolved around it, and to think otherwise was utterly preposterous.
- hackwrench, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I saw the Mythbusters episode where they tried to build Tesla's "earthquake machine". I don't know where I got the Idea, but I seem to remember that the machine was supposed to achieve some sort of feedback with the object to which it was attached and thus achieve a sync better than a clocking mechanism would achieve, but the Mythbusters didn't seem to explore that aspect of it.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Ya but who really wants to invent free energy? It's like asking for everyone in the oil industry to kill you.
- CPUGUy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4To say that we are more intelligent today is just absurd.
We definately have greater amounts of knowledge (would be extremely sad if we didn't), but you can't say that we are more intelligent. - curios, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4He claimed that arabic oil moguls offered him a billion dollars to just sit on it and do nothing. It is quite possible that this happens regularly.
- sonmi451, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Stanley Meyer was poisoned and his equipment stolen after his death apparently.
http://waterpoweredcar.com/stanmeyer.html
I hate conspiracy theories, but it seems strange that his invention isn't being studied closely by anyone as far as I can tell. Maybe "Who Killed the Electric Car?" was just a red herring to draw attention away from who killed Stanley Meyer... - Dunadan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Or perhaps it's your inability to spell words such as "humorous."
Please don't take offense. This comment was made all in good humer. ;) - CPUGUy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Just because a "panel of 3 experts" didn't think it looked cool does not me it was fraud.
- curios, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Me too, how do you know this @simplehiker?
- curios, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The whole particle thing is a newtonian world view anyway?
We are now aware of the quantum paradigm where things have an extended wave like existance, but we do not fully understand how these waves interact and what happens to the rest of the wave once it inteacts at a certain point. This is where people speculate in an infinty of universes where the wave interacts at a different point in each universe. - CPUGUy, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7What you fail to realize is that these power companies would not be interested in free energy in a captalistic society. Where is the money in free energy? There is none.
On top of that, think of the people in power all over the world, and then think of where their money comes from. Hint: From oil.
As one of the people in the documentary said, he'd been offered millions and millions of dollars by various different people (including Arabs) to just stop working on his projects. - herculez, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Hot shower scene at 10:15! With firemen, no less!
- jay7890, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I'm waiting for my Steorn power generator.
- AnotherBrian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Extracting zero point energy is just like getting energy from a room of air at the same temperature. Temperature is a measurement of the average velocity of the atoms in the area. This means that there are definitely a lot of atoms that are whizzing around a lot faster than some others, thus having more energy. The problem is that there is no way to separate out the fast ones from the slow ones and create a temperature differential that can be exploited.
- lukematthews, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Being a tech site, I can't believe nobody has made the following comments yet, (based solely on the title... haven't read the article yet)
Comment 1:
"Free energy.... So is it free as in beer?"
Comment 2:
"It runs on water.... But does it run on Linux?" - knodi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2What if this is true?
Wasn't the 1st man to say Earth is round called crazy? - vguard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2A.G. Bell was thrown jail for trying to market the telephone because the establishment's "scientists" said that it was scientifically impossible to send a human voice over a wire...
- curios, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Probably because they are not humerous comments.
- dboylon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2http://www.hydrodynamics.com/
Jim Griggs seems to be running a real business based on his shock wave pump...or controlled cavitation as he calls it.
As far as it being 11 years since that video...the fact that he is manufacturing his own designs and building a customer base....the fact that he has done it in 11 years is more remarkable than the invention itself. Most inventors go broke trying to implement their ideas. The good ideas are bought off for nothing and manufactured by large corporations. Is he really getting more engergy out of his device than he is putting in? Maybe not...but he has found a way to improve efficiencies and save money with his invention. It is looking like a success story for him. - SHuisman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Some even pay more for bottled water than gasoline...
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