Perpetual Motion Machine to be demonstrated (maybe)?

Mr_Grinch

Being that this is Games and Technology, I thought this might go down quite well here. It may be old news but I searched and nothing came up for "Perpetual Motion", of course i could have miss-spelled it:

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2193572/perpetual-motion-machine-hits

Irish company Steorn claims that its Orbo machine will produce free, clean power to electrical generators.

The firm took out a full page advert in The Economist last year asking scientists to test its invention.

Steorn had planned a week-long demonstration of the technology at London's Kinetica Museum yesterday.

"We are experiencing some technical difficulties with the demo unit in London," said the company in a statement.

"Our initial assessment indicates that this is probably due to the intense heat from the camera lighting.

"We have commenced a technical assessment and will provide an update later today. As a consequence, Kinetica will not be open to the public today [5 July]. We apologise for this delay and appreciate your patience."

If the Orbo device lives up to the company's claims, it would violate the law of energy conservation which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed but migrates to different forms.

Steorn claims that power is generated using "time variant magneto-mechanical interactions" that occur naturally.

Orbo's efficacy has been greeted with worldwide scepticism. The panel of experts volunteering to study the technology are not due to report until the end of this year.

Well, I found it quite interesting anyway.

Also, obligatory Simpsons reference:

Homer: "In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"

SimBen

Perpetual motion is impossible. If that machine works as they claim it does, it takes its energy from some other source, either gravity or heat or light or something. As such, it's not 100% efficient, because it'll never be able to output more than its input, and it will always lose some in heat due to friction, even if it's lubricated as close to perfectly as possible.

Next.

Mr_Grinch

But what if it's magic?

(And yes, I subscribe to the "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is" school of thought)

I just thought it sounded interesting, especially being they're due to "demonstrate" it!

Goomba

You didn't really need to quote that OP, you know.

Anyway, it would be cool if it worked, wouldn't it? Like, so cool.

Darth Aardvark

Steorn claims that power is generated using "time variant magneto-mechanical interactions" that occur naturally.

Wow.
I'm not really an expert in thermodynamics, but what does this even mean?

MKR

Darth Aardvark wrote: »

Steorn claims that power is generated using "time variant magneto-mechanical interactions" that occur naturally.

Wow.
I'm not really an expert in thermodynamics, but what does this even mean?

It means he's talking out of his ass.

I interpret it as meaning "Magnets nudge an object along as it passes by and the duration between nudges is constant."(which it's not - it would slowly degrade)

So basically he's using fancyspeak for something that's not new.

Samphis

Being bested by the laws of thermal dynamics is a little more than a "technical difficulty."

AchtungBaby

I remember when this first got out, people speculated that it was just part of a ARG for a future Halo 3.

And maybe, they were always right.

MKR

Yeah, the fact that I can't leap in to space from sea level is just a minor technical difficulty. Easily solved with a space shuttle or a rocket.

Magus`

Man, just having something with a 90-95% efficiency would be nice.

Getting 100% (or over 100%) is impossible.

darleysam

Steorn and a perpetual motion machine? They did this last year, and we all speculated that it was a Halo 3 ARG.

Burtletoy

It was supposed to be demonstrated yesterday, but it broke appearently.
http://freeenergytracker.blogspot.com/
That site is a good view on the whole project, and these are all the cameras so you can watch the live demo if it 'works' today
http://www.astream.com/live/steorn/camera1.html
http://www.astream.com/live/steorn/camera2.html
http://www.astream.com/live/steorn/camera3.html
http://www.astream.com/live/steorn/camera4.html

Taramoor

Magus` wrote: »

Man, just having something with a 90-95% efficiency would be nice.

Getting 100% (or over 100%) is impossible.

It's only impossible until somebody does it.

GSM

Taramoor wrote: »

Magus` wrote: »

Man, just having something with a 90-95% efficiency would be nice.

Getting 100% (or over 100%) is impossible.

It's only impossible until somebody does it.

There are some laws against 100% energy conversion.
Such as if there is a conversion, there is loss.
Otherwise you just have the energy you started with.

Goomba

Taramoor wrote: »

Magus` wrote: »

Man, just having something with a 90-95% efficiency would be nice.

Getting 100% (or over 100%) is impossible.

It's only impossible until somebody does it.

Pssht, there's nothing left to be invented.

thorpe

Taramoor wrote: »

Magus` wrote: »

Man, just having something with a 90-95% efficiency would be nice.

Getting 100% (or over 100%) is impossible.

It's only impossible until somebody does it.

Yes. And nobody will ever do this, because its built into the laws of the cosmos as being unpossible.

RandomEngy

These things come up all the time. Really the best thing you can do is ignore them. My advice is wait until one of the machines wins the Randi prize, then get excited.

TheCrumblyCracker

It looks like a plastic box with a plastic wheel inside it. Would be neat if their claim is true.

GSM

Wow, live feeds of a plastic circle in a plastic square?

A pity the studio lights stopped it from working.

MKR

thorpe wrote: »

Taramoor wrote: »

Magus` wrote: »

Man, just having something with a 90-95% efficiency would be nice.

Getting 100% (or over 100%) is impossible.

It's only impossible until somebody does it.

Yes. And nobody will ever do this, because its built into the laws of the cosmos as being unpossible.

Some people take sci-fi too seriously and are confident that given enough time, we'll find a way to break through well established limits.

