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Actually I should have titled this “How do I school the ignorant about the laws of thermodynamics?”
I was visiting an old friend who was talking about a mutual old friend who had moved into a camping trailer on fifteen acres of Nowhere, Missouri; or semi-moved. Anyway, he lit the place with his perpetual motion machine, and you will find it either humorous or infuriating. Maybe just sad.
The way it supposedly worked was that “Perpetual”, as I’ll call him, had two twenty four volt truck batteries, two solar panels, a generator from a truck, and a motor to power the generator, which fed its power to the batteries that ran the motor that ran the generator.
Yep, you read that right.
I’m pretty sure he didn’t do the math, and probably couldn’t even understand the math, since the US public school system has been dysfunctional since at least 1958, when I started first grade. You’re not too stupid to learn, your teacher was too incompetent to teach.
We didn’t have kindergarten, let alone preschool, since most moms stayed home. They could afford to back then. I’m told I could read before school, and remember knowing how to tell time earlier than that.
But they really suck at math.
What I found humorous was that it would appear to work, the batteries the panels charged running the motor that lost energy trying to get free energy. But he was wasting the free energy he got from the panels on his ignorant device!
I tried to explain it to my friend, but his math teachers sucked, too.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 03 2020, @01:59PM (1 child)
All he needs is a gofundme, a few months, and one of the megacorps will buy his idea! Doesn't matter how dumb the idea is, if he gets some backing it's VALUABLE!!
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Funny) by chromas on Monday August 03 2020, @10:37PM
I'm waiting for the Thunderf00t debunk video with two minutes of info and 45 minutes of clips from his older videos.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @02:48PM
When I was at a major engineering university, a thermodynamics course was required. As an architecture student I wasn't looking forward to this, until I found that the materials science department (metallurgy) offered a class that would meet the requirement. Turns out it was very well taught with lots of tutors and I managed to pass. 40 years later the one thing I still remember clearly was their statement of the three laws of thermodynamics:
You can't get ahead.
You can't break even.
You can't get out of the game.
Perhaps I retained less than the Prof hoped for...but this has served me well over the years when presented with schemes like the one in tfa.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Monday August 03 2020, @11:02PM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2020, @01:39AM (1 child)
If you ever get deep into the "overunity" area, they are all over that by claiming various conspiracy theories about how science or government or whomever is hiding that knowledge for various reason.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 04 2020, @01:45PM
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 03 2020, @11:38PM (15 children)
First, are you certain he didn't build it for a laugh and wasn't just trolling you?
Second, if not, just explain motors and generators are all less than 100% efficient if for no other reason than energy loss to heat in the bearings. And even 100% efficient magical superconducting motors/generators made out of unicorn bones and leprechaun gold and running in a vacuum chamber wouldn't produce anything but just enough to spin each other. He'd need 101+% efficient gear and that's even more impossible than perfectly efficient kit.
Don't try engineering or physics math on him, it'll just confuse him and take you longer to explain anyway.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2020, @02:48AM (5 children)
About 15 years ago...
Friend: There's no such thing as a perpetual motion machine
Me (a green site reader): Yes there is
Friend *confused*: There isn't
Me: There is, I read about them all the time
Friend: Perpetual motion is not possible
Me *confused*: I never said any of the machines worked
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday August 04 2020, @05:22PM (4 children)
Whether the machine works is irrelevant.
The important question is: can you get a US Patent for it?
Then can you sue someone?
Young people won't believe you if you say you used to get Netflix by US Postal Mail.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday August 05 2020, @02:17AM
*That* perpetual motion machine's function has already proven itself.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday August 06 2020, @04:02AM (2 children)
I believe the patent office requires a working perpetual motion machine to issue a patent. Seems they get a lot of applications for them.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday August 06 2020, @04:09PM (1 child)
Junk patents are granted all the time.
About twenty years ago (1999-2000 ish), I was hired as an expert witness in a patent litigation.
In 1987 I had co-authored a Macintosh screen sharing application called Timbuktu.
