Infinite Energy Idea

[Anton P. Nym]

No patent office on the planet accepts applications for perpetual motion devices. Not only are they theoretically impossible, but every "brave, maverick inventor" who's tried has failed in exactly the manners that theory predicts. It's not a matter of orthodoxy or doctrine; it just never works.

The "infinite energy" device proposed would consume more energy projecting the neutrons than it would generate from helium-5 decay. You'd get more power out of the thing by putting a neutron emitter inside a thermal medium and harnessing the decay heat that way... as we do in radio-thermal generators (RTGs).

-- Steve

[jwenting]

the only thing infinite about "infinite energy devices" is the amount of money their "inventors" tend to scam out of idiots who believe in such things by selling them "blueprints" and stories about how "real soon now" they can start producing.

[karolus10]

Nope, You can't get infinite energy, sorry.

Any "Perpetuum mobile" device might work, only if they will not loss any energy in the process and You still can't drain energy from the system.

[lajoswinkler]

No patent office on the planet accepts applications for perpetual motion devices. Not only are they theoretically impossible, but every "brave, maverick inventor" who's tried has failed in exactly the manners that theory predicts. It's not a matter of orthodoxy or doctrine; it just never works.

The "infinite energy" device proposed would consume more energy projecting the neutrons than it would generate from helium-5 decay. You'd get more power out of the thing by putting a neutron emitter inside a thermal medium and harnessing the decay heat that way... as we do in radio-thermal generators (RTGs).

-- Steve

Sadly, they do, as they do with any other "magical device". The purpose of a patent office is not to test stuff, but to receive the papers and register a patent. The functionality of the patents is not tested, and neither is the possibility of copying someone else's design. That's why you see so many crooked and stolen ideas every time patent fairs are opened. People brag about the stuff some engineer from NASA made decades ago, they brag about the devices that supposedly detect fields that science does not acknowledge... It's sad, but that's the reality.

[lajoswinkler]

Remember the cat and the toast perpetuum mobile?

Here's a great clip about it.

It's just a prototype.

[Natsarugiy]

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as infinite energy. Best case scenario would just be an extremely efficient energy device.

Quick analysis of the idea proposed:

I found something interesting, Helium 5 decays into Helium 4. And if you shoot a neutron at a nucleus, it will be one isotope higher. You could exploit this by using a neutron gun to shoot a neutron at a helium 4 nucleus and it will turn into a helium 5 atom.

Going to throw some math around now.

From your wiki link: "The least stable is [Helium 5], with a half-life of [.00000000000000000000076] seconds." So if I had two Helium 5 atoms, I'd have to hit one, the other, or both with a neutron about 1,315,789,473,368,421,035,318.5 per second if I didn't want to waste time with any idle Helium 4 atoms. That seems reasonable. Just for reference, the LHC can do about 600,000,000 collisions per second. So an interesting idea, but with current technology it seems we won't be able to keep up with the rate of decay. This is where my math stops because I don't want to spend the time crunching the energy requirements or to estimate the amount of energy produced.

But even if the proposed energy source could produce just as much energy as it requires to run, it wouldn't be able to power even it self because we'd lose energy when we transport the electricity through a power cable. We can't even move electricity around efficiently because there is electrical resistance in the wire. Sure, in a perfect world or in a simplified model, infinite energy exists. But in the real world, it is impossible. We will always lose significant levels of energy.

Infinite Energy has already been invented:

Unfortunately this isn't infinite energy either..how do you feed the cat?

Infinite energy can't exist because of Conservation of Energy. It is impossible to create energy from nothing, we start with limited stuff, and we end with just as much limited stuff (in one form of energy or another). Even if we could make closed systems that were 100% energy efficient, it is theorized that since the universe is always expanding and because of the Laws of Thermodynamics, especially the second law, that the universe will eventually die of a heat death.

Infinite energy and perpetual motion machines will never be anything more than a dream for creative minds not bound by the laws of nature.

[WhiteWeasel]

Why infinite energy? Wouldn't something like 80% efficiency be a reasonable goal? And if I'm not wrong (again) isn't nuclear fusion only 1-2% efficient in mass converted into energy? If then, 80% would be infinite as far as human needs would go.

[Brenok]

Sadly, they do, as they do with any other "magical device". The purpose of a patent office is not to test stuff, but to receive the papers and register a patent. The functionality of the patents is not tested, and neither is the possibility of copying someone else's design. That's why you see so many crooked and stolen ideas every time patent fairs are opened. People brag about the stuff some engineer from NASA made decades ago, they brag about the devices that supposedly detect fields that science does not acknowledge... It's sad, but that's the reality.

Well, they shouldn't. At least in the US or the UK.

