[ShaunG]

Hi Guys

I have done a lot of research on Perpetual Motion and Newton's laws, I have also seen videos on the net of perpetual motion machines is action. Do you guys think it is possible at all although it breaks the laws of physics?

Kind Regards

Shaun G

[ebaines]

No - there will never be a true perpetual motion machine. Perhaps machines that approach 99.999... % efficiency, but never one that is truly 100% (or more) efficient. It can be easy to be fooled by machines that have non-obvious external sources of energy, but be assured - there is always an external source of energy.

[Fr_Chuck]

I am one to never say anything is impossible, It is by our knowledge we have today, but in 1850 they would have locked you away for saying men would go to the moon, men would fly in airplanes because it was impossible.

So in 300 years who knows what may happen to our idea of science

[vaskalr]

Hi Guys

I have done a lot of research on Perpetual Motion and Newton's laws, I have also seen videos on the net of perpetual motion machines is action. Do you guys think it is possible at all although it breaks the laws of physics?

Kind Regards

Shaun G

Hi shaunG. Perpetual motion machines are possible or not this question can only be answered by string theory but unfortunately this string theory is itself in dispute.

[SC-tbfd]

I believe it is possible. Unfortunately you need everybody's favorite high school physics test quote stamped on the machine

'assume the forces of friction are negligible' ;)

[Gernald]

Anything's possible... and science is always changing and disproving theories all the time. The laws of physics are pretty concrete but, like any other part of science they can be disproven with one wrong statement, so hey why not?
It might take a few years but I suppose it could happen.

[Unknown008]

Perhaps in space where friction is 0?:rolleyes:

[magprob]

The only perpetual motion machine I ever saw was my first wife's mouth. It just kept going, and going, and going, and going. From what I understand, it's still going but I can't say for sure since I packed my stuff and split one night and moved seven states away.

[Unknown008]

... ha ha ha:p very funny!

[JimGunther]

In addition to the above, you may have heard of the concept of a "step-up" transformer or capacitor as being a possible method of creating a perputal motion machine. In this theory, an amount of electricity is used to start a mechanism that generates more electricity and feeds it into a "step up" transformer which uses a coil to increase the amount of energy, or a capacitor that stores energy and releases a larger amount than the stream it receives in intervals.

According to this theory, the original source of electricity used to start the mechanism is disconnected and the electricity generated would be enough to keep the mechanism running by itself.

I am a layman in these matters and though it sounds like a possible solution to me, I suppose someone with more knowledge of the properties electricity could make a better judgement. Anyway, no mechanism will run forever as friction causes parts to wear out.

[Unknown008]

But step up also decreases the current, that is the rate of charge in amperes I mean, to obey the law of conservation of energy.

[SC-tbfd]

And there in, lies the rub. Conservation of energy is exactly the problem. All devices will use some amount of energy for there own operation. Whether it's through friction in mechanical devices or heat in electrical devices (maybe friction at the atomic level?) this loss is what needs to be compensated for.

[Unknown008]

In space, the evironment is frictionless... However, I saw a documentary yesterday, they used spinning toys in lab in space. They connected three of the toys by a plastic ball such that their axis of rotation was perpendicular and all the toys were spinning in the same direction. The apparatus started slowly rotating on itself then continuously accelerated.

It finally ended into pieces as it was spinning at an incredible speed. The toys were projected with such a force that it could have hurt the scientist doing the experiment.

[JimGunther]

The parts of a mechanism rubbing together cause friction in any environment. Of course a one-piece mechanism, such as a top, set in motion in space, would spin forever unless acted upon by another object or force. However there are some theories that suggest that even atoms themselves will eventually deteriorate.

[Galveston1]

This is only close to the subject, BUT; Do any of you think that you can generate enough electricy with an internal combustion engine to produce enough hydrogen gas to run the engine, and have any surplus electricy left over? Consider that the fuel/air ratio for the ic engine is 14.7:1, that hydrogen has 2.8 times as much engergy, pound for pound, so the fuel/air ratio for hydrogen fuel should be 36.75:1. That's not a lot of hydrogen to generate. If you could do it, it wouldn't be perpetual motion, but it would get the same results.

[ebaines]

Galveston: I fear that the old "conservation of energy" law will get you. I assume what you want to do here is disassociate the hydrogen from oxygen in a tank of water, then burn that hydrogen to create mechanical energy, right? Well, it takes a certain amount of energy to disaccociate the hydrogen from the oxygen (using elctrolysis). The amount of energy you get back when you recombine the hydrogen with the oxygen (i.e. burn the hydrogen in your engine) is less than what it took to disassociate the atoms in the first place. If this wasn't the case, water would spontaneously break apart into its hydrogen and oxygen components, which of course you never see. So your engine can't possibly generate enough electricity to be self-sustaining.

