We will NEVER see this - A Short Rant on Petroleum

SkyHog said:
Sigh. The "law" of conservation of energy/mass being what it is aside (a joke, and wrong), perpetual motion is unobtainable.

What I believe is obtainable however, is near perpetual motion....that is to say, somehow, somewhere, we have the ability to create a machine that can run for many lifetimes before needing more energy to continue.

It just takes getting a real understanding of how physics work....and no one has it yet, despite their "laws" of conservation.
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Uh, Nick... Seriously? You think you know better than the thousands of physicists? Why do you think that law is "a joke, and wrong?" What sort of proof do you have?
 
Henning said:
Holy F***!!! YHGTBSM!!! "Using stored compressed air to run air compressors to fill chambers with air"... This guy has to be French..... I know retarded people who would say "That's retarded..."
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I once proposed a system where an internal combustion engine fueled by hydrogen would provide all the energy needed by using electrolysis to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen.

I got the idea from watching Speed Racer - one scene has Pops warning "But Hydrogen can explode"
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Uh, Nick... Seriously? You think you know better than the thousands of physicists? Why do you think that law is "a joke, and wrong?" What sort of proof do you have?
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Yeah Nick! I paid for a Physics degree and I want to know if I should go demand my money back.

I firmly believe two themodynamic laws:
1- Entropy in a closed system is always increasing (After cleaning up the lab one day, my professor put his hands on his hips, looked around the lab and said "Well we increased the disorder somewhere else in the universe!" Geeky and true. Nick's opinion notwithstanding)
2- Mass/Energy in a closed system is conserved (said closed system can be as big as the universe, if that helps the analysis)

I'm not sure what would lead one to believe that thermodynamic conservation is bunk. It does such a good (OK, perfect job once you have actually accounted for all of the energy transformations) job of describing the physical interactions that we see. If you chucked conservation out the window, there's going to be a lot of engineering that needs to be redone (such as all of aerodynamics).
 
Steve Foley said:
I once proposed a system where an internal combustion engine fueled by hydrogen would provide all the energy needed by using electrolysis to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen.

I got the idea from watching Speed Racer - one scene has Pops warning "But Hydrogen can explode"
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I'm gonna build a electric car with a fan on top to charge the battery.
 
COFlyBoy said:
I'm gonna build a electric car with a fan on top to charge the battery.
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I had one of those old wedge shaped German electric cars when I was in 8th grade. I came up with the thought of regenerative braking to extend the range some. I told my buddy about it. He became an engineer for GM on the EV-1 project, it had regenerative braking.... Later at a class reunion picnic I see him and yep, he admitted he used my idea, I was glad someone did.
 
COFlyBoy said:
I'm not sure what would lead one to believe that thermodynamic conservation is bunk. It does such a good (OK, perfect job once you have actually accounted for all of the energy transformations) job of describing the physical interactions that we see..
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Rather than demanding a refund, you should take the education that you have and try to answer the following questions, and tell me if you can't see where I'm coming from:

1. Explain how to describe the energy transformations in a non self-fulfilling way. For example, "x amount of energy must have been converted to mass because neither can be destroyed" is not a good answer, nor is pointing to the current formulas and saying "See, it must be right." If not for the "laws" we have in place right now, a lot of things would be unexplainable. Using the principles within the law to prove the law sounds an awful lot like a religious argument to me ("God exists because without God, we have no man, because the bible says God created man.")

2. A stretch, but explain conservation in an event horizon....oh wait, that's an exception, nevermind :confused:


flyingcheesehead said:
Uh, Nick... Seriously? You think you know better than the thousands of physicists? Why do you think that law is "a joke, and wrong?" What sort of proof do you have?
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No, I don't know better. I just know wrong, and I see wrong, and I see the following:

Assuming x+y=z, then y+x=z, and therefore 2x+2y=2z, and 5000x+5000y=5000z. Now lets drop "assuming" because we proved it, and use this formula to explain a bunch of stuff that we can't otherwise explain.

Like friction.
 
SkyHog said:
Assuming x+y=z, then y+x=z, and therefore 2x+2y=2z, and 5000x+5000y=5000z. Now lets drop "assuming" because we proved it, and use this formula to explain a bunch of stuff that we can't otherwise explain.

