[bentstrider]

You think I was born yesterday?
I know they're Laws of Physics.
All I want to put out now is that there are always going to be people trying to prove it wrong.

[smiley]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'L')aws of Thermodynamics are not legal laws. they are laws of physics. these can not be broken.

[bentstrider]

I'll keep them up.
I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one on this rock who wants to challenge it.

[TrueKaiser]

you do know that book is fiction right?
and your gas idea doesn't hold cause it doesn't take into acount the weight of the gases.

[Kingcoal]

The problem with free energy devices is that they don't work. If anyone knows of a working prototype let the world know so that it can be peer reviewed. Honestly, where are the working ZPE generators, cold fusion generators, etc? All I've ever seen is theoretical diatribes.

[DvidBrent]

Exactly,

The laws of tdym (couldnt be bothered to type out that word) are not laws but merely indications, or generalisations.

The worst "law" is the first.
Read this extract from alternative science to find the history of that "law" and how it came about.

http://www.alternativescience.com/perpetual_motion.htm

[MonteQuest]

There is no easy way to make a transition from a mechanical world view based upon the idea of permanent material growth to a world view based on the idea of conserving finite resources. It took thousands of years to make the transition from a hunter gatherer existence to an agrarian one. It took hundreds of years to move from an agrarian existence to an industrial one. In both instances, we had plenty of time and resources to make the radical adjustments required. Today, we are being forced to make a transition from the Industrial Age of non-renewable resources to a new and still undefined age based once again on renewable resources or some new primary science--and do it in less than one generation, or even less.

Throughout human history, mankind has struggled with the availability of resources, such as food, land, energy, and water. People have tried to create systems, contraptions, and laws that promised unrestricted access to such resources. This was often accompanied with fears and explicit threats of annihilation if such laws would be disobeyed or such systems would not be deployed. In relatively recent times, humans have gathered a fundamental understanding about the energy and resource balance of the earth and the universe. A lot of it involved the discovery of the nature of the solar system (a planetary system revolving around the sun), as well as the laws of thermodynamics. Thermodynamics is the study of the inter-relation between heat, work and internal energy of a system. While the laws of thermodynamics were discovered in laboratories--often referred to as closed or isolated systems--they have demonstrated universal validity outside of the laboratory in the real world.

Today, the most widely accepted theory about the origin and development of the universe is the big bang theory. It postulates that the universe began with the explosion of a tremendously dense source of energy and mass. As this dense energy expanded outward, it began to slow down, forming galaxies, stars, and planets. As the energy continues to expand and become more diffused, it loses more and more of its order and will eventually reach a point of maximum entropy, or an equilibrium state of heat death. Everything will be the same temperature, approaching zero point energy.

The big bang theory coincides with the first and second laws of thermodynamics:

• The First Law states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; only transformed from one form to another. This is also known as the Conservation Law.
  
• The Second Law states that whenever energy is converted from one form to another, there is an energy loss in the form of heat. It is also known as the Law of Entropy. Entropy is a measure of this loss in usable energy. No evidence has ever been shown to contradict the Second Law and it is the most scientifically backed and proven statement ever made.
  
• The Third Law states that the entropy of a system at zero absolute temperature is a well-defined constant. This is because a system at zero temperature exists in its ground (lowest energy) state, so that its entropy is determined only by the degeneracy of the ground state. Or, in simpler terms, as this minimum temperature is approached, the further extraction of energy becomes more and more difficult.

The British scientist and author C.P. Snow had an excellent way of remembering the three laws:
1. You cannot win (that is, you cannot get something for nothing, because matter and energy are conserved).
2. You cannot break even (you cannot return to the same energy state, because there is always an increase in disorder; entropy always increases).
3. You cannot get out of the game (because absolute zero is unattainable).

There will be those who will stubbornly refuse to accept the fact that the Entropy Law reigns supreme over all physical reality in the world. The laws of thermodynamics provide the overarching scientific frame for the unfolding of all physical activity in this world.

