Free Energy

Here's an article I hope for once turns out to be true.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1854305,00.html

Wouldn't it be great if it was true?. Finally we could have a laptop battery that never runs out.

IF it's true, then he should patent the technology. Oil companies would probably have him killed first.

Had a feeling it involved magnets, I been saying to others irl for years that magnets will be the future.

It'd open up so many damn doors for wireless connectivity.....wireless monitor.....wireless surround sound system (no more crapload of wires runnin' about my room).......self powered toaster...

now that is cool, i want one of those for my laptop

Heck I want one setup for my next tree hugger mobile (Electric car!!!)

Any new news on this?! If someone does find something new on it, please post!

I haven't seen a free energy scam in years. This is certainly a good time for one.

Why free energy is bogus 101.

Suns die.



I mean... there are systems that harvest energy, large amounts of it, that could be the size of a desktop PC, enough to power, well, a desktop PC or a little more.

These run off radiation engines that use radioactive elements... They can last... oh... 10-100,000 years

A battery that runs only on magnetic fields could be possible, but it too would eventually run out. Prolly a lot faster as common magnets only keep their magnetism a short while under normal situations.

The use of the term "Free Energy" is what makes something like this highly suspect. Making that claim is a big science no-no.

Zero point energy is possible theoretically, and I'm sure someone will learn to harvest it eventually.

..well..what I know is that nothings for free, so i assume same is for energy..it can be maybe cheaper, but i am not sure about free...

'interaction of magnetic fields' -> you need to 'generate' a magnetic field (I suppose two) -> this uses energy -> and (if I'm not wrong...), the Thermodynamic Laws conflict with this thing...or not? Maybe I misunderstood something...
At this point I'm very curious.

Look up the "searl effect".

Two normal magnets may be used, and they will eventually run out :) but we don't need to "generate" them.

It makes sense that this would work, there is energy generated else they wouldnt attract/repel each other- turning this into energy must be possible :)

Rather telling is that I just searched for "Steorn", the name of the company involved, on greenpeace and friends of the earth web sites. No Hits!

I don't know if it's spurious or that they are not really into energy for free/cheap.

I'd have at least expected to see it on their front page, if only out of vague interest on their part. Perhaps they are too busy making bunting for party gatherings at various seaside locations.

http://www.steorn.net/en/news.aspx?p=2&id=22

This is their page.

He'll be claiming he's developed a working perpetual-motion machine next.

You lot are gullible if you think this is anything more than some crackpot trying to gain publicity and perhaps a little funding.

I wonder if his tax bill is paid up-to-date?

I could go into a dull explanation of why this is bunkum, but frankly, if you don't already know why, you deserve not to know.

Any energy source, even a matter/anti-matter reactor, is just a way of storing energy. You still need to put energy into the storage unit to begin with, and that usually comes from boiling water and running the steam through a turbine. This is how even a nuclear reactor "generates" energy.

I would rather have robots carrying out our every bidding than more of that infinite energy garble :)

We could get THEM to deal with energy for us, and we would never have to think about it again.


There are some pretty nice energy sources available.
A lot of Iceland is powered by a seemingly endless supply of natural steam that comes from deep underground.
Those power plants barely need any staff, and they work perfectly.

Wind power is also good, and could work almost anywhere if people didn't whine about how ugly they look.

My mum's on eof those people. Personally I think they look great!

Leadwerks- There is energy in Magnets ;) The magnet is the source of energy and its perfectly possible to find a way to use it.

Think out of the box- Thats how most of the scientific breakthroughs we know of came to life.

Of course there is energy in magnets, how do you think electricity is generated in the first place?

If nothing else, then at least it's a nice publicity stunt :)

There's a hell of a lot of energy in magnets. In fact electromagnatism is 10^42 times stronger than gravity. That's why such small magnets can overcome the earth's gravity so easily. Harnessing that energy is a different matter though.

Everyone with a science degree, raise your hand. (Raises hand).

It would be just like a battery. You still have to put energy into the magnet to magnetize it from that beginning. That energy would come from electricity, and that electricity would come from running steam through a turbine.

It's possible that he might have come up with a more efficient way of storing energy, but you still have to expend energy to charge his battery.

Then it's no longer free. Greed, typical human nature.

The turbine doesn't "create" the electricity, it drives a generator, made from coils and magnets, which generates the electric current. It's the exact same principle as a dynamo or an electric motor for that matter.

Agreed, he shouldn't be doing that.

Dangerous enough as it is, but if he keeps it so close to his chest he won't leave a legacy after big oil kills him off ;)
(Whereas diesel engines are still used today, and an increasing number of people seem to be using them for their original intent, which is to run without petroleum).

k... the term "Free Energy" doesn't refer to money. It refers to the fact that it is inexhaustable.