[Galveston1]

Well, you may be perfectly correct. But consider that one HHO generator on the market produces 95 L per hr using only 300 watts (25 amps, max.) I ran a series of figures on a 17.5 hp engine which is about right for 10kw, doing an educated guess as to actual intake volume (about 80% of engine volume @ 3600 rpm) and it looks like it might be possible. By the way, I edited the earlier post as I had figured the wrong direction on the fuel/air ratio. It should have been 36.75:1, which is even better.
What I want is someone else to figure the same thing and see what they come up with.
ASSUME: 10kw generator driven by 20 hp gasoline engine @ 3600 rpm. HHO generator capable of producing 95 liters of gas per hour using 25 amps.
KNOWN: Water has 2.8 times as much energy as gasoline, pound for pound.
Internal combustion engines use a 14.7:1 fuel/air ratio.
The closest engine I found to 20 hp listed was Briggs & Stratton 17.5 hp with 30.5 cubic inch displacement. I ASSUME the engine will pull 80% of its displacement into it every other revolution. (That's and educated guess and will serve our purposes)
KNOWN: The fuel/air ratio is based on volume, the gasoline is a vapor (or close) and so is the hydrogen.
Now that you have done all the figures, do you still think it is impossible?

[ebaines]

As you can tell from my previous post I am clearly a skeptic on this HHO business. In an ideal process the amount of energy liberated by burning hydrogen is exactly the same as the amount of energy it requires to disassociate the hydrogen from the oxygen in the first place. Throw in the fact that no engine is 100% efficient, and that you want to use some of the engine power to provide mechanical power, and you can see that the engine won't have enough fuel to run. It always takes more energy to create hydrogen from water than you get back when you burn the hydrogen to get water back again.

Playing with the numbers - the fact that hydrogen has more energy per pound than gasoline is not relevant. The data you need to provide is how much power you can get by running an engine on 95L of hydrogen. It would help if you would clarify what you mean when you say there is an HHO generator that produces 95 L of HHO per hour - does that mean it produces 95 L of hydrogen gas? Would that be at atmospheric pressure? If so, then that's about 4 moles of hydrogen gas/hour, which would require about 260 watts of energy to produce, so a 300 watt generator may indeed be possible. When you burn 4 moles of H2 you get out that same 264 watt-hours if the process is 100% efficient - which no mechanical process ever is. Most internal combustion engines are around 20% efficient. Maybe a hydrogen powered engine would be a bit more efficient - say 50% (to be generous) - so the 4 moles/hour of hydrogen gas is burned to create 130 watts of power. Clearly your 300 watt generator will require an additional energy source of some other kind above and beyond the hydrogen that it produces or it won't keep running.

[Galveston1]

Okay, I'm reading your figures. Do you have any figures on the rate of hydrogen required to operate those hydrogen powered cars, and do they run straight H (I doubt that!)? The 300 watt (25 amp) HHO generator is no problem. The modern auto alternator makes about 125 amps, I think. If 300 watts produces 95 Lph, then you would have .056 cu ft hr.
To run a 30.5 cu in engine (80% gas flow efficient) you would need a total of 2.6 cfm air and fuel total @ 3600 rpm. Since gasoline will be in vapor (almost) and the fuel/air ratio is 14.7:1 wouldn't you divide 2.6 cfm by 14.7 to determine how much volume of gasoline is required? That would be .177 cu ft of gasoline vapor. Now if H2 has 2.8 times as much energy as gasoline, (both vapors) then the ratio would be 36.75:1. Back to the total volume used @ 3600 rpm, dividing 2.6 cfm by 36.75 = 0.071 cu ft of H2. Since only 66% of HHO is H2 I add 50% to the required HHO requirement = .107 cu ft.
All I need to know now is how much current is required to produce that .107 cu ft of H2. Which = .160 cu ft HHO.
95 L = 3.355 cu ft per hr/ 60 = 0.056 cfm HHO is produced by 300 watts. Using the above figures, 160 cu ft of HHO per min req, generating @ .056 cfm per 300watts, should require 857 watts of power or 71.4 amps.
That engine will pull a generator producing 10kw and I'm showing a loss of less than 900 watts. Oh, yeah, I'm thinking stationary unit, not automobile here.

I know the whole thing sounds preposterous, but can you disprove the figures?
Now maybe more H2 would be required than I figure, but if it is true about the relative energy in hydrogen and gasoline, then what? I am figuring both as vapor which should make them comparable weight wise.

[ebaines]

One issue that pops right out is that while hydrogen is more efficient on a pound-for-pound basis than gasoline, keep in mind that gasoline (in gaseous form) is approximately 29 times heavier than hydrogen gas. Here's why - gasoline is largely made up of octane, C8H18, which weighs about 66 grams/mole. Hydrogen weighs 2 grams/mole. So if burning hydrogen is 2.8 times more efficient "pound for pound," that means you need about 23 times the volume of hydrogen gas to get the same energy as gasoline. It doesn't look like you've taken that into account in your calculations. Also, burning hydrogen requires a much richer mixture than when burning gasoline - this is because one mole of gasoline needs about 12.5 moles of oxygen to burn, whereas 1 mole of hydrogen gas burns with 1/2 mole of oxygen. So your air/fuel ratio may be 14/1 or so for gasoline, but is more like 1/2 for hydrogen.