Can it be done? Maybe. Will it be done? Probably not.

MKR

RandomEngy wrote: »

These things come up all the time. Really the best thing you can do is ignore them. My advice is wait until one of the machines wins the Randi prize, then get excited.

James Randi's RSS feed provides some of the most entertainment that is to be found in the world of science.

LCDXX

Wow. It's a big acrylic box. With an acrylic doo-hicky inside. I wanted to see lasers and bulbs and all kinds of shiny lights and buzzers and shit.

This thing fails.

GSM

It's actually trillions of clear nanomachines.

Burtletoy

We are experiencing some technical difficulties with the demo unit in London. Our initial assessment indicates that this is probably due to the intense heat from the camera lighting. We have commenced a technical assessment and will provide an update later today. As a consequence, Kinetica will not be open to the public today (5th July). We apologise for this delay and appreciate your patience.

Edit: Oh hey, look thats in the quote in the OP. Whoops.

The_Scarab

Burtletoy wrote: »

Oh shit we realised perpetual motion is impossible. And not in a funny haha impossible kind of way, but in a we just wasted millions of pounds on something that will never happen impossible

Edit: Oh hey, look thats in the quote in the OP. Whoops.

SniperGuy

Man, guys. Just because some dork said it once, doesn't mean the "laws of thermodynamics" are set in stone. They CAN be broken.

Samphis

SniperGuy wrote: »

Man, guys. Just because some dork said it once, doesn't mean the "laws of thermodynamics" are set in stone. They CAN be broken.

Can lead also be turned to gold?

Rook

Samphis wrote: »

SniperGuy wrote: »

Man, guys. Just because some dork said it once, doesn't mean the "laws of thermodynamics" are set in stone. They CAN be broken.

Can lead also be turned to gold?

Turning lead into gold is child's play (Need some sort of particle accelerator). Breaking the laws of thermodynamics would be scary.

Decayer

This can only end in tears

in the space-time continuum

.

SniperGuy

Samphis wrote: »

SniperGuy wrote: »

Man, guys. Just because some dork said it once, doesn't mean the "laws of thermodynamics" are set in stone. They CAN be broken.

Can lead also be turned to gold?

Probably.


Human laws are not nature's laws.


edit: Well done Decayer. Well done.

LCDXX

Someone needs to take picture of that clear circular object in the box (camera 1) and photoshop the 3 red lights from the 360 onto it.

MKR

SniperGuy wrote: »

Man, guys. Just because some dork said it once, doesn't mean the "laws of thermodynamics" are set in stone. They CAN be broken.

This is the kind of statement that leads to the propagation of pseudoscience. You've made a bold claim that runs directly contrary to what is established without any sort of backing.

mastman

They announced this machine last year. no one cared because it doesn't and won't work.

If it did work and was serious, the world would be in an extreme state of excitement about cheap, efficient and non-polluting energy, but I see no parades.

The_Scarab

My Physics teacher in high school had a great quote for this exact kind of scenario, where people say that 'once people thought the world was flat, so cant in a thousand years people look back and laugh at us believing that the laws of thermodynamics and conservation of energy were true'

And basically he replied with 'no, those guys are fucking idiots and you should pity them'.

Was so funny. And true.

Taramoor

Samphis wrote: »

SniperGuy wrote: »

Man, guys. Just because some dork said it once, doesn't mean the "laws of thermodynamics" are set in stone. They CAN be broken.

Can lead also be turned to gold?

Actually, the guy who won the Noble Prize in chemistry in 1951, Glenn Seaborg, supposedly did that.

It's also possible with a particle accelerator to remove three protons from a lead construct.

Vastly more expensive as a process than the gold produced, but still possible.

EDIT: DAMNIT!

The_Scarab

This thread makes me wanna watch Chain Reaction, that heart pounding action thriller with Keanu Reeves and Morgan Freeman. That was so fucking good.

ben0207

Decayer wrote: »

This can only end in tears

in the space-time continuum

.

Bravo good sir, bravo.

MKR

The_Scarab wrote: »

My Physics teacher in high school had a great quote for this exact kind of scenario, where people say that 'once people thought the world was flat, so cant in a thousand years people look back and laugh at us believing that the laws of thermodynamics and conservation of energy were true'

And basically he replied with 'no, those guys are fucking idiots and you should pity them'.

Was so funny. And true.

And it's a pretty poor analogy. A relatively (to the earth's population) small number thought it was flat.

This on the other hand is pretty much the consensus among people qualified to comment on it.

Synthetic Orange

Yeah, pretty much the only laws to be broken here will be human ones.

Like when the 'inventors' run off with the money invested in their fraudulent, non-working machine.

Samphis

Taramoor wrote: »

Samphis wrote: »

SniperGuy wrote: »

Man, guys. Just because some dork said it once, doesn't mean the "laws of thermodynamics" are set in stone. They CAN be broken.

Can lead also be turned to gold?

Actually, the guy who won the Noble Prize in chemistry in 1951, Glenn Seaborg, supposedly did that.

It's also possible with a particle accelerator to remove three protons from a lead construct.

Vastly more expensive as a process than the gold produced, but still possible.

Yes. And I respect Seaborg. Because he never made any wild claims about stuff like this and having the "science community try to hide this miracle."

DesertBox

Man, breaking the laws of thermodynamics is equivalent to making something out of nothing. Which would, in fact, make you a god. Thankfully, it's impossible