Also.. White holes have never been a proven part of theoretical science, that being, the evidence that one exists has never been seen... Even so, a black hole couldn't absorb all the matter in the universe, and a white hole couldn't expel that amount of matter. Therefore, it isn't "free energy".

"Free Energy" is a very old concept based on misunderstandings of how the world works. A close relative is the perpetual motion machine, where you act on one element of the machine, which acts on another and another in a chain reaction until it gets to itself. At which point is completes a loop and continues to move like that forever.

It is bunk, because there is always friction, mechanical, magnetic, gravity based, even light over extremely long periods of time, will slow the machine down and it will eventually stop... And by eventually I mean quickly. And the more 'work' you have the machine do. the sooner it will run out. You'll never get more out of it, then you put into it.

You could use 2 magnets which like poles pressed close to eachother, in such a way that they bounce all around in their housing. With a device like that which is used in those watches that charge themself when you walk around. You could harness the now moving magnet's energy, however, you would be harnessing a very small amount.

Perhaps he has found another way. But because he calls in "Free Energy" he is making things unduely hard on himself. Which means, he couldn't get anywhere with the thing until he called it "Free Energy" which always gets a bucketload of scientists on your heals to disprove your brainlessness.

Consider these sorts of machines as a way to potentially extract energy from a magnet.

It's handy if there is an abundunt source of magnetism somewhere...

when a compass rotates when it placed at the earths north pole that is free energy,

I would like to see your compas free energy moving forward my Isuzu trooper, 4 tons heavy..

Slunkar, I'd keep a close eye out now. You never know whos gonna come and try to take that awesome free energy plan from you.

Well, I got to pack up to go to a business trip to the USA now....

;)

(when did I hit 1000 posts?!?! oh ya, 13 posts ago)

does a compass rotate when it is placed near the north pole of a magnet?

..I dunno...what I know is that everythings rotating for me, after I take sake..

I would always be very critical about claims of any infinite or near-infinite energy source, but I would never go so far as to say it is completely impossible; only that is is extremely improbable.

But, even the aspect of human flight seemed absolutely absurd before the invention of airplanes. There are so many laws of nature that still remain unknown, I sometimes wonder if anything is completely impossible.

All I can say about Steorn's "Free Energy" device is: time will tell. If it really works, you can be sure you will hear about it in the news, since the existance of a free energy source is truely revolutionary.

P.S. Here are some interesting comments from the article at (http://www.technologynewsdaily.com/node/4124):

All of our ideas of electricity and how it's created or stored are based on the theories of a few men in the early 1900's. They are proven efective and have brought us great advances but they are not the whole story.
What these guys are questioning are the fundamentals of electricity.

I skipped everything past Leadwerks last post.

I'm not saying you are wrong, i'm saying that you can't say it's impossible :)

I wonder how fast a normal magnet would lose its strength here.. hmm...

I really, really want to believe in this...But I dont know enough about the subject to decide which side of the fence to sit.

I remember about 12 months ago another Irish man said he had invented a free energy source. Some weeks later it was discovered his 'generator' was plugged into the mains!

Ho hum.

He probably had it hooked up his feck'n' arse!

"Tapping the Zero Point Energy" by Moray B King gives a good insight into the posibilities of cohering energy from the quantum vacuum and how it may be possible.

Well worth a read.

Actually... There are 'accepted' theories that explain the 4 forces... (if you are lost with 4 forces, just give up reading on... trust me)

For the longest time they knew that -something- explained them, and that this something was likely linked to the others, but they had no idea what it might be... This grew the particle theory, which says that everything is aranged into particles which are identicle or near identicle. Proton, Electron, Neutron, Graviton, Quarks, and so on... smaller and smaller..

This was somewhat accurate, but eventally gave birth to string theory.. The way this happened is pointless to describe here. Short story is.

String theory explains the motions of the entire universe, from the very very small to the very very large.

From the tiny strong and weak atomic forces, to the vast forces of gravity and electro-magnetism.


Magnets are 'electronic' they attract and repel because of the electro-magnetic force, which is also what powers electricity. It acts mainly on electrons, and when the atoms in an object align, they produce a charge. Again.. not going to get into the details.

Point is.. A magnet, even the strongest on earth, of the size he is talking about, is actually very weak. It is like a battery, and if you somehow forced the energy out of it, which you would have to to do what he claims, it would drain that power.

Want proof of this? Take a nail, and rub it with a magnet. rub it in only one direction from head to tip, head to tip... and do that a few dozen times.

Then pick up a paperclip with the now magneting nail.... Keep doing that. pick up the paperclip and let it hang, and hang up the nail so the paperclip hangs off it.. Then leave...

See how long it lasts.

The magnet will also lose it's magnetism.. under normal situations, in a few hundred years (if it is synthetic) and a few million if it is natural... However.. 'using' the magnet is NOT normal conditions...

Gasoline, can be burned slowly, or not at all, or all at once... and you don't get 'more' energy when you burn it. You get the energy all at once.

