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[MarkE]

I am at a loss as to how you think, but anyway.


Of course it is going to be very difficult to show heat taken in by the DUT to electrical output unless we build around the DUT sensitive thermal flux sensors, and if we did it would not be a $10 experiment, but even a first year student can appreciate the first law of energy, and by simple application of logic that the Kelvin statement can be restated as "you cannot produce power from a device wholly immersed in a single thermal reservoir".

Unfortunately, you do not have a device immersed in a single thermal reservoir.  If you did, then in order to violate the Kelvin statement you would have to show that device dividing that single reservoir into hotter and colder sections without the benefit of outside energy.  On top of that you have a source of outside energy. 

We could take your experiment and instead of connecting the lead wires to a meter, enclose them in a cylinder fitted with a piston.  Heat conducted by the wires would heat and expand gas in the cylinder and push on the piston.  No thermodynamic laws would be violated. 

So if you know the DUT is immersed in a single reservoir, which is in practical terms known to be so by making sure it has as close as possible to zero temp gradient (I can guarantee less than 1mK), then if it outputs electrical energy it must follow that it does so with 100% efficiency.

That is not what you have.  See above.  If you have instrumentation capable of measuring to 0.001K accuracy at ~800K that works for less than $10. you can make lots of money in industrial temperature measurement.

To prove satisfactory compliance to the issue of my oven being an isothermal reservoir I deliberately applied thermal gradients of 1deg K to the DUT, the output variance was less than 0.01%. I was therefore 100% sure that my results were valid and not simply a case of me heating a DUT with a temperature gradient.

Again, even if you could keep the temperature at various points in your fixture on an extreme knife's edge, the thermal leaks of the oven remain, including through your lead wires.  Steady temperature no more means no heat flow, than a constant voltage between two nodes of a circuit means no current flow through one or the other nodes.

Taking the view that I can reasonably estimate both the thermal flux through vacuum and the temperature depression of the DUT active elements (cathode and anode) against the electrical output, you get a value of less than 0.00001 Kelvin cathode to anode (do the calcs yourself), but lets increase it to 0.001K, then apply that to the carnot equation and you simply cannot get 4uW output, in fact if you care to do some calculations based on a DT of 1mK the result would not allow a Carnot limit output of any more than 4 pW, so I am very sure of what I say.

This is called bootstrapping.  It is complete folly.  10E-6 K control out of 500K rise is 20 parts per billion net input / output power stability.  If you think such extraordinary power stability is available to a mains operated oven heater, then you are at serious odds with the state of the art.

predicted carnot limit = 4 uW thermal input flux x .001/1000 = 4pW (this is 1,000,000 times smaller than the measure output)

In order for that 4uW to represent something that could challenge the Kelvin statement, the total rate of heat removal from the oven would also have to be 4uW.  If you are powering your oven with more than 4uW then the 4uW measurement does not help you challenge the Kelvin statement of the Second Law of Energy.

So something exceeding the Carnot efficiency limit by such a massive factor should ring some positive bells in your head.

You can't show such a thing in the presence of thermal leaks all around you that are orders and orders of magnitude greater than the power you measure through your meter.

MarkE, let's agree that no matter what I say you will not agree, and you will not pursue it by doing your own experiment, and that accordingly this conversation has no point.


FWIIW I in fact posted the diagram that started this conversation for the benefit of profitis, I really did not want a debate with entrenched skeptics.


Have a nice day.


Bye all.


Phil

If this is your experiment, it is no wonder that you cannot find traction with academic professionals.  At the low power levels you are talking about discerning power moved by what you think is a Second Law violating mechanism from power input by the oven is going to be quite tricky.  What you would be looking for is a way to make one part of the reservoir hotter, and one part colder.

[wings]

"I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure about anything."
~ Richard Feynman, Nobel Price in physics, 1965

[MarkE]

Those are wise words from an extremely intelligent physicist.  Carefully designed experiments that can actually tell the difference between the null and the actual hypothesis are valuable tools that help us find our way through the darkness.  Experiments that can't discern the null from the actual hypothesis can't reveal anything new.  They can unfortunately mislead.  That seems to be the case with Mr. Hardcastle's experiment.  Whether his idea that the Second Law can be broken or not cannot be distinguished by his experiment.  Some other experiment is needed.

[wings]

Second Law can be broken!

Another Way to Realize Maxwell' s Demon: Xinyong Fu, Zitao Fu, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, September 28, 2005

The device can provide continuously a small but macroscopic
power to an external load, violating Kelvin's statement of the second law.
http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0509/0509111.pdf



http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0311104v3.pdf




http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2012/mar/08/graphene-in-new-battery-breakthrough

[MarkE]

Second Law can be broken!

Another Way to Realize Maxwell' s Demon: Xinyong Fu, Zitao Fu, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, September 28, 2005

The device can provide continuously a small but macroscopic
power to an external load, violating Kelvin's statement of the second law.
http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0509/0509111.pdf



http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0311104v3.pdf




http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2012/mar/08/graphene-in-new-battery-breakthrough

Maybe.  That is certainly what the claimants say.  In the first case, the video is instructional as to the types of experiments that they ran.  In each case a very powerful magnet was moved into place and/or rotated which induced an image current in the copper box.  The energy from that current can end up charging stray capacitance in the system.  The electrometer measures extremely small currents, so it could take some time to discharge.  The tests would be more convincing if they were run with the magnet in a fixed position relative to the copper box for longer periods of time, such as 24 hours.

The graphene "heat" battery uses two dissimilar metals in an electrolytic solution.  The researchers need to rule out that they have simply built an electrochemical battery.

If Mr. Hardcastle is to prove his claims, he needs to set-up a test that actually goes after the Kelvin statement of the Second Law of Energy.  The experiment that he has presented is not up to the task.