Re: "Can the Second Law of Thermodynamics Be Circumvented?"

Yes it can, and can be done easily. The experimental device to do this can be
built easily for under $20 and uses a variation of Maxwell's Pressure Demon to
extract electric energy directly from the random motion of molecules of room
temperature air. The output of such a device was computed, and when the device
was built and tested it was found that the output fell within +/- 2 1/2% of the
theoretical output over the range of 20 to 55 C despite increasing by over a
factor of 5 over that range. There is absolutely no power input to the device
other than the random motion of air molecules.

The device is nothing more than two pieces of metal brought very close together.
One has a 1 atom thick layer of insulation on it, and the other one does not.
Electrons of the outer shell of air molecules tunnel through this layer when a
molecule bounces off the insulating layer (aided by collision induced
tunneling), and become trapped in the plate. The molecule which has lost an
electron eventually finds its way to the other *** of metal, and becomes
neutralized, but not before losing the energy deposited on the other plate due
to moving against a voltage gradient between the plates. The result is a cooling
of the air between the plates and a voltage difference between the plates which
can produce small amounts of current.

This information was published in Infinite Energy Magazine issue 66 last month (
http://www.infinite-energy.com/iemagazine/issue66/index.html ). A prepublication
copy of the paper is at http://www.execonn.com/maxwell/maxwells_demon.html

Marshall

Teg wrote:

"Can the Second Law of Thermodynamics Be Circumvented?"

The validity of the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics seems to be
beyond question. Under the first law, the total energy content of a closed
system must remain constant. Under the second law, the availability of that
energy for useful purposes must always decrease or remain constant. In
effect, the First Law of Thermodynamics states that you can't win and the
Second Law states that, furthermore, you can't break even. The First Law of
Thermodynamics is unquestionably true, energy can neither be created nor
destroyed, General Relativity not withstanding. The Second Law of
Thermodynamics stands on less firm ground because it is a law based upon
statistics. As such, it is in the same category as an actuarial table. An
insurance company can predict quite accurately how many people will die in a
given year. They cannot predict who those people will be. Statistical laws
are valid for large numbers of events; they become less significant as the
number of events is reduced. As an example, if one patronizes a casino, he
might initially win a large sum of money playing a slot machine, but if he
continues to play he not only will give all his winnings back to the casino,
he will sustain a significant loss. The
question then arises as to whether it is possible to by-pass the Second Law
of Thermodynamics though the use of nanomachines. (A nanomachine is a
mechanism whose significant dimensions are measured in nanometers, the size
scale of atoms.)

One who observes Brownian motion in a microscope might reasonably
conclude that, in principle at least, a nanomachine could be built which
would bypass the Second Law of Thermodynamics. When a liquid containing
microscopic particles is observed, the particles are seen to be in
continuous (Brownian) motion. That motion is caused by random thermal
impacts between the molecules of the liquid and the particles. If the
thermal motion of water molecules can produce a visibly observable motion in
particles which are at least 10^15 times as massive, it certainly not
unreasonable to believe that suitable nanomachines could organize the effect
to produce a useful mechanical output. The postulated nanomachines would
then be able to export energy to the outside environment that it obtained by
reducing the temperature of the liquid. The exported energy would be
converted to heat and raise the temperature of the external environment as
the output performed useful work. The resultant temperature difference
between the environment and the liquid will then cause the energy which had
done useful work to flow back into the liquid to return it to its original
temperature and allows the process to continue indefinitely.

James Clark Maxwell proposed a hypothetical perpetual motion machine,
known as Maxwell's Demon, which was not proven to be theoretically
unworkable for 75 years. In that machine, Maxwell imagined that a demon
controlled a microscopic gate between two gas filled chambers. Making use of
the fact that, in a gas, the velocity of the molecules is random and that
the temperature of the gas is determined by the mean velocity of those
molecules, Maxwell proposed the concept that, if an appropriate demon
existed, he could sense the speed of molecules approaching the gate and open
the gate only when a fast molecule approached it from one side or when a
slow molecule approached it from the other side. By operating the gate in
this manner, the demon would sort the molecules so that one chamber
contained fast molecules and the other chamber contained slow molecules.
Since the temperature of a gas is determined by the mean velocity of its
molecules, such a process will maintain a temperature difference between the
chambers that can be exploited to produce useful work in a direct violation
of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It took 75 years before a rigorous
proof was found which was able to show that the energy required for
Maxwell's Demon to identify the fast and slow molecules and allow the gate
to operate was at least as great as the energy that could be released and
Maxwell's Demon was shown to be an unworkable concept.

There is a modification to the concept of Maxwell's Demon for which
there is, at least as yet, no valid theoretical objection. Suppose that the
two chambers of the Maxwell's Demon example no longer rely on a demon but
are separated by a diffusion membrane having a permeability from side A to
side B which is higher than the permeability from side B to side A, as shown
in http://einsteinhoax.com/cf153.gif. The energy required to allow the
membrane to make the decisions it needs to make in order for it to function
in this manner is available in the kinetic energy of the gas molecules
passing through it. In diffusing through the membrane, molecules can provide
the energy needed by being slowed from their average room temperature
velocity of about 1300 feet per second to a much lower exit velocity. The
lower velocity of the gas leaving the membrane means that side B is colder
than the ambient temperature. The loss of kinetic energy by the molecules as
they pass though membrane provides the energy required to operate the
differential diffusion mechanism in the membrane pores, and the membrane
becomes warmer than the ambient temperature. If the surface areas are
sufficiently large, the temperature of the gas on both sides of the membrane
and of the membrane itself must remain close to the temperature of the
environment. As a result, the pressure in chamber B will be higher than the
pressure in chamber A. That difference in pressure can be used to operate a
turbine and provide useful output power. As the gas flowing through the
turbine produces output power, the chambers are cooled below the ambient
temperature and energy flows from the environment to the chambers to replace
the energy delivered by the turbine. The arrangement would extract useful
energy from its environment in direct contradiction to the Second Law of
Thermodynamics.

