A Real "Maxwell's Demon"?

[Tom Booth]

32 minutes ago, Ghideon said:

Physics.

If we simply rule out possibilities on the basis of: "It's never been done before" and little else, I think we may be repeating a long train of mistakes. Making broad assumptions rather than relying on the scientific method.

 

Quote

The demonstration that no possible combination of known substances, known forms of machinery and known forms of force, can be united in a practical machine by which men shall fly along distances through the air, seems to the writer as complete as it is possible for the demonstration to be. — Simon Newcomb, 1900

 

[Ghideon]

2 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

The problems happen when you try adding or removing heat to/from the device. The stored energy used to start the machine runs down. There is no free lunch.

 

Thanks for the helpful analysis @sethoflagos! It confirms my understanding of the situation. 

My question was directed at OP; given this is posted in speculations I expected an analysis.

7 minutes ago, Tom Booth said:

If we simply rule out possibilities on the basis of: "It's never been done before" and little else, I think we may be repeating a long train of mistakes. Making broad assumptions rather than relying on the scientific method.

 

Strawman does not work as an argument in science. 

Edited February 10, 2023 by Ghideon

[sethoflagos]

4 minutes ago, Tom Booth said:

So are you suggesting that if we leave off the Stirling engines, this could be some kind of PM machine?

To the extent that if a machine exists that lost half it's 'bounce energy' in a week, there's every reason to suspect that with a little more investment that performance could be extended. And so on.

24 minutes ago, Tom Booth said:

At what point would the system break down by placing say, one Stirling engine on the cold side.

Ambient heat would then run the Stirling engine which would then drop it's "waste heat" into the device

You're adding heat to a closed system so the temperature rises throughout the cycle until there's no more incoming heat. And the expansion has hit your compression ratio so you don't see on the hot side what you've lost on the cold side. 

[Tom Booth]

1 hour ago, sethoflagos said:

To the extent that if a machine exists that lost half it's 'bounce energy' in a week, there's every reason to suspect that with a little more investment that performance could be extended. And so on.

That seems overly generous. Personally I wouldn't expect the effect to carry on for more than perhaps ten seconds.

1 hour ago, sethoflagos said:

You're adding heat to a closed system so the temperature rises throughout the cycle until there's no more incoming heat. And the expansion has hit your compression ratio so you don't see on the hot side what you've lost on the cold side. 

I find the term "closed system" a bit perplexing sometimes.

Take a heat pump or air conditioner. Would that be a "closed system"?

Depends on what you imagine the "system" to consist of doesn't it?

For example, there are, in an air conditioner cooling coils, cooling fins and a fan blowing air through a radiator. The heat exchanger has matter passing through it.

 

1 hour ago, sethoflagos said:

You're adding heat to a closed system so the temperature rises throughout the cycle until there's no more incoming heat

No more incoming heat? The heat of the atmosphere did not run out.

The Stirling engine is converting some of the heat into work, so there is, if anything less heat transfer into the system than before.

But supposing heat entering into the "Demon" contraption on the cold side, through the Stirling engine is actually a problem, could the excess heat be carried off by a second engine underneath the apparatus on the hot side?

The one engine on top on the cold side adding heat, the other on the hot side taking an equivalent amount away. Maintaining the balance?

At any rate, haven't we already gone too far, I mean, Maxwell's Demon is supposed to be impossible, not on the basis of heat added or removed from the system, but on the basis that the demon has to think and so uses energy in the process of opening and closing the hatch in the partition.?

Here we have a purely mechanical contrivance, so no thinking process to consume energy. I'm probably not relating the argument correctly, but I don't recall anything about adding or taking away heat being an issue. The separating out of the heat in the first place is what's supposed to be impossible, as I understand the problem.

 

1 hour ago, sethoflagos said:

And the expansion has hit your compression ratio so you don't see on the hot side what you've lost on the cold side. 

I can't follow this at all. Could you rephrase or clarify that?