Like friction.
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popcorn.gif

 
SkyHog said:
1. Explain how to describe the energy transformations in a non self-fulfilling way. For example, "x amount of energy must have been converted to mass because neither can be destroyed" is not a good answer, nor is pointing to the current formulas and saying "See, it must be right." If not for the "laws" we have in place right now, a lot of things would be unexplainable.

2. A stretch, but explain conservation in an event horizon....oh wait, that's an exception, nevermind :confused:
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1- As I was taught the conservation laws are not self-fulfilling, but descriptions of the observed physical phenomena. They are laws not because physicists imposed them on the universe, but careful observation showed that the universe always follows them. Once the laws are discovered then analysis of smaller systems is much simpler.
I don't necessarily think all of the universal physical laws are known, but I don't think that that invalidates the laws we have discovered.
2- Touche'! And what are the physics that occurred at the Big Bang? I don't know, but I still don't think that that example invalidates the law of conservation of mass or energy. Those 2 laws are way too applicable to be thrown out. I'm not arrogant enough to assume we understand the full set of rules that govern the workings of the universe.
 
SkyHog said:
2. A stretch, but explain conservation in an event horizon....oh wait, that's an exception, nevermind :confused:
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That was all a bit difficult to follow, but this one has me particularly puzzled...

I'm assuming you mean the event horizon of a black hole, and I'm wondering where/how it is an exception to thermodynamics and the conservation of mass/energy?
 
SkyHog said:
No, I don't know better. I just know wrong, and I see wrong, and I see the following:

Assuming x+y=z, then y+x=z, and therefore 2x+2y=2z, and 5000x+5000y=5000z. Now lets drop "assuming" because we proved it, and use this formula to explain a bunch of stuff that we can't otherwise explain.

Like friction.
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OK, so looking into it a little further. The Conservation of Mass and the Conservation of Energy were discovered and tested separately. Einstein's equation came along later to link them together. However, the 2 laws are independently verifiable. So I don't see it as a circular proof.

What's your beef with friction?
 
COFlyBoy said:
1- As I was taught the conservation laws are not self-fulfilling, but descriptions of the observed physical phenomena. They are laws not because physicists imposed them on the universe, but careful observation showed that the universe always follows them. Once the laws are discovered then analysis of smaller systems is much simpler.
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Here's how they're self fulfilling:


  • I throw dirt clod at a brick wall. The dirt clod hit it and immediately shatters and disintegrates into dust. Presumably, the same amount of dust, so that's a win for CoM. But what about the energy that was transferred from my arm into the clod? Where did it go?

    "It was transferred into heat energy, which dissipated into the air."

    Well, then it should be measured, right? How much energy dissipated?

    "The same that was used in the acceleration caused by hitting the wall."

    How do we know its heat now?

    "It warmed the air by 0.000000000000000000002 degrees. Unfortunately, that's too small to measure, and even if we did, Heisenberg says that if the numbers don't match, its because we measure it, thereby changing the results."
  • I take a stack of papers and burn them on a plate. Before I burn the paper, they weigh approximately 1 pound. After I burn them, they weigh approximately .75 pounds. Where did the .25 pounds go?

    "Mass was converted into energy, which then dissipated into the air."

    Rather Rinse Repeat above.
Now, I have a bunch of examples that use friction as the dispute point too, but they're much longer, and involve transfers between so many items your head would spin, but it ends the same way.

I don't necessarily think all of the universal physical laws are known, but I don't think that that invalidates the laws we have discovered.
2- Touche'! And what are the physics that occurred at the Big Bang? I don't know, but I still don't think that that example invalidates the law of conservation of mass or energy. Those 2 laws are way too applicable to be thrown out. I'm not arrogant enough to assume we understand the full set of rules that govern the workings of the universe.
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They are quite applicable, but let me show you how that's scary:

1. Rocks come from the ground. The ground is made of rock. Rocks tend to return to the place they were built, just like all other elements. Rain falls to the rivers because it is attracted to it. This is a very applicable law, and its hard to disprove, if you limit yourself to using the law to prove it.
2. From this land, you can plainly see that the water runs off the end of the earth. If we try to travel that far, we also will certainly fall of the end of the earth as well. Its plain as day, and visible to the naked eye, no science could disprove this.
3. Look how the moon and planets go around the Earth in such a visible and predictable way. Even the stars show this. Some orbits are not perfectly circular, that much is certain, but they all go around the earth. This is so applicable, even a laymen can look up and see it.
 
