Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

Talk:Perpetual motion machine

2012-04-13T22:10:34Z

JanSmuts: /* The Uncertainty principle doesn't invalidate Perpetual motion... */

==Perpetual motion machine==

I'm sorry, but I think you're just wrong about the meaning of the phrase "perpetual motion" as used in discussions of thermodynamics, statements about the impossibility of perpetual motion, etc.

:    The perpetual motion, then, which has been the subject of such anxious and laborious search, is not a mere motion which is continued indefinitely. If it were, the diurnal and annual motion of the earth, and the corresponding motions of the other planets and satellites in the solar system, as well as the rotation of the sun upon its axis, would be all perpetual motions....

:    In short, a perpetual motion would be a watch or clock which would go for so long as its mechanism would endure without being wound up: it would be a mill which could grind corn or work machinery without the action upon it of water, wind, steam, animal power, or any other moving force external to it.

::—Dionysis Lardner, 1857, Natural Philosophy for Schools, p. 70

:    Perpetual motion is of course possible, as is stated in the first law of motion, "Motion continues in a straight line undiminished in velocity unless acted on by some external force." A top set spinning under conditions where there is no friction will never cease to spin. These conditions are very nearly realized in the motions of the planets and stars. The statement that energy cannot be destroyed asserts this possibility.

:    But by "perpetual motion" is generally meant a machine which will do work and keep going though energy equivalent to the work done is not supplied to it. Many attempts have been made to construct such a machine. They have all failed. The statement that energy cannot be created denies the possibility of such a machine.

—S. Lawrence Bigelow (1912), "Theoretical and Physical Chemistry," Theoretical and Physical Chemistry By S Lawrence Bigelow p. 26

Dpbsmith 18:20, 1 January 2007 (EST)

Retrieved from "http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:Aschlafly"

Dpsmith, I moved this discussion to the talk page for perpetual motion, so others can benefit and contribute as desired to this.

Your quotes are helpful, and I agree that there are different definitions for a perpetual motion machine. But everyone agrees that a machine that does work without energy is impossible. So the above definitions do not lead to productive discussion. Besides, the earth is not really a perpetual motion machine. Our orbit would eventually become unstable, and presumably we would slow down eventually.

What is a fascinating question is whether motion can continue indefinitely in a closed system. One quote above implies it can, but I doubt most would agree. I wouldn't. --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 18:59, 1 January 2007 (EST)

He's right Mr. Schlafly; the impossibility of perpetual motion is proven by the 1st law of thermodynamics, not the second.

Ben

OK, Ben, but define perpetual motion machine in a trivial away and it only results in a trivial answer.

How about this, let's define "perpetual motion machine II" that simply means a machine capable of perpetual motion (without a perpetual energy supply).

Now that's an interesting question that is difficult to answer fully! --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 19:05, 1 January 2007 (EST)

Theoretically it is possible (the first law of motion), but practically it is impossible just because you wouldn't be able to eliminate all outside forces.

I also have a comment on your proof using the 2nd law of thermodynamics:

''"The only argument that a perpetual motion machine is impossible is based on an interpretation of the [[Second Law of Thermodynamics]]. If entropy is always increasing, even in closed (and isolated) systems, then indefinite motion is impossible because an increase in the disorder of the system will inevitably disrupt the motion"''

Firstly, as Dpbsmith has demonstrated, this is not the only argument against perpetual motion.

Secondly, though it is ''almost'' inevitable that increaced disorder will disrupt motion, it still isn't logically proven; it is always possible that it might go on just a little bit longer.

[[User:BenjaminS|Ben]]

So, Ben, you seem to be saying that a "perpetual motion machine II" (as defined above) may be possible to build.

Really think so? If you doubt it, then maybe you can discovery a way to prove it is impossible. I don't think anyone has proven that yet, and no one else seems to be trying at this time either. But it would be worth proving.
--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:53, 1 January 2007 (EST)

[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]]: you said "But everyone agrees that a machine that does work without energy is impossible." Well, no. Historically the whole debate arose because for centuries people have believed that they ''have'' found a way to build a machine that does work without energy, something for nothing. There are still people who believe it. They tend to use the terms "free energy" and "overunity" to avoid the onus of the term "perpetual motion." An example of a modern machine claimed by its inventor to generate more power than it consumes is the Adams Motor[http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/1287/adams/adamsall.htm], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adams_motor]. A classic fraud was the Keely motor.

My point is that the phrase "perpetuum mobile" goes back to the days before thermodynamics and refers to innumerable attempts to produce simple mechanical arrangements, typically involving shifting or pivoting weights, that on paper look as if they might really do work without an external input.

You seem to be interested in a different philosophical question, one which I don't know much about or whether there is any established name for it. I'm arguing strongly that you should either find out what that name might be, or invent something that doesn't use the phrase "perpetual motion" at all.

Here is my ''guess'' at what an answer to ''your'' question might be. If you use the best modern techniques, e.g. suspending a spinning object in vacuum via superconductive magnetism, you can get something that will move without additional energy input for a really long time. You can measure the rate at which it slows down very carefully or predict it theoretically.

My guess is that it may well be possible today to build a system in which the rate of energy loss is so slow that it can be predicted continue to run for hundreds of thousands of years if the apparatus remains intact; thus the limiting factor in how long it runs is not the apparatus itself, but unrelated external catastrophes (an asteroid hits it, the building it is in collapses in an earthquake, funding runs out and someone pitches the apparatus in the trash, breaking it, etc. etc.)

Probably the place to look for one of these things in real life would be the gyroscopes used in inertial guidance systems.

If the word "forever" is taken ''literally,'' then I don't know how you answer the question, because beliefs about the future lifetime of the universe change every generation or so. If the word "forever" means something like a mathematical limit—then I think the answer is: according to current understanding, it is possible to build a machine that will run ''indefinitely'' long, or as long as you like, receiving no external energy and performing no external work, where the actual limit on the running time is set not by the construction of the machine itself, but by the probability of external catastrophe.

I think. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 08:44, 2 January 2007 (EST)

OK, Dpsmith, you win on your point about what a perpetual motion machine ''really'' means. But I'm still interested in why perpetual motion (without producing extra energy) is impossible. The increase in entropy must prevent it. Underlying that may be the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics.

More thought and research would be worthwhile here. I think we're all convinced that the motion would eventually stop. But why? What force stops it? --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 22:36, 2 January 2007 (EST)

:It's beyond my own knowledge. I suspect such questions are like the irresistable force and the immovable object, though. Provisionally, let's call your gadget an "endless coaster."

:Point #1: At least according to Newtonian physics as I understand it, if you truly had a closed system, it would not stop. But if you truly had a closed system, there would be no way to ''see'' that it was still moving.

:In order to observe it, there would have to be some energy exchange between the "perpetual motion" and the observer. I have an idea that since the observer is gaining information, the observed must be gaining entropy, but that's just handwaving and I don't know how to prove it.

:What I don't know whether there are any theoretical reasons that would make it ''impossible'' to have a truly closed system.

:Here's another angle. If we're considering, say, a ball bearing magnetically suspended in a vacuum by a superconducing magnet or something like that, if if there is a ''small'' amount of friction the result, according to classical physics, would be to make the ball bearing spin slower ''on an exponential decay curve.'' It would have a half-life, like radioactive decay. Perhaps it loses half of its spin every day. Well, according to classical physics, it would spin slower and slower but ''would never actually stop.'' Asymptotically approaches zero, never eaches it. Most likely (out of my depth again) ''quantum'' physics would say that at some point the spin becomes quantized, meaning that after some period of time it can't slow down any more. The spin must be either one quantum or none... and then you get all that crazy wave-function collapse stuff. You have a superimposed state in which the spin is one with some probability and zero with some probability, and the probability decreases over time.

:But really, once you start talking about whether something can literally go on forever, you're outside the bounds of science. I can't keep track of the number of times the "scientific" narrative of cosmology has changed during my own lifetime, and it shows no signs of settling down. Is the universe closed? Open? Continuously expanding? Oscillating? Obviously, ''if'' physics predicts a ''finite'' lifetime for the universe, then a "perpetual" motion, meaning one that would last longer than the universe, is impossible. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 10:03, 3 January 2007 (EST)

:: That's an interesting point of linking observation to entropy. But I do think even a purely closed system would stop without observation. Don't you? Perhaps Newton would not be pleased, but the Second Law of Thermodynamics suggests that motion does eventually stop. --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 00:57, 5 January 2007 (EST)

::: No, I don't think it does. The question here is whether anything says ''how fast'' entropy increases... and what counts as "motion."

::: I think that the Second Law applies to large systems with many interacting particles or bodies and is some kind of statement about their statistical behavior and how easily that motion can be observed.

::: Imagine, say, an ideal, large, sealed box whose walls perfectly hard (do not flex or absorb energy), and imagine that it contains one ideal moving billiard ball. By an "ideal billiard ball" I mean, again, one that is perfectly hard and perfectly elastic. If you have a single billiard ball in the box and it is moving, I think it keeps bouncing off the walls and moves forever. After all, energy is conserved.

::: Now, suppose, instead, that you have twenty-one ideal billiard balls, twenty of them at the vertices of an icosahedron and one in the center, all connected to each other by ideal springs. The entire structure, which I'll call a "blob," resembles a '''non'''-ideal ball. Put one of these into the ideal box and set it in motion with a gentle and identical force on each of those billiard balls, so that they are not moving with respect to each other and the whole blob moves together.

::: Initially, the blob moves as a whole, and you can calculate the kinetic energy just by observing the blob; 1/2 mv2 where m is the total mass of the blob and v is the velocity of the blob as a whole.

::: But when it strikes the walls, the billiard balls are going to hit it at more or less random times. The result is that the balls in the blob are going to start to acquire motion ''relative to each other,'' and soon there is going to be lots of relative motion ''within'' the blob.

::: This relative motion represents kinetic energy that belongs to individual billard balls within the blob, not to the blob as a whole, so because of conservation of energy, the energy we can ascribe to the blob as a whole is going to decrease, and so is the average velocity of the blob.

::: I '''think''' that what the Second Law is saying is that the way in which the blob hits the wall is essentially random, and that with each impact, statistically, more and more energy is going to end up in the form of billard balls oscillating with respect to each other within the blob, and less and less in the form of organized motion of the entire blob as a whole.

::: So that whereas the motion of the single billard ball "never stops," after a while the motion '''of the blob''' has stopped, and instead you just have a stationary blob with the billard balls within it oscillating on their springs.

::: In other words, the behavior of the system has ''degraded'' from observable motion of the blob as a whole to less-observable relative motion of the billiard balls within the blob. The system is in a less organized or "heat-like" state.

::: However, because in this case we're talking about fairly large particles and a fairly small number of them, it is clear that the system is still "in motion," just on a smaller scale, and since we posited that the box, the springs, and the billiard balls are all ideal (and don't absorb energy), by conservation of energy the balls within the blob also continue in motion forever.

::: Now, we go one step further and still keep the idealized, closed system with vacuum and perfect walls, but instead of a billard ball we use a real rubber ball. What the Second Law says is that the mechanical energy of the bouncing ball, 1/2 mv2 where we can measure the "velocity" of the ball as a whole, inevitably and statistically degrades into heat; the ball "loses energy" with each impact with the wall, the measurable v decreases, and eventually it comes as close to "stopping" as we like. Conservation of energy says energy hasn't really been lost; it's been transformed into heat energy. The ball is warmer than before, meaning the molecules within it are moving, and since we've defined the system to be closed, it won't cool down. '''It''' has stopped moving, but there is still '''motion.'''