Edited February 10, 2023 by Tom Booth

[sethoflagos]

50 minutes ago, Tom Booth said:

That seems overly generous. Personally I wouldn't expect the effect to carry on for more than perhaps ten seconds.

Okay, we're agreed that with a little initial energy input we can cycle indefinitely between two temperature states.

55 minutes ago, Tom Booth said:

I find the term "closed system" a bit perplexing sometimes.

Okay, I'll accept that obscure terminology can be a bit confusing. Let's avoid the unnecessary and cut to the important bit.

59 minutes ago, Tom Booth said:

The separating out of the heat in the first place is what's supposed to be impossible, as I understand the problem.

I accept 100% that starting at uniform ambient temperature and given that little initial energy input, it is possible to produce a hot body and a cold body.

Not impossible at all. 

Most of us have access to a refrigerator. 

[Tom Booth]

2 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

Okay, we're agreed that with a little initial energy input we can cycle indefinitely between two temperature states.

Okay, I'll accept that obscure terminology can be a bit confusing. Let's avoid the unnecessary and cut to the important bit.

I accept 100% that starting at uniform ambient temperature and given that little initial energy input, it is possible to produce a hot body and a cold body.

Not impossible at all. 

Most of us have access to a refrigerator. 

Just to be clear, what do you consider "that little initial energy input"?

We lifted up the magnet giving it potential energy, then dropping it released the energy.

I'm a little skeptical that there could be any heat pump effect from that.

The weight drops down the tube compressing the air, the little piston goes up, the regenerator goes down sweeping up some heat (since the compressed air heated up immediately but the regenerator did not), so heat moves from the compressed gas into the regenerator.

I'm afraid at that point the bounce has already been taken out of the air. Like your on a trampoline and suddenly it collapses.

Or does the piston just fall a little further maybe and still  bounce?

If it falls a little further does it also increase in velocity a little? Does that increase or decrease the potential energy, by cooling the gas with the regenerator.

If we imagine we do still get a bounce that expands and cools the air, the regenerator falls and releases the heat it previously gathered. Could that release of heat cause the piston to travel up the tube a little further?

If any of this actually worked at all, and a temperature difference we're established and could be maintained. There would then, presumably be heat transfer into the device on the cold side and transfer out on the hot side. The regenerator is preventing a heat transfer in the other direction.

Anyway you didn't address the possibility of a heat engine on both the top and the bottom to balance the energy exchange.

Anyway I'm pretty satisfied that it might be an interesting project to build the thing just to see what happens. Thanks.

I might try building that Hammer wheel as well. With an anvil. I have an idea it could work with a foot peddle.

I'm wondering if it was not actually a misunderstanding that it was intended as a perpetual motion thing. Maybe the author/inventor (if he was the inventor) meant simply that this was a SELF running hammer wheel in the sense that a blacksmith could run the thing by himself, rather than have to hire extra people working in shifts to perform the hammering, to put a metal roof on a cathedral of something.

Edited February 11, 2023 by Tom Booth

[sethoflagos]

1 hour ago, Tom Booth said:

Just to be clear, what do you consider "that little initial energy input"?

The little bit of energy you put in to get it running in the first place. If you deny the necessity of this then fine. Just produce a refrigerator that operates continuously with no energy input and we can continue the conversation.

Until that happens then words are just words. No science here. 

[Tom Booth]

12 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

If you deny the necessity of this

Good grief, I'm not doing any such thing!

Infact I offered one possibility. I lifted the ball/piston, putting "potential energy" INTO  the magnetic piston before dropping it down the tube. 

You do understand, this idea for a "Maxwell's Demon" contraption only just popped into my head about 20 minutes before I started the thread. Why this confrontational attitude all the time? Heckling, put downs, insults, mischaracterizations, It's like I'm some road kill being picked apart by a flock of vultures.

Basically I'm just thinking out loud, asking myself, as much as the forum. I'm not denying there needs to be a source of energy to set the thing in motion, initially at least, and I would assume energy would need to be supplied continuously as well, if it were to continue operating more than a few seconds, even with friction reduced as much as possible. That's my honest opinion.

