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From: mtglass@hound.UUCP (R.RICHARDSON)
Newsgroups: net.physics,net.misc
Subject: Re: "Free Energy Machine"
Message-ID: <1684@hound.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Mar-86 19:35:55 EST
Article-I.D.: hound.1684
Posted: Wed Mar 12 19:35:55 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Mar-86 06:13:39 EST
References: <326@inuxm.UUCP>, <213@lanl.ARPA>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 42
Xref: watmath net.physics:3926 net.misc:9369

>In article <326@inuxm.UUCP> arlan@inuxm.UUCP (A Andrews) writes:
>>I will say this now, and wiat for the flames:  I myself can construct
>>(as does my character in the story) a machine that once I have turned it
>>on, utilizes "free energies" from natural phenomena, never e requiring me
>>to input anything else--"something for nothing".
>
>I too can build such a device.  It's called a windmill - or maybe
>a water wheel, or a geothermal plant, a solar collector, a ....
>
>The point is that none of these things violate the first or second
>laws of thermodynamics - which is apparently what is claimed by the
>inventor on the carson show.
>
>J. Giles
>Los Alamos

Regrettably, I don't remember his name either, but I don't think he
purported to have discovered a counterexample to thermodynamics I&II.
I don't think he purported to *understand* thermodynamics I&II. As near
as I could make out, he claimed to harness the intrinsic magnetic
properties of the magnet's molecules (vs those magnetic properties
induced by the applied electric current.).

This doesn't strike me as impossible at all. In fact, at the rawest
level technology is nothing more than exploiting the potential
energies around us. We exploit the chemical potentials present when
we mix oxygen and coke together to smelt iron just as we exploit
the potentials latent in the atom. In these cases as well as the 
phenomena our friend on the Tonight Show describes, we do indeed put
less energy into a system than comes out. Of course...otherwise, why
bother? At no time did he suggest, however, that the system produces
more TOTAL energy than it uses...he's merely refering to the amount of 
energy WE (as controllers) of the system expend from our finite
store of "refined energy". 

Why do we (myself included) react this way to this gentleman? Isn't it
a rather more virulent reaction than mere healthy, objective, scientific
skepticism? Could it be because he is on TV and we are not?

the usual disclaimers
R. Richardson