[smiley]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'N')o evidence has ever been shown to contradict the Second Law and it is the most scientifically backed and proven statement ever made.

[Kingcoal]

I agree that nature seems to prevent getting something for nothing and keeping it. Nature does seem to allow short-term borrowing, such as seems to occur close to absolute zero, but in the macro world, nature seems to prevent us from hanging onto borrowed energy.

However, our problem is and always has been energy efficiency. Meaning, the minimum amount of energy required to accomplish a desired effect. It's a very complicated problem, but that is where we should be spending our time.

For instance, I write software to control industrial processes. All over the world, there are powered conveyor systems that run 24/7. A simple software change can turn off those conveyors when they are not in use. However, the way electric usage is determined in the US for industry provides no incentive to save. For an industrial complex, the electric bill is often an estimate based on a one-time measurement of loads. This is one of thousands of antiquated ways of doing things that we can address.

Believe me, once the screws start turning, people will feel the pressure and make the changes. In addition to conserving, we have only scraped the surface of complexity in many of our energy systems designs. We've bolted microcontrollers onto traditionally designed systems and realized large performance and efficiency improvements, but we can go miles further.

The problem is that there needs to be a management die off in the engineering and scientific communities. The new blood needs to take over and do a lot of redesign. Anyone who has worked as an engineer or scientist can attest to the fact that on a daily basis, we can only be so bold. Sacred cows are forced on us. We are put into boxes and told to "think outside the box."

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smiley', ' ')
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he problem is the definition of entropy itself. A lot of people define it as a degree of disorder. This is plain wrong. There are a number of experiments which show that order can increase with entropy. Yet somehow this concept seems to have embedded itself in the view of general public as well as in the scientific community.

[pup55]

King coal:

I must rant based on your final paragraph.

I think the scientists and engineers, at least the hands-on people, are mostly pretty reasonable and know how to turn off a light. You are right about the managers, though.

Corporate management, is filled today with a load of lightweights and yes-men, who know little or nothing about the business they are supposed to be managing, at least in my observation.

Probably the reason for this is a favorable economy the last 20 years or so, which, due to rising stock prices, makes these guys think they are geniuses. This is made all the worse by the emergence of mutual funds and institutional investors as the major stockholders of some of these corporations, who tend to select financial types from among themselves for corporate CEO's and officers, rather than the operations people from inside who know the nuts and bolts of the business.

From the top on down, the creativity is beaten out of a lot of the hands-on people. It is made worse because of the downsizing and merger episodes we have been through.

The dieoff you propose will not help if the "new blood" does not come in at the top.

[MonteQuest]

In simplest terms, the Laws of Thermodynamics dictate the specifics for the movement of heat and work. To give you a better understanding on how these laws came about and their modern scope of coverage, you have to understand when and why these laws were generated. Back in the late nineteenth century, European society was about to experience unforeseeable rapid changes. Suddenly, without much of a transition, new pockets of industry arose, focusing towards large-scaled machines rather than small hand tools; large industrial corporations often crushed small agriculturally centered commerce; and in many areas, city life rendered country farm cottages obsolete. We all know this era as the Industrial Revolution.

True of nineteenth century mass industry, the company with the greatest machines produced more products, made more money, and was consequently more successful. The physicists analyzed the flow of heat in these machines, and the chemical changes that transpire when they perform work. Thus was the establishment of modern thermodynamics (circa 1865). First on the agenda of this new discipline was to find a means to convert heat (as produced by machines) into work with full efficiency. If such a flawless conversion could be accomplished, a machine could run off its own heat, producing a never-ending cycle of heat to work, rendering heat, converting to work, and so forth ad infinitum…the perpetual motion machine.