::: So, I think the whole thing becomes a sterile exercise in what we mean by "forever," and how close we can approximate ideal conditions with realizable machinery, and whether the motion of molecules due to heat counts as "motion."

::: I don't think Second Law has anything to say about ''how fast'' entropy increases, or how close we can come to an ideal situation where entropy doesn't decrease at all.

::: In a way the two are related, because "frictionless pivot," for example, means "no entropy increase in the form of heating at the pivot."

::: Probably the place where the Second Law comes into play is that it says that even if you have a perfectly idealized "closed system," within that system ''energy'' won't be lost, but nevertheless energy ''observable as macroscopic motion'' can still degrade into heat energy ''no longer observable as macroscopic motion.'' [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 09:40, 5 January 2007 (EST)

== The Uncertainty principle doesn't invalidate Perpetual motion... ==

The Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle applies to sub-atomic particles like electrons only, we cannot know where they are at any given time <s>because of Brownian motion</s>. It does not apply to anything that can be seen without the aid of an electron microscope. Also, entropy doesn't increase, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics merely states that the universe tends towards Entropy. Also, the lack of creation of energy would be the Law of Conservation of Energy, which is present in many parts of Physics beyond the First Law of Thermodynamics. Also, the Earth is not a perpetual motion machine, to argue that it is does not border, plunges headfirst into absurdity and ignorance. Finally, the Earth has been slowing at a rate of about 2.2 seconds every 100,000 years due to frictions, no one considers it a perpetual motion machine. [[User:JanSmuts|JanSmuts]] 16:26, 12 April 2012 (EDT)
:I don't think that Brownian motion affects sub-atomic particles. Brownian motion moves things like pollen and dust which are orders of magnitude greater.--[[User:DavidEdwards|DavidEdwards]] 16:44, 12 April 2012 (EDT)
::No, Brownian motion is associated with sub-atomic particles, but has to do with collisions at an observable level, rather than their placement in shells. It would appear we are both incorrect, my mistake. [[User:JanSmuts|JanSmuts]] 17:02, 12 April 2012 (EDT)
::::I'm sorry, but you remain totally confused about Brownian motion even after acknowledging your earlier error. Brownian motion was first described by the biologist Robert Brown around 1827. He was describing a microscopic phenomenon and not a molecular one and certainly not a sub-atomic one. If your understanding of basic terms is so faulty I am not surprised that your conclusions are bad.--[[User:DavidEdwards|DavidEdwards]] 10:11, 13 April 2012 (EDT)
:::::Did you even read what I said? I said Brownian motion was the '''result''' of collisions of particles such as atoms and produces the motion at an observable level. I was confusing Brownian motion with the electron cloud and electron shells initially, which you will have to pardon as it's been years since I took physics. [[User:JanSmuts|JanSmuts]] 18:10, 13 April 2012 (EDT)
:::Well, then, do you think a [[perpetual motion machine]] can exist and, if not, then why not?--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 17:36, 12 April 2012 (EDT)
::::Isn't friction usually the answer? --[[User:JeromeKJ|JeromeKJ]] 18:19, 12 April 2012 (EDT)

:::::Another appeal to [[hearsay]]? The question doesn't request more hearsay.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 18:38, 12 April 2012 (EDT)
::::::Sorry, you'll have to explain that comment. --[[User:JeromeKJ|JeromeKJ]] 18:48, 12 April 2012 (EDT)
:::::::According to all known laws of physics, no, such a machine cannot exist. However, the proofs you have offered are quite misleading and examples of bad science to say the least. [[User:JanSmuts|JanSmuts]] 23:04, 12 April 2012 (EDT)

::::::::"no, such a machine cannot exist." Why? And in response to the prior comment above, I'm not asking what is "usually the answer" by others (i.e., [[hearsay]]). I'm asking for your opinion and explanation.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 23:49, 12 April 2012 (EDT)

User:DVMRoberts

2012-04-13T21:45:40Z

JanSmuts:

{{Useful links}}
Thanks, I love history, and he's a famous South African leader :). [[User:JanSmuts|JanSmuts]] 17:45, 13 April 2012 (EDT)

Talk:Perpetual motion machine

2012-04-13T03:04:30Z

JanSmuts: /* The Uncertainty principle doesn't invalidate Perpetual motion... */

==Perpetual motion machine==

I'm sorry, but I think you're just wrong about the meaning of the phrase "perpetual motion" as used in discussions of thermodynamics, statements about the impossibility of perpetual motion, etc.

:    The perpetual motion, then, which has been the subject of such anxious and laborious search, is not a mere motion which is continued indefinitely. If it were, the diurnal and annual motion of the earth, and the corresponding motions of the other planets and satellites in the solar system, as well as the rotation of the sun upon its axis, would be all perpetual motions....

:    In short, a perpetual motion would be a watch or clock which would go for so long as its mechanism would endure without being wound up: it would be a mill which could grind corn or work machinery without the action upon it of water, wind, steam, animal power, or any other moving force external to it.

::—Dionysis Lardner, 1857, Natural Philosophy for Schools, p. 70

:    Perpetual motion is of course possible, as is stated in the first law of motion, "Motion continues in a straight line undiminished in velocity unless acted on by some external force." A top set spinning under conditions where there is no friction will never cease to spin. These conditions are very nearly realized in the motions of the planets and stars. The statement that energy cannot be destroyed asserts this possibility.

:    But by "perpetual motion" is generally meant a machine which will do work and keep going though energy equivalent to the work done is not supplied to it. Many attempts have been made to construct such a machine. They have all failed. The statement that energy cannot be created denies the possibility of such a machine.

—S. Lawrence Bigelow (1912), "Theoretical and Physical Chemistry," Theoretical and Physical Chemistry By S Lawrence Bigelow p. 26

Dpbsmith 18:20, 1 January 2007 (EST)

Retrieved from "http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:Aschlafly"

Dpsmith, I moved this discussion to the talk page for perpetual motion, so others can benefit and contribute as desired to this.

Your quotes are helpful, and I agree that there are different definitions for a perpetual motion machine. But everyone agrees that a machine that does work without energy is impossible. So the above definitions do not lead to productive discussion. Besides, the earth is not really a perpetual motion machine. Our orbit would eventually become unstable, and presumably we would slow down eventually.

What is a fascinating question is whether motion can continue indefinitely in a closed system. One quote above implies it can, but I doubt most would agree. I wouldn't. --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 18:59, 1 January 2007 (EST)

He's right Mr. Schlafly; the impossibility of perpetual motion is proven by the 1st law of thermodynamics, not the second.

Ben

OK, Ben, but define perpetual motion machine in a trivial away and it only results in a trivial answer.

How about this, let's define "perpetual motion machine II" that simply means a machine capable of perpetual motion (without a perpetual energy supply).

Now that's an interesting question that is difficult to answer fully! --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 19:05, 1 January 2007 (EST)

Theoretically it is possible (the first law of motion), but practically it is impossible just because you wouldn't be able to eliminate all outside forces.

I also have a comment on your proof using the 2nd law of thermodynamics:

''"The only argument that a perpetual motion machine is impossible is based on an interpretation of the [[Second Law of Thermodynamics]]. If entropy is always increasing, even in closed (and isolated) systems, then indefinite motion is impossible because an increase in the disorder of the system will inevitably disrupt the motion"''

Firstly, as Dpbsmith has demonstrated, this is not the only argument against perpetual motion.

Secondly, though it is ''almost'' inevitable that increaced disorder will disrupt motion, it still isn't logically proven; it is always possible that it might go on just a little bit longer.

[[User:BenjaminS|Ben]]

So, Ben, you seem to be saying that a "perpetual motion machine II" (as defined above) may be possible to build.

Really think so? If you doubt it, then maybe you can discovery a way to prove it is impossible. I don't think anyone has proven that yet, and no one else seems to be trying at this time either. But it would be worth proving.
--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:53, 1 January 2007 (EST)

[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]]: you said "But everyone agrees that a machine that does work without energy is impossible." Well, no. Historically the whole debate arose because for centuries people have believed that they ''have'' found a way to build a machine that does work without energy, something for nothing. There are still people who believe it. They tend to use the terms "free energy" and "overunity" to avoid the onus of the term "perpetual motion." An example of a modern machine claimed by its inventor to generate more power than it consumes is the Adams Motor[http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/1287/adams/adamsall.htm], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adams_motor]. A classic fraud was the Keely motor.

My point is that the phrase "perpetuum mobile" goes back to the days before thermodynamics and refers to innumerable attempts to produce simple mechanical arrangements, typically involving shifting or pivoting weights, that on paper look as if they might really do work without an external input.

You seem to be interested in a different philosophical question, one which I don't know much about or whether there is any established name for it. I'm arguing strongly that you should either find out what that name might be, or invent something that doesn't use the phrase "perpetual motion" at all.

Here is my ''guess'' at what an answer to ''your'' question might be. If you use the best modern techniques, e.g. suspending a spinning object in vacuum via superconductive magnetism, you can get something that will move without additional energy input for a really long time. You can measure the rate at which it slows down very carefully or predict it theoretically.

My guess is that it may well be possible today to build a system in which the rate of energy loss is so slow that it can be predicted continue to run for hundreds of thousands of years if the apparatus remains intact; thus the limiting factor in how long it runs is not the apparatus itself, but unrelated external catastrophes (an asteroid hits it, the building it is in collapses in an earthquake, funding runs out and someone pitches the apparatus in the trash, breaking it, etc. etc.)

Probably the place to look for one of these things in real life would be the gyroscopes used in inertial guidance systems.

If the word "forever" is taken ''literally,'' then I don't know how you answer the question, because beliefs about the future lifetime of the universe change every generation or so. If the word "forever" means something like a mathematical limit—then I think the answer is: according to current understanding, it is possible to build a machine that will run ''indefinitely'' long, or as long as you like, receiving no external energy and performing no external work, where the actual limit on the running time is set not by the construction of the machine itself, but by the probability of external catastrophe.

I think. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 08:44, 2 January 2007 (EST)

OK, Dpsmith, you win on your point about what a perpetual motion machine ''really'' means. But I'm still interested in why perpetual motion (without producing extra energy) is impossible. The increase in entropy must prevent it. Underlying that may be the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics.

More thought and research would be worthwhile here. I think we're all convinced that the motion would eventually stop. But why? What force stops it? --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 22:36, 2 January 2007 (EST)

:It's beyond my own knowledge. I suspect such questions are like the irresistable force and the immovable object, though. Provisionally, let's call your gadget an "endless coaster."

:Point #1: At least according to Newtonian physics as I understand it, if you truly had a closed system, it would not stop. But if you truly had a closed system, there would be no way to ''see'' that it was still moving.

:In order to observe it, there would have to be some energy exchange between the "perpetual motion" and the observer. I have an idea that since the observer is gaining information, the observed must be gaining entropy, but that's just handwaving and I don't know how to prove it.

:What I don't know whether there are any theoretical reasons that would make it ''impossible'' to have a truly closed system.