[swiftgates24]

I had a similar idea involving unstable noble gas compounds. Similar problem, though.

HOWEVER, you might be able to use Potassium decay to turn Helium-4 into Helium-5. Banana reactor, anybody?

Banana reactor? I'm all for it!

[Joshington]

First thing I thought of when I saw this thread.

[lajoswinkler]

Well, they shouldn't. At least in the US or the UK.

Lots of stuff shouldn't happen, but they do.

[ouion]

I got theory involving nanites(microscopic machines) that there are a billion or a Quad-zillion nanites that float in the air and it would produce electricity and you can programmed it to produce energy. There is a central command center for the nanites.

[Technical Ben]

...

They work using lies.

If only we could harvest the power of lies! Infinite energy! Although, truth may be more powerful. Moar infinite energy!

"Processes or articles alleged to operate in a manner which is clearly contrary to well-established physical laws, such as perpetual motion machines, are regarded as not having industrial application."

That is possibly the best quote ever.

Edited August 25, 2013 by Technical Ben

[The Jedi Master]

You know what would really give us infinite energy?

1.Build a powerful solar power plant that can pick up the sun even with clouds.

2.Build a lot of them, all over the world. (we are, of course, ignoring cost)

3.Turn them all on at once

4.???

5.Profit

[Mercy]

I'm pretty sure if this was viable, scientists would have picked up on it before an illiterate kid on a game forum.

[OdinYggd]

You know what would really give us infinite energy?

1.Build a powerful solar power plant that can pick up the sun even with clouds.

2.Build a lot of them, all over the world. (we are, of course, ignoring cost)

3.Turn them all on at once

4.???

5.Profit

There's no profit here.

Turning them on all at once would flood the market with energy without causing a corresponding increase in utilization due to the logistics of energy distribution.

The result is the market promptly being flooded out and the prices crashing hard, long before you've paid off what you spent to do this.

To date I've never seen a perpetual motion machine that demonstrates a working model without relying on some type of flywheel behavior or drawing energy from its surroundings in some way.

The closest would be the drinking bird toy, which is in fact powered by evaporation of the water.

[Chrisd857]

In a similar vein to the drinking bird is that an LED can achieve 230% (apparent) efficiency, but it makes use of ambient heat in addition to electricity, so is essentially a heat pump. Also, it only was outputting 69 picowatts of power.

http://phys.org/news/2012-03-efficiency.html

[magnemoe]

In a similar vein to the drinking bird is that an LED can achieve 230% (apparent) efficiency, but it makes use of ambient heat in addition to electricity, so is essentially a heat pump. Also, it only was outputting 69 picowatts of power.

http://phys.org/news/2012-03-efficiency.html

I read it but did not understand even if somewhat worked as an heat pump but they required an hot and an cold side, they create more heat than the energy used by drawing energy from the cold side.

Problem is that it should not be an hot and cold side here unless the testing equipment or other stuff created the heat.

More plausible: testing equipment or other stuff created induction in the wires to the led.

[Person012345]

Unfortunately this isn't infinite energy either..how do you feed the cat?

Yes it is. 1. The cat doesn't have to be alive necessarily and 2. You could use the energy to power lights to grow plants and then feed them to vermin that several such cats could eat. The principle in the video would indeed generate power from nothing (given that it's based on sayings and not actual fact - and apparently a principle that a spinning cat produces large amounts of electricity, which I'm not sure is factual). Feeding the cat is aside from the issue of it generating rotary motion out of nothing.

Apart from which you could just strap 2 pieces of buttered toast together and get the same effect.

[Randox]

Yes it is. 1. The cat doesn't have to be alive necessarily and 2. You could use the energy to power lights to grow plants and then feed them to vermin that several such cats could eat. The principle in the video would indeed generate power from nothing (given that it's based on sayings and not actual fact - and apparently a principle that a spinning cat produces large amounts of electricity, which I'm not sure is factual). Feeding the cat is aside from the issue of it generating rotary motion out of nothing.

Apart from which you could just strap 2 pieces of buttered toast together and get the same effect.

I'm not sure what you mean by the cat not needing to be alive, so I'm going to skip that. In a closed system, animals turn food into energy by releasing stored chemical energy, much like lighting a log on fire. Plants reverse the process, by turning animal waste back into things animals need by using solar power (photosynthesis) to generate the required energy to reverse the chemical reactions that we use to stay alive. We consume sugar for energy, and a plant turns the waste products back into sugar.