I'm also not talking about any "ideal" or isolated system. There is no insulation on this thing, though glass is a fairly good insulator, it's not perfect.

So if there is a hot and cold side being maintained for any length of time, heat will begin to migrate in and out of the system.

Anyway, one step at a time.

What specifically is the actual impetus that gets this thing started? I'm just honestly asking for a little help reasoning this out.

Did "l" Tom Booth, literally PUT energy into the "system" in some way? If so, do you agree with my first analysis, that it was lifting the magnet that put energy into it?

What if I took the magnet down from a height. Let's say I hiked up to the top of mount Everest and found it there at an elevation of 30,000' (almost) then carried it down to my house on the seaside, dropping it down the tube.

I guess then the energy was put into "the system" when the mountain was formed?

 

Is it possible, if instead, I carried the apparatus itself up the mountain, could I then put much much more energy into the system, so I don't loose all that energy put into the piston eons ago when it was lifted up by the mountain?

Carrying the piston down from the mountain, no doubt caused a great deal of loss in potential energy, I would think.

How do we quantify the initial energy input, I guess, is what I'm asking. How would that be determined?

Edited February 11, 2023 by Tom Booth

[exchemist]

1 hour ago, Tom Booth said:

Good grief, I'm not doing any such thing!

Infact I offered one possibility. I lifted the ball/piston, putting "potential energy" INTO  the magnetic piston before dropping it down the tube. 

You do understand, this idea for a "Maxwell's Demon" contraption only just popped into my head about 20 minutes before I started the thread. Why this confrontational attitude all the time? Heckling, put downs, insults, mischaracterizations, It's like I'm some road kill being picked apart by a flock of vultures.

Basically I'm just thinking out loud, asking myself, as much as the forum. I'm not denying there needs to be a source of energy to set the thing in motion, initially at least, and I would assume energy would need to be supplied continuously as well, if it were to continue operating more than a few seconds, even with friction reduced as much as possible. That's my honest opinion.

I'm also not talking about any "ideal" or isolated system. There is no insulation on this thing, though glass is a fairly good insulator, it's not perfect.

So if there is a hot and cold side being maintained for any length of time, heat will begin to migrate in and out of the system.

Anyway, one step at a time.

What specifically is the actual impetus that gets this thing started? I'm just honestly asking for a little help reasoning this out.

Did "l" Tom Booth, literally PUT energy into the "system" in some way? If so, do you agree with my first analysis, that it was lifting the magnet that put energy into it?

What if I took the magnet down from a height. Let's say I hiked up to the top of mount Everest and found it there at an elevation of 30,000' (almost) then carried it down to my house on the seaside, dropping it down the tube.

I guess then the energy was put into "the system" when the mountain was formed?

 

Is it possible, if instead, I carried the apparatus itself up the mountain, could I then put much much more energy into the system, so I don't loose all that energy put into the piston eons ago when it was lifted up by the mountain?

Carrying the piston down from the mountain, no doubt caused a great deal of loss in potential energy, I would think.

How do we quantify the initial energy input, I guess, is what I'm asking. How would that be determined?

The point is that any heat pump requires an external energy input. It can be mechanical work, as provided by the motor in a domestic fridge, or it can be something else, say, electricity in the case of a Peltier device or something. But heat will not spontaneously flow against a temperature gradient. Energy input is required to make it do that. 

So if your device - regardless of what it is and how it is constructed - gets heat to flow against a temperature gradient to produce a hotter side and a colder side where there was none before, there has been an energy input somewhere. 

By the way, the reason you get attacked, by me and others, is blatantly obvious to anyone with a smidgeon of intelligence. You are obsessed with trying to overturn one of the best-established and best-validated principles in science and  - in particular -  dodging all the patient explanations that have been made as to why you can't do that.  So stop playing the victim, when it is you that has chosen to wander about with a huge "KICK ME' sign strapped to your arse. 