:Here's another angle. If we're considering, say, a ball bearing magnetically suspended in a vacuum by a superconducing magnet or something like that, if if there is a ''small'' amount of friction the result, according to classical physics, would be to make the ball bearing spin slower ''on an exponential decay curve.'' It would have a half-life, like radioactive decay. Perhaps it loses half of its spin every day. Well, according to classical physics, it would spin slower and slower but ''would never actually stop.'' Asymptotically approaches zero, never eaches it. Most likely (out of my depth again) ''quantum'' physics would say that at some point the spin becomes quantized, meaning that after some period of time it can't slow down any more. The spin must be either one quantum or none... and then you get all that crazy wave-function collapse stuff. You have a superimposed state in which the spin is one with some probability and zero with some probability, and the probability decreases over time.

:But really, once you start talking about whether something can literally go on forever, you're outside the bounds of science. I can't keep track of the number of times the "scientific" narrative of cosmology has changed during my own lifetime, and it shows no signs of settling down. Is the universe closed? Open? Continuously expanding? Oscillating? Obviously, ''if'' physics predicts a ''finite'' lifetime for the universe, then a "perpetual" motion, meaning one that would last longer than the universe, is impossible. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 10:03, 3 January 2007 (EST)

:: That's an interesting point of linking observation to entropy. But I do think even a purely closed system would stop without observation. Don't you? Perhaps Newton would not be pleased, but the Second Law of Thermodynamics suggests that motion does eventually stop. --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 00:57, 5 January 2007 (EST)

::: No, I don't think it does. The question here is whether anything says ''how fast'' entropy increases... and what counts as "motion."

::: I think that the Second Law applies to large systems with many interacting particles or bodies and is some kind of statement about their statistical behavior and how easily that motion can be observed.

::: Imagine, say, an ideal, large, sealed box whose walls perfectly hard (do not flex or absorb energy), and imagine that it contains one ideal moving billiard ball. By an "ideal billiard ball" I mean, again, one that is perfectly hard and perfectly elastic. If you have a single billiard ball in the box and it is moving, I think it keeps bouncing off the walls and moves forever. After all, energy is conserved.

::: Now, suppose, instead, that you have twenty-one ideal billiard balls, twenty of them at the vertices of an icosahedron and one in the center, all connected to each other by ideal springs. The entire structure, which I'll call a "blob," resembles a '''non'''-ideal ball. Put one of these into the ideal box and set it in motion with a gentle and identical force on each of those billiard balls, so that they are not moving with respect to each other and the whole blob moves together.

::: Initially, the blob moves as a whole, and you can calculate the kinetic energy just by observing the blob; 1/2 mv2 where m is the total mass of the blob and v is the velocity of the blob as a whole.

::: But when it strikes the walls, the billiard balls are going to hit it at more or less random times. The result is that the balls in the blob are going to start to acquire motion ''relative to each other,'' and soon there is going to be lots of relative motion ''within'' the blob.

::: This relative motion represents kinetic energy that belongs to individual billard balls within the blob, not to the blob as a whole, so because of conservation of energy, the energy we can ascribe to the blob as a whole is going to decrease, and so is the average velocity of the blob.

::: I '''think''' that what the Second Law is saying is that the way in which the blob hits the wall is essentially random, and that with each impact, statistically, more and more energy is going to end up in the form of billard balls oscillating with respect to each other within the blob, and less and less in the form of organized motion of the entire blob as a whole.

::: So that whereas the motion of the single billard ball "never stops," after a while the motion '''of the blob''' has stopped, and instead you just have a stationary blob with the billard balls within it oscillating on their springs.

::: In other words, the behavior of the system has ''degraded'' from observable motion of the blob as a whole to less-observable relative motion of the billiard balls within the blob. The system is in a less organized or "heat-like" state.

::: However, because in this case we're talking about fairly large particles and a fairly small number of them, it is clear that the system is still "in motion," just on a smaller scale, and since we posited that the box, the springs, and the billiard balls are all ideal (and don't absorb energy), by conservation of energy the balls within the blob also continue in motion forever.

::: Now, we go one step further and still keep the idealized, closed system with vacuum and perfect walls, but instead of a billard ball we use a real rubber ball. What the Second Law says is that the mechanical energy of the bouncing ball, 1/2 mv2 where we can measure the "velocity" of the ball as a whole, inevitably and statistically degrades into heat; the ball "loses energy" with each impact with the wall, the measurable v decreases, and eventually it comes as close to "stopping" as we like. Conservation of energy says energy hasn't really been lost; it's been transformed into heat energy. The ball is warmer than before, meaning the molecules within it are moving, and since we've defined the system to be closed, it won't cool down. '''It''' has stopped moving, but there is still '''motion.'''

::: So, I think the whole thing becomes a sterile exercise in what we mean by "forever," and how close we can approximate ideal conditions with realizable machinery, and whether the motion of molecules due to heat counts as "motion."

::: I don't think Second Law has anything to say about ''how fast'' entropy increases, or how close we can come to an ideal situation where entropy doesn't decrease at all.

::: In a way the two are related, because "frictionless pivot," for example, means "no entropy increase in the form of heating at the pivot."

::: Probably the place where the Second Law comes into play is that it says that even if you have a perfectly idealized "closed system," within that system ''energy'' won't be lost, but nevertheless energy ''observable as macroscopic motion'' can still degrade into heat energy ''no longer observable as macroscopic motion.'' [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 09:40, 5 January 2007 (EST)

== The Uncertainty principle doesn't invalidate Perpetual motion... ==

The Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle applies to sub-atomic particles like electrons only, we cannot know where they are at any given time <s>because of Brownian motion</s>. It does not apply to anything that can be seen without the aid of an electron microscope. Also, entropy doesn't increase, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics merely states that the universe tends towards Entropy. Also, the lack of creation of energy would be the Law of Conservation of Energy, which is present in many parts of Physics beyond the First Law of Thermodynamics. Also, the Earth is not a perpetual motion machine, to argue that it is does not border, plunges headfirst into absurdity and ignorance. Finally, the Earth has been slowing at a rate of about 2.2 seconds every 100,000 years due to frictions, no one considers it a perpetual motion machine. [[User:JanSmuts|JanSmuts]] 16:26, 12 April 2012 (EDT)
:I don't think that Brownian motion affects sub-atomic particles. Brownian motion moves things like pollen and dust which are orders of magnitude greater.--[[User:DavidEdwards|DavidEdwards]] 16:44, 12 April 2012 (EDT)
::No, Brownian motion is associated with sub-atomic particles, but has to do with collisions at an observable level, rather than their placement in shells. It would appear we are both incorrect, my mistake. [[User:JanSmuts|JanSmuts]] 17:02, 12 April 2012 (EDT)

:::Well, then, do you think a [[perpetual motion machine]] can exist and, if not, then why not?--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 17:36, 12 April 2012 (EDT)
::::Isn't friction usually the answer? --[[User:JeromeKJ|JeromeKJ]] 18:19, 12 April 2012 (EDT)

:::::Another appeal to [[hearsay]]? The question doesn't request more hearsay.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 18:38, 12 April 2012 (EDT)
::::::Sorry, you'll have to explain that comment. --[[User:JeromeKJ|JeromeKJ]] 18:48, 12 April 2012 (EDT)
:::::::According to all known laws of physics, no, such a machine cannot exist. However, the proofs you have offered are quite misleading and examples of bad science to say the least. [[User:JanSmuts|JanSmuts]] 23:04, 12 April 2012 (EDT)

Talk:Perpetual motion machine

2012-04-12T21:27:20Z

JanSmuts: /* The Uncertainty principle doesn't invalidate Perpetual motion... */

Talk:Perpetual motion machine

2012-04-12T21:26:22Z

JanSmuts: /* The Uncertainty principle doesn't invalidate Perpetual motion... */

==Perpetual motion machine==

I'm sorry, but I think you're just wrong about the meaning of the phrase "perpetual motion" as used in discussions of thermodynamics, statements about the impossibility of perpetual motion, etc.

:    The perpetual motion, then, which has been the subject of such anxious and laborious search, is not a mere motion which is continued indefinitely. If it were, the diurnal and annual motion of the earth, and the corresponding motions of the other planets and satellites in the solar system, as well as the rotation of the sun upon its axis, would be all perpetual motions....

:    In short, a perpetual motion would be a watch or clock which would go for so long as its mechanism would endure without being wound up: it would be a mill which could grind corn or work machinery without the action upon it of water, wind, steam, animal power, or any other moving force external to it.

::—Dionysis Lardner, 1857, Natural Philosophy for Schools, p. 70

:    Perpetual motion is of course possible, as is stated in the first law of motion, "Motion continues in a straight line undiminished in velocity unless acted on by some external force." A top set spinning under conditions where there is no friction will never cease to spin. These conditions are very nearly realized in the motions of the planets and stars. The statement that energy cannot be destroyed asserts this possibility.

:    But by "perpetual motion" is generally meant a machine which will do work and keep going though energy equivalent to the work done is not supplied to it. Many attempts have been made to construct such a machine. They have all failed. The statement that energy cannot be created denies the possibility of such a machine.

—S. Lawrence Bigelow (1912), "Theoretical and Physical Chemistry," Theoretical and Physical Chemistry By S Lawrence Bigelow p. 26

Dpbsmith 18:20, 1 January 2007 (EST)

Retrieved from "http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:Aschlafly"

Dpsmith, I moved this discussion to the talk page for perpetual motion, so others can benefit and contribute as desired to this.

Your quotes are helpful, and I agree that there are different definitions for a perpetual motion machine. But everyone agrees that a machine that does work without energy is impossible. So the above definitions do not lead to productive discussion. Besides, the earth is not really a perpetual motion machine. Our orbit would eventually become unstable, and presumably we would slow down eventually.

What is a fascinating question is whether motion can continue indefinitely in a closed system. One quote above implies it can, but I doubt most would agree. I wouldn't. --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 18:59, 1 January 2007 (EST)

He's right Mr. Schlafly; the impossibility of perpetual motion is proven by the 1st law of thermodynamics, not the second.

Ben

OK, Ben, but define perpetual motion machine in a trivial away and it only results in a trivial answer.

How about this, let's define "perpetual motion machine II" that simply means a machine capable of perpetual motion (without a perpetual energy supply).

Now that's an interesting question that is difficult to answer fully! --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 19:05, 1 January 2007 (EST)

Theoretically it is possible (the first law of motion), but practically it is impossible just because you wouldn't be able to eliminate all outside forces.

I also have a comment on your proof using the 2nd law of thermodynamics:

''"The only argument that a perpetual motion machine is impossible is based on an interpretation of the [[Second Law of Thermodynamics]]. If entropy is always increasing, even in closed (and isolated) systems, then indefinite motion is impossible because an increase in the disorder of the system will inevitably disrupt the motion"''

Firstly, as Dpbsmith has demonstrated, this is not the only argument against perpetual motion.

Secondly, though it is ''almost'' inevitable that increaced disorder will disrupt motion, it still isn't logically proven; it is always possible that it might go on just a little bit longer.

[[User:BenjaminS|Ben]]

So, Ben, you seem to be saying that a "perpetual motion machine II" (as defined above) may be possible to build.

Really think so? If you doubt it, then maybe you can discovery a way to prove it is impossible. I don't think anyone has proven that yet, and no one else seems to be trying at this time either. But it would be worth proving.
--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:53, 1 January 2007 (EST)

[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]]: you said "But everyone agrees that a machine that does work without energy is impossible." Well, no. Historically the whole debate arose because for centuries people have believed that they ''have'' found a way to build a machine that does work without energy, something for nothing. There are still people who believe it. They tend to use the terms "free energy" and "overunity" to avoid the onus of the term "perpetual motion." An example of a modern machine claimed by its inventor to generate more power than it consumes is the Adams Motor[http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/1287/adams/adamsall.htm], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adams_motor]. A classic fraud was the Keely motor.

