Laws of physics broken as a perpetual motion machine was invented

TRR

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Jul 21, 2008
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Ok i just watched the video of it and I have this to say: "if you believe this device to be a perpetual motion machine then im sorry to say but you have brain cancer."

The fact that the thing makes noise means it's not a perpetual motion machine.
QED bitches.
 

Agayek

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Oct 23, 2008
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SirBryghtside said:
How did they prove this, by the way? Because it seems to me like they went "Yeah, it runs for a while, it's perpetual" and left it at that...

I'm not buying it.

Edit: and that video looks... choppy.
There's a very easy test for perpetual motion. Let it run itself with no incoming power, and let it power something. If it can do both, it's perpetual motion.

That said, this thing is fake. Perpetual motion is impossible. Energy is always lost when it changes form, because we can't make perfectly efficient devices. Thus, you cannot generate more energy than was put in, and therefore you cannot create perpetual motion.
 

Boom129

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Apr 23, 2008
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Yay now we can have FTL and swords of pure energy and floating rocks!

But in all seriousness, is it me or does it look like it has a motor?
 

Spencer Petersen

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I sincerely doubt its perpetual motion and its not just getting some energy from some source we cant measure, but really that's all we need, just energy from things like heat in the air, or from excess carbon dioxide, or something we really don't care about, and get energy from that.
 

Boom129

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Flac00 said:
BS. It is a fact that perpetual motion machines don't work. Energy is lost everywhere. Not to mention, if this actually worked, it wouldn't mean squat. "Generating" energy is really just transferring it, so this machine wouldn't do that job at all. To say this again. BS. Perpetual motion machines are impossible, no matter how hard you might try you will always have to follow the laws of physics.
my rebuttal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws
 

MGlBlaze

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Oct 28, 2009
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WorkerMurphey said:
That's neat if it's legit but I find myself skeptical.
I find myself thinking the same thing. If this is real and can actually be used then it's awesome, but I very seriously doubt it. You can hide a lot on camera if you set it up right.
 

manaman

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PayJ567 said:
Hands up if it turns out to be a fake like cold fusion.
Cold Fusion looked possible there for a while, using heavy water. Fusion itself is looking like less of pipe dream these days. A good 50 years from now people might just be laughing at our energy crunch.

the antithesis said:
Electric companies pay power plants to not run to keep kilowatt costs up. They will prevent something like this from ever being produced for general consumption.
Oh you silly conspiracy theorists. The man is always keeping you down.

Boom129 said:
Yay now we can have FTL and swords of pure energy and floating rocks!

But in all seriousness, is it me or does it look like it has a motor?
A generator is a motor. Take a look at your alternator in your car sometime.

Agayek said:
SirBryghtside said:
How did they prove this, by the way? Because it seems to me like they went "Yeah, it runs for a while, it's perpetual" and left it at that...

I'm not buying it.

Edit: and that video looks... choppy.
There's a very easy test for perpetual motion. Let it run itself with no incoming power, and let it power something. If it can do both, it's perpetual motion.

That said, this thing is fake. Perpetual motion is impossible. Energy is always lost when it changes form, because we can't make perfectly efficient devices. Thus, you cannot generate more energy than was put in, and therefore you cannot create perpetual motion.

Energy is lost to the system, but it isn't lost. It's mostly transfered into heat. You can look at efficiency ratings. Some 99% of the fuel in your car is burned, but the engine has a 20-30% efficiency rating. Meaning only some 20-30% of the energy released by burning the fuel is converted into usable mechanical energy. The rest is lost as heat. Making an engine out of materials that can better cope with the heat could improve the efficiency up well beyond 70% much closer to the 80% efficiency of electrical motors. Oil use in engines might not be on it's last legs if they get the costs down on certain copper-carbon materials. The stuff is virtually frictionless compared to current materials so you don't need oil as a lubricant, and can withstand temperatures up beyond 4000 degrees F, so you don't need to cool the engine. Could do wonders for fuel efficiency with long haul truckers and locomotives.
 

