Perpetual Motion Demo Goes Kaput
Posted by Susan Hall on July 9, 2007 at 10:52 am
The head of an Irish company that claims it has created a perpetual motion machine “took it on the chin” at a press conference after the thing didn’t work, writes Wired. Now, thanks to the Web, people worldwide think he’s daft.
The company, Steorn, planned a 10-day demonstration starting last week at the London Kinetica Museum of the machine, which it claims can create energy from a series of magnets and a rotor, notes BBC News.
Steorn has invested more than $5.7 million in the device, known as Orbo, and spent $160,000 on a full-page ad in The Economist a year ago, inviting scientists to prove the company wrong, according to British newspaper The Guardian.
But about four hours into the demo, the thing went kaput. Hot lights on the demonstration were blamed, then that the bearings went out. All of them. At the same time.
Now the demonstration has been put off until some unspecified later date, notes The Toronto Star.
http://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs/hdw/?p=484
Comment by TheFear — July 11, 2007 at 12:56 pm
No matter how great the engineering is the device will always eventually find zero point and stop. So many people in history have tried creating permanent magnet motors and all of them have turned out the same. When permanent magnets are in the same flux field for any length of time the flux fields weaken. Every magnet has a “maximum energy product” rated in Mega Gauss Oersteds, MGOe. This is the amount of work a magnet can do before its level of magnetism has deteriorated to the point that its energy doesn’t reach out far enough to affect anything surrounding it. Contrary to the popular notion that rare earth magnets are invincible, even the most expensive sintered NdFeB magnets max out at less than 50 MGOe. If they are used in a device that puts them constantly in opposition, they will run down, and this is the whole assumption behind so-called “magnetic motors”. the other issue is this really isn’t free energy machine even if it did work because the permanent magnets had to get there flux fields from somewhere if the magnets where charged with current from another source or even if kinetically they where charged by rubbing two piece of metal together there was still a transfer of energy. The amount of energy used in manufacturing a magnet is typically 10 times what the magnet is capable of producing. More expensive magnets are even less efficient. Add to this the losses in energy incurred by these 33%-66% concept magnet devices themselves, and the energy consumed in the overall manufacturing process is 20-25 times the energy you will get out. The other thing to think about is that a permanent magnet will not always be a magnet it will eventually loose its flux over time. Now maybe that time might be 100 years and that’s all good but eventually it will die and if you put a magnet into another magnets flux field its life is shortened dramatically. Well anyways we all dream of free energy and I also hope we find it some day but I doubt it’s going to be orbo.
From the above site.
Originally posted by AThousandYoungSo the gist of it is in the last year they have faded into the woodwork with the rest of the perpet motion scam artists?
Comment by TheFear — July 11, 2007 at 12:56 pm
No matter how great the engineering is the device will always eventually find zero point and stop. So many people in history have tried creating permanent magnet motors and all of them have turned out the same. When permanent magnets are in the same flux field for any length of time the flux fields w ...[text shortened]... d I also hope we find it some day but I doubt it’s going to be orbo.
From the above site.
Originally posted by AThousandYoungBeing a fairly dumb engineer I was wondering about this magnet thing.
Comment by TheFear — July 11, 2007 at 12:56 pm
No matter how great the engineering is the device will always eventually find zero point and stop. So many people in history have tried creating permanent magnet motors and all of them have turned out the same. When permanent magnets are in the same flux field for any length of time the flux fields w ...[text shortened]... d I also hope we find it some day but I doubt it’s going to be orbo.
From the above site.
I remember from college that a magnet has only so much "fuel". So when I read about this idea I was wondering how the field maintained its strength. I am glad someone knows/researched the exact issue.
The question of a PMM comes down to the simple question of creation of energy. A simple enthalpy balance would dictate that energy in equals energy out. So there has to be the creation of energy from no known fuel source that we know of today. And that then leads to the next question of: is this energy resource renewable? and unending? It is the old energy in equals energy out problem that is what I always refer to when I hear/read of these things.
Originally posted by agrysonPerpetual motion was invented in 2002 when Shavixmir shagged Natasha.
See this story, VERY interesting, and also a source of either pride or shame for any other Irish people out there depending ont he validation results...
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2007/0704/breaking46.htm
The principle of the conservation of energy within any action or system would imply at least one of several things..
The system is fueled from an outside energy source.
If it is fueled from an outside source, then it isn't independent, a key factor of perpetual motion.
The system devotes its full energy into maintaining its "motion".
This would be perpetual motion if it existed, but since it does not produce any extra energy, it is of no pragmatic value, since any energy diverted for other uses would result in a drain of the system's energy.
The system will deplete itself at some future point of time.
Infinite self-perpetuation is the other key to perpetual motion.
Do note that any combination of these things may be true, but according to my best knowledge, AT LEAST ONE of the three will be.
Also working contrary to perpetual motion is the notion of increasing entropy, in which systems tend towards increased entropy as a whole. As a result, any action or energy transfer tends to operate at less than 100% efficiency, which means that even for systems designed to focus their full energy towards keeping itself running, they will tend to lose energy over time.