My point is that the phrase "perpetuum mobile" goes back to the days before thermodynamics and refers to innumerable attempts to produce simple mechanical arrangements, typically involving shifting or pivoting weights, that on paper look as if they might really do work without an external input.

You seem to be interested in a different philosophical question, one which I don't know much about or whether there is any established name for it. I'm arguing strongly that you should either find out what that name might be, or invent something that doesn't use the phrase "perpetual motion" at all.

Here is my ''guess'' at what an answer to ''your'' question might be. If you use the best modern techniques, e.g. suspending a spinning object in vacuum via superconductive magnetism, you can get something that will move without additional energy input for a really long time. You can measure the rate at which it slows down very carefully or predict it theoretically.

My guess is that it may well be possible today to build a system in which the rate of energy loss is so slow that it can be predicted continue to run for hundreds of thousands of years if the apparatus remains intact; thus the limiting factor in how long it runs is not the apparatus itself, but unrelated external catastrophes (an asteroid hits it, the building it is in collapses in an earthquake, funding runs out and someone pitches the apparatus in the trash, breaking it, etc. etc.)

Probably the place to look for one of these things in real life would be the gyroscopes used in inertial guidance systems.

If the word "forever" is taken ''literally,'' then I don't know how you answer the question, because beliefs about the future lifetime of the universe change every generation or so. If the word "forever" means something like a mathematical limit—then I think the answer is: according to current understanding, it is possible to build a machine that will run ''indefinitely'' long, or as long as you like, receiving no external energy and performing no external work, where the actual limit on the running time is set not by the construction of the machine itself, but by the probability of external catastrophe.

I think. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 08:44, 2 January 2007 (EST)

OK, Dpsmith, you win on your point about what a perpetual motion machine ''really'' means. But I'm still interested in why perpetual motion (without producing extra energy) is impossible. The increase in entropy must prevent it. Underlying that may be the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics.

More thought and research would be worthwhile here. I think we're all convinced that the motion would eventually stop. But why? What force stops it? --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 22:36, 2 January 2007 (EST)

:It's beyond my own knowledge. I suspect such questions are like the irresistable force and the immovable object, though. Provisionally, let's call your gadget an "endless coaster."

:Point #1: At least according to Newtonian physics as I understand it, if you truly had a closed system, it would not stop. But if you truly had a closed system, there would be no way to ''see'' that it was still moving.

:In order to observe it, there would have to be some energy exchange between the "perpetual motion" and the observer. I have an idea that since the observer is gaining information, the observed must be gaining entropy, but that's just handwaving and I don't know how to prove it.

:What I don't know whether there are any theoretical reasons that would make it ''impossible'' to have a truly closed system.

:Here's another angle. If we're considering, say, a ball bearing magnetically suspended in a vacuum by a superconducing magnet or something like that, if if there is a ''small'' amount of friction the result, according to classical physics, would be to make the ball bearing spin slower ''on an exponential decay curve.'' It would have a half-life, like radioactive decay. Perhaps it loses half of its spin every day. Well, according to classical physics, it would spin slower and slower but ''would never actually stop.'' Asymptotically approaches zero, never eaches it. Most likely (out of my depth again) ''quantum'' physics would say that at some point the spin becomes quantized, meaning that after some period of time it can't slow down any more. The spin must be either one quantum or none... and then you get all that crazy wave-function collapse stuff. You have a superimposed state in which the spin is one with some probability and zero with some probability, and the probability decreases over time.

:But really, once you start talking about whether something can literally go on forever, you're outside the bounds of science. I can't keep track of the number of times the "scientific" narrative of cosmology has changed during my own lifetime, and it shows no signs of settling down. Is the universe closed? Open? Continuously expanding? Oscillating? Obviously, ''if'' physics predicts a ''finite'' lifetime for the universe, then a "perpetual" motion, meaning one that would last longer than the universe, is impossible. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 10:03, 3 January 2007 (EST)

:: That's an interesting point of linking observation to entropy. But I do think even a purely closed system would stop without observation. Don't you? Perhaps Newton would not be pleased, but the Second Law of Thermodynamics suggests that motion does eventually stop. --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 00:57, 5 January 2007 (EST)

::: No, I don't think it does. The question here is whether anything says ''how fast'' entropy increases... and what counts as "motion."

::: I think that the Second Law applies to large systems with many interacting particles or bodies and is some kind of statement about their statistical behavior and how easily that motion can be observed.

::: Imagine, say, an ideal, large, sealed box whose walls perfectly hard (do not flex or absorb energy), and imagine that it contains one ideal moving billiard ball. By an "ideal billiard ball" I mean, again, one that is perfectly hard and perfectly elastic. If you have a single billiard ball in the box and it is moving, I think it keeps bouncing off the walls and moves forever. After all, energy is conserved.

::: Now, suppose, instead, that you have twenty-one ideal billiard balls, twenty of them at the vertices of an icosahedron and one in the center, all connected to each other by ideal springs. The entire structure, which I'll call a "blob," resembles a '''non'''-ideal ball. Put one of these into the ideal box and set it in motion with a gentle and identical force on each of those billiard balls, so that they are not moving with respect to each other and the whole blob moves together.

::: Initially, the blob moves as a whole, and you can calculate the kinetic energy just by observing the blob; 1/2 mv2 where m is the total mass of the blob and v is the velocity of the blob as a whole.

::: But when it strikes the walls, the billiard balls are going to hit it at more or less random times. The result is that the balls in the blob are going to start to acquire motion ''relative to each other,'' and soon there is going to be lots of relative motion ''within'' the blob.

::: This relative motion represents kinetic energy that belongs to individual billard balls within the blob, not to the blob as a whole, so because of conservation of energy, the energy we can ascribe to the blob as a whole is going to decrease, and so is the average velocity of the blob.

::: I '''think''' that what the Second Law is saying is that the way in which the blob hits the wall is essentially random, and that with each impact, statistically, more and more energy is going to end up in the form of billard balls oscillating with respect to each other within the blob, and less and less in the form of organized motion of the entire blob as a whole.

::: So that whereas the motion of the single billard ball "never stops," after a while the motion '''of the blob''' has stopped, and instead you just have a stationary blob with the billard balls within it oscillating on their springs.

::: In other words, the behavior of the system has ''degraded'' from observable motion of the blob as a whole to less-observable relative motion of the billiard balls within the blob. The system is in a less organized or "heat-like" state.

::: However, because in this case we're talking about fairly large particles and a fairly small number of them, it is clear that the system is still "in motion," just on a smaller scale, and since we posited that the box, the springs, and the billiard balls are all ideal (and don't absorb energy), by conservation of energy the balls within the blob also continue in motion forever.

::: Now, we go one step further and still keep the idealized, closed system with vacuum and perfect walls, but instead of a billard ball we use a real rubber ball. What the Second Law says is that the mechanical energy of the bouncing ball, 1/2 mv2 where we can measure the "velocity" of the ball as a whole, inevitably and statistically degrades into heat; the ball "loses energy" with each impact with the wall, the measurable v decreases, and eventually it comes as close to "stopping" as we like. Conservation of energy says energy hasn't really been lost; it's been transformed into heat energy. The ball is warmer than before, meaning the molecules within it are moving, and since we've defined the system to be closed, it won't cool down. '''It''' has stopped moving, but there is still '''motion.'''

::: So, I think the whole thing becomes a sterile exercise in what we mean by "forever," and how close we can approximate ideal conditions with realizable machinery, and whether the motion of molecules due to heat counts as "motion."

::: I don't think Second Law has anything to say about ''how fast'' entropy increases, or how close we can come to an ideal situation where entropy doesn't decrease at all.

::: In a way the two are related, because "frictionless pivot," for example, means "no entropy increase in the form of heating at the pivot."

::: Probably the place where the Second Law comes into play is that it says that even if you have a perfectly idealized "closed system," within that system ''energy'' won't be lost, but nevertheless energy ''observable as macroscopic motion'' can still degrade into heat energy ''no longer observable as macroscopic motion.'' [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 09:40, 5 January 2007 (EST)

== The Uncertainty principle doesn't invalidate Perpetual motion... ==

The Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle applies to sub-atomic particles like electrons only, we cannot know where they are at any given time <s>because of Brownian motion</s>. It does not apply to anything that can be seen without the aid of an electron microscope. Also, entropy doesn't increase, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics merely states that the universe tends towards Entropy. Also, the lack of creation of energy would be the Law of Conservation of Energy, which is present in many parts of Physics beyond the First Law of Thermodynamics. Also, the Earth is not a perpetual motion machine, to argue that it is does not border, plunges headfirst into absurdity and ignorance. Finally, the Earth has been slowing at a rate of about 2.2 seconds every 100,000 years due to frictions, no one considers it a perpetual motion machine. [[User:JanSmuts|JanSmuts]] 16:26, 12 April 2012 (EDT)
:I don't think that Brownian motion affects sub-atomic particles. Brownian motion moves things like pollen and dust which are orders of magnitude greater.--[[User:DavidEdwards|DavidEdwards]] 16:44, 12 April 2012 (EDT)
::No, Brownian motion is associated with sub-atomic particles, but has to do with collisions, rather than their placement in shells. It would appear we are both incorrect, my mistake. [[User:JanSmuts|JanSmuts]] 17:02, 12 April 2012 (EDT)

Talk:Perpetual motion machine

2012-04-12T21:02:27Z

JanSmuts: /* The Uncertainty principle doesn't invalidate Perpetual motion... */

==Perpetual motion machine==

I'm sorry, but I think you're just wrong about the meaning of the phrase "perpetual motion" as used in discussions of thermodynamics, statements about the impossibility of perpetual motion, etc.

:    The perpetual motion, then, which has been the subject of such anxious and laborious search, is not a mere motion which is continued indefinitely. If it were, the diurnal and annual motion of the earth, and the corresponding motions of the other planets and satellites in the solar system, as well as the rotation of the sun upon its axis, would be all perpetual motions....

:    In short, a perpetual motion would be a watch or clock which would go for so long as its mechanism would endure without being wound up: it would be a mill which could grind corn or work machinery without the action upon it of water, wind, steam, animal power, or any other moving force external to it.

::—Dionysis Lardner, 1857, Natural Philosophy for Schools, p. 70

:    Perpetual motion is of course possible, as is stated in the first law of motion, "Motion continues in a straight line undiminished in velocity unless acted on by some external force." A top set spinning under conditions where there is no friction will never cease to spin. These conditions are very nearly realized in the motions of the planets and stars. The statement that energy cannot be destroyed asserts this possibility.

:    But by "perpetual motion" is generally meant a machine which will do work and keep going though energy equivalent to the work done is not supplied to it. Many attempts have been made to construct such a machine. They have all failed. The statement that energy cannot be created denies the possibility of such a machine.

—S. Lawrence Bigelow (1912), "Theoretical and Physical Chemistry," Theoretical and Physical Chemistry By S Lawrence Bigelow p. 26

Dpbsmith 18:20, 1 January 2007 (EST)

Retrieved from "http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:Aschlafly"

Dpsmith, I moved this discussion to the talk page for perpetual motion, so others can benefit and contribute as desired to this.

