I love to read about "free" energy... zero point energy... you know... crazy stuff...
I do not believe in free energy. However, I do believe that we are bathed in a sea of energy fields. If we can just tap them, then we would have "free" energy - right?
There are a large number of new "wireless" energy devices now. They work by harvesting radio energy that is broadcast from a nearby plug-in source. However, I remember using a crystal to harvest energy out of the air... it was called a crystal radio - anybody else remember those? Tesla wanted to put 12 large antennas around the world (vertexes of an icosahedron as I recall) and broadcast huge amounts of electrical energy for all to use. Just connect a device to a ground, and voila free energy! Except that huge generators had to make the field... oh that...
I am especially interested in magnetism and gravity. (Actually, I think gravity may not be real, but that is another post. Clearly something causes an effect that looks like gravity - sort of like centrifugal force which does not exist either!) Magnetism is the effect of the nuclear energy of charged electrons spinning - nothing new there. So, if that energy is being radiated into space as some of the original energy of the universe, why can't we harvest some of it?
Think about what Tesla and others did with an a true energy collector 200 years ago. You just put a metal plate high in the air, run a wire down near the ground, connect another wire to a grounding rod and put a spark gap and capacitor in the path. Instant free energy! The capacitor charges all by itself! Today, we have to deal with this with any improperly grounded antenna system. Is that "free" energy from nowhere? It seems to be, but not if you think about the energy source, which is the earth's huge electric field. We are just shorting across it and harvesting the energy that is there. Otherwise, that energy just dissipates into space. Isn't magnetism like that?
Most of the time people who make "perpetual motion" machines are just crazy. They are just overlooking or misinterpreting a simple explanation. However, there are plenty of perpetual motion machines if you do not think about their energy source. That is, if you restrict the closed system to exclude the energy source - like the antenna charge.
So, what is a SMOT? It is a Small Magnetic Overunity Toy. You can check it out at http://open-encyclopedia.com/SMOT . Basically, it is 2 magnetic rails that pull a ball up a ramp. The idea is that if the ball overshoots the ramp at the top, then the ball will fall. If it does, then it can land on another ramp and start over. Thus, gravity is providing the force needed to "re gauge" the magnetic ramp. If you arranged the ramp series into a circle, the ball would roll around the circuit "forever". I have not tried to build one yet, and I think I will not hold my breath. However, I think I will try it ! Do I think the SMOT could be a perpetual motion machine? Sure, why not! It is easy to try to find out. But, can the ball be heavy enough and gain enough momentum to escape the magnetic attraction that pulled it up the ramp?
Around 25 years ago or so, I made a significant design improvement in a proven, working permanent magnet motor that I saw in "Popular Science". I have never heard another thing about the motor, so they must not have gotten my memo. Oh well. The original design had a difficult to machine spiral cavity in a strong non-magnetic metal. the spiral was lined with strong magnets all arranged with the same pole facing the center. A rotor is mounted inside the spiral with strong magnets and the same pole facing out. For now, imagine a single magnet on the rotor. You press the rotor into the track and let go. Because of the spiral track the magnetic repulsion will cause the rotor to turn in the direction that increases the separation between the magnets. Cool... perpetual motion???
No perpetual motion here. When the rotor turns around to the widest separation, it hits a "wall". It faces the narrow separation at the start of the spiral. There is no way that the magnetic "ramp" can accelerate the rotor so that it will have enough momentum to squeeze it into that narrow opening. (There is no gravity force to re-gauge it in SMOTese.) So, the inventor put an electromagnet there to give it a kick through the gap. After that, the rotor turns on its own and gains speed until it must once again be pressed through the gap on the next circuit. You can add lots more magnets to the rotor to smooth the operation. So basically the electricity needed to re-gauge the magnets is turned into rotation, like most electric motors.