Edited February 11, 2023 by exchemist

[Tom Booth]

28 minutes ago, exchemist said:

The point is that any heat pump requires an external energy input. It can be mechanical work, as provided by the motor in a domestic fridge, or it can be something else, say, electricity in the case of a Peltier device or something. But heat will not spontaneously flow against a temperature gradient. Energy input is required to make it do that. 

So if your device - regardless of what it is and how it is constructed - gets heat to flow against a temperature gradient to produce a hotter side and a colder side where there was none before, there has been an energy input somewhere. 

By the way, the reason you get attacked, by me and others, is blatantly obvious to anyone with a smidgeon of intelligence. You are obsessed with trying to overturn one of the best-established and best-validated principles in science and  - in particular -  dodging all the patient explanations that have been made as to why you can't do that.  So stop playing the victim, when it is you that has chosen to wander about with a huge "KICK ME' sign strapped to your arse. 

sethoflagos has alleged that my proposed Maxwell's demon could work, in principle, indefinitely.

I'm just trying to do an energy audit. Your rant does not address the question of where exactly the startup energy came from.

I'm not saying there was not any necessarily.

I, though, did not directly supply any heating element or electrical input.

Suppose the system is set up with the ball/piston on a platform. 

Remove the platform to start the machine.

What if there is the machine running and say, the top of the cylinder is slightly elastic.

I push a button causing it to be squeezed. So the ball/piston gets stuck.

Now push a button to re-release the ball, the system has STARTED up again from a standstill.

Do we use, what is it, mass x distance. f=m*a ? Or what?

Newtons second law of motion?

Is that MY energy input?

Gravitational force?

Edited February 11, 2023 by Tom Booth

[exchemist]

12 minutes ago, Tom Booth said:

sethoflagos has alleged that my proposed Maxwell's demon could work, in principle, indefinitely.

I'm just trying to do an energy audit. Your rant does not address the question of where exactly the startup energy came from.

I'm not saying there was not any necessarily.

I, though, did not directly supply any heating element or electrical input.

Suppose the system is set up with the ball/piston on a platform. 

Remove the platform to start the machine.

What if there is the machine running and say, the top of the cylinder is slightly elastic.

I push a button causing it to be squeezed. So the ball/piston gets stuck.

Now push a button to re-release the ball, the system has STARTED up again from a standstill.

Do we use, what is it, mass x distance. f=m*a ? Or what?

Newtons second law of motion?

Is that MY energy input?

Gravitational force?

I'm not terribly interested in the details of your machine. I know you love to bog people down in that sort of thing, to obscure the essence of the scenario. I've been through that experience with you before. So no thanks.

I'm just telling you that, if it creates hot and cold from an intermediate temperature, there is an energy input, of some sort, somewhere. That's just a fact (KICK😁). So if you are doing an energy audit, you need to look for what that might be (presuming your device works, that is).     

Edited February 11, 2023 by exchemist

[Tom Booth]

18 minutes ago, exchemist said:

I'm not terribly interested in the details of your machine. I know you love to bog people down in that sort of thing, to obscure the essence of the scenario. I've been through that experience with you before. So no thanks.

I'm just telling you that, if it creates hot and cold from an intermediate temperature, there is an energy input, of some sort, somewhere. That's just a fact (KICK😁). So if you are doing an energy audit, you need to look for what that might be (presuming your device works, that is).     

Right, I agree, but I'm having a little difficulty pinpointing what that "energy input" is exactly, which involves looking at the details.

I'm well aware of the broad assumptions, 2nd Law "It's impossible" etc.

Frankly I'm rather shocked with the response from sethoflagos. He considers it nothing more than a simple refrigerator, that runs by itself, forever (?) And seems to have worked it out mathematically with great confidence. Yup, just your ordinary household appliance. Nothing to see here folks.

 

BTW, I cannot really say that this device is my own invention.

It came to mind after watching many videos and such about the Ruchardt Experiment and noticing how much  this apparatus resembles a Stirling engine.