Your quotes are helpful, and I agree that there are different definitions for a perpetual motion machine. But everyone agrees that a machine that does work without energy is impossible. So the above definitions do not lead to productive discussion. Besides, the earth is not really a perpetual motion machine. Our orbit would eventually become unstable, and presumably we would slow down eventually.

What is a fascinating question is whether motion can continue indefinitely in a closed system. One quote above implies it can, but I doubt most would agree. I wouldn't. --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 18:59, 1 January 2007 (EST)

He's right Mr. Schlafly; the impossibility of perpetual motion is proven by the 1st law of thermodynamics, not the second.

Ben

OK, Ben, but define perpetual motion machine in a trivial away and it only results in a trivial answer.

How about this, let's define "perpetual motion machine II" that simply means a machine capable of perpetual motion (without a perpetual energy supply).

Now that's an interesting question that is difficult to answer fully! --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 19:05, 1 January 2007 (EST)

Theoretically it is possible (the first law of motion), but practically it is impossible just because you wouldn't be able to eliminate all outside forces.

I also have a comment on your proof using the 2nd law of thermodynamics:

''"The only argument that a perpetual motion machine is impossible is based on an interpretation of the [[Second Law of Thermodynamics]]. If entropy is always increasing, even in closed (and isolated) systems, then indefinite motion is impossible because an increase in the disorder of the system will inevitably disrupt the motion"''

Firstly, as Dpbsmith has demonstrated, this is not the only argument against perpetual motion.

Secondly, though it is ''almost'' inevitable that increaced disorder will disrupt motion, it still isn't logically proven; it is always possible that it might go on just a little bit longer.

[[User:BenjaminS|Ben]]

So, Ben, you seem to be saying that a "perpetual motion machine II" (as defined above) may be possible to build.

Really think so? If you doubt it, then maybe you can discovery a way to prove it is impossible. I don't think anyone has proven that yet, and no one else seems to be trying at this time either. But it would be worth proving.
--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:53, 1 January 2007 (EST)

[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]]: you said "But everyone agrees that a machine that does work without energy is impossible." Well, no. Historically the whole debate arose because for centuries people have believed that they ''have'' found a way to build a machine that does work without energy, something for nothing. There are still people who believe it. They tend to use the terms "free energy" and "overunity" to avoid the onus of the term "perpetual motion." An example of a modern machine claimed by its inventor to generate more power than it consumes is the Adams Motor[http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/1287/adams/adamsall.htm], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adams_motor]. A classic fraud was the Keely motor.

My point is that the phrase "perpetuum mobile" goes back to the days before thermodynamics and refers to innumerable attempts to produce simple mechanical arrangements, typically involving shifting or pivoting weights, that on paper look as if they might really do work without an external input.

You seem to be interested in a different philosophical question, one which I don't know much about or whether there is any established name for it. I'm arguing strongly that you should either find out what that name might be, or invent something that doesn't use the phrase "perpetual motion" at all.

Here is my ''guess'' at what an answer to ''your'' question might be. If you use the best modern techniques, e.g. suspending a spinning object in vacuum via superconductive magnetism, you can get something that will move without additional energy input for a really long time. You can measure the rate at which it slows down very carefully or predict it theoretically.

My guess is that it may well be possible today to build a system in which the rate of energy loss is so slow that it can be predicted continue to run for hundreds of thousands of years if the apparatus remains intact; thus the limiting factor in how long it runs is not the apparatus itself, but unrelated external catastrophes (an asteroid hits it, the building it is in collapses in an earthquake, funding runs out and someone pitches the apparatus in the trash, breaking it, etc. etc.)

Probably the place to look for one of these things in real life would be the gyroscopes used in inertial guidance systems.

If the word "forever" is taken ''literally,'' then I don't know how you answer the question, because beliefs about the future lifetime of the universe change every generation or so. If the word "forever" means something like a mathematical limit—then I think the answer is: according to current understanding, it is possible to build a machine that will run ''indefinitely'' long, or as long as you like, receiving no external energy and performing no external work, where the actual limit on the running time is set not by the construction of the machine itself, but by the probability of external catastrophe.

I think. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 08:44, 2 January 2007 (EST)

OK, Dpsmith, you win on your point about what a perpetual motion machine ''really'' means. But I'm still interested in why perpetual motion (without producing extra energy) is impossible. The increase in entropy must prevent it. Underlying that may be the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics.

More thought and research would be worthwhile here. I think we're all convinced that the motion would eventually stop. But why? What force stops it? --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 22:36, 2 January 2007 (EST)

:It's beyond my own knowledge. I suspect such questions are like the irresistable force and the immovable object, though. Provisionally, let's call your gadget an "endless coaster."

:Point #1: At least according to Newtonian physics as I understand it, if you truly had a closed system, it would not stop. But if you truly had a closed system, there would be no way to ''see'' that it was still moving.

:In order to observe it, there would have to be some energy exchange between the "perpetual motion" and the observer. I have an idea that since the observer is gaining information, the observed must be gaining entropy, but that's just handwaving and I don't know how to prove it.

:What I don't know whether there are any theoretical reasons that would make it ''impossible'' to have a truly closed system.

:Here's another angle. If we're considering, say, a ball bearing magnetically suspended in a vacuum by a superconducing magnet or something like that, if if there is a ''small'' amount of friction the result, according to classical physics, would be to make the ball bearing spin slower ''on an exponential decay curve.'' It would have a half-life, like radioactive decay. Perhaps it loses half of its spin every day. Well, according to classical physics, it would spin slower and slower but ''would never actually stop.'' Asymptotically approaches zero, never eaches it. Most likely (out of my depth again) ''quantum'' physics would say that at some point the spin becomes quantized, meaning that after some period of time it can't slow down any more. The spin must be either one quantum or none... and then you get all that crazy wave-function collapse stuff. You have a superimposed state in which the spin is one with some probability and zero with some probability, and the probability decreases over time.

:But really, once you start talking about whether something can literally go on forever, you're outside the bounds of science. I can't keep track of the number of times the "scientific" narrative of cosmology has changed during my own lifetime, and it shows no signs of settling down. Is the universe closed? Open? Continuously expanding? Oscillating? Obviously, ''if'' physics predicts a ''finite'' lifetime for the universe, then a "perpetual" motion, meaning one that would last longer than the universe, is impossible. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 10:03, 3 January 2007 (EST)

:: That's an interesting point of linking observation to entropy. But I do think even a purely closed system would stop without observation. Don't you? Perhaps Newton would not be pleased, but the Second Law of Thermodynamics suggests that motion does eventually stop. --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 00:57, 5 January 2007 (EST)

::: No, I don't think it does. The question here is whether anything says ''how fast'' entropy increases... and what counts as "motion."

::: I think that the Second Law applies to large systems with many interacting particles or bodies and is some kind of statement about their statistical behavior and how easily that motion can be observed.

::: Imagine, say, an ideal, large, sealed box whose walls perfectly hard (do not flex or absorb energy), and imagine that it contains one ideal moving billiard ball. By an "ideal billiard ball" I mean, again, one that is perfectly hard and perfectly elastic. If you have a single billiard ball in the box and it is moving, I think it keeps bouncing off the walls and moves forever. After all, energy is conserved.

::: Now, suppose, instead, that you have twenty-one ideal billiard balls, twenty of them at the vertices of an icosahedron and one in the center, all connected to each other by ideal springs. The entire structure, which I'll call a "blob," resembles a '''non'''-ideal ball. Put one of these into the ideal box and set it in motion with a gentle and identical force on each of those billiard balls, so that they are not moving with respect to each other and the whole blob moves together.

::: Initially, the blob moves as a whole, and you can calculate the kinetic energy just by observing the blob; 1/2 mv2 where m is the total mass of the blob and v is the velocity of the blob as a whole.

::: But when it strikes the walls, the billiard balls are going to hit it at more or less random times. The result is that the balls in the blob are going to start to acquire motion ''relative to each other,'' and soon there is going to be lots of relative motion ''within'' the blob.

::: This relative motion represents kinetic energy that belongs to individual billard balls within the blob, not to the blob as a whole, so because of conservation of energy, the energy we can ascribe to the blob as a whole is going to decrease, and so is the average velocity of the blob.

::: I '''think''' that what the Second Law is saying is that the way in which the blob hits the wall is essentially random, and that with each impact, statistically, more and more energy is going to end up in the form of billard balls oscillating with respect to each other within the blob, and less and less in the form of organized motion of the entire blob as a whole.

::: So that whereas the motion of the single billard ball "never stops," after a while the motion '''of the blob''' has stopped, and instead you just have a stationary blob with the billard balls within it oscillating on their springs.

::: In other words, the behavior of the system has ''degraded'' from observable motion of the blob as a whole to less-observable relative motion of the billiard balls within the blob. The system is in a less organized or "heat-like" state.

::: However, because in this case we're talking about fairly large particles and a fairly small number of them, it is clear that the system is still "in motion," just on a smaller scale, and since we posited that the box, the springs, and the billiard balls are all ideal (and don't absorb energy), by conservation of energy the balls within the blob also continue in motion forever.

::: Now, we go one step further and still keep the idealized, closed system with vacuum and perfect walls, but instead of a billard ball we use a real rubber ball. What the Second Law says is that the mechanical energy of the bouncing ball, 1/2 mv2 where we can measure the "velocity" of the ball as a whole, inevitably and statistically degrades into heat; the ball "loses energy" with each impact with the wall, the measurable v decreases, and eventually it comes as close to "stopping" as we like. Conservation of energy says energy hasn't really been lost; it's been transformed into heat energy. The ball is warmer than before, meaning the molecules within it are moving, and since we've defined the system to be closed, it won't cool down. '''It''' has stopped moving, but there is still '''motion.'''

::: So, I think the whole thing becomes a sterile exercise in what we mean by "forever," and how close we can approximate ideal conditions with realizable machinery, and whether the motion of molecules due to heat counts as "motion."

::: I don't think Second Law has anything to say about ''how fast'' entropy increases, or how close we can come to an ideal situation where entropy doesn't decrease at all.

::: In a way the two are related, because "frictionless pivot," for example, means "no entropy increase in the form of heating at the pivot."

::: Probably the place where the Second Law comes into play is that it says that even if you have a perfectly idealized "closed system," within that system ''energy'' won't be lost, but nevertheless energy ''observable as macroscopic motion'' can still degrade into heat energy ''no longer observable as macroscopic motion.'' [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 09:40, 5 January 2007 (EST)

== The Uncertainty principle doesn't invalidate Perpetual motion... ==

The Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle applies to sub-atomic particles like electrons only, we cannot know where they are at any given time <s>because of Brownian motion</s>. It does not apply to anything that can be seen without the aid of an electron microscope. Also, entropy doesn't increase, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics merely states that the universe tends towards Entropy. Also, the lack of creation of energy would be the Law of Conservation of Energy, which is present in many parts of Physics beyond the First Law of Thermodynamics. Also, the Earth is not a perpetual motion machine, to argue that it is does not border, plunges headfirst into absurdity and ignorance. Finally, the Earth has been slowing at a rate of about 2.2 seconds every 100,000 years due to frictions, no one considers it a perpetual motion machine. [[User:JanSmuts|JanSmuts]] 16:26, 12 April 2012 (EDT)
:I don't think that Brownian motion affects sub-atomic particles. Brownian motion moves things like pollen and dust which are orders of magnitude greater.--[[User:DavidEdwards|DavidEdwards]] 16:44, 12 April 2012 (EDT)
::You are correct, my mistake. [[User:JanSmuts|JanSmuts]] 17:02, 12 April 2012 (EDT)

Talk:Perpetual motion machine

2012-04-12T20:26:21Z

JanSmuts: /* The Uncertainty principle doesn't invalidate Perpetual motion... */ new section

==Perpetual motion machine==

I'm sorry, but I think you're just wrong about the meaning of the phrase "perpetual motion" as used in discussions of thermodynamics, statements about the impossibility of perpetual motion, etc.