Same would be true of a magnet.

Now... Why mention string theory?

Everything in the universe is comprised of little loops of energy. Little vibrating rings that link together to form particles, and to form atoms, and control every aspect of the universe.. from the spacial bending of gravity, to the microscopic bending that makes an electron hold it's orbit around it's atom.

There is no way to 'create' energy... and to get at most of this energy, you have to be able to destroy matter. There might be a lot of energy in the matter itself, but obviouslt the magnet thing isn't breaking down atoms.

The next best things is electricity, it is formed when electrons flow along a wire (electricity moves at the speed of light, the electrons do not, they move much slower) when they do so, they pull a charge... This charge can do work, but all it is doing is transfering the charge'produced at one end, to the other end.

You can't just have electricity from nothing.

So a magnet can't produce electricity on it's own, if it could, it would not be magnetic for very long, as it would transmit all it's charge to the first thing htat came along.

So that isn't how this works.

The next best option is physical motion, which could be harnessed like I said... and would produce a charge... maybe enough to run a calculator... or one of these low power using LEDs...

But not enough for constant use of say... a cell phone... Which he mentions as an example.


It isn't so much that it is impossible... but it would require us to toss out all the energy-related science since before Einstein....

He uses the term free energy... and unless he just uses that to try to get someone to look at it... he is mistaken.




Also... as a side note... Hydro-electric, Windmill, Some Solar, and Tidal generators don't use steam... and are prolly a lot closer to 'free energy' then this is... and yet.. not one of them is considered free energy...

Ferromagnetism - be it permanent or electrically generated, does not "contain energy". Our understadning of "energy" is also kind of poor I think. Magnetism will affect Gravity of certain matter. And this is the fascinating part. We do not understand how gravity works, but maybe magnets will help us to explore this.

Since Gravity is a nonrenewable energy (things drop only once), but noless it is stored Energy (if something wasn't dropped yet), there may be a way to create a flipflop that will toggle between Gravity an magnetism and therefor something may be dropped multiple times - so gravity could become a source of energy with the help of ferro magnetism. The most difficult part would be the balance and the synching.

I don't think there's a way to convert magnetism in electricity - as long as the magnetic field isn't in motion by a thrid force.

There are those termodynamic laws, ok. But remember they said Rocket flight is impossible, as well as airplanes. King Ludwig of bavaria was put in a sanatory because he supported airplane development - 11 years before the brothers wright made the dream come true.

The impact on the world order would be extreme. Oil would become worthless over night. Many very powerfull people would try to prevent the release of such a device.

So if the guy is still alive then it seems pretty suspecious to me.

An example of some theory behind this.
http://www.cheniere.org/techpapers/electromagnetic.pdf

Interesting subject, magnets :)
So lets play, I just created THE perpetual motion machine, and here is sketch of it:


2 magnets, one inside magnetic shielding box with open window, other one in tube so it cant flip, and a shutter mechanism for window. (window closed -> lower magnet fully shielded..)
Functionality:
- upper magnet drops down
- shield window opens by weight of the upper magnet
- magnets starts to repel each other as magnet poles are same
- upper magnet goes up from repeling force
- upper magnet hits lever
- shield window closes
- magnetic force between magnets stops
- upper magnet goes down again
- cycle starts over.......

Simple isn't it :)

So question goes what is wrong with this idea ?

(you smart/educated ones, hold you replys, lets see how discussion goes :) )

Sorry if I was not clear enough with explanation, english is not my native language as you may noticed

One of the flaws there:

The magnets will eventually stop in a half state.

See I am glad you said that I was just grabing a jacket to run to the patent office.

The closest thing I would ever get to "free energy" would be living with my parents and make them pay my bills.

Cygnus: let's say that those magnets do not wear and lever mechanism is frictionless :)

Even easier version about this "perpetual motion machine", no lever now.. what you say now :)

How much does that thing weigh?

What are the energy loops made of?

I love that question.

Honey?

125,68 grams :D -> weight is no issue, next quess? :)

I'd say Build it and see ;)

this link is interesting

http://jnaudin.free.fr/meg/meg.htm

Argh! I wish this place used popup blockers!

Finjogi: You're designs would work I think, except for one thing: As far as I know, there is no effective shield for magnetism (but I don't know much about these things). If there was, electricity-less (self-powered) motors would be nothing unusual.

John J.: Yep, you got it :) I must say, I have not searched if that is really case but it seems so.
One more related thing is that magnets are potentials, when you create a magnet you create a potential. If you take two magnets together with same poles, they repel... but where comes energy for that, it comes from work you done when moving magnets together. It's like carrying a stone on the roof and dropping it down, whoa, potential energy :)

Magnet fun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KED8oEx0Nlc

Did I see a link to a JL Naudin Page?