Soylent Dave

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Seneschal said:
If the laws of thermodynamics weren't true, we would regularly observe phenomena that contradict them. The only things that ever contradict them are hoax-machines. Now, what conclusion am I supposed to draw from this?
That's not a proof. That's 'enough of a proof to allow most of the maths to work' - which means the laws of thermodynamics are probably a pretty good simulation of how the universe works. But, as you may have gathered from all the qualifiers in there, that doesn't mean "that's how the universe works and that's final".

And anyone who buggers about on the quantum level does regularly encounter things that directly contradict pretty much all of the traditional laws of physics (like teleporting electrons)

elvor0 said:
Quoted for truth, Classical ie Newtonian physics were proven wrong with the arrival of Modern or Quantum physics
I wouldn't go that far, though - there's rather a lot of quantum physics which is built on supposition (which is why we can't unify our physical theories, because there's something wrong with one or both of them) - there are big chunks of quantum mechanics which are based on some very big assumptions, just so that we can start thinking about the deeper stuff.

(one of the biggest assumptions being "small things behave differently to big things" - I'm willing to bet that actually they don't; we just don't understand what is really happening yet. But the assumption let's us explain things well enough, for now)

Haakong said:
All we "know" today is just "adds up nicely to how the real world works".
That'd be the tl;dr version of my comment.
 

TRR

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Mimsofthedawg said:
ChocoFace said:
First, let's recite the first rule of thermodynamics, shall we? It says that neither matter nor energy can be created or destroyed. Energy can be changed, moved, controlled, stored, or dissipated, but it cannot be produced from nothing or reduced to nothing. I guess the inventor of this machine didn't learn physics well enough in school, or something.

Dubbed the Alpha Omega Galaxy Freefall Generator, this device uses the power of gravity to produce more electricity than it consumes through perpetual motion.

This is what it looks like. It's mostly made from standard, run-of-the-mill bicycle parts (also the reason it cannot fully be patented) and uses a windscreen-washer motor. The inventor, a Somerset engineer, whose name isn't included in the article, predicts a fully commercial version of this could power a house.

link is here, with some extra clarification and a nifty video, as i'm sure this needs to be seen to be believed.
http://www.infoniac.com/hi-tech/latest-invention-perpetual-motion-device-that-produces-power-from-gravity.html

So, raise of hands - energy crisis solved or not? Also it's name. Just, wow.
it uses the power of gravity. In otherwords, it's not creating new energy, it's utilizing energy around it.

Your statement is like saying "Solar panels, using the power of the sun, make their own power completely free from the influences of other power sources!"

Ahem... POWER OF THE SUN.
oh my, go back to grade 10 science class.

HELLO! do you have any idea how potential energy due to gravity works?

E = m * g * h
where m is the mass of the object (in Kg), g is the acceleration of gravity (9.81m/s^2), and h is the height (in metres)
to make this better let's change h to the change in height (dh)
so E=mg(dh)
lets say i have a 1kg mass on the ground
now i raise it to 1 metre, so dh = 1 , E = (1)(9.81)(1) = 9.81
so it gains 9.81 joules of potential energy
now i drop it, so dh = -1 , E = (1)(9.81)(-1) = -9.81
so it loses 9.81 joules of potential energy (gains 9.81J potential energy)
9.81 - 9.81 = 0 *and only in an ideal system!*
QED again bitches.

Im a physics major at UBC, and I probably just fed a troll.
 

elvor0

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Soylent Dave said:
Seneschal said:
If the laws of thermodynamics weren't true, we would regularly observe phenomena that contradict them. The only things that ever contradict them are hoax-machines. Now, what conclusion am I supposed to draw from this?
That's not a proof. That's 'enough of a proof to allow most of the maths to work' - which means the laws of thermodynamics are probably a pretty good simulation of how the universe works. But, as you may have gathered from all the qualifiers in there, that doesn't mean "that's how the universe works and that's final".