My improvement eliminated the complex spiral machining. All I did was make a circular cavity and a circular rotor, then set the rotor slightly off center. From the narrow-to-wide half of the circuit the magnet polarities were opposite so that the rotor magnet was repelled toward the biggest gap. Then, I flipped the polarity of the permanent magnets for the second half of the circuit. In this configuration the now opposite polarity rotor magnet is pulled toward the narrow gap. See! No spiral is needed! It worked great, but of course, the electromagnetic pulse is still needed to push it through the magnetic wall at the nearest gap where the cavity magnets change polarity.
I have thought about trying to use the Gary effect to push the magnet through the gap, but I am not convinced that the effect is real. I question some of his observations and have not succeeded in getting the balance "just right" as the Gary proponents say you must.
Now I wonder about SMOTing the thing! I wonder if a SMOT ramp could lift a magnet over the gap, then drop it on the other side! Actually, you could make one long circular ramp with a magnet on a spoke rather than a ball. As the magnet is pulled around the circuit it is also raised (using up some the the energy.) Then, when it gets to the narrow repulsive side, it falls down into the narrow gap to restart the system! If a SMOT can do it, why not this motor? Hummmm it seems unlikely... if a rotor magnet is heavy enough to push back into the magnetic gap, would it be too heavy for the system to lift?... I will have to think about this for 10 years and then never get around to actually trying it... as I usually do.
I was actually thinking earlier this week of the Tesla invention that you described. I had been reading a book on electronics and electricity and was rehashing the topic of inductors.
ReplyDeleteInductors as you know work because of the electromagnetic effect stored as energy fields perpendicular to the wires.
Anyhow, my thought was that since the earth was a giant magnet, i.e. it provided it's own energy field, why not tap into it with some massive coils which run perpendicular to the field. It would force a current.
unfortunately http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080725161406AAHcwvK ... the field is weak enough that the coil would have to be as large as the earth or something like that.
You can get pretty significant energy by using the electric field. Here is a recent article that describes the apparatus: http://quantumgravitics.tripod.com/id9.html I think it is unfortunate that they are treating this as some kind of "zero point" energy-nut thing. It is a well known effect and is the reason antenna systems are grounded through a coil to bleed off the DC charge. I did not see an analysis of the energy potential, but notice that the circuit designs call for KV components and a spark plug for the gap. Spark plugs operate from around 5000 - 25000 volts. While this is "static electricity", because it is allowed to spark into the capacitor the current also accumulates so that it can reach usable levels. A sizable cap with a 5 KV charge could power an electric car quite nicely. http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2008-10/what-comes-after-batteries
ReplyDeleteOne use I saw for this (can't find a reference right now) is for hydrolysis. The guy was using the power from the plate collector to separate O2 and H2 from water. As you probably know, H2 forms on one pole and O2 on the other, so by putting in a permeable partition you can collect them separately (others collect then together as Brown's gas which is an explosive mixture that is generally burned near the generator). During the day the guy also focused sunlight on the electrolysis cell because it has been known to increase production. The system went on happily day and night slowly filling up his H2 and O2 collectors. He then used the gas to operate machinery and vehicles. This does not seem like weird science to me, but rather good old yankee ingenuity tapping into a natural energy field - don't water wheels do that???
Tesla had an interesting perspective: "Tesla, at the press conference honoring his 77th birthday in 1933 declared that electric power was everywhere present in unlimited quantities and could drive the worlds machinery without the need of coal, oil, gas, or any other fuels. A reporter asked if the sudden introduction of his principle wouldn't upset the present economic system... Tesla replied, "It is badly upset already." http://www.lightchamber.org/gfs_bjdocs/quotes/quoteNTesla.htm
Hey Van Rooy! Talk about a huge coil using the earth's electric field... how about a 5 kilometers long electromagnetic tether that uses the earth's electric field and gravitational force to sling a space ship to mars in 150 days! Or, lower a payload to the earth without needing propellant. Check it out! About 2/3 the way down under "Crack the whip to Mars and back" http://spacescience.spaceref.com/newhome/headlines/prop08apr99_1.htm
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