I've been following his progress with lifters for about 2 years, well worth a look if you already haven't.

http://jnaudin.free.fr/lifters/main.htm

This is also an interesting book, bought a few months ago, not sure if it's a load of cobblers or not..

http://www.thefinaltheory.com/

From the Final Theory



One question asked is...

Q. How can a fridge magnet cling against gravity
endlessly without draining a power source?

As far as I know, fridge magnets loose their power after some time. At least mine did.

Yep mine too, but mine was a plastic bendy fabricated type thing which wasn't too strong in the first place. A sheet of A4 often defeated it.

Granted, a permanent magnet would last longer but where does it's power come from initially to perform such a feat?

Although what comes through in the book is that most physicists answer that as the magnet is not moving, there is no work being done and thus requires no power source.

As I said, it's a good book, goes a lot deeper than the above question and is actually quite thought provoking.

Yeshu:
An object oscillating back and forth forever through the center of the earth isn't doing work. Neither is the earth orbiting the sun.

An object in motion tends to stay in motion. Just because an object continues to move doesn't mean it is gaining or losing energy.

Imagine the object oscillating through the center of the earth is like a skateboarder in a half-pipe.

When the object is at the farthest point from the center of the earth, that is like the skateboarder being at the top of one side of the half-pipe.

Now this skateboarder has energy. When he is at rest at the top of the half-pipe, all of his enegery is stored as potential energy. Ie, he is at rest, but any second now, gravity will pull him downwards.

Now once the skateboarder starts to fall and heads towards the bottom of the pipe, this potential energy is converted to kinetic energy, the energy of motion. At the bottom, all his energy is that of motion.

So, he continues to move back up the other side of the ramp until he has reached the top, and all the kinetic energy has been converted back to potential energy.

If the skateboarder were not losing energy to air friction and the friction of his wheels on the ramp, then he would continue to roll back and forth on the half pipe forever. He's not getting energy from anywhere, and if you were to try to extract energy from the system, then he would slow down, and eventually stop if you extracted it all.

The same thing applies to the sphere oscillating through the center of the earth.


As for the magnet clinging against gravity, again, this is not perpetual motion or free energy. Can you somehow extract energy from this magnet's clinging to the fridge in defiance of gravity? No, you cannot. You might as well say that a post-it-note stuck to the fridge is somehow sticking in defiance of gravity and is providing you with free energy. That would be just as crazy a notion.


Magnets that lose their magnetism do so not because they're doing work, but because the magnetic poles in the material over time become disorganized and point in all different directions. That would happen regardless of whether it was stuck to something or not.


Also, I'm pretty sure that even if you were able to construct a device which allowed you to combine magnets and gravity to make an object rise and dropc ontinuously, you still wouldn't have "perpetual motion" because perpetual motion doesn't really mean moving forever, it means moving forever, and getting some free energy as a result of that motion. The earth will orbit the sun forever, but we can't convert that to energy for use to use without slowing the earth's orbit. The same goes for the object that rises and drops forever. It's moving, but there's no way to turn that into energy and keep it moving. Or so the theory goes.

@sswift

Understand everything your saying and it's spot on.

"You might as well say that a post-it-note stuck to the fridge is somehow sticking in defiance of gravity and is providing you with free energy."

It is sticking there in defiance of gravity (through adhesion) but the point (maybe slightly OT) was that the standard model has a few holes as to how magnets do their thing.

"That would happen regardless of whether it was stuck to something or not."

Very true, but that wasn't what he was getting at - which made me think the post was OT.

Why do 2 ferrous objects having their poles aligned attract or repel each other?

Personally, and despite previously being an electronic engineer for 10 years - I still don't fully understand magnets (which is what attracted me to the book) and now thinking about it probably why I went into programming instead 8o)

Plus I'm sure Lisa invented a perpetual motion machine in the Simpsons, maybe it was an over unity device.

Good debate though.

That's the BIG question isn't it. That's what stuff like string theory is supposed to explain.




So you have a lot of iron in your diet, do you?

I've only scanned this thread briefly, but, are you lot telling me that even boffin scientists don't know exactly how magnets work? :O

/me loses faith in 'modern' science. :P

Doh! didn't even see the pun until you mentioned it!

big10p:
Boffin scientists don't even know how GRAVITY works. Or anything for that matter (no pun intended), when you get right down to it!

They have laws that describe how gravity and magnetism and light behave, but they don't really know how it is they affect particles. They only have theories.

wouldnt an object going through the centre of the earth just stay in the centre?
It would have 2 forces applied to it at the same magnitude making it stay in the same place

The fact that gravity and magnetism is still not completely understood is probably the main area for controversy in "perpetual motion" (free energy). For example, nobody can say that magnetism does not open a porthole to some unknown layer of infinite energy (possibly ZPE), and that this energy could not be taken advantage of through magnets. However, nobody can say this is true, either - unless, some proof is found.


