Thesta Distatica

A real-world perpetual motion machine

Critics sometimes challenge supporters of perpetual motion to come up with a single working stand-alone machine. One excellent example — the best known to me — is the Thesta Distatica, also known as the "Testatika." Major features of this machine are the contra-rotating rotors with metallic segments, similar to the traditional Wimshurst machine, indicating that it works at least partly on electrostatic principles.

Fig 1.  Three kilowatt Thesta Distatica

Thesta Distatica: History

The first Thesta Distatica was built in 1978 by members of the Methernitha community, a small Christian community living in the Emmenthal valley of the Swiss Alps. This small device had a single rotating wheel about four inches diameter and could produce a few hundred watts of continuous electrical power.

Larger machines were built in subsequent years; the largest having two contra-rotating wheels about eighteen inches diameter, producing 3000 watts.

Between 1982 and 1985 Methernitha were quite happy to show their machines to the outside world. The reaction was predictable — orthodox scientists shunned them, but a few maverick scientists and engineers did take a close look, concluding that the Thesta Distatica was a genuine stand-alone free energy machine.

This eventually provoked a certain amount of official interest, for example from the Soviet Academy of Science, the French Ministry of Defense, and NASA.  NASA offered Methernitha a very large, but undisclosed sum of money for the machine's operating principle, but this was refused. [Ref 1].  (Was NASA really interested in disclosing free energy secrets to the world? Did they really have to go cap in hand to Methernitha to find a viable free energy device? If so, that implies a very adverse assessment of their own technical competence).

Non-disclosure

Methernitha have consistently refused to disclose the operating principle of their machines, claiming that in the present world it would be put to evil use, and in 1986 they began generally to discourage outside inspections. However, in 1989 they did give permission for a high-profile visit from the famous Russian physicist Andrei Sakharov, who unfortunately died just before the visit could take place. Also, in the early 1990s the principal inventor Paul Baumann publicised the so-called Linden Experiment, which he claimed was an important part of the technology. This involves setting up inductive-capacitive resonant oscillations in the 80 to 140 MHz range in a coil wound over a horseshoe-shaped core. A stack consisting of multiple layers of copper, plexiglass, and aluminium is inserted between the legs of the core. Components meeting this description can be seen in the center foreground in Figure 1. Witnesses claim that a voltage of about 700 volts is measured across the stack; something which orthodox science does not predict.

Methernitha have now significantly reduced their contact with the outside world. Their entire website at http://www.methernitha.com has been pared down to almost nothing, essentially saying only "In our community in Linden, for organizational reasons we can only receive those persons who have contacted us and for whom visitation arrangements have been made. Thank you for your understanding!" Moreover, they have used robots.txt to prevent archiving sites like archive.org from crawling or displaying earlier versions of their website.

Videos

The original Methernitha video of the Thesta Distatica has been posted in 15 parts on YouTube starting at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od79uhhVRIs. The last several parts show a discussion (in German) with their chief engineer Luzi Cathomen in his workshop. Near the end of part 9 they explain why they won't release the technology into the world as it currently is.

Third Reich research?

There are still "a considerable number of mysteries" about the research that produced the Thesta Distatica. [Ref 2]. At least one writer, who has extensively investigated German research efforts during the Third Reich, has suggested that it is a direct result of secret research during that era. [Ref 3]. Even from a cosmetic point of view, some of its components, such as the horseshoe-shaped magnetic cores or the thermionic rectifying diode, look more like 1930s or 1940s technology, rather than technology of the late 1970s.

On a deeper level, supporters of National Socialism have claimed that it was evident from Methernitha's video and website that their general approach to obtaining information from Nature, including their great respect for its wisdom, was identical to the National Socialist viewpoint. [Ref 4]. Furthermore, Methernitha have said that the Thesta Distatica's operating principle "contains the secret of the secrets," which at least hints at the fundamentally different "other" science and technology sometimes encountered in Third Reich lore. (I shall not give any references or further discussion of this highly esoteric topic, which is beyond the scope of this present blog).

