I think this is the beginnings of an economy based on perpetual growth and fossil fuel energy running headlong into geological energy constraints. Basically I see an undulatory downward path for the rest of my life. From here out, I think any rallies in our economic condition are going to be met with spiking commodity prices that knock us right back down.
Joined: Oct 25, 2004 Posts: 378 Location: Southern California Desert
Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2004 9:13 pm Post subject: The Laws of Thermodynamics Questioned
Seems to me most everyone on this board follows and quotes this thing as if it were an actual law you could get killed for not following.
I'll bet anything that the whole "make energy from nowhere" idea was tried by many. But due to respected scholars and academic marvelists wanting to avoid shame and humiliation, they have these people erased.
Take this guy for example:
http://www.zpenergy.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=738
Eugene Mallove was researching intensively into the aspects zero-point energy. He brought up my above idea on the coasttocoastam radio show in February of this year.
http://www.coasttocoastam.com/
Another thing that makes this mans death so shocking was his economic status, he wasn't really rich or influential in a celebrity sort of way.
Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2004 9:21 pm Post subject: Re: Laws of Thermodynamics
bentstrider wrote:
Seems to me most everyone on this board follows and quotes this thing as if it were an actual law you could get killed for not following.
I'll bet anything that the whole "make energy from nowhere" idea was tried by many. But due to respected scholars and academic marvelists wanting to avoid shame and humiliation, they have these people erased.
Take this guy for example:
http://www.zpenergy.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=738
Eugene Mallove was researching intensively into the aspects zero-point energy. He brought up my above idea on the coasttocoastam radio show in February of this year.
http://www.coasttocoastam.com/
Another thing that makes this mans death so shocking was his economic status, he wasn't really rich or influential in a celebrity sort of way.
Are you saying there is a conspiracy to kill him? If what he say has even 50% chance of coming true, he would have been kidnapped by Chinese agents , taken to China, given 500 million US dollars and told that if he fails to produce energy from nothing then he would have his brains splatted on the wall with a bullet.
Joined: Oct 25, 2004 Posts: 378 Location: Southern California Desert
Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2004 9:32 pm Post subject:
My point exactly.
Most everyone on Earth would take that as complete poppy-crap.
And don't even get the Chinese involved in this.
They have a tendency to go after things that have already been widely proven in the science world and copy them.
Mallove could've been killed by anyone though.
Something he was working was almost about to be proven right.
Then someone trying to protect their rep was put down.
But, I forgot to stress the main point of my post.
On why everyone quotes the Laws of Thermodynamics as if they are an actual mandated law.
Laws are meant to be broken. And if the law gets proven wrong, then shove it up the donkeys sphincter.
Joined: Oct 16, 2004 Posts: 1281 Location: Brisbane, Australia
Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 1:32 am Post subject:
Many studies in zeropoint energy and quantum physics seem to hint Newton's laws of physics may be more like general principles. At least many adherents of zpenergy give that impression. _________________ Kind regards, Katkinkate
"The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops,
but the cultivation and perfection of human beings."
Masanobu Fukuoka
Joined: Oct 25, 2004 Posts: 378 Location: Southern California Desert
Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 6:27 am Post subject:
You think I was born yesterday?
I know they're Laws of Physics.
All I want to put out now is that there are always going to be people trying to prove it wrong.
Laws of Thermodynamics are not legal laws. they are laws of physics. these can not be broken.
I'm aware that some people here on this forum practically worship the second law and probably hate me for shattering their universe, but
The second law does not hold in all cases.
Before you accuse me of blasphemy, hubris and try to lynch me, please read the proof.
The second law predicts that the entropy of an isolated system always increases, and that when two systems are joined together, the entropy of the combined system is greater than the sum of the individual systems.
Now consider two boxes: one filled with nitrogen, one filled with oxygen. When these two boxes are joined, the gas will start too mix. The final state will most probably be a 50/50 mixture of these gasses on both sides. This resembles a greater degree of disorder, so the entropy of the system has increased.
One can also imagine that a different mixture is possible. For instance 49/51 on the one side and 51/49 on the other side. While this is statistically more unlikely, the probability is still so large that it probably will occur if one watches the box for a sufficient length of time.
The probability that all the atoms will remigrate to their original boxes is infinitesimal small, but not zero. If one would watch the box for a period close to eternity, the probability that at one point the atoms will defy the 2nd law of thermodynamics is approaching 100%.