What this is, basically, is just a Ruchardt apparatus with a Stirling engine type regenerative displacer put inside, or alternatively, it IS  simply a common "free piston" Stirling engine in toto.

Edited February 11, 2023 by Tom Booth

[sethoflagos]

4 hours ago, Tom Booth said:

How do we quantify the initial energy input, I guess, is what I'm asking. How would that be determined?

Absolute energy values are irrelevant - it's the changes that matter. The change in potential energy of the ball between highest and lowest points of travel determines the change in internal energy of the gas at those positions which in turn determines the maximum temperature change of the gas.

2 hours ago, Tom Booth said:

Frankly I'm rather shocked with the response from sethoflagos. He considers it nothing more than a simple refrigerator, that runs by itself, forever (?) And seems to have worked it out mathematically with great confidence. Yup, just your ordinary household appliance. Nothing to see here folks.

dU + dE_P = 0 is not a really hard sum to solve. Yes it's a sort of simple refrigerator. It's also a sort of simple harmonic oscillator with potentially minimal damping. So it's also a candidate for perpetual motion machine of the third kind. No, it won't run 'forever' but stating that there is finite limit to how long such a device could remain in motion would be a falsehood.    

Edited February 11, 2023 by sethoflagos

[Tom Booth]

2 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

Absolute energy values are irrelevant - it's the changes that matter. The change in potential energy of the ball between highest and lowest points of travel determines the change in internal energy of the gas at those positions which in turn determines the maximum temperature change of the gas.

dU + dE_P = 0 is not a really hard sum to solve. Yes it's a sort of simple refrigerator. It's also a sort of simple harmonic oscillator with potentially minimal damping. So it's also a candidate for perpetual motion machine of the third kind. No, it won't run 'forever' but stating that there is finite limit to how long such a device could remain in motion would be a falsehood.    

I spent some time reading up on what you mention here: "So it's also a candidate for perpetual motion machine of the third kind."

The definition of this "third kind", as far as I can find, relates only to the device being frictionless.

A frictionless mechanism or machine that is also a "simple refrigerator"? You don't think that runs a bit further off the rails than just a run of the mill impossible, let's say, a top spinning in zero gravity but not actually doing anything.

You don't actually BELIEVE this thing could just bob up and down, perhaps for weeks or months on end, effecting the simultaneous refrigeration AND heating of a finite space all the while, do you? Because I don't.

You would need to do more convincing than just saying "dU + dE_P = 0 is not a really hard sum to solve."

Suppose we fashion a small compartment or two. Insulated? I'm supposing.

Do you imagine this machine could keep an ice cube cold? That is, the machine is already effecting refrigeration, let's just suppose, maintaining a cold side at <or=0°C.

Putting an already frozen ice cube in the compartment would not upset the balance of the machine would it?

 

Edited February 11, 2023 by Tom Booth

[sethoflagos]

6 minutes ago, Tom Booth said:

You don't actually BELIEVE this thing could just bob up and down, perhaps for weeks or months on end, effecting the simultaneous refrigeration AND heating of a finite space all the while, do you? Because I don't.

No I don't. The initial heating and cooling effects are one offs. A small amount of heat transferred between two bodies at the cost of some of your initial potential energy.

If you try to make use of the temperature difference in any way, the machine will compensate until all its initial potential energy input has been consumed. And then it stops.

[Tom Booth]

18 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

No I don't. The initial heating and cooling effects are one offs. A small amount of heat transferred between two bodies at the cost of some of your initial potential energy.

If you try to make use of the temperature difference in any way, the machine will compensate until all its initial potential energy input has been consumed. And then it stops.

I was thinking that given the "fact" (if true) that a Ruchardt apparatus and a Stirling engine, (with no load, of the "thermoacoustic" type, operating without a flywheel) are essentially very similar, if not identical, then perhaps applying some heat to the base of the Ruchardt bottle would make up for frictional loses and keep the thing going, as long as some heat we're continually applied.

Any thoughts on that arrangement?

 

[Tom Booth]

Actually the "Maxwell's Demon" contraption is more like a Gamma Stirling (Dr. Senft's P-19) except for having a "free piston".