Henning said:
That was all a bit difficult to follow, but this one has me particularly puzzled...

I'm assuming you mean the event horizon of a black hole, and I'm wondering where/how it is an exception to thermodynamics and the conservation of mass/energy?
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I didn't make this, but here's the visual:
blackhole.jpg


Beyond that, the mere existence of a black hole negates CoE/CoM.
 
Gee Nick- Usenet meets PoA.
For your dirt clod example- energy was transfered into not only heat, but also the "thud" noise you heard when the clod hit the wall, overcoming whatever held the clod together, and transferred back to the rest of the earth.

As for burning the newspapers, most of the mass escaped as carbon dioxide and water. Put it in a closed system and the books balance. That's what killed of the phogiston theory.

As for the black hole- its mass increased by the mass of whatever you threw into it. The mass is converted back into energy by Hawking radiation causing the black hole to eventually evaporate. AFAIK, we've never actually seen a black hole although we've observed phenomena consistent with black hole theory.

Getting back to throwing a dirt clod. There's not enough energy to measure from your throw 'cuz you throw like a wuss :D:D:D:D j/k
 
I think a fundamental point that we all need to be reminded of is that theories can never be proven, only disproven.

We can do hundreds of experiments that confirm a theory, and if just one experiment fails to confirm it, and if on careful examination the experimental methodology is found to be sound, and if others can repeat the experiment with the same result, then we have to admit that there is something wrong with the theory, and it will have to be improved or discarded altogether.

The difference between science and circular reasoning is experiments.

Of course even theories that have been superceded by ones that are in better accord with experimental results can still be useful for many purposes. Newton's "laws" are an example.
 
SkyHog said:
... [*]I take a stack of papers and burn them on a plate. Before I burn the paper, they weigh approximately 1 pound. After I burn them, they weigh approximately .75 pounds. Where did the .25 pounds go?...
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Pour 100 lbs of gas into your gas tank. Drive around until it's empty. Where did that 100 lbs of gas go? Did it disappear? Was it converted into energy?

No, it was sent out the tailpipe. And not as "energy", as exhaust, gases with mass, you released 100 lbs of exhaust into the atmosphere. More than that, really, because the combustion drew in ingredients from the atmosphere (oxygen) and those had mass, too.
... Rain falls to the rivers because it is attracted to it. This is a very applicable law, and its hard to disprove, if you limit yourself to using the law to prove it.
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First, water isn't "built" in rivers. If you want to change your theory to "water is attracted to rivers" that's trivial to disprove. Go to a point near a river and pour water onto a tabletop and see if it favors flowing in the direction toward the river. You will find, instead, that water and pebbles will always flow in the same direction, and that will depend on the tilt of the table, and never on the direction toward the river.
... 3. Look how the moon and planets go around the Earth in such a visible and predictable way. Even the stars show this. Some orbits are not perfectly circular, that much is certain, but they all go around the earth. This is so applicable, even a laymen can look up and see it.
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Perhaps what you're getting at is that it's possible to craft a set of "laws" that is consistent with observations yet which is not consistent with our current set of laws. That is certainly true. Part of this "scientific method" thing entails a preference for simplicity over complexity and universality over special cases. So when we arrive upon a minimal set of laws that are as simple as we can make them, and we can observe conformance with those laws everywhere we can see, then we embrace that set to the exclusion of more complex sets that don't appear to apply consistently.
-harry
 
SkyHog said:
... Using the principles within the law to prove the law sounds an awful lot like a religious argument to me ("God exists because without God, we have no man, because the bible says God created man.")
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These answers aren't correct simply because they agree with the theory, they are correct because they agree with the theory and the theory is demonstrable experimentally. That's where we diverge from religion. Physics class has a lab section. Theology class never does.