And anyone who buggers about on the quantum level does regularly encounter things that directly contradict pretty much all of the traditional laws of physics (like teleporting electrons)

elvor0 said:
Quoted for truth, Classical ie Newtonian physics were proven wrong with the arrival of Modern or Quantum physics
I wouldn't go that far, though - there's rather a lot of quantum physics which is built on supposition (which is why we can't unify our physical theories, because there's something wrong with one or both of them) - there are big chunks of quantum mechanics which are based on some very big assumptions, just so that we can start thinking about the deeper stuff.

(one of the biggest assumptions being "small things behave differently to big things" - I'm willing to bet that actually they don't; we just don't understand what is really happening yet. But the assumption let's us explain things well enough, for now)

Haakong said:
All we "know" today is just "adds up nicely to how the real world works".
That'd be the tl;dr version of my comment.
Yeah how Haakong put it is probabally better than mine, mine was a bit hamfisted :p
 

Aiden_the-Joker1

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Apr 21, 2010
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I doubt that it works. As it spins like a wheel it would not be able to constantly keep turning on its own power due to friction. Also I find it weird that it never states the inventor's name but just refers to him as the inventor. It is not really described how it works. Also there is no way I am going to believe that it moves that fast due to gravity as the only continual acting force. Gravity is one of the weakest natural forces.Finally notice that halfway through the video it cuts to another shot, maybe it slowed down and they had to edit?
 

Knight Templar

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Dec 29, 2007
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It needs a generator to run, is losing energy in the form of sound and can't power anything itself.
How is this perpetual motion? Next I expect he's going put a tennis ball on a string and claim to violate conservation of momentum.
 

thenumberthirteen

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Dec 19, 2007
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rollerfox88 said:
thenumberthirteen said:
Freemon said:
Everyone is calling this Fake because it violates the laws of physics.

Thing is... the laws of physics we have today weren't the ones we had 200 years ago and surely won't be the ones we have in 200 years.

Is it possible to build such machine? according to today's laws of physics, no. Until it is proven to be a fake, i like to believe it is real.
So you believe everything you see or hear until someone proves otherwise. Even something provably absurd? Why?

Also the "Science has changed before so science today is wrong" is a poor argument that precludes the possibility of Science discovering truth. If the laws of Thermodynamics were to be bent or broken then it would be in the field of Quantum Mechanics, and not classical mechanics that has been studied rigorously for centuries.
I'm gonna side with Freemon here - he's not saying science is wrong, but that it might be (which is also why nothing is "provably" absurd - you can't say for certain it will ever be disproved in the future, so nothing can be proved now). I'm gonna retain my sense of childlike wonder and naivety, and believe that something as nice as this has happened (at least until someone shows me it hasn't, without just claiming it hasn't...).
It's people's willingness to believe in crap like this that allows them to scam millions off investors for useless junk and snake oil remedies.

So you'll believe this works and buy one if it came to market?
 

Theninja'skatana

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Aug 29, 2010
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Hmm Impossible and yet I wonder.... Now I can power my Doomsday machine,
Victory for me!
OR cyborg replacement limbs will be more viable...
both are cool.
 

Wyes

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Aug 1, 2009
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Yeah, physics calls shenanigans on this one.

Side note: The first law of thermodynamics says nothing about matter, all it says is that energy cannot be created or destroyed. Matter can be created and destroyed; this is what happens in anti-matter reactions. The matter is destroyed, but shock horror, tremendous amounts of energy are released, because thanks to Einstein, we know mass and energy are equivalent; E = mc^2. You can also create matter, but it's a teensy bit harder... Just kinda annoys me when I see everyone talking about the first law of thermodynamics and matter...
 

the_abhorsen

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Mar 15, 2009
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Zagzag said:
The first law of Thermodynamics says that energy cannot be created or destroyed. This machine is doing neither, it's just converting gravitational potential into electrical energy, if the article is correct. No physicists need to be consulted.
Consider it as two seperate systems, granted, one side converts potentail into kinetic and creates a downwards motion. The other side still has the same kinetic engery, yet is CREATEING potential energy by moving it away from the earth.

If you're going to dismiss the conservation of energy you may as well throw away all of modern science.