With a little heat on the bottom to make up for friction loses, I was thinking too, what if we put a coil around the tube like one of those "forever" flashlights you shake to light, or charge.

One disassembled:

I guess a little more heat would be required to compensate for the linear generator output.

 

Oh wait, I forgot, this engine, I mean Ruchardt tube thing doesn't have any friction loses. Well not much anyway.

So it's just the generator output we'd have to make up for?

No, wait I forgot, we'd have to multiply that by like six times.

16 minutes ago, Tom Booth said:

Actually the "Maxwell's Demon" contraption is more like a Gamma Stirling (Dr. Senft's P-19) except for having a "free piston".

With a little heat on the bottom to make up for friction loses, I was thinking too, what if we put a coil around the tube like one of those "forever" flashlights you shake to light, or charge.

One disassembled:

I guess a little more heat would be required to compensate for the linear generator output.

 

Oh wait, I forgot, this engine, I mean Ruchardt tube thing doesn't have any friction loses. Well not much anyway.

So it's just the generator output we'd have to make up for?

No, wait I forgot, we'd have to multiply that by like six times.

I just have to remember to always call it a *Ruchardt tube generator* and not a heat engine. Because if I call it a heat engine that would automatically drop the efficiency down to practically nothin'.

 

[Tom Booth]

As far as, well, a couple of things, like is this "PM machine of the 3rd kind" [sic (?)] Actually "one-off" or, what happens after a ∆T is established and heat starts immediately migrating across the system boundaries. The device is, after all, not "isolated" from the environment.

Maybe Ghideon can help me out again with this one.

Now the ambient heat might have a really difficult time trying to find its way in between the two ah... Ruchardt tube thingamabobs.

Dropping the ball to get the thing(s) off and running is pretty much the equivalent of giving the flywheel(s) on a couple of LTD Stirling engines a quick spin.

Anybody know where I can get an upside down Ruchardt apparatus?

Not really sure if I drew that properly. It's just a concept drawing.Too early in the morning to think about all the details.

Anyway, maybe it might be possible to prevent the surrounding ambient heat from immediately destroying the slight refrigerating effect using the Ghideon method.

Edited February 12, 2023 by Tom Booth

[Tom Booth]

On 2/10/2023 at 12:36 PM, swansont said:

The only way to quantify such predictions is with n=mainstream science.

That's quite a mouthful (again) [emphasis added]

Interesting how changing the name of an appliance changes the rules regarding how we are allowed to think about it.

A "refrigerating effect" from a Heat engine is dismissed offhand, but a "refrigerating effect" from an apparently identical appliance based on the same known physical principles is not only accepted but vigorously defended with mathematical proofs.

An example of how past assumptions can blind the mind to reason and the eyes to objective observation.

Whenever has "mainstream science" not sooner or later been overturned, reframed, or reinterpreted?

[swansont]

2 hours ago, Tom Booth said:

That's quite a mouthful (again) [emphasis added]

Interesting how changing the name of an appliance changes the rules regarding how we are allowed to think about it.

Well, no, it doesn’t. I requested rigor from you in this thread. To my mind, there still hasn’t been any.

 

2 hours ago, Tom Booth said:

A "refrigerating effect" from a Heat engine is dismissed offhand, but a "refrigerating effect" from an apparently identical appliance based on the same known physical principles is not only accepted but vigorously defended with mathematical proofs.

I’m sorry - to what math are you referring? I see one equation, that of conservation of energy.

And what identical appliances? I haven’t been paying attention to recent discussion between you and sethoflagos and exchemist.

 

2 hours ago, Tom Booth said:

Whenever has "mainstream science" not sooner or later been overturned, reframed, or reinterpreted?

Irrelevant. Overturning mainstream science requires evidence that it’s wrong. Analysis of a proposed device needs to be based on mainstream science. We don’t permit anyone to bootstrap speculation on more speculation - it has to be one step at a time.