The litigation was against a big company that offered remote Windows screen sharing of virtual desktops. The patent was granted after Timbuktu was available for sale across state lines. The mere existence of Timbuktu invalidated most or all of the claims of the patent. The claims in the patent were contradictory. The description of the patent itself was not internally consistent. At some points it was describing true remote screen sharing where your mouse-keyboard events are sent to remote end, and screen updates from remote end are sent back to your viewer. At other times it seemed to be talking about two identical computers, running the same software, with windows at the same positions on screen, and either end could enter mouse events and key events and (hopefully) they were clicking on the same things on both ends of the connection. Since both ends ran the same, let's say, word processor, you would be clicking in and editing the same text on both ends. Definitely not screen sharing. But that was not all of the problems with the patent. They didn't have an actual working software, just a patent they could use to sue other successful companies over.
After I was able to provide an original shrink wrapped unopened copy of Timbuktu to the lawyers, to be opened by both sides with experts, the case was quickly settled. For my time, I made a nice chunk of change. I had this copy of Timbuktu stored away in my attic for sentimental reasons. I didn't mind them opening it to examine the software, manuals, disks, etc as long as they returned it, which they did. I certainly didn't mind for the amount of money I made.
Now to the point. This patent didn't need any working prototype. No source code listing. No working software. Just a lot of vague hand waving and nonsense that wasn't even internally self consistent in what it was talking about.
The case was settled. That is all I was told. But this happened very quickly after they received and examined what materials I had provided. The lawyers had asked all sorts of questions, like when and how we began developing this, why, etc. I had tons of recollection of specific details and exact dates. They were surprised that we had a marketable product, with advertisements in major publications, and it was not only offered for sale but had sold thousands of copies a month.
The other amusing thing is that Timbuktu was developed -- to support our specialized financial accounting software product, but Timbuktu got the company acquired just because of Timbuktu's much larger potential market.
Young people won't believe you if you say you used to get Netflix by US Postal Mail.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by dry on Friday August 07 2020, @01:44AM
No arguing about junk patents and other abuses, it just seems that over a century ago the patent office drew a line at perpetual motion machines. Seems it is under 35 USC 101 according to https://www.quora.com/Why-cant-perpetual-motion-machines-be-patented?share=1 [quora.com] which requires patents can only be granted for useful technological inventions and an impossible machine is not useful.
I do note that there seems to have been one patent issued for a perpetual motion machine, patent #4,151,431, which used magnets to operate. It was issued in 1979 according to https://www.herebeanswers.com/2011/03/patents-for-perpetual-motion-machine.html [herebeanswers.com]
I guess even the patent office has limits to what can be patented. Just a shame that too often there are cases like the one you went through and talking to others, it seems to be a common way for large corporation to attack small corporation. Even when in the right, litigation is expensive, and going against someone with extra deep pockets usually results in running out of money.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday August 04 2020, @05:00AM (4 children)
You don't achieve perpetual motion with engineering or physics. You do it with accounting. You put 1000 dollars in the bank, and after a year you have 1001 dollars. What could be more efficient?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 04 2020, @01:46PM (3 children)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday August 04 2020, @04:07PM (2 children)
All those dollars. "Velocity", right?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2020, @07:34PM (1 child)
When "all those dollars" are in the bank, they are not in motion.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday August 04 2020, @07:45PM
Of course they are. They move from bank to bank in big trucks.
The cool magic is that is more of them than when they started. Need a bigger truck
Dollars trade amongst currency speculators in a Wall Street "rain forest canopy, at very high velocity, above the real working economy that puts a bucket under the occasional leak. It's mostly in vaporous promissory notes though, up to about a thousand times what really exists (derivatives, wagers), all faith based
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mcgrew on Wednesday August 05 2020, @08:23PM (3 children)
No, I've known him for half a century, he really believes it works. He believes conspiracy theories, too.
I tried to explain how a generator only converts one form of energy to another (I was down there yesterday) and there's always loss, but he didn't get it. Another guy at the bar today thought it might work! I don't understand how people can be so ignorant.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday August 05 2020, @08:44PM
I don't understand how people can be so ignorant.
Go to night court, or the capitol building. You'll have a much higher opinion of your acquaintances after that
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 06 2020, @12:55AM (1 child)
Splain about friction in the bearings, that should get him to understanding ideal != possible even if it's not the whole story.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Saturday August 08 2020, @04:00PM
I was at the bar the other day telling a steelworker about it, and he thought it would actually work! Apparently, most non-nerds think generators generate electricity by magic, not realizing that a generator doesn't generate energy, it only converts one form of energy to another. I asked him if he ever saw the engineers on his job site, planning to have him ask one of them, but he went off about how the engineers were idiots.