:    The perpetual motion, then, which has been the subject of such anxious and laborious search, is not a mere motion which is continued indefinitely. If it were, the diurnal and annual motion of the earth, and the corresponding motions of the other planets and satellites in the solar system, as well as the rotation of the sun upon its axis, would be all perpetual motions....

:    In short, a perpetual motion would be a watch or clock which would go for so long as its mechanism would endure without being wound up: it would be a mill which could grind corn or work machinery without the action upon it of water, wind, steam, animal power, or any other moving force external to it.

::—Dionysis Lardner, 1857, Natural Philosophy for Schools, p. 70

:    Perpetual motion is of course possible, as is stated in the first law of motion, "Motion continues in a straight line undiminished in velocity unless acted on by some external force." A top set spinning under conditions where there is no friction will never cease to spin. These conditions are very nearly realized in the motions of the planets and stars. The statement that energy cannot be destroyed asserts this possibility.

:    But by "perpetual motion" is generally meant a machine which will do work and keep going though energy equivalent to the work done is not supplied to it. Many attempts have been made to construct such a machine. They have all failed. The statement that energy cannot be created denies the possibility of such a machine.

—S. Lawrence Bigelow (1912), "Theoretical and Physical Chemistry," Theoretical and Physical Chemistry By S Lawrence Bigelow p. 26

Dpbsmith 18:20, 1 January 2007 (EST)

Retrieved from "http://www.conservapedia.com/User_talk:Aschlafly"

Dpsmith, I moved this discussion to the talk page for perpetual motion, so others can benefit and contribute as desired to this.

Your quotes are helpful, and I agree that there are different definitions for a perpetual motion machine. But everyone agrees that a machine that does work without energy is impossible. So the above definitions do not lead to productive discussion. Besides, the earth is not really a perpetual motion machine. Our orbit would eventually become unstable, and presumably we would slow down eventually.

What is a fascinating question is whether motion can continue indefinitely in a closed system. One quote above implies it can, but I doubt most would agree. I wouldn't. --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 18:59, 1 January 2007 (EST)

He's right Mr. Schlafly; the impossibility of perpetual motion is proven by the 1st law of thermodynamics, not the second.

Ben

OK, Ben, but define perpetual motion machine in a trivial away and it only results in a trivial answer.

How about this, let's define "perpetual motion machine II" that simply means a machine capable of perpetual motion (without a perpetual energy supply).

Now that's an interesting question that is difficult to answer fully! --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 19:05, 1 January 2007 (EST)

Theoretically it is possible (the first law of motion), but practically it is impossible just because you wouldn't be able to eliminate all outside forces.

I also have a comment on your proof using the 2nd law of thermodynamics:

''"The only argument that a perpetual motion machine is impossible is based on an interpretation of the [[Second Law of Thermodynamics]]. If entropy is always increasing, even in closed (and isolated) systems, then indefinite motion is impossible because an increase in the disorder of the system will inevitably disrupt the motion"''

Firstly, as Dpbsmith has demonstrated, this is not the only argument against perpetual motion.

Secondly, though it is ''almost'' inevitable that increaced disorder will disrupt motion, it still isn't logically proven; it is always possible that it might go on just a little bit longer.

[[User:BenjaminS|Ben]]

So, Ben, you seem to be saying that a "perpetual motion machine II" (as defined above) may be possible to build.

Really think so? If you doubt it, then maybe you can discovery a way to prove it is impossible. I don't think anyone has proven that yet, and no one else seems to be trying at this time either. But it would be worth proving.
--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:53, 1 January 2007 (EST)

[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]]: you said "But everyone agrees that a machine that does work without energy is impossible." Well, no. Historically the whole debate arose because for centuries people have believed that they ''have'' found a way to build a machine that does work without energy, something for nothing. There are still people who believe it. They tend to use the terms "free energy" and "overunity" to avoid the onus of the term "perpetual motion." An example of a modern machine claimed by its inventor to generate more power than it consumes is the Adams Motor[http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/1287/adams/adamsall.htm], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adams_motor]. A classic fraud was the Keely motor.

My point is that the phrase "perpetuum mobile" goes back to the days before thermodynamics and refers to innumerable attempts to produce simple mechanical arrangements, typically involving shifting or pivoting weights, that on paper look as if they might really do work without an external input.

You seem to be interested in a different philosophical question, one which I don't know much about or whether there is any established name for it. I'm arguing strongly that you should either find out what that name might be, or invent something that doesn't use the phrase "perpetual motion" at all.

Here is my ''guess'' at what an answer to ''your'' question might be. If you use the best modern techniques, e.g. suspending a spinning object in vacuum via superconductive magnetism, you can get something that will move without additional energy input for a really long time. You can measure the rate at which it slows down very carefully or predict it theoretically.

My guess is that it may well be possible today to build a system in which the rate of energy loss is so slow that it can be predicted continue to run for hundreds of thousands of years if the apparatus remains intact; thus the limiting factor in how long it runs is not the apparatus itself, but unrelated external catastrophes (an asteroid hits it, the building it is in collapses in an earthquake, funding runs out and someone pitches the apparatus in the trash, breaking it, etc. etc.)

Probably the place to look for one of these things in real life would be the gyroscopes used in inertial guidance systems.

If the word "forever" is taken ''literally,'' then I don't know how you answer the question, because beliefs about the future lifetime of the universe change every generation or so. If the word "forever" means something like a mathematical limit—then I think the answer is: according to current understanding, it is possible to build a machine that will run ''indefinitely'' long, or as long as you like, receiving no external energy and performing no external work, where the actual limit on the running time is set not by the construction of the machine itself, but by the probability of external catastrophe.

I think. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 08:44, 2 January 2007 (EST)

OK, Dpsmith, you win on your point about what a perpetual motion machine ''really'' means. But I'm still interested in why perpetual motion (without producing extra energy) is impossible. The increase in entropy must prevent it. Underlying that may be the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics.

More thought and research would be worthwhile here. I think we're all convinced that the motion would eventually stop. But why? What force stops it? --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 22:36, 2 January 2007 (EST)

:It's beyond my own knowledge. I suspect such questions are like the irresistable force and the immovable object, though. Provisionally, let's call your gadget an "endless coaster."

:Point #1: At least according to Newtonian physics as I understand it, if you truly had a closed system, it would not stop. But if you truly had a closed system, there would be no way to ''see'' that it was still moving.

:In order to observe it, there would have to be some energy exchange between the "perpetual motion" and the observer. I have an idea that since the observer is gaining information, the observed must be gaining entropy, but that's just handwaving and I don't know how to prove it.

:What I don't know whether there are any theoretical reasons that would make it ''impossible'' to have a truly closed system.

:Here's another angle. If we're considering, say, a ball bearing magnetically suspended in a vacuum by a superconducing magnet or something like that, if if there is a ''small'' amount of friction the result, according to classical physics, would be to make the ball bearing spin slower ''on an exponential decay curve.'' It would have a half-life, like radioactive decay. Perhaps it loses half of its spin every day. Well, according to classical physics, it would spin slower and slower but ''would never actually stop.'' Asymptotically approaches zero, never eaches it. Most likely (out of my depth again) ''quantum'' physics would say that at some point the spin becomes quantized, meaning that after some period of time it can't slow down any more. The spin must be either one quantum or none... and then you get all that crazy wave-function collapse stuff. You have a superimposed state in which the spin is one with some probability and zero with some probability, and the probability decreases over time.

:But really, once you start talking about whether something can literally go on forever, you're outside the bounds of science. I can't keep track of the number of times the "scientific" narrative of cosmology has changed during my own lifetime, and it shows no signs of settling down. Is the universe closed? Open? Continuously expanding? Oscillating? Obviously, ''if'' physics predicts a ''finite'' lifetime for the universe, then a "perpetual" motion, meaning one that would last longer than the universe, is impossible. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 10:03, 3 January 2007 (EST)

:: That's an interesting point of linking observation to entropy. But I do think even a purely closed system would stop without observation. Don't you? Perhaps Newton would not be pleased, but the Second Law of Thermodynamics suggests that motion does eventually stop. --[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 00:57, 5 January 2007 (EST)

::: No, I don't think it does. The question here is whether anything says ''how fast'' entropy increases... and what counts as "motion."

::: I think that the Second Law applies to large systems with many interacting particles or bodies and is some kind of statement about their statistical behavior and how easily that motion can be observed.

::: Imagine, say, an ideal, large, sealed box whose walls perfectly hard (do not flex or absorb energy), and imagine that it contains one ideal moving billiard ball. By an "ideal billiard ball" I mean, again, one that is perfectly hard and perfectly elastic. If you have a single billiard ball in the box and it is moving, I think it keeps bouncing off the walls and moves forever. After all, energy is conserved.

::: Now, suppose, instead, that you have twenty-one ideal billiard balls, twenty of them at the vertices of an icosahedron and one in the center, all connected to each other by ideal springs. The entire structure, which I'll call a "blob," resembles a '''non'''-ideal ball. Put one of these into the ideal box and set it in motion with a gentle and identical force on each of those billiard balls, so that they are not moving with respect to each other and the whole blob moves together.

::: Initially, the blob moves as a whole, and you can calculate the kinetic energy just by observing the blob; 1/2 mv2 where m is the total mass of the blob and v is the velocity of the blob as a whole.

::: But when it strikes the walls, the billiard balls are going to hit it at more or less random times. The result is that the balls in the blob are going to start to acquire motion ''relative to each other,'' and soon there is going to be lots of relative motion ''within'' the blob.

::: This relative motion represents kinetic energy that belongs to individual billard balls within the blob, not to the blob as a whole, so because of conservation of energy, the energy we can ascribe to the blob as a whole is going to decrease, and so is the average velocity of the blob.

::: I '''think''' that what the Second Law is saying is that the way in which the blob hits the wall is essentially random, and that with each impact, statistically, more and more energy is going to end up in the form of billard balls oscillating with respect to each other within the blob, and less and less in the form of organized motion of the entire blob as a whole.

::: So that whereas the motion of the single billard ball "never stops," after a while the motion '''of the blob''' has stopped, and instead you just have a stationary blob with the billard balls within it oscillating on their springs.

::: In other words, the behavior of the system has ''degraded'' from observable motion of the blob as a whole to less-observable relative motion of the billiard balls within the blob. The system is in a less organized or "heat-like" state.

::: However, because in this case we're talking about fairly large particles and a fairly small number of them, it is clear that the system is still "in motion," just on a smaller scale, and since we posited that the box, the springs, and the billiard balls are all ideal (and don't absorb energy), by conservation of energy the balls within the blob also continue in motion forever.