As it turned out, the very same research oriented to create a perpetual-motion machine proved that the very concept is not possible. Physicists attempting to transform heat into work with full efficacy quickly learned that always some heat would escape into the surrounding environment, eternally doomed to be wasted energy. Being obsolete, this energy can never be converted into anything useful again. One physicist noted for significant experiments in this field is the Frenchman, Sadi Carnot. His ideal engine, so properly titled the 'Carnot Engine,' would theoretically have a work output equal to that of its heat input. Carnot concluded (after much experimentation) that no device could completely make the desired conversion, without losing at least some energy to the environment. This irrevocable loss of some energy to the environment was associated with an increase of disorder in that system. Scientists wishing to further penetrate the realm of chaos needed a variable that could be used to calculate disorder. Thanks to mid-nineteenth century physicist, R.J.E. Clausius, this Pandemonium could be measured in terms of a quantity named entropy. Entropy acts as a function of the state of a system - where a high amount of entropy translates to higher chaos within the system, and low entropy signals a highly ordered state. Clausius worked out a general equation, his being devoted to the measurement of entropy change over a period of time: (change) S = Q / T (the change in entropy is equal to the amount of heat added to the system [by an invertible process] divided by the temperature in degrees Kelvin). The beauty of this equation is that it can be used to compute the entropic change of any exchange in nature, not solely limited to machines. This development brought thermodynamics out of the industrial workplace, and opened the possibility for further studies into the tendencies of natural order (and lack therefore of), eventually extending to the universe as a whole.

Applying this knowledge to nature, physicists found that the total entropy change (change in S) always increases for every naturally occurring event (within an isolated system) that could be then observed. Thus, they theorized, disorder must be continually augmenting evenly throughout the universe. When you put ice into a hot cup of tea, heat will flow from the hot tea to the cold ice and melt the ice. Then, once the energy in the cup is evenly distributed, the cooled tea would reach a maximum state of entropy. This situation represents a standard increase in disorder, believed to be perpetually occurring throughout the entire universe.

[smiley]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')pplying this knowledge to nature, physicists found that the total entropy change (change in S) always increases for every naturally occurring event (within an isolated system) that could be then observed. Thus, they theorized, disorder must be continually augmenting evenly throughout the universe.

[Permanently_Baffled]

OK OK, call me a jelly brain, but I need to ask a question.

Before I ask this question , please let me acknowledge in advance that I am a shit for brains when it comes to physics!!

My question is:

As i understand it one of the laws of thermodynamics is that you cannot 'create' energy , you cannot something for nothing....

If this is correct , surely none of us would be here?? Or is this the God versus science argument? Where did all the 'energy' come from in the first place if it wasn't created from nothing?

PB

[smiley]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')s i understand it one of the laws of thermodynamics is that you cannot 'create' energy , you cannot something for nothing....

If this is correct , surely none of us would be here?? Or is this the God versus science argument? Where did all the 'energy' come from in the first place if it wasn't created from

[Guest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')This argument is a very old one as it was first expressed by Albert Einstein. Unfortunately his argument was hijacked by the creationist bunch to justify their view of the creation. But the original argument does still hold. When you take in account the orbital theory and the hybridization of the atoms you can understand why ordered states are favored in cases of strong interaction.

[smiley]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')ow doeas one see that? Hybridization and orbitals aren't complexities, they don't even exist, exept in abstractitiy.

[DefiledEngine]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')You can measure bond angles and you can measure orbitals. There are various methods available such as NMR, IR, neutron diffraction, mossbauer spectroscopy and luminescence spectroscopy to do so. We cannot locate the exact position, direction and velocity of the electron in the orbital, but we can say they exist.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kingcoal', 'T')here is only one problem with this thread. None of the people who really need a lesson in elementary physics is here listening! I've seen all kinds of posts about air powered cars, ZPE, etc. They need to get into this discussion. My position on Peak Oil is that we need to conserve, period. I gave up fighting the laws of physics years ago!

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')here are a number of experiments which show that order can increase with entropy.