Hence the 2nd law of thermodynamics does not hold always, just in the vast majority of cases.
There is one famous invention that uses this principle. It is the infinite improbability drive from the "Hitchhikers guide through the galaxy" by Douglas Adams. It starts with the premises that it is highly unlikely that the atoms of a spaceship would suddenly jump to another side of the galaxy and rearrange themselves to form the same spaceship. Highly unlikely but not impossible. The improbability drive reverses the levels of probability so that extremely unlikely events suddenly become very likely. Then it has become entirely plausible that the ship will jump from one place in the Galaxy to another. While this made intergalactic travel possible, it has some side effects.
Quote:
The Heart of Gold was the prototype ship for infinite improbability travel. The principle is that as its drive reaches infinite improbability, the ship passes simultaneously through every point in the universe. It is then possible to decide at which point you actually want to be at when improbability levels decrease. Unfortunately human beings are not very well accustomed to not traveling at Normality (probability 1:1), and can be fairly distressed by events around them whilst the improbability drive is working: losing limbs, turning into penguins, planets spontaneously becoming fruitcakes, nuclear missiles metamorphosing into sperm whales and bowls of petunias, and so forth. The starship Heart of Gold was somewhat insulated against this by having an improbability-proof drive room, allowing the pilots to remain more or less normal during the flight
While this last bit shouldn't be taken too seriously, it does show the problems involved with breaking the second law. So bentstrider don't get your hopes up.
Joined: Sep 29, 2004 Posts: 2330 Location: Pennsylvania, USA
Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 10:10 pm Post subject:
The problem with free energy devices is that they don't work. If anyone knows of a working prototype let the world know so that it can be peer reviewed. Honestly, where are the working ZPE generators, cold fusion generators, etc? All I've ever seen is theoretical diatribes.
Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2004 8:31 pm Post subject: <<The Laws of Thermodynamics>>
There is no easy way to make a transition from a mechanical world view based upon the idea of permanent material growth to a world view based on the idea of conserving finite resources. It took thousands of years to make the transition from a hunter gatherer existence to an agrarian one. It took hundreds of years to move from an agrarian existence to an industrial one. In both instances, we had plenty of time and resources to make the radical adjustments required. Today, we are being forced to make a transition from the Industrial Age of non-renewable resources to a new and still undefined age based once again on renewable resources or some new primary science--and do it in less than one generation, or even less.
Throughout human history, mankind has struggled with the availability of resources, such as food, land, energy, and water. People have tried to create systems, contraptions, and laws that promised unrestricted access to such resources. This was often accompanied with fears and explicit threats of annihilation if such laws would be disobeyed or such systems would not be deployed. In relatively recent times, humans have gathered a fundamental understanding about the energy and resource balance of the earth and the universe. A lot of it involved the discovery of the nature of the solar system (a planetary system revolving around the sun), as well as the laws of thermodynamics. Thermodynamics is the study of the inter-relation between heat, work and internal energy of a system. While the laws of thermodynamics were discovered in laboratories--often referred to as closed or isolated systems--they have demonstrated universal validity outside of the laboratory in the real world.
Today, the most widely accepted theory about the origin and development of the universe is the big bang theory. It postulates that the universe began with the explosion of a tremendously dense source of energy and mass. As this dense energy expanded outward, it began to slow down, forming galaxies, stars, and planets. As the energy continues to expand and become more diffused, it loses more and more of its order and will eventually reach a point of maximum entropy, or an equilibrium state of heat death. Everything will be the same temperature, approaching zero point energy.
The big bang theory coincides with the first and second laws of thermodynamics:
The First Law states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; only transformed from one form to another. This is also known as the Conservation Law.
The Second Law states that whenever energy is converted from one form to another, there is an energy loss in the form of heat. It is also known as the Law of Entropy. Entropy is a measure of this loss in usable energy. No evidence has ever been shown to contradict the Second Law and it is the most scientifically backed and proven statement ever made.
The Third Law states that the entropy of a system at zero absolute temperature is a well-defined constant. This is because a system at zero temperature exists in its ground (lowest energy) state, so that its entropy is determined only by the degeneracy of the ground state. Or, in simpler terms, as this minimum temperature is approached, the further extraction of energy becomes more and more difficult.
