Perpetual Notions
Free Energy, probably today's equivalent of ancient alchemists' "Lead into Gold", and
probably about as impossible. (After all, to turn lead into gold you only have to rearrange
a few protons, neutrons and electrons. What's so impossible about that?)
I've seen quite a few claims of devices producing "Free Energy". Some backing up their
claim with a little theory to explain why it doesn't contradict the favourite scientific
premise of conservation of energy, saying that it isn't just creating the energy out of
nothing, it's drawing it from somewhere (Cross reference : Aether).
Others, with more common sense, simply backing up their claim with "I don't know how it works,
but look, it does. I'm an engineer, not a physicist."
It seems odd to me that if people have made these free energy devices, we still get
power from large corporations burning things. Once I might have taken this as evidence that
the free energy devices don't really work. But one is drawn to consider the everlasting
lightbulb - an invention that was made, and we still can't purchase. If it can be done with
something small, no doubt the same sort of thing could be done with something vast.
My first thought of what it would mean to have free energy is "Hooray, no more electricity
bills". Instant gratification. Underneath that, though, are more pressing things - virtually
no air pollution. Power stations shut off, vehicles not burning petrol... Mmmm...
The most convincing evidence I've seen of a free energy device was on a television
documentary. Yes, I know, television is hardly good evidence. The reason this particular
evidence was, to my eye, good, is that the man with the machine was of the "I don't know
why it works, I just built it" school of thought, and there were some eminent disbelieving
scientists of the "It can't work because that contradicts the law of conservation of energy"
belief. The scientists examined the machine, tested the voltmeters, tested the ammeters,
tested the power supply, all the while muttering about how it couldn't work, but every
component checked out fine. Their conclusion in the face of this evidence was "It doesn't work,
but it really does look like it works". Of course it doesn't work - no deep-lodged beliefs
have ever been wrong before, have they? The world is flat.
This particular device operated, allegedly, by means of AC current on a particular
frequency. It generated no power except on frequencies very close to the one in question.
It also required that the electrodes be made of particular materials - the physicists going
over the equipment spent quite some time checking that the electrodes weren't being consumed
by the process. Comparing this suggestion against the most recent theory of the aether I've
seen, calling it the Zero Point Field, it sounds quite feasible. Gravity, suggests the
Zero Point Field theory, is a resonance of energy in the field. Resonance, presumably, with
a frequency. Particular materials, what with having different percieved masses, would, I
imagine, gravitate at a different frequency. If one could match a current to this frequency,
it seems fair to suggest that one might be able to draw energy from the Zero Point Field.
Not quite free energy, but I doubt anyone would notice it missing.
Diverging from the topic in hand slightly, antigravity may well work on the same
principle - if gravity is caused by energy resonance, operating on a similar frequency
one could negate gravity. Diverging even further, I'm told by unreliable sources that
a spinning gyroscope weighs less than a stationary one. Not by means of air resistance
as with a helicopter, as it works in a vacuum, and it works spinning the opposite way.
On that note I'll stop wasting my energy.
[ Think back... ]