Interlude — and a Change in Direction

Mechanical devices — finished

Although there is more, I have now said all that I wish to say on mechanical devices, for the foreseeable future. I suppose it could be argued, correctly, that I haven't really contributed much to our existing knowledge of mechanical perpetual motion — although as I pointed out at the time, I think my ideas on the Casimir Effect Force Generator (posts of 2 to 17 September 2014) and the "Perpetual Force" Air Motor (posts of 22 November to 13 December 2014) could well be worth further investigation.

More support for the Casimir Effect Force Generator

As the years go by, I keep a look-out for support for my unorthodox technological ideas. On page 5 of its Issue 96, March/April 2011, Infinite Energy magazine published a letter from Wm. Scott Smith titled "Can We Make a Casimir-Cavity ZPE Thruster?" This letter, citing eleven peer-reviewed references from 1997 onwards, argued that an array of sufficiently small open-ended cavities would experience a net Casimir force. The only physical difference from the Casimir Effect Force Generator in my specification drawing of October 1994 was that the proposed open-ended cavities had straight rather than sloping sides. Although I found no-one who could make such a device in 1994, Smith claimed "A macroscopic array of nanoscopic cavities can be constructed quite easily with existing [2011] nanotechnology." If that's correct, I'd certainly agree that this would be an experiment well worth trying (for both straight and sloping-sided cavities).

This writer also said "Sometimes it is astonishingly difficult to reflect carefully enough on something we already know." I agree entirely with regard to Casimir force, and also, as will be seen, on some electrostatic matters, including Gauss's law.

Electrostatics

A modern electrostatic motor. Data: size 65 dia × 65 length; max rpm 10,000;
power 100W; weight 0.2kg; power-to-weight 500W/kg; efficiency 95%.
See http://www.shinsei-motor.com/English/techno

As mentioned at the outset of my very first post, I originally intended this blog to be mostly about my investigations into electromagnet/permanent magnet interactions. However, before getting into those, I'll first write up a few ideas on electrostatic devices.

In this series, I'll first discuss why electrostatics gives a wider scope than mechanics does for developing perpetual motion machines. There is at least one well-known technology which could in theory, and perhaps even in practice, be developed to give excess energy. There are also at least two other quite well-proven electrostatic perpetual motion machines that have already been built and demonstrated in the real world. These will all be discussed in due course.


A reminder about definitions

For now, I'll repeat the definition I first gave on 30 March 2014:—

       [quote begins]

Since this blog is titled "Perpetual Motion in the 21st Century", let's look at how "perpetual motion" is defined these days. In my opinion, the most authoritative English-language dictionary of all is the Oxford English Dictionary. Here is its definition:—

"Perpetual Motion: Motion that goes on for ever, spec. that of a hypothetical machine, which being once set in motion should go on for ever, or until stopped by some external force or the wearing out of the machine." 

(Reference: The Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, Clarendon Press, Oxford, Vol XI, p586).

This is the definition of Perpetual Motion to which I adhere.

There is an on-line version of the Oxford dictionary, at http://www.oxforddictionaries.com. It has this abbreviated definition:—

"the motion of a hypothetical machine which, once activated, would run forever unless subject to an external force or to wear: the age-old quest for the secret of perpetual motion"

The remarkable fact is that the Oxford dictionary is the only one that has not felt obliged to "modernise" the definition to incorporate some reference to energy, and thereby reduce it to an almost worthless banality (along the lines of "You can't get energy from nothing"). All other English-language dictionaries, and on-line sources such as Wikipedia have now done this, as far as I know.

       [quote ends]

I know I'm more or less a lone voice at present trying to preserve a valid and useful definition, but I've never been convinced that the appropriate response to the criticism that has been levelled at "perpetual motion" was to change its name (and to re-define the old name — badly). I'm reminded of the current fiasco concerning what was called "cold fusion" by Fleischmann and Pons. There are now well over a dozen different names for that topic, which generally only add confusion, rather than clarity.

However, it's true that in electrical technology there are cases where machines can deliver energy without needing any moving components. Unless the flow of electric charge carriers is being considered, "perpetual motion" is not a very appropriate term for such machines. So from now on, I'll probably use more modern terms like "excess energy" or "free energy" for these machines at least.

An electrostatic voltmeter (center) with two high-voltage power supplies:
a 2.5kV 12kHz supply for a corona-discharge ozone generator (right) and
a homemade 5kV 50Hz Cockroft-Walton voltage multiplier (left).