The British scientist and author C.P. Snow had an excellent way of remembering the three laws:
1. You cannot win (that is, you cannot get something for nothing, because matter and energy are conserved).
2. You cannot break even (you cannot return to the same energy state, because there is always an increase in disorder; entropy always increases).
3. You cannot get out of the game (because absolute zero is unattainable).
There will be those who will stubbornly refuse to accept the fact that the Entropy Law reigns supreme over all physical reality in the world. The laws of thermodynamics provide the overarching scientific frame for the unfolding of all physical activity in this world. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Last edited by MonteQuest on Mon Dec 12, 2005 7:53 pm; edited 5 times in total
Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2004 11:25 pm Post subject: Laws of Thermodynamics; Part Two
In simplest terms, the Laws of Thermodynamics dictate the specifics for the movement of heat and work. To give you a better understanding on how these laws came about and their modern scope of coverage, you have to understand when and why these laws were generated. Back in the late nineteenth century, European society was about to experience unforeseeable rapid changes. Suddenly, without much of a transition, new pockets of industry arose, focusing towards large-scaled machines rather than small hand tools; large industrial corporations often crushed small agriculturally centered commerce; and in many areas, city life rendered country farm cottages obsolete. We all know this era as the Industrial Revolution.
True of nineteenth century mass industry, the company with the greatest machines produced more products, made more money, and was consequently more successful. The physicists analyzed the flow of heat in these machines, and the chemical changes that transpire when they perform work. Thus was the establishment of modern thermodynamics (circa 1865). First on the agenda of this new discipline was to find a means to convert heat (as produced by machines) into work with full efficiency. If such a flawless conversion could be accomplished, a machine could run off its own heat, producing a never-ending cycle of heat to work, rendering heat, converting to work, and so forth ad infinitum…the perpetual motion machine.
As it turned out, the very same research oriented to create a perpetual-motion machine proved that the very concept is not possible. Physicists attempting to transform heat into work with full efficacy quickly learned that always some heat would escape into the surrounding environment, eternally doomed to be wasted energy. Being obsolete, this energy can never be converted into anything useful again. One physicist noted for significant experiments in this field is the Frenchman, Sadi Carnot. His ideal engine, so properly titled the 'Carnot Engine,' would theoretically have a work output equal to that of its heat input. Carnot concluded (after much experimentation) that no device could completely make the desired conversion, without losing at least some energy to the environment. This irrevocable loss of some energy to the environment was associated with an increase of disorder in that system. Scientists wishing to further penetrate the realm of chaos needed a variable that could be used to calculate disorder. Thanks to mid-nineteenth century physicist, R.J.E. Clausius, this Pandemonium could be measured in terms of a quantity named entropy. Entropy acts as a function of the state of a system - where a high amount of entropy translates to higher chaos within the system, and low entropy signals a highly ordered state. Clausius worked out a general equation, his being devoted to the measurement of entropy change over a period of time: (change) S = Q / T (the change in entropy is equal to the amount of heat added to the system [by an invertible process] divided by the temperature in degrees Kelvin). The beauty of this equation is that it can be used to compute the entropic change of any exchange in nature, not solely limited to machines. This development brought thermodynamics out of the industrial workplace, and opened the possibility for further studies into the tendencies of natural order (and lack therefore of), eventually extending to the universe as a whole.
Applying this knowledge to nature, physicists found that the total entropy change (change in S) always increases for every naturally occurring event (within an isolated system) that could be then observed. Thus, they theorized, disorder must be continually augmenting evenly throughout the universe. When you put ice into a hot cup of tea, heat will flow from the hot tea to the cold ice and melt the ice. Then, once the energy in the cup is evenly distributed, the cooled tea would reach a maximum state of entropy. This situation represents a standard increase in disorder, believed to be perpetually occurring throughout the entire universe. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
how are those physicists doing on that "Theory of Everything", which was supposed to discover one unified force that was behind electric, magnetic, nuclear, and gravitational forces? i remember reading about it a few years ago, no idea what has become of this.... but I imagine that would have some relevant consequences for the world of energy
Joined: Oct 12, 2004 Posts: 1647 Location: Davis, California
Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2004 4:31 am Post subject:
AFAIK, ZPenergy doesn't break the second law. Particles come into being spontaneously at the expense of energy. They then break down extremely quickly (on the order of planck time 10^-43 seconds), releasing that borrowed energy.
Quantum theory is f'ed up. So glad I went into biology
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