To me, it seems that completely disregarding the possibility of nearly anything has proven to be the worst way to discover the laws of nature.

For example, for years the possibility of human flight has been disregarded as a possibility, mainly due to the numerous failures to imitate birds (strapping on artificial wings and jumping off a cliff, for example). Who would have thought that the slight curvature of wing surfaces was the key to flight?

Who knows; maybe someone who is adventurous enough to venture into these new "forbidden" areas of science will one day discover a new law of physics which will revolutionize modern science. Based on previous scientific advancements, I would say this is not only possible, but probable.



Applying 2 forces with the same magnitude to an object does not neutralize it's velocity - they simply cancel each other out (doing nothing at all to the object's current velocity). The currently accumulated velocity of the object (from the initial fall) is what causes it to pass through the center.

100% agree with what you say and this was my point about magnetism. Albeit you explain it somewhat more elegantly.

I feel that current scientific thinking has limited what may be possible because of being spoon fed out-dated-ideas and incorrect principles.

There are many supositions in the theories that we adopt as gospel truth.

I've always liked the fringe side edge of science (J.W. Keely) as I feel there is still many things left unresolved.

So this chap in the book was right that this should violate our current understanding of perpetual motion - albeit theoretically.

i hate it how people never think of the possibilities that things could have. when i was 12 i tried to design perpetual motion, it failed but i tried many different designs before giving up and i got a way of powering electronic devieces for longer then they would normaly last

my mom didn't think anti-mater was real and i proved her wrong, and proved to her that Zero Point Energy is possible

i got the idea from a hamster wheel, if you connect a small generator to it with a gear box and replace the hamster with a motor and a battery. then make sure the generator will be able to power the motor and it hooked up to the motor while by-passing the battery so when the battery dies it will still go

ZPE is for me the most promising.

"wouldnt an object going through the centre of the earth just stay in the centre?"

It would if it started stationary at the centre, but if it fell towards the centre, it would keep moving under its own momentum through the centre even though at that point there is no force on it. No laws of physics violated.

Unfortunately, even if there was a 100% effecient generator and 100% efficient motor which could perpetually rotate a hamster wheel like this, the same principles apply. You would not be able to get any power from it, as that would remove energy from the system, which would cause the hamster wheel to stop spinning.


Well, "perpetual motion" interpreted word-for-word (as in an object constantly in motion) is possible, although without any practical value in "free energy". For example, if you throw an object into a frictionless, gravityless space, it will continue in motion unless stopped. There is nothing unusual about this.

The idea that you could somehow draw energy from an object's perpetual motion or orbit is invalid. The misconception comes from the assumption that there is always friction present on a moving object. If this was the case, objects which can move perpetually (or near-perpetually) must have some misterious force propelling it along it's path, right? Wrong.

When I think of "perpetual motion", I instead think of some sort of device drawing energy from some unknown infinite (or near-infinite) energy source, providing a perpetual motion which can be harnessed to provide power for all needs.

like ZPE?

Yes, ZPE, if it exists, could provide an infinite amount of power, provided that there is some way to extract power from it.

If there really is a way to extract energy from ZPE, many fundamental laws of physics would definitely need to be reexamined, including the basic "Matter can neither be created nor destroyed." (since bringing extra energy into this universe is creating matter, in a sense [e=mc2])

Even if there is zero point energy, a vast untapped reserve of it, that doesn't mean it is free energy. Free energy means creating new energy. If we're pulling energy from the tenth dimension, then it might be CONVENIENT energy, but it's not FREE energy.

Creating new energy? I thought everyone had agreed that there is a finite amount of energy/matter in the universe. :P

That is true, although I believe the theory of zero point energy would indicate that it is infinite (inexaustable), although I could be wrong.

However, the general concept of "free energy" is basically what you called "convenient" energy in the first place; even though it may not be infinite, it is free. Both wind and solar power is "free energy" in this respect: It's free, and it's energy. The main drawbacks of wind and solar power is their energy-to-weight ration and the dependancy on environmental conditions.

Tapping the Zero Point Energy

Moray B King's book goes onto describe various apparatus that may possibly 'tap into' ZPE. None proven, obviously.

"Creating new energy? I thought everyone had agreed that there is a finite amount of energy/matter in the universe. :P"


All the scientists, yes. But not all the crackpots who believe in perpetual motion. :-)

New Scientist..

Wind Turbines have been found to cause there own envonmental problems within the ecology of the system that they are placed. Sapping power from the once prevailent winds that seeded areas are now rendered impotent.

If physics's teaches you anything it's that no source of energy is free.

Unless, maybe ZPE - but I imagine if realised will have it's drawbacks also.

Personally, I won't believe in ZPE or any infinite energy source either until I see proof, although I still believe the subject is worth researching.

