Endless Overunity Claims
I was recently asked about this video in which Doug Konzen claims to have invented an overunity machine. I guess such claims will never go away – there seems to be a subculture of overunity fans that are blissfully disconnected from reality.
For a quick background – an overunity machine is one that produces more energy than it consumes, or has greater than 100% efficiency. Such a machine would be a perpetual motion machine and produce limitless free energy. Unfortunately, the laws of thermodynamics mean that such claims are simply impossible. The first law of thermodynamics states that you can never get more energy out of a process than you put into it, and the second law states that you cannot even get the same amount of energy out – there will always be some loss of the amount of energy capable of doing work.
You can also think of this in terms of the conservation of mass/energy – energy cannot simply come from nowhere. There has to be a source of the energy.
These laws are so well established that…well, they are laws. They are not mere theories or guesses, they are as well-established as anything in science. Sure – scientific knowledge is always finite. But the claim that the laws of thermodynamics have been broken would be the most extraordinary of claims, requiring rock-solid evidence in order to be taken seriously.
What we typically get, however, are demonstrations of small motors running off of an external power supply, but with claims that, when the inputs and outputs are all added up, the energy output is greater than the energy input. Sometimes the claimants just get the math wrong. But most often they just fail to properly consider or measure all of the energies involved. They always seem to take their inventions to some lab or university, and claim (as does Konzen) that their machine works. They typically find earnest but naive “experts” who may have physics or engineering expertise, but clearly are not up to the task of investigating overunity claims. But to date, despite countless claims, no one’s free energy machine has stood up to proper investigation.
There are also some scams thrown into the mix as well – not just the honest but self-deluded. The promise of free energy seems to be a good way to lure in those with more cash than scientific knowledge.
What continues to surprise me are those, like Konzen, who think they have hit upon the secret of free limitless energy just by rigging up some combination of batteries and motors. He uses one battery to run his motor, which he then uses to charge another battery. This works – but of course at the end of this process you have less energy in the second battery than the first. The motor makes noise and sparks. The light and sound it gives off is therefore carrying energy away from the system. I’m sure it’s also heating up a little bit, and waste heat is another source of lost energy. That is why there needs to be less energy in the second battery – and strangely Konzen seems to acknowledge this, while not grasping the implications. He makes no attempt to explain where the extra energy would be coming from, and seems not to recognize that there would need to be a source of extra energy.
I suspect that Konzen, like many others, is simply surprised that such a motor can run for so long on just a battery, especially when you recapture some of the energy in some way, such as by charging up another battery. They then assume they are onto something special, and further assume that they could scale up their motor and add an arbitrary load and it would still work. When this doesn’t work, they then assume the failure is due to some technical engineering problem, rather than the fundamental laws of physics. So they endlessly tinker with their rig, claiming that it will work as soon as they work out the bugs. But of course it never does – but we have the endless cycle of overunity claims.
There is always a certain amount of arrogance with such claims as well. An ounce of humility would lead one to assume that they were making a mistake, rather than that the invention that would transform our civilization and has eluded the scientific community for so long would be so simple and obvious. Perpetual motion machines are the ultimate crank magnets. And now we get to see it all on YouTube. It’s a window into this subculture – just read the comments to the Konzen video and others like it.
” we have the endless cycle of overunity claims.”
Heeheehee! There’s your perpetual motion machine right there.
Video is not accepting new comments. I guess some people don’t like criticism.
Just a bit of a nitpick:
You’ve said this on the SGU podcast before, so maybe it was just a slip, but there are several uses of the word theory. In a scientific context an established theory is probably more powerful than a law. The most often cited example is the law of gravity vs the theory of general relativity. A law is a description of a phenomena whereas a theory is explaining the phenomena. I would consider general relativity to be more powerful than the law of gravity.
Similarly, Emily Noether did to conservation laws (e.g. thermodynamics) what Einstein did for relativity. The conservation of different quantities is a result of the symmetries in the laws of physics. Conservation of energy is the result of time invariance in the laws of physics. You are correct that these people need to keep track of their energy out of diligence, but they would also have to demonstrate that the laws of physics are actually changing over time. That is why I would consider Noether’s first theorem to be much stronger than the conservation laws.
Jacob – Of course, I did not mean “theory” to be derogatory, the way Creationists do. But theories vary in terms of the degree to which they have been established. Some are solid, but others are speculative, and most are somewhere in between.
Whereas a law of physics is by definition rock solid.
That’s Emmy, not Emily!
I watched the video. What a waste of time. Nothing new, nothing even remotely interesting. Just the standard, motor runs generator runs motor set up. If he wanted to impress me, forget the “I switched the batteries” crap, run the motor off the output, no power source used. Then you might get my attention.
I propose that the endless cycle of overunity claims be officially dubbed “perpetual commotion”
My understanding of astrophysics is flimsy, but wouldn’t it be safe to say that the expanding universe also prevents perpetual motion? Since no particle can travel faster than light, yet the universe expands at a greater rate, it stands to reason that to keep enough energy feeding a loop system would require an external source. I guess this falls under the umbrella of entropy, but perhaps it is easier to explain to the layperson who isn’t a science buff.
to quote homer “Lisa Get in here. In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!”.
he has no excuse to not have seen that episode it’s from 96, however if the second battery somehow lost it’s charge??? more work needed ;)
“All hail the eternal flame!”
“It’s getting low. Where’s the eternal flame lighter fluid?”
I think I was 4 paragraphs in before I realized the word was ‘overunity’ and not ‘overTunity.’ I thought Dr. Novella had invented a new marketing word.
Oh, this guy is just such an easy target, it’s not even worth discussing.