When you ask a high school physics question, the answers are going to be derived from the theory. We can't prove the theory for you here, but students in high school physics lab classes do that every day as an exercise.
Like friction.
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What makes you think that friction is unexplainable?
-harry
 
Henning said:
I had one of those old wedge shaped German electric cars when I was in 8th grade. I came up with the thought of regenerative braking to extend the range some. I told my buddy about it. He became an engineer for GM on the EV-1 project, it had regenerative braking.... Later at a class reunion picnic I see him and yep, he admitted he used my idea, I was glad someone did.
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I came up with that too. Where's our patent lawsuit???
 
BTW- Black holes have been recently observed (seriously).
 
SkyHog said:
I didn't make this, but here's the visual:
blackhole.jpg


Beyond that, the mere existence of a black hole negates CoE/CoM.
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Nope...

There are three properties of a black hole that remain visible to the outside universe: mass, spin and charge. So the person falling in will increase the mass of the black hole, and slightly expand the radius to the event horizon. He will also contribute to the angular momentum of the object, changing its spin.
 
On the perpetual motion machines, I think the dog's tail might qualify. I mean, the thing literally won't stop moving! For those of you with labs, we might be able to solve the riddle. :)
 
So far, the only explanations I've read here are the same ones I always hear (and read when I was studying physics). It exists because we can prove it.

How? Someone give me an answer that doesn't consist of "We can prove it," and instead, a demonstrable example. Where does the mass of the burnt paper go, and how do we measure it? Where does the force of the dirt clod go, and how do we measure it? If entering the orbit of a planet reduces its rotational speed, how much does it do it, and how do we observe it.

The answer to all of those questions, as far as I've seen, is simply "It happens."

Sounds like religion to me.
 
SkyHog said:
So far, the only explanations I've read here are the same ones I always hear (and read when I was studying physics). It exists because we can prove it.

How? Someone give me an answer that doesn't consist of "We can prove it," and instead, a demonstrable example. Where does the mass of the burnt paper go, and how do we measure it? Where does the force of the dirt clod go, and how do we measure it? If entering the orbit of a planet reduces its rotational speed, how much does it do it, and how do we observe it.

The answer to all of those questions, as far as I've seen, is simply "It happens."

Sounds like religion to me.
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Simple experiment on the burnt paper, burn it in a closed environment. The mass will not change...the paper will burn, carbon in the paper will combine with oxygen in the air to form carbon dioxide, and the mass will change not one iota.

You demand evidence, yet you provide zero against the vast weight that has held up conservation of mass/conservation of energy. Where's your evidence?
 
JeffDG said:
You demand evidence, yet you provide zero against the vast weight that has held up conservation of mass/conservation of energy. Where's your evidence?
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Nick's point is familiar to anyone who's studied philosophy: Evidence is fine, but doesn't provide ultimate answers, only a guide as to what might happen again.

Metaphysics supersedes physics.
 
JeffDG said:
Simple experiment on the burnt paper, burn it in a closed environment. The mass will not change...the paper will burn, carbon in the paper will combine with oxygen in the air to form carbon dioxide, and the mass will change not one iota.

You demand evidence, yet you provide zero against the vast weight that has held up conservation of mass/conservation of energy. Where's your evidence?
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My evidence? I don't need evidence to say that we need to continue to test different possibilities to ensure we have it right. That's how science works.

But, if you take it out of the closed system, where does it go? We live in such a large closed system, its literally impossible to conduct a test that tells us for sure that the mass or energy is conserved.
 
dmccormack said:
Nick's point is familiar to anyone who's studied philosophy: Evidence is fine, but doesn't provide ultimate answers, only a guide as to what might happen again.

Metaphysics supersedes physics.
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If the answer to science is "We know that, so there's no reason to make sure we're right," we've already lost the battle, and might as well defer to the Pope for answers about how the universe works.

Worked great in the past.
 
SkyHog said:
My evidence? I don't need evidence to say that we need to continue to test different possibilities to ensure we have it right. That's how science works.

But, if you take it out of the closed system, where does it go? We live in such a large closed system, its literally impossible to conduct a test that tells us for sure that the mass or energy is conserved.
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You can observe a small, closed, control environment and extrapolate from there.

Ain't that hard.
 
SkyHog said:
My evidence? I don't need evidence to say that we need to continue to test different possibilities to ensure we have it right. That's how science works.

But, if you take it out of the closed system, where does it go? We live in such a large closed system, its literally impossible to conduct a test that tells us for sure that the mass or energy is conserved.
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So your claim is that if you conduct the experiment in a closed container you will receive one result (conservation of mass), but if you open it up, that mass will magically disappear?
 