Fig 2. Methernitha Chief Engineer Luzi Cathomen with 30 kilowatt Thesta Distatica under construction

Eyewitnesses:— "it is genuine"

As far as is known, no outsiders have gained sufficient understanding of the Thesta Distatica to be able to replicate it. And there are reports that Methernitha themselves had difficulty getting their largest machine, the 30,000 watt "Elephant" to work properly. (Figure 2). But there is no doubt in the minds of dozens of competent technically-qualified observers that the smaller machines, including the 3000 watt one, operate as genuine stand-alone Free Energy generators. For example, several machines were demonstrated in July 1999 to a group of about thirty technicians, engineers and scientists. Members of the group were allowed to pick up and closely examine the smaller machines while still in operation.

References

1. Keith Tutt, The Search For Free Energy, Simon & Schuster, 2001, p100. Tutt devotes Chapter 5 and Appendix 5 of his book to the Thesta Distatica.
2. Tutt, ibid, p93.
3. Henry Stevens, Hitler’s Flying Saucers, Adventures Unlimited Press, 2003, p171. Henry Stevens heads the German Research Project, which researches and disseminates technological information from the Third Reich. He is one of the growing number of writers courageous enough to give due credit to the remarkable achievements of National Socialist scientists and engineers. He alludes to the hypocrisy of the victorious Allies in plundering their technology (and even the scientists and engineers themselves) while simultaneously manifesting an hysterical hatred of anything and everything to do with National Socialism. His comment on this (p266) is: "If they were to admit one good 'Nazi' idea, the question might arise as to if there is another good idea ... "
4. Methernitha's website, formerly at http://www.methernitha.com/mether_2/Free_energie/free_energie.html used to say, inter alia "Any technology Man invents should serve him in short as well as in long terms, and this condition is not fulfilled as soon as it opposes nature in any way."

Analysis of the Cockcroft-Walton Circuit

Last time I noted that I had been unable to find a complete energy-based analysis of a Cockcroft-Walton voltage multiplier (or any other diode-capacitor charge pump for that matter) either on-line or elsewhere. So, when no-one else will do it, as is almost always the case nowadays, I have to do it myself.

Of the various kinds of computer analysis that I do, I have least experience with electric circuit analysis; but let's attempt the problem, anyway. Although purists might wish for more rigour, I think I've done enough, as set out below, to rule out the Cockcroft-Walton charge pump as a provider of excess energy. (And since it is ruled out, my analysis won't always go into every tedious last detail).

LTSpice

For electric circuit analysis I use LTSpice, the best freeware version I've found of the Spice software originally developed at the Electronics Research Laboratory of the University of California, Berkeley. LTSpice can be downloaded from http://www.linear.com/designtools/software/.

First attempt

For my first attempt, I decided to analyse a circuit that I had already built and tested nearly 20 years ago as a physical device. It was shown on the left in the image at the bottom of my post of 16 May 2015. It is a nine-stage Cockcroft-Walton (half-wave) voltage multiplier. It has a total of eighteen 0.47 μF metalized polyester film capacitors, and eighteen 400V 1A silicon diodes. Its label reads "HIGH VOLTAGE DC VOLTAGE MULTIPLIER. Input 238V AC, 50Hz. Output 5kV DC at R_L = 100MΩ. Polarities: HV Negative. LV Positive."

Fig 3. Circuit diagram, and output voltage vs time

Results

When modelled, this circuit gave the result shown in Figure 3. The steady state condition is reached in about 10 seconds. An output voltage of 4.856 to 4.950kV is obtained (4.903kV average), only slightly less than the experimental result. With an output load of R_L = 100MΩ, the steady state output current was only 49.03μA average, compared with a "spiky", 38% duty-cycle input current delivered from the energizing source, which reached a far higher peak value of 4.8mA. (Current graphs not shown above. And yes, strictly speaking the diode polarities should have been reversed in the model, but that would only change polarities, not magnitudes of the results).

Second attempt

I decided to make another model, of only three stages, but with "perfect" components this time, i.e. much larger 1 farad capacitors with zero equivalent series resistance, and diodes with zero volt drop when conducting. Besides the load resistor R2, now set at 1000Ω, another resistor R1 was added, of only 1μΩ, acting only as a current measurer in that part of the circuit. This model was energised from the same 238V (rms) AC source as before.

Fig 4. Circuit diagram, and output voltage vs time

Fig 5. Steady state input voltage (green) and current (red) vs time

Fig 6. Steady state output voltage and current vs time

Fig 7. Steady state input voltage (green), current (blue), and power (red) vs time

Results

When modelled, this circuit gave the full result shown in Figure 4, where the steady state condition is reached in about 2 seconds, with an output voltage of 2.01183kV.