::: Now, we go one step further and still keep the idealized, closed system with vacuum and perfect walls, but instead of a billard ball we use a real rubber ball. What the Second Law says is that the mechanical energy of the bouncing ball, 1/2 mv2 where we can measure the "velocity" of the ball as a whole, inevitably and statistically degrades into heat; the ball "loses energy" with each impact with the wall, the measurable v decreases, and eventually it comes as close to "stopping" as we like. Conservation of energy says energy hasn't really been lost; it's been transformed into heat energy. The ball is warmer than before, meaning the molecules within it are moving, and since we've defined the system to be closed, it won't cool down. '''It''' has stopped moving, but there is still '''motion.'''

::: So, I think the whole thing becomes a sterile exercise in what we mean by "forever," and how close we can approximate ideal conditions with realizable machinery, and whether the motion of molecules due to heat counts as "motion."

::: I don't think Second Law has anything to say about ''how fast'' entropy increases, or how close we can come to an ideal situation where entropy doesn't decrease at all.

::: In a way the two are related, because "frictionless pivot," for example, means "no entropy increase in the form of heating at the pivot."

::: Probably the place where the Second Law comes into play is that it says that even if you have a perfectly idealized "closed system," within that system ''energy'' won't be lost, but nevertheless energy ''observable as macroscopic motion'' can still degrade into heat energy ''no longer observable as macroscopic motion.'' [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 09:40, 5 January 2007 (EST)

== The Uncertainty principle doesn't invalidate Perpetual motion... ==

The Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle applies to sub-atomic particles like electrons only, we cannot know where they are at any given time because of Brownian motion. It does not apply to anything that can be seen without the aid of an electron microscope. Also, entropy doesn't increase, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics merely states that the universe tends towards Entropy. Also, the lack of creation of energy would be the Law of Conservation of Energy, which is present in many parts of Physics beyond the First Law of Thermodynamics. Also, the Earth is not a perpetual motion machine, to argue that it is does not border, plunges headfirst into absurdity and ignorance. Finally, the Earth has been slowing at a rate of about 2.2 seconds every 100,000 years due to frictions, no one considers it a perpetual motion machine. [[User:JanSmuts|JanSmuts]] 16:26, 12 April 2012 (EDT)

Talk:Theory of relativity

2012-04-12T20:04:49Z

JanSmuts: /* Logic and the GPS */

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|'''Attention: Please review previous points on the discussion page before adding your own commentary. Many topics have been discussed many, many, times. If you have something new to add, feel free, but it is not necessary or helpful to read the same arguments over and over and over.'''

'''Raising arguments which have been discussed before wastes the time of valuable editors and repeatedly doing so violates [[90/10]].'''

For older discussions, see the archive [[Talk:Theory of relativity/index|index]]. 
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== Mass depending on direction ==

The article states:
:''There is a logical difficulty, however, to an increase in relativistic mass. Such increase would only exist in the direction of motion, and the rest mass would remain intact with respect to a force applied in a direction orthogonal to velocity. Neither mass nor energy is a vector, and the notion of the mass of an object having different values depending on the direction of an applied force is illogical.''

As [[User:RSchlafly|RSchlafly]] on 8 July 2007 (EDT): ''This paragraph is nonsense [..] The relativistic mass applies no matter what the direction of the force is.''

[[User:AugustO|AugustO]] 15:45, 10 January 2012 (EST)

== Neutrinos now obey speed limit ==

The observation sited in the first sentence of this article has been discredited. [http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/02/official-word-on-superluminal-ne.html?ref=hp] It appears that a loose fiber-optics cable is to blame for the misreadings. I suggest editing this first sentence, and any other mention of this in the article.--[[User:CarloP|CarloP]] 18:51, 2 March 2012 (EST)

:Issues concerning the neutrino experiment are not yet fully resolved. No problam: I replaced it with another counterexample.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 19:12, 2 March 2012 (EST)

== Why does Conservapedia seek to discredit Relativity ==

Can someone explain why Conservapedia is so opposed to the Theory of Relativity?

Is there some philosophical or conservative/liberal basis for this opposition? [[User:RolandPlankton|RolandPlankton]] 18:32, 5 April 2012 (EDT)

:''Conservapedia'' seeks the truth, not merely what the [[lamestream media]] claim is the truth. Moreover, once one accepts a logical fallacy, then anything false can be proven from it.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 23:34, 5 April 2012 (EDT)
:: Ahh.... But the fact that the conclusion is false does not necessarily render the basis false. I could say "Andy Schlafly founded Conservapedia and therefore I am a pig monkey." I am not a pig monkey, and even if I were, that has nothing to do with you founding this website. But you still did. [[User:Gregkochuconn|Gregkochuconn]] 09:58, 9 April 2012 (EDT)

:When looking around the internet, it is obvious that Conservapedia's classification of relativity as [[pseudoscience]] is a source of some amusement and contempt. Aschlafly, could you please answer the two questions I raised above? [[User:RolandPlankton|RolandPlankton]] 11:27, 9 April 2012 (EDT)

::Roland, liberal peer pressure from "around the internet" does not illuminate the truth. If what liberals on the internet said made a dime's bit of difference, then the [[Bible]] would not be the best selling book (by far) and the percentage of people who are [[conservative]] would not be growing (as it does).

::"Can someone explain why Conservapedia is so opposed to the Theory of Relativity?" Because it's false, it confuses people, it misleads people into stop reading the Bible, and its orthodoxy interferes with the advancement of science for the benefit of all. Other than that, it's not a bad theory!

::"Is there some philosophical or conservative/liberal basis for this opposition?" The only bias is by liberals who shout down any criticism of the theory. If the theory were so clearly true, then there would be no need for some liberals to rely on [[censorship]] in propping it up.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 17:10, 9 April 2012 (EDT)

== GPS and Relativity ==

I note that anyone using a GPS is relying on the Theory of Relativity being true, since calculations derived from Relativity are used within a GPS. [[User:RolandPlankton|RolandPlankton]] 18:32, 5 April 2012 (EDT)

:GPS does '''''not''''' rely on the [[Theory of Relativity]], and this has been thoroughly explained on this site.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 23:34, 5 April 2012 (EDT)

::Hi Aschlafly, I've located at least some of the discussion re GPS in the archives of this talk page, and there a lot of references for me to examine before I can make any further serious comments; certainly there are some references which appear to state that GPS relies on relativity. Can you perhaps draw my attention to what you consider the most important (half-dozen or so) references which indicate that the GPS system does NOT rely on relativity so that I have somewhere to start from? In the meantime I'll continue editing and improving less controversial articles as I have been doing for the last two months (my talk page lists nearly 40 articles I can usefully contribute to). [[User:RolandPlankton|RolandPlankton]] 14:17, 6 April 2012 (EDT)

:::This note 7 is on [[Counterexamples to Relativity]]:

::::Contrary to the claims of Relativists, the GPS system has never been based on Relativity. The Time Service Department, U.S. Navy, observed that "The Operational Control System (OCS) of the Global Positioning System (GPS) does not include the rigorous transformations between coordinate systems that Einstein’s general theory of relativity would seem to require" in part because "the effects of relativity, where they are different from the effects predicted by classical mechanics and electromagnetic theory, are too small to matter – less than one centimeter, for users on or near the earth.”

:::The Theory of Relativity does not even assert that it would require significant adjustments to GPS timing: the small effects claimed by the special and general theories nearly cancel each other out for orbiting satellites. From an engineering perspective, it makes far more sense simply to adjust the clocks using synchronization rather than relying on (dubious) theoretical claims.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 14:36, 6 April 2012 (EDT)

Another false claim because of sloppy reading: In the same source by The Time Service Department, U.S. Navy, you can find how the authors Fliegel and DiEsposti describe what is happening to the clocks in the satellites:
''Since GPS receivers work in the time and not in the frequency domain, they handle the velocity, gravity, and acceleration shifts differently than described above. First, each GPS space vehicle (SV) clock is offset from its nominal rate by about -4.45 × 10-10 (= -38 microseconds per day) to allow for the relativistic offsets between the differences between the SV and the ground. Of this -38 microseconds per day, about -45 are due to the gravitational potential difference between the SV at its mean distance and the earth's surface, and +7 to the mean SV speed, which is about 3.87 km/sec. (p. 193).

The text is about the necessity of ''further'' corrections by the ''operational control system'' - there are corrections ''already'' installed in the clocks!

''The Theory of Relativity does not even assert that it would require significant adjustments to GPS timing:'' This sentence is wrong. It has shown to be wrong a couple of times, so it starts to become a lie. [[User:AugustO|AugustO]] 15:12, 6 April 2012 (EDT)

:The [[Theory of Relativity]] was not used to develop GPS, nor would it be sensible to waste time and money doing so. Synchronization is cheaper, simpler, and more reliable. The above quote does not contradict this obvious truth.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 16:32, 6 April 2012 (EDT)

::The fact that these offsets are implemented in the clocks '''in accord with the theory of relativity''' as you can read in the very source you quoted shows that the [[Theory of Relativity]] is used in the GPS - and this from the very beginning of the project! Please, start to read your sources - completely! [[User:AugustO|AugustO]] 16:37, 6 April 2012 (EDT)

Please, before we get into any more debate, could someone supply some actual references (not quotes from) which state that relativity is not used in GPS? [[User:RolandPlankton|RolandPlankton]] 16:41, 6 April 2012 (EDT)

:Aschlafly took his quote from [http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/ptti/1996/Vol%2028_16.pdf GPS and Relativity: An Engineering Overview] by Henry F. Fliegel and Raymond S. DiEsposti (though he probably isn't aware of this). The paper is about relativistic effects due to moving GPS-'''''receivers''''' (or GPS-receivers in high altitudes) and comes to the conclusion, that at the moment, they don't have to include additional relativistic corrections.

:Aschlafly interprets this as if ''no'' relativistic corrections are implemented in the GPS.
:However, in the paper itself, you will find the section I quoted above, where the authors describe such very corrections within the clocks of the satellites.
:I'm afraid that Aschlafly won't come up with ''some actual references (not quotes from) which state that relativity is not used in GPS'' as there aren't any.
:[[User:AugustO|AugustO]] 16:53, 6 April 2012 (EDT)

Folks, the burden of proof is on anyone who claims that the [[Theory of Relativity]] was used to design GPS. That burden includes describing who, when, where, how, and why. It didn't happen. And if it did, the person who wasted time and money on such a frivolous approach should explain the mistake, because engineers can simply synchronize the clocks far more accurately than the theory ever could.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 18:15, 8 April 2012 (EDT)

:It looks to me as if you are trying to put impossible conditions prior to any debate. To avoid a lengthy debate all you have to do is produce some actual references which support your point of view. Is this too much to ask?

:If it didn't happen then you should be able to produce some evidence of this, so '''some actual references please'''. The only 'evidence' you have produced so far is an out-of-context quote from a paper which is concerned primarily with GPS receivers (that same paper mentions the use of relativity-related adjustments to the clocks on the GPS satellite transmitters). Surely you must have more than this. Will you accept evidence from engineers and companies involved in designing and building the GPS system? If not, why not? Who would you accept evidence from? The US Department of Defense? Do you seriously expect a member of the public to be able to access internal design documents as your "who, when, where, how, and why" statement implies?