I kind of feel sorry for scientists who have enough true scientific spirit to actually explore possibilities outside of proven ground, since they will always be called "crackpots" until they find some proof to back up their theories, just like the Wright brothers, and coutless others. On the other hand, you can't really blame the scientists who insist on sticking to their current theories; why waste time on an unproven theory when it may not yeild any useable results?

But, if you do not explore the realm beond proven ground, there will be no scientific advancement. This has been proven so many times, and yet so many people still honestly believe that all the laws of nature are fully understood.

I think the term "free energy" mostly reflects the need for an independent energy supply. Probably the term was born when people realized their dependence to oil etc. When a few business men started to monopolize energy. Everybody wanted to invent a little black box that would power their house and car.

Funny thing, Tesla, inventor of radio transmission and probably semiconductors, also researched in the field of energy generation. He came up with several good designs (all vanished). And now guess who was his financial investor?
J.P.Morgan, (member of the "shining lightbulb society") and unfortunately doing the money transfer of Shareit these days. (They just took about 70$ to liquify my check). When Tesla came up with "free energy" and also "wireless energy transmission", Morgan wasn't amused at all and the projects were stopped. Tesla died as a poor man.

Finjogi - I like your first drawing. But John is right, shielding magnets is a complicated matter. It kind of works. You may check the magnets of an old harddrive. The reading arm contains a strong magnet, as a layer between two shielding steel plates. The shields rather "absorb" the field than to actually shield it. Magnets don't act the way you would presume. Two magnets for example will unify their fields like blobs. There are some useful tools to make the field visible, for example a green plastic foil with microcapilars on the surface, with encapsuled magnetic particles. In your second drawing the shielding part must be big enough to absorb the magnetic field. Now the shield itself became a ferromagnetic attractor field. When the magnet of the rotor will be side by side with the shield, it will be attracted and therefor stopped. When two magnets are close together, they will unify their field, at the other hand you cannot seperate north and south pole. You cannot cut a magnet off in the middle. Both part will have two poles again.

There's a paradoxon I would like to make some experiments with: a spherical magnet that has one pole in its center.

You may laugh - I personaly made a lot of test with magnets (I'm more the practical guy). I successfully managed perpetual motion of a steel sphere on a circular track when I manually shielded/unshielded a magnet on the strator. There's one problem with unshielding the magnet: since the shield plate is attracted by the magnet, it takes some power to move it away from the magnet. A solution would be to rotate it around the magnet rather than to parallely move it away from it. Did't try this yet.

jfk:
According to wikipedia, magnets do not actually generate forces... They only redirect them. So your perpetual motion device was likely nothing of the sort.

Now I don't understand the whole redirection of forces thing, but I think you'll find the power it took to pull the shield away from the magnet is the same amount of power the magnet imparted to the sphere as it passed by each time, and that attempting to rotate a shield past it will just result in the shield stopping wherever it is closest to the pole of the magnet.

Careful JFK, if your research yields any useful results you may get nailed a second time ;)

http://www.rense.com/general72/oinvent.htm

I would like to get your opinions, about video I posted, how that "magnet gun" gets so much force to steel ball it shoots?
Honestly, I don't know, and I have tested that magnet gun personally. Ball that acts as tricker/pusher IMO do not contain that much kinetic energy that could shoot the other end ball with that much of force..
video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KED8oEx0Nlc

And how about setting up many of those in series one after one :D

Magnetic guns and all things weird and wonderful....
www.amazing1.com

Fin:
If you look carefully, when the ball bearing approaches the magnet, it accelerates, and by the time it collides with the magnet it is moving at a high speed. This happens over a very short distance.

Then, like a newton's cradle, the ball bearing on the other end goes shooting off with the same force that the first struck.

The spheres here fly backwards when the one on the end flys off, which is quite unlike a newton's cradle, but that can be explained by observing that the original sphere is not only accelerated towards the magnet, but the magnet itself is accelerated towards the sphere as well as the sphere approaches, which dpes not happen in a normal newton's cradle.

So that's the mechanism behind it.

As for what would happen if you set them up in series... I would guess that the sphere that comes off the end would be moving VERY fast, assuming the whole thing didn't destroy itself from the magnets being shattered by the fast moving steel balls striking them.

But that wouldn't be free energy. It would take a bunch of energy to reset it and get the balls off the magnets.

Ha, here's your multiple magnet version, with weaker magnets presumably. It was right in with the suggested alternative videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwtlGfYq2c8&mode=related&search=

Hmm, first the Faraday flashlight, then the $100 windup laptop, now Free Energy? Whew, welcome to the new millenium! To think that the Y2K thingy had this technology really take off in the first place.

I'm surprised nobody is using a device based on a crystal radio to tap into the 'free' radio waves all around us and generate some heat/light ;)

No moving parts and no batteries required, all the power needed is collected by an aerial and a tuned circuit which is just an inductor ( a coil of wire ) and a variable capacitor to tune the circuit.