Conceptually, the membrane might be constructed with pores that were
covered by spring-loaded trapdoors, as shown in
http://einsteinhoax.com/cf154.gif. In this illustration, a molecule
represented by a ball approaches the right side of the membrane at a
velocity, which was appropriate to its temperature, knock the trapdoor open,
and pass through it. A similar molecule approaching the trapdoor from the
left side would bounce back and not pass through to the right side. When the
molecule on the right passed through the trapdoor, it would lose most of its
kinetic energy to the trapdoor and exit at a low velocity. As a result, the
trapdoor and the membrane would be heated and the molecule which passed
though it would be cooled. The process would generate a local temperature
difference that would quickly be equalized by any reasonable level of heat
transfer.

The first theoretical objection to this type of perpetual motion
machine that the author has found in literature is that it cannot work
because it violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This is hardly a valid
objection since the arrangement is specifically designed to bypass the
limitations of that law. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is a statistical
law and it is not binding on nanomachinery since such mechanisms deal with
molecules on an individual basis and the pores of the assumed diffusion
membranes certainly qualify as nanomechanisms. (The Second Law of
Thermodynamics, or the Law of Entropy increase if you prefer, does apply to
the membrane itself and to the gas in the chambers since they involve large
numbers of randomly interacting
particles. It does not apply to the pores of the diffusion mechanism. Each
pore is an independently acting nanomechanism and, as such, is not bound by
the Second Law of Thermodynamics (Entropy). The only other theoretical
objection that the author has found was provided in another book by Dr.
Feynmann in which he described a nanomechanism consisting of a riverboat
type of paddle wheel mounted on a shaft inside a cylinder containing a
fluid. The paddle wheel was
bombarded by the random motion of the molecules of the fluid and caused the
shaft undergo a random rotary oscillation. To convert this motion to a
useful output, an EXTERNAL one-way ratchet was attached to the shaft. Dr.
Feynmann then demonstrated that the device would not work because the motion
of the ratchet pawl would generate enough heat so that the resultant thermal
molecular motion of the ratchet and pawl would make the pawl bounce
sufficiently to render the one way mechanism inoperative.

From the description provided, it is obvious that, while Dr. Feynmann
is undoubtedly an excellent theoretical physicist, he is not as effective as
a design engineer. Relocating the ratchet mechanism to the interior of the
fluid chamber must cool it close to the temperature of the fluid and dampen
its bounce. As a result, Dr. Feynmann's objections would vanish. When the
model is modified, Dr. Feynmann probably would be forced to agree, that
unless he could devise another objection, the concept should represent a
physically realizable device that would by-pass the Second Law of
Thermodynamics. A theoretical demonstration that the mechanism suggested by
the author cannot work requires a proof that the permeability of all
possible diffusion membranes must be the same in both directions. Deriving
such a proof may be particularly difficult because the pores of the required
membrane are allowed to extract energy from the molecules that pass though
them. CONSIDERABLE EFFORT IS JUSTIFIED IN DEVELOPING SUCH A PROOF. IF THAT
PROOF CANNOT FOUND, THE POSSIBILITY OF BUILDING A PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE
OF THE SECOND KIND IS NOT FOOLISH AND AN ALL OUT EFFORT TO DEMONSTRATE IT IS
JUSTIFIED. IF IT CAN BE BUILT, SOCIETY WOULD HAVE AN INEXHAUSTIBLE A AND
POLLUTION FREE SOURCE OF ENERGY THAT PROBABLY COULD BE SIZED FOR THE
SMALLEST HOMES AND THE LARGEST FACTORIES.


Please do not bombard the writer with the foolish objection that the
proposed mechanism can't work because it would violate the Second Law of
Thermodynamics, it is designed to do just that, and please don't raise the
objection that it can't work because the overall entropy of the Universe can
never be decreased. In this regard, the proposed mechanism is entropy
neutral.

The source material for this posting may be found in
http://einsteinhoax.com/hoax.htm/ (1997);
http://einsteinhoax.com/gravity.htm (1987); and
http://einsteinhoax.com/relcor.htm (1997). EVERYTHING WHICH WE ACCEPT AS
TRUE MUST BE CONSISTENT WITH EVERYTHING ELSE WE HAVE ACCEPTED AS TRUE, IT
MUST BE CONSISTENT WITH ALL OBSERVATIONS, AND IT MUST BE MATHEMATICALLY
VIABLE. PRESENT TEACHINGS DO NOT ALWAYS MEET THIS REQUIREMENT. THE WORLD IS
ENTITLED TO A HIGHER STANDARD OF WORKMANSHIP FROM THOSE IT HAS GRANTED WORLD
CLASS STATUS.

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