This recent article on wired is more interesting:
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/02/ff_fasterthanwind
It looks like an over-unity claim at first, but when you look into it, it seems like it may be getting somewhere without breaking any laws, it just gets there in counter-intuitive ways and uses available energy where one doesn’t usually sees it available (as any decent half-thought over-unity claim would try to imply, sure).
But although it didn’t explicitly say this, it seems as if it is in practice claiming it could keep sailing on a completely wind free zone if given an initial push. But I think I’m reading too much into it.
Thoughts?
BTW, about that stupid fucking plane getting off the ground on the treadmill: am I being a stone headed stubborn like the people that don’t see that switching doors is the correct coarse of action? The standard explanation for take-off is just bollocks! I can’t budge!
Are you serious about the plane on a treadmill? The reason for the confusion is that when they say the treadmill speed matches that of the wheels, the term “speed” can refer to either translation or rotation. If treadmill speed matches the rotational speed of the wheel, then by definition the wheel stays in place, but if it matches the translational speed, then the wheel moves across the treadmill by spinning faster.
Yes, I’m serious. Does it even make sense to talk about comparing rotational speed (either rpm or rads/s) with the speed (m/s) of the treadmill? Doesn’t look like it to me.
Which means the translational speed of the wheels (and the plane) would be the same as the treadmill; which means the plane is at rest to a standing onlooker (and to the air over the wings); which means it’s doesn’t freaking take-off!
Or do you mean to tell me that somehow the plane is NOT at rest relative to the onlooker, which makes the whole discussing freaking pointless? Thanks for the discussion.
It’s all semantics. Let’s say plane speed is measured by GPS, and wheel speed is measured by a speedometer as R*w, where R is wheel radius, and w is angular velocity.
Picture the plane on a running treadmill. The plane’s wheels spin freely, while the plane stands still relative to the onlooker. In that case, the treadmill speed matches the wheel speed but not the plane speed, which is zero.
When the plane starts to accelerate for take-off, both the plane speed and wheel speed will increase, and when the plane speed matches the treadmill speed, the wheel speed is twice higher.
The reason for the confusion is that the original problem asks what happens when the treadmill speed matches “wheel speed”, and it’s not clear whether they really mean wheel speed as defined above or plane speed.
Ok, I got the idea. Kinda turns the whole deal into a non-problem anyway. Truly anti-climatic. Very unlikelly the Monty Hall problem.
Thanks for the clarifications.
With the plane on a treadmill problem it depends largely on the construction of the specific plane. For example, with some prop aircraft the props may generate sufficient airflow over the wings to create the lift necessary for take-off. This has the best chance of working with small aircraft, so I would suggest actually holding the aircraft back with a quick-release hook rather than doing a very bad treadmill experiment as in Mythbusters. For all jet-propelled aircraft (and no, turboprop is not in the jet-propelled category) the thrust of the motors propels the aircraft forward until there is sufficient airflow – jet aircraft cannot take off from a treadmill unless they have an extremely high impulse (such as provided by JATO attachment or steam catapult).
A quick release hock misses the point – a tredmill won’t prevent the plane from moving foward. The speed of the plane is independant of the speed of the wheels. Think of it as pushing a toy car along a treadmill with your hand; the wheels spin faster, but the car moves foward anyway. Your hand is the propeller; it can move the plane foward independant of the speed of the wheels or treadmill.
The only thing of relevance to an aircraft taking off is whether or not there is sufficient airflow on the wings to generate the required lift. A hook is a simple means to ensure that the aircraft does not create airflow by moving forward; the treadmill idea is flawed because it is difficult to ensure no forward movement of the aircraft – the rate at which the wheels spin is immaterial. With a treadmill there will also be a small amount of airflow due to friction between the air and the treadmill, but that would probably not be significant.
Petrucio:
I’m probably a little late to the game here, but I have an answer for you regarding this:
Yes, you are reading too much into the demonstrations of the DWFTTW machine. The engineers should not (and do not, as far as I know) claim that their vehicle will operate on a windless day. It probably does seem counterintuitive to a non-engineer, but the wind is the soul source of energy driving this machine, even when the machine reaches and sustains its forward speed faster than the wind speed. Believe it or not, even though the car is “beating” the wind in the downwind direction, the wind is still driving the car! No wind — no speed, period.
Also, as others have stated here, the “airplane taking off from a treadmill” scenario does work, and of course it does not violate any laws of physics while doing so. I think you have already come around to an understanding (or at least an acceptance) of that fact now.
Hope my comments have helped!
“But although it didn’t explicitly say this, it seems as if it is in practice claiming it could keep sailing on a completely wind free zone if given an initial push. But I think I’m reading too much into it.”
No, what drives the car is the difference in the velocity of the air and the ground. This is also what drives windmills, the are anchored to the ground, forcing the wind to move past them. Here, the setup is different, but the end result is the same.
I fail to see why putting a plane on a treadmill would in any way prevent it from taking off. After all, it’s not like the wheels are driven, they are free rotating. The propeller would accelerate the plane foward for takeoff, while the treadmill just means the wheels spin twice as fast. The plane would take longer to take off, due to the extra friction of the increased speed of the wheels, but it would certainly take off. The plane would just accelate down the treadmll to takeoff speed, relative to a fixed point.
Just wanted to add, if the plane remains stationary relative to a fixed point, it won’t take off, but the treadmill wouldn’t keep the plane stationary. Same goes for jets; the plane simply doesn’t remain stationary relative to a fixed point.
Braselc5048, you hit the nail on its head. Any airplane will have a slightly harder time taking off against the movement of a treadmill, because the engine has to overcome all of the normal forces of wind resistance and tire-to-ground friction, plus some additional friction in the bearings of the faster-spinning wheel hubs. But for any practical treadmill speed, that additional amount of friction in the wheel hubs is no match for the thrust of the plane’s engine(s) — take-off is achieved with nearly normal take-off engine power.