Crystal Radio? Yeah, I built one of those... When I was in kindergarten! Pfft. ATM, if there was something I would like to build, I'd say that having a radio that you don't have to have any batteries, you don't have to crank 'em, and you don't have to recharge every two or three hours, or even plug into a wall. Hmm... Wow, I'd like an iPod that you don't have to use any batteries to operate. Maybe Apple may be one of the first commercial companies to acquire this technology. Hopefully so.

I built a anti-gravity hover board type thing back when I was second grade. Unfortunately, I never got it to work in front of other people so I just abandoned it.....

I remember when Back to the Future 2 came out, kids at my school thought that the hoverboard they had in it really worked.

In one MythBusters episode, when testing "free energy" they actuall succeeded in generating a small amount of voltage (I think about 1/2 a volt) with just a long wire connected to some sort of circuit.

What I couldn't understand is their reason to mark the myth as "Busted", rather than "Plausible". Maybe with a small room with 220 wires connected to these devices, you could generate yourself 110 volts of truely free energy. But maybe this isn't a technical possibility.

However, energy like this has to be coming from somewhere (probably radio waves), so it's not really free; just "leeching" electricity off of local radio stations.


However, the idea of "free energy" (when interpreted as energy which is provided to you for free) is very plausible - in fact it exists right now, in the form of solar panels, etc.

Steorn's alleged "free energy generator" may be nothing more than a solar panel that operates not on light, but some other form of energy. Since not much information has been released about the operation of their device, it could be anything (provided, of course, that the whole thing is not a hoax).

Radio waves are not only from local stations. Radio waves (the noise between the station frequencies) is there all the time, it's called ether. Myth busters never really test things carefully IMHO. They just do some halfhearted experiments, then they say "officially busted!". Please note: there are many, many "free energy device" plans out there, and most of them are not working. People who are popular about this topic especially have no working device, but hundreds of "working" plans. Like Naudin, none of the (energy) devices seems to work. He's more successful with Anti Gravity things (high voltage stuff)

Sswift: A Shield made of some sort of iron will be attracted by the magnet regardless of the polarity. I think when you can manage it to reduce the power that is needed to move the shield to plain friction then it may be possible to selfpower it. I know it sounds crazy.

The socalled finsrud sculpture is using something like magnets and inertia:
http://www.theverylastpageoftheinternet.com/magneticDev/finsrud/finsrud1.htm
http://www.galleri-finsrud.no/sider/mobile/foto.html

I have also seen some documentations about such machines. It's funny how the tv guy didn't believe anything, even when he was testing a working machine, he still didn't believe it.
Most insightful was then how the builder of it used to react. His face expressed something like "Damn, I have found the holy grail, but nobody cares - what a curse"

Oh and BTW, I'd really like to create my own solar panels. Seems to be pretty easy. Take some silicium (sand), then melt it at about 1000 degrees Celsius. After cooling the molten silicium cut this block in thin slices of about 2 mm. Then add a lot of silver rips on one side and alu on the other side, that's it.

But i really did got it to work........just not in front of other people ;P

I watch it...

Myth Busters test things with how they expect it to turn out in mind.

What I've always found intriguing is that we have "anti gravity" devices without fully understanding what gravity is in the first place.

As far as I know practical science still has no idea what gravity is.

To quote... "gravity is always thought of as a force of attraction, mainly becuase Newton based his ideas from the viewpoint of the earth, where upon everything fell towards it."

Gravity is the effects of matter warping space around it. Somewhat like when you stretch a sheet into a plane and set a marble on it. The marble dents the sheet much like the mass of an object warps space. Only space is warped in 4 dimentions. Verticle, Horizontal, Distance, and Time... in simple terms.

where the sheet is only warped in 2.

Where the 'dent' in a sheet is a 3D device, the actual gravity well is not entirely like that... it is closer to something like a path of least resistance.... A particle, called a graviton, is responsible for the relay of that information. And it appears they function a lot electro-magnetism, in the sense that they all move together, they 'push' eachother, creating a transfer of 'information' much faster than light, however, never going faster than light... (like a line of people, the ones at the front step forward and the entire line moves forward some, while never going very fast...)

Gravity effects space-time, not just 3D space. This is why it isn't easy to understand how gravity works.

While magnetism really only effects 3D space, at least that we know of... tho we don't really understand how that works exactly either...

Knowing how something works and being able to use it, are not linked... Man practiced metallurgy for thousands of years before discovering what atoms are. We used the transistor before we understood how it functioned.

So... Practical science has a good understanding of what gravity is, and what magnetism is... how they effect matter... but not entirely the mechanics of it's transference. Mainly because Gravitons are smaller than Electrons, and things that are smaller than electrons are hard to understand.

String theory does a lot to explain gravity, electromagnetism, the weak and the strong atomic forces... There are just 'problems' with string theory that need to be worked out. (mainly that it comes in at least 5 different versions which can't all be right.)