SkyHog said:
If the answer to science is "We know that, so there's no reason to make sure we're right," we've already lost the battle, and might as well defer to the Pope for answers about how the universe works.

Worked great in the past.
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Now, you're descending into name-calling.

There are assumptions -- some say they are unknowable and thus to be ignored. Others posit theories. Others claim knowledge through revelation.

Be careful about ignorantly smearing tens of millions in each camp just because they don't adhere to your view.

You have assumptions, too -- of did you not realize that?
 
SkyHog said:
So far, the only explanations I've read here are the same ones I always hear (and read when I was studying physics). It exists because we can prove it.

How? Someone give me an answer that doesn't consist of "We can prove it," and instead, a demonstrable example. Where does the mass of the burnt paper go, and how do we measure it?
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Ever see the sticker on the window of a new car with the EPA mileage? That is calculated from measuring the concentration CO, CO2, HC, H2O, etc. in samples of the exhaust gas. (The ambient air is also sampled and those concentrations are subtracted) And by knowing the Hydrogen / Carbon ratio of the fuel, (and total exhaust volume) one calculates the total gallons of fuel burned. The actual distance driven during the test is divided by the gallons calculated to get the MPG value. All that mass that was burned is accounted for.

It is possible to measure the fuel flow going in - and that is a typical thing to do on an engine dynamometer - and when you compare the measured gasoline in and the calculated gasoline burned based on the composition of the exhaust gas, you get the same result (given the various uncertainties of the measurements).

You could do the same with your paper.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
Ever see the sticker on the window of a new car with the EPA mileage? That is calculated from measuring the concentration CO, CO2, HC, H2O, etc. in samples of the exhaust gas. (The ambient air is also sampled and those concentrations are subtracted) And by knowing the Hydrogen / Carbon ratio of the fuel, (and total exhaust volume) one calculates the total gallons of fuel burned. The actual distance driven during the test is divided by the gallons calculated to get the MPG value. All that mass that was burned is accounted for.

It is possible to measure the fuel flow going in - and that is a typical thing to do on an engine dynamometer - and when you compare the measured gasoline in and the calculated gasoline burned based on the composition of the exhaust gas, you get the same result (given the various uncertainties of the measurements).

You could do the same with your paper.
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Ok. So then, where does it go from there. Its in the air, but to enter the air, it had to displace somewhere, using the same theories, since air can't be destroyed to create space for the new chemicals, where does the displaced air go?
 
SkyHog said:
So far, the only explanations I've read here are the same ones I always hear (and read when I was studying physics). It exists because we can prove it.

How? Someone give me an answer that doesn't consist of "We can prove it," and instead, a demonstrable example. Where does the mass of the burnt paper go, and how do we measure it? Where does the force of the dirt clod go, and how do we measure it? If entering the orbit of a planet reduces its rotational speed, how much does it do it, and how do we observe it.

The answer to all of those questions, as far as I've seen, is simply "It happens."

Sounds like religion to me.
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Nick- it is very clear you didn't read some of the posts. If you did, you'd be somewhat peeved at me.

I'll pick on the paper example:

One thing not mentioned by others is that a theory not only has to explain observations, but also should make predictions that can be tested.

You asked where the weight went- this is the question that lead to the phlogiston theory. You burn something and there isn't as much weight as when you started. The prediction is that phlogiston has a mass since the paper ashes weigh less than the original paper. The phlogiston took the mass when it left the paper.

So- let's test this. Take magnesium, which burns very well. When burned, the residue is heavier than before combustion. This doesn't support the theory. There is a contradiction- this result suggests phlogiston has negative mass. If phlogiston has negative mass, the paper ashes should weight more than the paper did.

Now lets burn the compounds in a closed system. In fact, this experiment was done by Lavoisier- no weight change. This was the start of an important chemical principle- stoichiometry. Basically, you start with a mass of chemicals, perform a reaction, and the mass is still the same after the reaction. Lavoisier used a good balance to demonstrate conservation of mass.

I explained where the force of the dirt clod went, and I'm pretty sure we can't yet exert enough force on a planet to measure the change in rotation speed.
 
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