Figures 5 and 6 show input and output voltages and currents for the last four cycles of steady-state operation. Output resistor R2, now 1000Ω, is "perfect" so there is zero phase shift in the traces, and (with LTSpice's auto-scaling) the I and V traces exactly superimpose. (Note that current is labelled on the right of the graph, and voltage on the left). Steady-state ripple is low so we get a sufficiently accurate result just from multiplying average current by average voltage i.e. 2.01183kV × 2.01183A = 4.0474kW of output power.

On the input side we must multiply instantaneous values of voltage and current to obtain a graph of power vs time. Analysing just the last cycle, over the brief periods of 0.000977s and 0.00102s during which current is flowing from the source, an average power of 102.624kW was obtained, by multiplying the (green) voltage and (blue) current graphs to get the red power graph shown in Figure 7. The duty cycle is (0.000977 + 0.00102)s out of 0.02s, so the average input power is 10.25kW, which is a lot higher than the output power.

No excess energy

The LTSpice simulation (including further investigation of the large current pulses returning as current I₂ in Figure 2 posted last time) shows that there is very little likelihood that the Cockcroft-Walton circuit could be developed into an "energy multiplier".

However, next time I'll look at a device apparently working on electrostatic principles that has been well-proven to deliver excess energy.

The Greinacher-Schaltung

Voltage multiplication

Last time, I mentioned that by bringing (shielded) charge to the inside of a spherical conducting dome, we would obtain "voltage multiplication," and that in the circumstances discussed, this would deliver excess electrical energy.

In existing orthodox electrical technology, there is already a circuit known as a voltage multiplier, which will be the subject of this and the next post.

The Greinacher circuit

In 1913 Swiss physicist Heinrich Greinacher (1880 — 1974) invented an "Ionometer" — basically an ionization chamber and an electrometer. The latter needed 200-300 V dc, but only a 110 V ac supply was available. So he also invented the voltage-multiplying circuit called the "Greinacher-Schaltung" (Greinacher circuit), the basis of all diode-capacitor charge pumps. In 1951 John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, having used such a diode-capacitor charge pump in their successful transmutation of atomic nuclei. This device is commonly known today as the Cockcroft-Walton voltage multiplier.

Fig 1. Cockcroft-Walton full-wave voltage multiplier (foreground) housed in the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, Cambridge University, built by Emile Haefely & Co Ltd, Basel, Switzerland in the 1960's. ref http://issuu.com/cambridgealumnirelationsoffice/docs/cam_66_lo_res/18

Energy analysis

The input from the energizing source to a Cockcroft-Walton circuit is a charging current at low voltage. Some descriptions imply that its output is essentially the same current at an arbitrarily high voltage, thus giving an arbitrarily high power gain, in theory at least. For example, Wikipedia says "One way to look at the circuit is that it functions as a charge 'pump', pumping electric charge in one direction, up the stack of capacitors." 

Fig 2. Circuit diagram of a three-stage half-wave Cockcroft-Walton voltage multiplier

However, there are obviously two paths by which current can flow back to and through the energizing source, shown as I₁ and I₂ in Figure 2. Now, the question still remains: what are the relative magnitudes of these currents? If current I₂ is not a lot higher than I₁, could the charge pump still possibly provide excess energy? Could it be an "energy multiplier" as well as a voltage multiplier?

I have tried to find a complete energy-based analysis of a Cockcroft-Walton multiplier, on-line or elsewhere. There are many analyses, mostly only dealing with charge building up from zero value, i.e. the initial transient situation, which is only of minor interest. Although some analyses discuss steady-state operation, few will discuss currents, and none that I've found will make any comparison of input and output energies or powers.

I'll look further into the energy analysis of the Cockcroft-Walton circuit next time.

A Modified Van de Graaff Generator Part II

Transport of charge from outside the dome

In view of the difficulties with charge separation discussed last time, it seems that the only possibility for bringing charge to the inside surface of the charged dome without paying a full energy penalty is to generate it externally, and then shield it as far as possible while it is being transported.

There is no problem with getting rid of unwanted charge occurring from charge separation at an external location away from the dome, where the influence of the dome's voltage gradient is already low. There, all unwanted separated charge can easily be neutralised against Earth, for very little energy penalty.

The next requirement is to shield the wanted charge during its transport. Do the charge carriers really have to remain "exposed" against the entire voltage gradient between the dome and Earth?