One curious thing, though, is that I haven’t posted anything here in two full days, and you go out if your way to call my attention to the thread, and the fact that you still aren’t complying with the rules. 

[exchemist]

16 hours ago, Tom Booth said:

That's quite a mouthful (again) [emphasis added]

Interesting how changing the name of an appliance changes the rules regarding how we are allowed to think about it.

A "refrigerating effect" from a Heat engine is dismissed offhand, but a "refrigerating effect" from an apparently identical appliance based on the same known physical principles is not only accepted but vigorously defended with mathematical proofs.

An example of how past assumptions can blind the mind to reason and the eyes to objective observation.

Whenever has "mainstream science" not sooner or later been overturned, reframed, or reinterpreted?

What a stupid, disingenuous rant. A heat engine running backwards is a heat pump, as I think you know perfectly well. 

And don't try the Galileo Gambit here. I've told you before, several times (KICK 😁), you are not going to overturn 150 years of engineering experience and thermodynamic theory with some badly done Mickey Mouse experiments in your garage.

 

[Tom Booth]

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

A heat engine running backwards is a heat pump, as I think you know perfectly well. 

IMO, and I've studied both heat pumps and heat engines for a very long time, your comment only demonstrates a lack of understanding regarding the details of how either machine or appliance actually operates.

These "Ideal" scenarios of a heat pump actually being a heat engine running backwards are about as silly as saying: if you turn the crankshaft on your lawnmower backwards it will produce gasoline.

A heat pump running backwards is an air conditioner. All either one does is move heat one way or the other.

A heat engine consumes heat. 

Creating cold by moving heat out of an insulated space is not the same as creating cold by converting that same heat into mechanical work output .

In a heat engine the heat does not disappear at the evaporator and reappear at the condenser. It just disappears. Period. Consumed as "fuel" to produce a mechanical motion. The cold produced by a heat engine is not the result of simply moving the heat through the engine from one side to the other, taking it in at the heat source and transporting it over to the sink. The cold produced by a heat engine is the result of destroying the heat, so that it no longer exists.

You can't push your car backwards to fill up your gas tank.

 

 

[exchemist]

11 minutes ago, Tom Booth said:

IMO, and I've studied both heat pumps and heat engines for a very long time, your comment only demonstrates a lack of understanding regarding the details of how either machine or appliance actually operates.

These "Ideal" scenarios of a heat pump actually being a heat engine running backwards are about as silly as saying: if you turn the crankshaft on your lawnmower backwards it will produce gasoline.

A heat pump running backwards is an air conditioner. All either one does is move heat one way or the other.

A heat engine consumes heat. 

Creating cold by moving heat out of an insulated space is not the same as creating cold by converting that same heat into mechanical work output .

In a heat engine the heat does not disappear at the evaporator and reappear at the condenser. It just disappears. Period. Consumed as "fuel" to produce a mechanical motion. The cold produced by a heat engine is not the result of simply moving the heat through the engine from one side to the other, taking it in at the heat source and transporting it over to the sink. The cold produced by a heat engine is the result of destroying the heat, so that it no longer exists.

You can't push your car backwards to fill up your gas tank.

 

 

An air conditioner is a heat engine running backwards, you moron (KICK 😁). You put mechanical work in, via the electric motor, and it creates a hot side and a cold side. 

Edited February 13, 2023 by exchemist

[Tom Booth]

4 hours ago, exchemist said:

An air conditioner is a heat engine running backwards, you moron (KICK 😁). You put mechanical work in, via the electric motor, and it creates a hot side and a cold side. 

If that were the case, anyone could take the air conditioner out of their window apply some heat to it and turn it into an electric generator.

[swansont]

4 hours ago, Tom Booth said:

The cold produced by a heat engine is the result of destroying the heat, so that it no longer exists.

!

Moderator Note

For someone who rants about the misguided notion of a caloric, you spend a lot of time treating heat as a substance, and mangling the laws of physics. 

All you’ve done is preach, without supporting your claims, which is not in accordance with the rules of speculations.