Perpetual Energy

[JustinW]

Resistance ma be the key. You always run into the problem of resistance. Providing enough energy to power the energy machine from the energy machine. Just in speculation, would it be correct to assume that if you could harness the energy from resistance of a force to get your power, it could be perpetual? I heard somebody use the force of gravity as an example once. Not to say that gravity would be the force. Just speculating that if we could contain the resistance of a force, since resistance is constant, it perpetual. Let me know how wrong I am.

 

 

[zerotwoone]

The issue is that coefficient of friction is a property in the Universe, not of the Universe. Some engineer maybe able to invent something using your idea to provide energy someday, but will it be "perpetual?" No.

[CaptainPanic]

If you can remove all friction, then something should in theory keep moving forever. Perpetual motion.

But there is no such thing as zero friction. There is always friction. Always.

 

Perpetual energy is something different altogether. Now, you do not just want something to keep moving. You want to gain energy from it. That's impossible, even in the theoretical zero friction case.

 

If you get energy from somewhere, energy is transferred. For example: Something is really high, and falls down. It loses potential energy, and gets kinetic energy and heat (heat is from friction). In every transfer of energy, there is always some loss. The loss is never zero, and you can not get more out on one end than goes in on the other.

 

Resistance is always lost in the form of heat. And the problem with heat is that you cannot use 100% of it, because of the laws of thermodynamics... so you will always really lose some of it.

[JustinW]

Sounds logical to me. So we may never reach the level of perpetual. Our best hope might be coming close.

 

 

[CaptainPanic]

Sounds logical to me. So we may never reach the level of perpetual. Our best hope might be coming close.

There are 2 things we need to achieve:

 

1. Very efficient machines (i.e. using the "perpetual" word: it's close to perpetual motion, but not quite... It means it doesn't need much energy to keep going)

2. A good source of energy. This will never be anything with "perpetual", although we might assume that the sun will be there for a while, and other sources are also going to be around for a long time. And whatever source of energy we use, we will lose some when we convert it into the form we need. And after we used this energy, it will all become heat, which is still energy. Energy is always conserved. Some heat can be used again, and some not. And in the very end, it's all useless heat (but still the same amount of energy - just the wrong type). And there is nothing perpetual about that at all. In the end, we need to dissipate the heat, and just get rid of it.

 

And the study to use energy a couple of times, and reuse the energy and heat as much as possible, and to get rid of the waste heat efficiently, that is exactly what thermodynamics is about.

Edited October 26, 2011 by CaptainPanic

[iNow]

Here's a perpetual motion machine that might just work.

 

 

 

 

... and BOOM goes the dynamite.

[md65536]

Resistance ma be the key. You always run into the problem of resistance. Providing enough energy to power the energy machine from the energy machine. Just in speculation, would it be correct to assume that if you could harness the energy from resistance of a force to get your power, it could be perpetual? I heard somebody use the force of gravity as an example once. Not to say that gravity would be the force. Just speculating that if we could contain the resistance of a force, since resistance is constant, it perpetual. Let me know how wrong I am.

Yes, perpetual energy should be possible, but not if you get power from it.

 

If you lift a weight, say up a hill, you give it potential energy. If you keep it there (constantly resisting the force of gravity), there is nothing that I know of that says that that potential energy can't last forever.

 

The weight stationary on the hill provides a constant force but no work. To "harness" energy one usually means to use it ("work"). You can get work from the weight, say by letting it move lower, but now it is lower and has less potential energy. So you can have potential energy, but not after you're used it. Once you eat your cake, you no longer have your cake.

 

 

[Tres Juicy]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328484.000-deathdefying-time-crystal-could-outlast-the-universe.html

[CaptainPanic]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328484.000-deathdefying-time-crystal-could-outlast-the-universe.html

It tells me "You need to log in to read this article". I hate that. Why do they want my email? The answer:

Once you are registered, New Scientist will send you our weekly newsletter, as well as occasional relevant information via email from New Scientist about our content, services, products, events, offers and competitions. Please read our privacy policy.

 

So, I dismiss your reference because it's going to spam me. Sorry.

[Tres Juicy]

It tells me "You need to log in to read this article". I hate that. Why do they want my email? The answer:

 

 

So, I dismiss your reference because it's going to spam me. Sorry.

 

 

Fair enough.

 

From the artice:

 

... A hypothetical device he calls a time crystal could power a computer that would keep on running long after everything else has succumbed to the pull of entropy."It's not the most immediate problem in the world, but the point is, we don't have to take the heat death of the universe lying down," Wilczek says. "We can put up a pretty good fight for a very long time." Such a device might even be able to simulate someone's brain - giving a form of life extension.

 

Wilczek came up with this bizarre idea while studying solid crystals, three-dimensional structures in which the atoms are arranged in regular, repeating patterns. These patterns arise because they cost atoms the least energy to maintain, and so are most comfortable. If you add more energy, the crystal might disappear - ice crystals will melt to liquid water, for instance. Eventually, though, the heat will dissipate and the ice will refreeze in the same pattern.

 

Thanks to Einstein's special theory of relativity, physicists are used to thinking of time as a dimension, a simple extension to the three dimensions of space. So if you can have crystals in three dimensions, Wilczek wondered, why not in four?

 

He reasoned that the periodic rows of atoms in an ordinary crystal could translate to periodic motion in a time crystal (see diagram). Any object that moves in a circle and returns to the same spot at regular intervals, like a planet orbiting a star, has the same sort of symmetry in time that crystals have in space. But to truly count as a time crystal, that orbit would have to represent the object's lowest energy state - just as the periodic arrangement of atoms in a crystal is their lowest energy state.

 

In other words, the crystal would be able to keep on orbiting forever without needing any extra energy. That makes it look "perilously close to a perpetual motion machine", Wilczek says. Normally forbidden by thermodynamics, there is at least one instance of perpetual motion that is allowed: the electrons flowing in a superconductor.

 

Unlike electrons travelling through an ordinary conductive wire, where resistance erodes their flow, those in superconductors have normally been cooled close to absolute zero, share the same quantum state and so flow without resistance. This makes superconductors very efficient at producing huge currents.

 

Wilczek points out that superconductors' lack of resistance also means that their electrons could, in theory, flow forever without any energy input - just what is needed to create a time crystal. "A superconductor is close [to a time crystal], in the sense that it has currents that flow forever, even in its lowest energy state," he says. "If you add more energy, it'll eventually shed that energy and go back to doing what it wants to do."

 

In a time crystal, electrons will have to flow in a loop not a line as they do in an ordinary superconductor. What's more, they will have to bunch up rather than flowing as a smooth stream. This is to ensure that the charge repeats periodically over time, echoing the way that atoms repeat in space in an ordinary crystal.

 

 

[TimeContinuum]

Here's a perpetual motion machine that might just work.

 

 

 

 

... and BOOM goes the dynamite.

 

The problem with this generator is that eventually the buttered bread and cat will reach a point of sideways equilibrium without the force of gravity to simulate a fall. Perhaps the addition of automatic pulley system connected to the cat and buttered bread could allow for simulated drops to keep the RPM at an acceptable rate? Let me know of your results.

[Appolinaria]

Here's a perpetual motion machine that might just work.

 

 

 

 

... and BOOM goes the dynamite.

 

Hahaaaaaaaa ohhhmygod

[TonyMcC]

It will be necessary to put energy into the cat in the form of food. If you don't the "machine" will come to a stop with the cat permanently on its back.

Edited January 20, 2012 by TonyMcC