The very best you can do is harness all the energy the animals create into useful energy for photosynthesis to turn animal waste back into animal food to sustain the process and maintain a closed system, else the nutrients for the plants will eventually be depleted. Under the laws of our universe, the best you could do is harness every last calorie from ALL the animals (which means the rodents you are feeding to the cat as well) to sustain the plants to create more food and oxygen (yeah, that depletes too). Animals do not turn most of their energy into electricity, they turn it into heat. So no you have to gather all the radiation being radiated by the animals, as well as all the heat that goes into the air itself through conduction, and turn all of that into electricity to power your light source for photo synthesis. Since you have to recapture all the energy or else deplete the system, the light source must be both 100% efficient (of note, light hitting anything but the plant will heat up the environment, which must be recaptured or lost as waste heat).

So like every other infinite energy scheme that works in theory, the best you can manage is 100% efficiency (if you have 100% efficient devices, such as an air conditioned to pump out the waste heat for collection, and 100% efficient photovoltaics to capture all radiation to also be recycled as electricity and so on), and in practice, we can't manage that, thus the system must eventually be depleted and fail.

[magnemoe]

The cat and toast idea is an obvious joke. First taping something on the back of an cat is hard you are likely to use more energy in the process than the cat can produce, you also has to factor in the cost of wear and tear of armor. Finally an cat with something taped on its back will not land on it feet as it would be to busy removing it, an dead cat does not does not land on it feet.

[Bacterius]

The cat and toast idea is an obvious joke. First taping something on the back of an cat is hard you are likely to use more energy in the process than the cat can produce, you also has to factor in the cost of wear and tear of armor. Finally an cat with something taped on its back will not land on it feet as it would be to busy removing it, an dead cat does not does not land on it feet.

I agree. Once the cat dies from lateral g-forces, it will no longer act to counterbalance the toast, and the system will fall butter face down, just as thermodynamics predicted. The video just isn't long enough to reveal the obvious flaw.

[Person012345]

I'm not sure what you mean by the cat not needing to be alive, so I'm going to skip that. In a closed system, animals turn food into energy by releasing stored chemical energy, much like lighting a log on fire. Plants reverse the process, by turning animal waste back into things animals need by using solar power (photosynthesis) to generate the required energy to reverse the chemical reactions that we use to stay alive. We consume sugar for energy, and a plant turns the waste products back into sugar.

The very best you can do is harness all the energy the animals create into useful energy for photosynthesis to turn animal waste back into animal food to sustain the process and maintain a closed system, else the nutrients for the plants will eventually be depleted. Under the laws of our universe, the best you could do is harness every last calorie from ALL the animals (which means the rodents you are feeding to the cat as well) to sustain the plants to create more food and oxygen (yeah, that depletes too). Animals do not turn most of their energy into electricity, they turn it into heat. So no you have to gather all the radiation being radiated by the animals, as well as all the heat that goes into the air itself through conduction, and turn all of that into electricity to power your light source for photo synthesis. Since you have to recapture all the energy or else deplete the system, the light source must be both 100% efficient (of note, light hitting anything but the plant will heat up the environment, which must be recaptured or lost as waste heat).

So like every other infinite energy scheme that works in theory, the best you can manage is 100% efficiency (if you have 100% efficient devices, such as an air conditioned to pump out the waste heat for collection, and 100% efficient photovoltaics to capture all radiation to also be recycled as electricity and so on), and in practice, we can't manage that, thus the system must eventually be depleted and fail.

No. You don't get it. The rotation of the cat IS free energy. Yes the cat uses energy to stay alive, but that is all accounted for by biological process and the products thereof. That's completely irrelevant. That would be true regardless of whether the cat is spinning or not. But the rotary motion of the cat is free energy. There is motion being produced with no real cause. You put in 100% energy (in the form of cat food) and you get several hundred percent out (as we cat see, the rotary motion of the cat can be used to turn a generator enough to power several houses or maybe a small village - far in excess of the energy required to keep the cat alive and obviously more than a single cat could produce by it's own muscles). Of course, this only works because it's based on silly sayings. And again, if you strapped 2 pieces of buttered toast back to back, it would produce the same effect with no energy consumed.

But even if we use a cat (because it's funnier that way), perpetual motion/infinite energy isn't actually about perpetual motion/infinite energy. That's not what it means and it hasn't for a long time. It's about achieving >100% energy efficiency which as I explained the cat scenario does. A perpetual motion machine doesn't suddenly become not a perpetual motion machine simply by virtue of the fact that it's located on earth and with therefore someday be destroyed by the sun.

Edited August 29, 2013 by Person012345

[Person012345]

an dead cat does not does not land on it feet.

[citation needed]

A cat always lands on it's feet. That's about 50% of the premise of the video.

[LaydeeDem]

Are we seriously arguing about toast taped to a cat as a viable source of energy?