<Sighs>

Question. How do you get energy using magnetic forces?

Answer. You get energy when a magnetic field shrinks.

So I ask you this. If the magnetic field which you have set up in this experiment isn't shrinking with the experiment and yet you're still getting energy out of it, where would this supposed free energy be coming from?

Well, it could be coming from the environment, couldn't it? Like how about the .5 gauss magnetic field which covers the entire earth? Yeah, that might work.

So... lets think about this. If this experiment had a detrimental effect on the earth's very large but very weak magnetic field that just happens to protect us against deadly deadly radiations then how would that be a good thing?

Just something to think about.

You know... as I read it they used to magnets to affect the electrons in the battery itself... No whirring motors no Phlostigon Inverter, and certainly no Flux Capacitors in sight... 1.21 gigawatts or 18v lets see what ahppens next and quit positing about Quantum forces that are not yet completely understood...

If I hear the word Graviton again!!! I am turning this Message board around and we are all going home!!! Be nice to your sister!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton

Last I heard the problems with String Theory had been fixed with the addition of an 11th dimension, linking the strings together into a single sheet through that dimension, and having them ripple like waves somehow

Isnt a pendulum a free energy device?

When you start a pendulum you move it to the position where it is 90 degrees away from its starting position.
Then it swings at least 160 degrees before reaching the other side and it swings several times before coming to a complete rest.

Doesnt the pendulum use a lot more energy than you are putting in?
(getting the free energy from gravity)

Free energy devices are those that require no energy input (except for an initial hand crank) to produce power. solar panels are an example of free energy.

OU (Over Unity machines) are those which require power input to operate, but provide greater output power than what is required to run them. So theoretically you could build a system that runs off one battery, while charging 2 or more others. example: Pay for one charge get two for free.

Perpetual motion machines are just that - they self run (that's all they do.) A machine in a state of perfect equilibrium. Nice to look at but not very practical, as they generate no extra power.

Magnets are known to exhibit over 200 effects, which only half are only reasonably understood by the scientific community.

Magnets can magnetize objects millions of times without losing any of their original magnetic force. This in itself says that the quantum vacuum must be replentishing the field.

It is true that magnets can lose their magnetisim if they are dropped or hit hard, or are of poor quality.

It's basic science that if you move a magnet through a coil of wire, the magentic field of the magnet will induce a voltage and current the coil of wire, and the greater the speed at which the magnet moves within a coil of wire the more power induced in the wire. Doing this does not diminish the magnet in any way, but it will cost you to move that magnet. :)

OK I warned you... no fried pickles for dinner either!!!

Rex, is it still considered free energy though when said device has a reliance on something else that they require to generate said energy?

RE: Genexi2

If any machine has to be powered externally to operate, even if it produces more power then needed to power itself, then no, it is considered an OU (over unity) machine.

Eg; OU machines principle is to transform a lower form of positive into a higher one, usually through high frequency DC pulsing with a method known as 'splitting the positive'.

Free energy is any device that creates power without any input power. Eg solar panel. While it's true, you must pay for the solar panel initially, you just put it out in the sun and it converts light and heat energy into electricity. Free energy machines convert freely abundant energy from the environment into usable power, whilst OU converts battery or mains power into excess energy that can be tapped to either power bigger loads or for storage for a later time.

If you have to pay for your energy then it is OU.

If you don't have to pay for your energy, it is called Free energy.

Keep in mind that even a Phyysical LAW as we have come to understand it is very open to reinterpretation should the facts change... I still doubt the existence of a GRAVITON particle... Someone would have to explain to me how an emissive particle could create an attractive force.

I think gravity is a by-product of that superstring set. I am glad to see so many people reading Scientific American Magazine... Gravity is probably an attraction of like particles through that 11th dimension... AND can only be manipulated with a left handed Mobieus Wrench!

Newcluar energy is the Darkest dyrtyest energy to find.
i dont know who fool who evented it.

i like the sunpower. Solar panel will go down in price the more company that makes em. those the patent system slows humanaty down. :)

Fun thread. I look forward to the day that we can all have clean, near limitless energy too. Let's also hope that it's the sort of thing where we can all have a generator at home or in our cars so no one can "control" the power and thus there'll be no wars over "fuel".

Meanwhile, check out Thorium-based nuclear reactors. They have 4 advantages over Uranium-based ones. a) the waste only has a halflife of 500-1000 years instead of 10,000 years meaning designing storage effective long-term devices is easier. b) there is loads more naturally occuring Thorium than Uranium c) you can actually "burn up" old nuclear waste in a thorium reactor and turn it into less harmful waste! d) melt down is NOT possible as you have to stimulate the reaction with a continual stream of protons i.e. it's safe. Pretty cool hunh?

Naturally I'd prefer to see more time and money put into other more speculative research too.