[Blue_Nose]

I was watching the Discovery channel this afternoon and saw their (repeat) show on Perpetual Motion and Free Energy devices. As physics has always been an interest of mine and these devices are fascinating, I'm never convinced they're anything but novel toys.

The show does a poor job, in my opinion, of actually addressing the validity of these claims - the show consists of presenting these devices, and then cutting to some guy who simply states, "In my professional opinion, this device cannot be in perpetual motion due to the laws of physics," which is completely irrelevant, because everyone already knows what the rules and laws state.

Obviously there are frauds, but some of these people are generally convinced they've broken the "unity" barrier.

I'm wondering if anyone else shares this interest in this area, or willing to offer an answer to a few questions I have:

• Is mainstream science responsible for addressing the claims of any crackpot that makes such a claim?
• Is it dangerous to ignore "fringe" science?
• If both are true, how can the distinction between valid and crazy drawn?

and also,

Are there websites that debunk specific claims from a scientific standard, and I mean not simply parroting laws?

[xerxes]

Mythbusters did a show a little while back on some of the free energy ideas out there. Naturally, they were all rubbish.

I think the line between crackpot science and valid science is the degree of success. Until someone manages to turn copper into gold, we're going to keep calling BS on the alchemists out there (at least in that particular practice of alchemy).

I'm afraid I don't know of any websites like the ones you're describing sadly. But I think it's somewhat hard to find ones that don't parrot certain laws because it's so hard not to. In the case of free energy, you'll eventually come back to the first law of thermodynamics.

[Wada]

In what I think was a BBC travel documentary not so long ago I remember them showing a huge kind of ferris wheel contraption that had with general maintenance been running for a long number of years. It was mentioned as a tourist site of interest in France I think. Anyone know of what I'm referring to? It was very interesting. As I recall just one fellow designed and built this thing and if I remember it had lots of weights attached to the sides that kept it running. Aside from the wee bird drinking water it's the closest thing I've seen to perpetual motion.

[BartSimpson]

Wada wrote:

In what I think was a BBC travel documentary not so long ago I remember them showing a huge kind of ferris wheel contraption that had with general maintenance been running for a long number of years. It was mentioned as a tourist site of interest in France I think. Anyone know of what I'm referring to? It was very interesting. As I recall just one fellow designed and built this thing and if I remember it had lots of weights attached to the sides that kept it running. Aside from the wee bird drinking water it's the closest thing I've seen to perpetual motion.

I recall that thing, too. It generated a scant amount of electricity and the weights were on armatures that caused leverage to occur in a seemingly perpetual cycle. I guess the real proff to me that this was some sort of hoax or dreadfully inefficient design is that they're not on sale at the local hardware store as an emergency generator.

To BNs questions:

Is mainstream science responsible for addressing the claims of any crackpot that makes such a claim?

Nope, not at all. But then they also ignore such things at their peril as someone who is for real and is ignored will make a mockery out of the orthodoxy.

Is it dangerous to ignore "fringe" science?

Yes, for the practical reason that what is a fringe science today may be mainstream tomorrow. The idea of putting capacitors onto printed circuits was once derided as a pipe dream yet here we are putting billions of capacitors on printed cicuits every day.

If both are true, how can the distinction between valid and crazy drawn?

Until proven or disproven there is no distinction, really. Our daily lives are filled with examples of things that were once considered crazy yet are now considered mundane. The appearance of validity is irrelevant.

All that matters is observation, hypothesis, and proof.

Any idea, no matter how ludicrous, that passes those three critieria needs to be considered seriously.

[Blue_Nose]

Yeah, that was also in the Discovery documentary - Aldo Costa's Wheel

[Wada]

Blue_Nose wrote:

Yeah, that was also in the Discovery documentary - Aldo Costa's Wheel

Yuppers That's it! I don't recall them mentioning that it had to have a push every three hours. None the less a remarkable example of man's ingenuity, I think. One of these days. Maybe in space.

[BartSimpson]

Blue_Nose wrote:

Yeah, that was also in the Discovery documentary - Aldo Costa's Wheel

Good thing the government (any government) doesn't take it too seriously or they'd spend billions of dollars researching how best to waste billions of dollars.