I give up. People are ignorant and unwilling to learn.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 04 2020, @05:19PM (8 children)
<no-sarcasm>
I'll throw something out that seems to trigger people on SN.
</no-sarcasm>
Since a 64 bit float can represent all real numbers, why do we need a 128 bit float?
(so we can have more bits of inaccuracy?)
Similarly, if a 64 bit int can hold all possible integer numbers to infinity, why do we need a 128 bit int? I tried multiplying some large integers using int 64 and it worked! Even the US national debt expressed in Argentine pesos!
<no-sarcasm>
But if those don't work, I can always fall back on . . .
</no-sarcasm>
The universe is a large sphere with the stars affixed to its inside.
The earth is a large flat disk in the center of the universe.
The sun and moon move in a circular pattern around the top of the disk.
The earth is on an infinite stack of turtles.
(it's turtles all the way down)
The final turtle of that infinite stack is propelled by a rocket.
The rocket moves at 9.8 m/s^2 giving us the illusion of gravity.
The rocket is powered by a perpetual motion machine so it never stops.
Silly skeptics would ask: if the Earth is flat, how do you explain that the sun moves South in the winter?
Stupid Round Earther: the sun moves South in the winter for the same reason that birds move South for winter -- because it's warmer in the South during winter! Look at Australia where Christmas is hottest day of the year.
Young people won't believe you if you say you used to get Netflix by US Postal Mail.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday August 05 2020, @08:26PM (7 children)
Because computers can't do fractions. Reality is analog, not digital. But I see you suffer from the ignorance of others as well!
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday August 05 2020, @09:51PM (6 children)
<no-sarcasm>
Most Lisps have rational numbers, which are fractions. Most Lisps also have infinite precision integers (limited by computer memory). Also the Rational numbers in lisps use these big integers for both numerator and denominator. So you can get some really difficult to print fractions with tens of thousands of digits.
Reality may be analog, but measurements end up expressed in numbers, as far back as human history.
Floating point expresses a limited but mostly useful subset of numbers with some limits in both magnitude and precision. Some languages (Java) have BigDecimal types that have precision and magnitude limited only by computer memory.
If it were true that float 64 could express all real numbers, then we truly wouldn't need float 128. But then, if it were true that float 32 expressed everything we needed, there wouldn't be float 64. And if int 64 were big enough we wouldn't have int 128, int 256, etc. let along unlimited precision integers in Lisps and CAS (computer algebra systems).
You need to have your sarcasm detector serviced to realize that I'm poking fun at a strawman that thinks float 64 could express all possible real numbers. And there might actually be some people who believe that, so it might not be a strawman.
Again, even bringing this up definitely triggers people. :-)
</no-sarcasm>
Young people won't believe you if you say you used to get Netflix by US Postal Mail.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday August 08 2020, @04:05PM (5 children)
Watch the movie Hidden Figures. In one part, the computer couldn't come up with the same trajectory two days in a row, but a human mathematician did, simply because of rounding errors; computers are digital, her math was analog. Excellent movie about the very early NASA.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday August 10 2020, @06:03PM (4 children)
Digital computers are deterministic.
So I wonder what happened?
Young people won't believe you if you say you used to get Netflix by US Postal Mail.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 14 2020, @11:09AM (1 child)
They cast the computer in a Hollywood movie. You know, those movies where hacking is a matter of how fast one can type.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday August 14 2020, @03:54PM
This was a historically accurate movie, not Hackers. All movies are not alike.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday August 14 2020, @03:52PM (1 child)
Rounding errors. Remember, in 1960 computers were very primitive. How far can you figure out pi with an eight bit computer with only a few kb of memory and tape drive storage? It's the same thing.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Friday August 14 2020, @05:12PM
A deterministic digital computer should get the same rounding errors every time.
So what changed?
Young people won't believe you if you say you used to get Netflix by US Postal Mail.
(Score: 3, Funny) by acid andy on Thursday August 06 2020, @10:51AM
If he was right, then using the same technology, electric cars would never run out of juice. Just stick a couple of solar panels on the roof and maybe to get the system going, push them down a hill. The energy he was taking out to light his home would be used to propel the vehicle. Someone should tell him he can take the generator out of his loop as well because when an electric motor is spun is can work as a dynamo to recharge the batteries.
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.