Cross-sectional view of modified Pelletron design, with chains carrying hemispherical hollow metal shields.
Each shield has insulating links to its neighbours (not shown), similar to the pellet chain design.
The shields enclose, but never contact the charged pellets.

The above schematic drawing shows one way of solving this problem. It is a modified Pelletron design, with synchronized additional chains of hemispherical metal shields (green) that come together to enclose the charged pellets during their movement towards and away from the dome. The shields themselves are always uncharged, and so cannot experience a force from the dome's voltage gradient. (Any induced charge on the shields can be neutralised against Earth).

With charging/discharging by induction as before, and with the transported charges no longer paying an energy penalty from being exposed to the voltage gradient between the dome and Earth, it would seem entirely possible now to gain excess energy from this modification.

To recap: we could produce charge at relatively low voltage, and then ultimately access it at a very much higher voltage. We would obtain a "voltage multiplication", so to speak, while paying hardly any energy penalty for doing so. (Recall that the energy of a charge q at a voltage V is ½qV, so any increase in the voltage of the charge gives a corresponding increase in energy).

This is obvious?

The method discussed above is only a "first attempt" at a solution, with some problems still associated with it.

However, this general idea of transporting shielded charge and hence increasing voltage and electrical energy, without paying a full energy penalty, is so obvious that it surely must have occurred to others? It occurred to me many years ago as a physics student in the late 1960s. But I've not seen it described elsewhere except to some extent in the short article "Commentary and Experiment on Electric Fields and 'Free Energy'" by Philip Stone, Infinite Energy magazine Issue 53, Jan/Feb 2004, p56. That author also remarks on why something so obvious and of such importance should be so overlooked.

Increasing the low power levels

The major remaining practical problem is the very low power levels generally associated with electrostatic machines. There are other ways of transporting shielded charge, perhaps in higher quantities, which I'll discuss later. For now, I'll leave some last words to the foremost electrostatics expert of the last century, Professor Noël Felici of the University of Grenoble:—

"Production of electric flux does not require anything like a magnetic circuit or windings, but only electrified surfaces, with negligible power dissipation. The trouble arises due to the ease of ionization of the filling fluid, causing the field in the gap to collapse, and, therefore, suspending the operation of the generator.

...only a fluid of high permittivity (which must be a liquid) would allow wider gaps with smaller energy content. We know that such liquids, with sufficient resistivity, are not available at the present time. As long as the chemists have not found the clue to reduced ionization despite permittivity, any endeavour towards the immediate generation of direct current by electrostatic principles for power transmission purposes must be postponed." [Ref 1]

"So little effort has been spent in the whole world on these [electrostatic] problems, compared to the gigantic expenses devoted to many other developments, so great is still the path of empirical observation contributed by isolated individuals in the progress achieved so far, that we must consider the development of electrostatic machines as still following the paths of pre-atomic age. The fact that machines of very poor design, as seen from a purely scientific viewpoint, can be serious competitors for equipments embodying elaborate technology, is very comforting to the prospect of the immense wealth of possible progress still ahead of us." [Ref 2]

"The limitations of the electrostatic generator are related to the breakdown strength of the fluid medium surrounding the electricity carriers, not to the static character of their charge. If good insulating fluids were available, which allowed electrostatic forces comparable with the magnetic ones, nothing could prevent electrostatic generators from developing very high power outputs." [Ref 3]

Ref 1: "Developments in Regard to Electrostatic Generators for Direct Current" Professor N. J. Felici, DIRECT CURRENT, June 1953, p122.

Ref 2: "Recent Developments and Future Trends in Electrostatic Generation" Noël J. Felici, DIRECT CURRENT, December 1959, p192.

Ref 3: "Electrostatics and electrostatic engineering" N. J. Felici, 1967 Static Electrification Conference, p127.

Secrecy — in the past, and maybe today?

So, half a century later, are we really still waiting for the chemists to find suitable insulating fluids, which would solve the problem of low power levels, thus permitting high-power generation of free electrical energy generally as discussed above? Once again, many years ago, Prof. Felici made a comment on electrostatic technology that may still be generally relevant today (in Ref 1, my emphasis):— "Two important applications remain for the conducting segment type [of electrostatic generator]: infra-red tube supplies, and engine igniters. Since the first case is restricted by secrecy regulations, nothing may be published about it at the present time..."