On an aside, I do believe that gravity power will eventually be harnessed no different than solar power was but I have yet to see anyone come up with a rational way to do so.

[Zipperfish]

BartSimpson wrote:

Blue_Nose wrote:

Yeah, that was also in the Discovery documentary - Aldo Costa's Wheel

Good thing the government (any government) doesn't take it too seriously or they'd spend billions of dollars researching how best to waste billions of dollars.

On an aside, I do believe that gravity power will eventually be harnessed no different than solar power was but I have yet to see anyone come up with a rational way to do so.

Hydro power IS gravity power.

[BartSimpson]

Zipperfish wrote:

Hydro power IS gravity power.

Yes, but what I mean is that gravity is also a wave and more likely some form of a particle and if someone ever figures out exactly what it is then we'll be one step closer to exploiting it as we do solar power.

[PluggyRug]

Blue_Nose wrote:

Are there websites that debunk specific claims from a scientific standard, and I mean not simply parroting laws?

Have you tried the James Randi website.

[sasquatch2]

I recall seeing the myth busters from time to time and generally they do decent science.

But then one programme they set out to establish if bullets hitting a man would hurl him backwards.

To test this they hung two sides of pork on hooks (actually horizontal bars) and proceeded to shoot at them with all manner of ordinance. They concluded that it was a myth.

One problem with their experiment....was that the two sides of pork were not a pig carcass but a gutted carcass which offered little resistance, hence absorbed very little of the terminal energy.

I am somewhat biased as I lugged a '28 Thompson with a drum which generally impressed the hell out of those about me, as it made dying a moving experience for VC I used it on.

Perpetual motion machines may someday appear to be possible but like all apparent magic, they will be powered by forces of which we currently are unaware.

[hurley_108]

sasquatch2 wrote:

I recall seeing the myth busters from time to time and generally they do decent science.

But then one programme they set out to establish if bullets hitting a man would hurl him backwards.

To test this they hung two sides of pork on hooks (actually horizontal bars) and proceeded to shoot at them with all manner of ordinance. They concluded that it was a myth.

One problem with their experiment....was that the two sides of pork were not a pig carcass but a gutted carcass which offered little resistance, hence absorbed very little of the terminal energy.

I am somewhat biased as I lugged a '28 Thompson with a drum which generally impressed the hell out of those about me, as it made dying a moving experience for VC I used it on.

Perpetual motion machines may someday appear to be possible but like all apparent magic, they will be powered by forces of which we currently are unaware.

If the bullet exited the pig carcass, you'd have a point. But if it stayed inside, no matter how gutted, all of the bullet's energy would be absorbed by the carcass.

[Blue_Nose]

Doing some research, I found a site that adequately debunks the spinning wheel-type machines most popular.

They typically consist of a number of weights that shift position to cause one side of the wheel to exert a greater torque on the shaft.

The Shifting-Mass Overbalanced Wheel

The simple answer is that any weight on the wheel undergoes a cyclical motion, returning to the same position after each rotation. Since the weight has done no net work, there's no energy to be gained from the system.

[BartSimpson]

sasquatch2 wrote:

I am somewhat biased as I lugged a '28 Thompson with a drum which generally impressed the hell out of those about me, as it made dying a moving experience for VC I used it on.

I'm a big fan of the Thompson and you are quite correct that it was available in the US military arsenal through the end of the Vietnam War when it was shunted aside to favour the M-16 and variants on the M-16. I once fired one from the collection at Quantico which had an aluminum actuator and the increased rate of fire was pretty spectacular - I'm not a small guy at 260lbs and I seriously had a hard time keeping it under control. If you used it for your daily driver then I am rightly impressed!

[sasquatch2]

Due to the '28's basic cyclic rate being about 850 rpm--uping the rate of fire seems redundant. The ammo load is bad enough without that. I only had the one drum. Box mags were a less clumsey load. At 180 lb (at that point) I use the term lug. It was a personal weapon----advisors/semi-spooks got such privages at that point.

I liked the drum because without a Cutts the muzzle jump was a pain. 50 rds went quite a way in short bursts. Compared to the M16, 1 hit did the trick. It was good for showmanship.

Later with the french, the FAMAS worked well.....an easier load.