World Would Never Be The Same : Erke!! - Page 2 - Political Forum

Otter · #11 (**permalink**) 12-21-2006, 10:55 AM

Interesting...
From Calphyisics, on zero-point energy

Quote:

FORWARD THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

There is growing interest concerning the possibility of tapping zero-point energy and many claims exist of ''over unity devices'' (gadgets yielding a greater output than the required input for operation) driven by zero-point energy. In spite of the dubious nature of these claims (to date no such device has passed a rigorous, objective test), the concept of converting some amount of zero-point energy to usable energy cannot be ruled out in principle. Zero-point energy is not a thermal reservoir, and therefore does not suffer from the thermodynamic injunction against extracting energy from a lower temperature reservoir.

In 1993 Cole and Puthoff published a thermodynamic analysis, ''Extracting energy and heat from the vacuum'' (see below), in which they concluded that ''extracting energy and heat from electromagnetic zero-point radiation via the use of the Casimir force'' is in principle possible without violating the laws of thermodynamics.

A thought experiment for a device that readily demonstrates how the Casimir force could be put to use in principle was proposed by physicist Robert Forward in 1984 (see below). A ''vacuum fluctuation battery'' could be constructed consisting of stacked conducting plates. Applying the same polarity charge to all the plates would yield a repulsive force between plates, thereby opposing the Casimir force which is acting to push the plates together. Adjusting the electrostatic force so as to permit the Casimir force to dominate will result in adding energy to the electric field between the plates, thereby converting zero-point energy to electric energy.

One can imagine an even simpler microdevice in which the Casimir force pushes two plates together thereby engaging some kind of lever which does work.

There is no practical application in these examples since ideally it would take just as much energy, and in practice somewhat more energy owing to frictional and other losses, to separate the plates for a second cycle. Nevertheless, this would demonstrate the concept of conversion of zero-point energy in principle if the Casimir effect attribution to zero-point energy is correct (which is debatable).

Calphysics Institute: Introduction to Zero-Point Energy
but my money is still solidly on it being a scam, or a miscalculation.

Ygorl · #12 (**permalink**) 12-21-2006, 06:57 PM

It's crap.

I could be wrong.

God, I hope I am. The laws of physics and thermodynamics that I know tell me it's a nonsense scam.

I don't know everything though. Would be very very nice if it turned out to be true. Would be something I'd be interested to understand the science behind.

Guess I have to wait-n-see. God, I hate that

Ygorl · #13 (**permalink**) 12-21-2006, 07:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Otter

Interesting...
From Calphyisics, on zero-point energy

Calphysics Institute: Introduction to Zero-Point Energy
but my money is still solidly on it being a scam, or a miscalculation.

Very interesting reading:

Zero-point energy is the energy that remains when all other energy is removed from a system. This behaviour is demonstrated by, for example, liquid helium. As the temperature is lowered to absolute zero, helium remains a liquid, rather than freezing to a solid, owing to the irremovable zero-point energy of its atomic motions. (Increasing the pressure to 25 atmospheres will cause helium to freeze.)
................

From this line of reasoning, quantum physics predicts that all of space must be filled with electromagnetic zero-point fluctuations (also called the zero-point field) creating a universal sea of zero-point energy. The density of this energy depends critically on where in frequency the zero-point fluctuations cease. Since space itself is thought to break up into a kind of quantum foam at a tiny distance scale called the Planck scale (10-33 cm), it is argued that the zero point fluctuations must cease at a corresponding Planck frequency (1043 Hz). If that is the case, the zero-point energy density would be 110 orders of magnitude greater than the radiant energy at the center of the Sun.

As to whether zero-point energy may become a source of usable energy, this is considered extremely unlikely by most physicists, and none of the claimed devices are taken seriously by the mainstream science community. An experiment to test a prediction of SED theory that would have some bearing on the ontology of zero-point energy is in a preliminary phase at the University of Colorado (as of June 2006).

Calphysics Institute: Introduction to Zero-Point Energy

Lots more there, DARK ENERGY and STOCHASTIC ELECTRODYNAMICS THEORY are interesting. I'm checking that out.

I'm very skeptical that we can harness enough of these kinds of "energies" or forces to do something like say run a car. Would be very much less effective than say trying to do so with even SOLAR panels.