:If you care to check my contribution history you will see that I am actively contributing non-controversial information to articles. This discussion re GPS etc. is only a small part of my activities on Conservapedia. Since I've barely started on considering and consolidating what evidence there is re GPS I would rather have a week or so to look at the evidence before getting into a debate. This should give you ample time to come up with some references to support the separation of GPS and relativity. Simple searches via Google turn up numerous instances where relativity is claimed to be relevant to GPS, but I can't find anything to the contrary and '''I need your help to do so'''. I would really like to see evidence from '''both sides''' of the discussion before entering the debate, so '''some actual references please'''. [[User:RolandPlankton|RolandPlankton]] 19:15, 8 April 2012 (EDT)

::Roland, you're requesting proof that something didn't happen. Moreover, someone with an engineering background (such as myself) would not expect it to have happened. It is like asking for a reference that no green cheese was found on the Moon. No such scientific reference is likely to exist, nor would anyone expect such a reference to exist.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 19:28, 8 April 2012 (EDT)

:: Every single article on GPS says that relativistic adjustments are made to the satellite clocks. Some give the formulas and some give quantitative data on the adjustments. Textbooks explain why the adjustments are necessary. I don't see any reason to doubt that GPS uses relativistic adjustments. [[User:RSchlafly|RSchlafly]] 20:52, 8 April 2012 (EDT)

:::GPS does make synchronizing adjustments. Call them whatever you like, but those adjustments are not made based on predictions by the [[Theory of Relativity]]. Indeed, it would be a silly waste of time and money to synchronize in such a manner.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 21:07, 8 April 2012 (EDT)
:::: Unless you drive the flying Delorean from ''Back to the Future'', relativity would say that its effect on your car when you're driving at normal speeds is so small it need not be accounting for. The normal error for GPS (about 40 feet) is many magnitudes higher than the error relativity would cause. Now, the GPS in the Flying DeLorean would be another issue. But until that's invented, let's not worry about it, ok? Of course, if you were orienteering, your speed would be even slower than if you were driving. Indeed, if you were moving at any normal speed (even a supersonic jet), relativity would be incredibly small (assuming that it exists as scientists explain it). [[User:Gregkochuconn|Gregkochuconn]] 22:14, 8 April 2012 (EDT)

:::::''GPS does make synchronizing adjustments'' Not only simple synchronizing: read the specifications for the GPS, read the sources ''in full'' which you are quoting, and you will see that all these engineers and scientists don't give a damn that you think that they are wasting ''time and money''.
:::::Aschlafly, your position is only tenable as you are willing to ignore most of the data which is presented to you. [[User:AugustO|AugustO]] 03:12, 9 April 2012 (EDT)

::Aschlafly, please correct me if I am misunderstanding you, but it seems to me that you believe very firmly that relativity has nothing to do with GPS, even though you are unwilling to present any evidence to support this belief, and wish to put severe restrictions on what 'proof' of the relationship other folks may present. I raised some five questions above as to what sort of evidence you might consider. Could you please answer these questions.

::I'd like to ask Mr. Schafly if he could explain what the clock adjustments on GPS satellites are for, the article is not clear, and neither is anything on this talk page.--[[User:Cahnkj|Cahnkj]] 00:44, 11 April 2012 (EDT)

:::Cahnkj, herewith a summary of the clock-adjustment situation as I (RolandPlankton) see it. Newton's equations of motions say nothing about how clocks keep time. Einstein's equations of relativity imply that identical clocks will vary in their timekeeping (tick at different rates) if they are travelling at different speeds, or if they are at different heights in a gravitational field, or if they are subject to different accelerations; see [http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/ptti/1996/Vol%2028_16.pdf GPS and Relativity: An Engineering Overview]. Now the satellites used in the GPS system require very accurate clocks which are in step with ground-based clocks. The paper just quoted provides the various relativistic equations which apply - the satellites are travelling faster than a ground-based receiver, and are at a different height in a gravitational field. Prior to launch the clocks in the GPS satellites are deliberately set to a different tick rate from ground-based clocks, so that when they are in orbit the clocks will appear to tick at the same rate; the difference in tick rates is about 38 nanoseconds per day, and this adjustment can be calculated from the relevant relativistic equations.

:::But the problem is that Aschlafly rejects the Theory of Relativity, and hence rejects any calculation based on that. The only serious argument he has put forth on this current talk page (see preceding section) is an appeal to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:The_Truth the truth]; the quote he provides above is also demolished above. You may wish to consult [[Counterexamples to Relativity]], which is rebutted point by point in [[Essay:Rebuttal to Counterexamples to Relativity]].

:::Hope this doesn't add too much to the confusion. [[User:RolandPlankton|RolandPlankton]] 12:07, 11 April 2012 (EDT)

::Aschlafly, as a separate issue, in view of of your apparent attitude to references, could I ask you to have a look at the articles I have been working on over the last two months: [[Pi]], [[Programming language]], [[Compiler]], and the work-in-progress [[Chomsky hierarchy]]. Obviously I'm only asking you to consider the changes I have made. In particular, can you check if the references are acceptable to you, and can you also check that the general style and level of writing is in accordance with Conservapedia's aims? The next article I intend to turn my intention to is [[Context-Free Grammar]], since it seems to me that this fails to satisfy [[Conservapedia:Guidelines#Style]] "Articles on complex topics need an introduction which assumes little or no previous knowledge". [[User:RolandPlankton|RolandPlankton]] 11:03, 9 April 2012 (EDT)

:::Roland, your good edits are appreciated and I've seen no complaints about them. I agree that the [[Context-Free Grammar]] would benefit from a better introduction and look forward to reading what you add there.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 17:39, 9 April 2012 (EDT)

== Why are adjustments needed to GPS? ==

A good question was raised above: if synchronization to GPS is not due to the [[Theory of Relativity]], then what is it due to?

And the answer is simply this: [[quantum mechanics]]. There are fundamental uncertainties, and those uncertainties will lead to clock differences. Otherwise a [[perpetual motion machine]] would be possible. It isn't.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 22:50, 11 April 2012 (EDT)

:Well, this is progress indeed. Could you please provide references to support the contention that the synchronization is required as a result of quantum mechanical effects?

:Also, as an aside, how do you say that fundamental uncertainties described by quantum mechanics relate to the impossibility of a perpetual motion machine? Not sure I follow you there. --[[User:JeromeKJ|JeromeKJ]] 23:36, 11 April 2012 (EDT)

::It's basic logic. Unless someone denies [[quantum mechanics]] and the fundamental uncertainties it describes -- and many [[Relativists]] do deny it -- then synchronization will be required as a logical result.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 23:58, 11 April 2012 (EDT)

:::Do you have any references? --[[User:JeromeKJ|JeromeKJ]] 00:04, 12 April 2012 (EDT)

::::I haven't looked ... nor is it necessary to. I wouldn't look for references to confirm any logical statement.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 00:14, 12 April 2012 (EDT)

:::::Really? Is it fair to say then that this contention that the synchronization is required as a result of quantum mechanical effects is not something that you have read about but rather something that you yourself concluded from your own knowledge of quantum mechanics and GPS systems? --[[User:JeromeKJ|JeromeKJ]] 00:21, 12 April 2012 (EDT)
:::::P.S. As a result of this discussion I found a couple of articles which appear to confirm that GPS satellites have their clocks adjusted by about 38,000 nanoseconds per day before launch in compliance with relitavistic predictions (both Special and General Relativity are taken into account). The articles are [http://metaresearch.org/cosmology/gps-relativity.asp here] and [http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps.html here]. Is there really any question that this is what is happening? I would think that if these sources are to be questioned that some sort of reference should be provided. A mere assertion that the adjustments are as a result of quantum mechanical effects and that it is a matter of logic would not usually be enough for any serious encyclopedia. --[[User:JeromeKJ|JeromeKJ]] 00:53, 12 April 2012 (EDT)

::::::The references are [[hearsay]]. Logic is far more compelling, more efficient, and more likely to lead to the correct result.

::::::To take the analogy mentioned above, if you agree that [[perpetual motion machines]] are impossible, what is the reason?--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 01:45, 12 April 2012 (EDT)

:Quantum mechanics gives a probabilistic model of phenomena. Indeed, the page you linked for quantum mechanics states:
::"If we measure such an observable, generally the wave function does not predict exactly which value we will obtain. Instead, the wave function gives us the probability that a certain value will be obtained."
:If this is the case, that means that Quantum mechanical phenomena are ''unpredictable''. How is it that clock adjustments can be made based on unpredictable events, ie, probabilities?
:I'd also like to know how the GPS system is affected by these phenomena.
:--[[User:Cahnkj|Cahnkj]] 01:51, 12 April 2012 (EDT)

Logic is a nice thing. But engineers like to calculate. So could you give us a Ballpark estimate for the quantum mechanic effects which come into play here? [[User:AugustO|AugustO]] 01:59, 12 April 2012 (EDT)

:(Edit conflict x2) Andy, as a lawyer I can assure you that hearsay is a [[legal]] concept which is of little use in this sort of scientific discussion. Whilst I understand that non-legally trained people sometimes confuse the nature and applicability of the concept, I can confirm that it has no relevance here.

:The difficulty here arises from your wanting to assert the truth of a matter without providing either references or even the basis for you own logic. Just saying "quantum mechanics" is hardly enlightening. Do you deny that GPS satellite clocks are adjusted by approximately 38,000 nanoseconds as referred to in the references that I provided? If not, do you say that there is a quantum calculation that accounts for that adjustment? What is that quantum calculation and what is it based on? I am really having difficulty in understanding the basis for all of this. --[[User:JeromeKJ|JeromeKJ]] 02:03, 12 April 2012 (EDT)

:Aschlafly, this reference [http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/ptti/1996/Vol%2028_16.pdf GPS and Relativity: An Engineering Overview] has been pointed out to you several times already. Since it is published by folks actually working on the GPS system, I hardly think that it qualifies as 'hearsay'. It contains all the relevant relativistic equations, which are not really that complicated, and derives the 38 nanosecond figure quoted above. An assertion on scientific matters without any evidence can't really be taken seriously. Can we please see the quantum mechanical equations and calculations which come up with the same or similar result? [[User:RolandPlankton|RolandPlankton]] 09:49, 12 April 2012 (EDT)

:Aschlafly, I'm inclined to suspect that your disbelief in relativity is so strong that you are unwilling to consider any evidence which might indicate that relativity could be correct, and are hence flailing around looking for some other explanation as to what actually happens (GPS clock adjustment by 38 ns). Would you care to comment on my suspicion? [[User:RolandPlankton|RolandPlankton]] 09:49, 12 April 2012 (EDT)

== Logic and the GPS ==

*Atomic watches work on the Earth quite fine
*[[Quantum mechanics]] describe the physics of ''very small length and energy scales''
*Satellites are macroscopic objects.
*Even a precision of 1cm on the surface of the Earth isn't a very small length.

So which kind of logic tells us that quantum mechanical effects influence the synchronization of the clocks? Why are not only the scientists involved lying, but also their calculations?

For me it seems to be a logical conclusion that you, Aschlafly, are even more knowledgeable of Greek than of Science! [[User:AugustO|AugustO]] 08:21, 12 April 2012 (EDT)
:He's trying to apply the Heisenburg Uncertainty principle to satellites? Are you kidding me? That principle is used for things at the ATOMIC LEVEL! Using ANYTHING with regards to quantum mechanics in an argument about satellites is absurdism and/or ignorance of the subject matter! Seriously Andy, I know you hate the Theory of Relativity, but you should really leave science to those who understand it. [[User:JanSmuts|JanSmuts]] 16:04, 12 April 2012 (EDT)