quentron.com

[Madebymonkeys]

Fair enough.  So my next step was to give Philip the benefit of the doubt.  So assume that perhaps there is some way to "decide" without memory or without erasing memory.  From there you might want to look at some of the work in information theory that correlates physical entropy with informational entropy - it's exceptionally interesting in and of itself - one of the theorems demonstrates that there is a correlation between stored information and energy (or entropy).  That a "bit" of information is "worth" a certain amount of energy.

You don't need to understand it all but just the (somewhat oversimplified) idea that any Maxwell's Demon machine is essentially a small computing device.  It takes an input, there's a decision and there's an action (to sort or not to sort) in Szilard, Brillouin and Landauer's models they also have "memory" but Philip's doesn't (or at least doesn't in the way an IT person would recognize it) and I'm getting to the problem with that.   If you follow me so far, let me know and I'll give you the next piece.

Anyone like Bruce_TPU (or Philip who's pretty tight lipped about information theory - which makes me think it's a few light years outside his field) who thinks I'm saying "nothing" - might want to come forward at this point and explain what I'm getting at here and why it's false because you can't really make your statement with confidence unless you know that.   If you can't then it makes me think you're all blowing smoke.

Cool, thanks for that - I will lookup the guys you mention and have a read.

[lumen]

So let's read this slowly, "Information THEORY".

Why, that sounds like absolute proof of something right there!

Ok, everyone ready....... here it comes!

[Madebymonkeys]

So let's read this slowly, "Information THEORY".

Why, that sounds like absolute proof of something right there!

Ok, everyone ready....... here it comes!

Sarkaizen is contributing to the discussion about whether quenco is possible or not.
What's your feelings about information theory and how it applies (or doesn't) to quenco? How about entropy - does quenco reduce it?
Apparently entropy is reducing as the universe expands (?) - I don't think this needs to be considered mind you!

[hollander]

... So I am not surprised at all and I believe the physics behind the experiment can all be explained by someone that is much more qualified than me.
...
MileHigh

The theory is already here:

http://arxiv.org/abs/0912.4818

and in some other papers by the same author. And he seems to agree with you. The effect is possible, but the power output is tiny. How can PJH say to be able to extract incredible power from the same phenomenon? Tunnelling can't create energy from nothing.

H.

[sarkeizen]

So let's read this slowly, "Information THEORY".

Why, that sounds like absolute proof of something right there!

I think I mentioned earlier about how "proof" is a poor term and I think lumen has illustrated this problem well with his confusion over the use of "theory".

Information theory is, in case it's not obvious a branch of mathematics.  In mathematics the term proof (also theorem and sometimes theory) are used differently than in other disciplines.  In an experiment "proof" appears to mean a level of evidence which can be established with some kind of probability (either a formal probability like in a randomized double-blinded placebo controlled trial or in a more informal sense).  When you do an experiment, all you can ever do is control for as many variables as you can (or can afford to) and hope that you have been careful enough to rule out everything larger than the effect you are measuring.  One well-done disconfirming experiment can overthrow your previous "proof".   

In mathematics a proof or a theorem is incontrovertible.    There exists no experiment, proof or equation which can demonstrate that there are a finite number of primes.  In fact for things that "seem" true but for which there exists no formal proof.  Mathematicians have a special name for that a "conjecture".  Such as the Taniyama–Shimura Conjecture made famous by Weil in proving Feremat's Last Theorem ( <- this usage of theorem is a special exception to the rule about how the term is used in math).  When proved it became the Modularity Theorem.  For things which are not provable but must be assumed mathematicians use yet another term "axiom".

Similarly in branches of math, such as information theory, decision theory and computer science.   There are theorems which represent "fences" if you will.  Things you can't do or build no matter how hard you try (which is why I asked that first question to MBM).   When dealing with something as poorly explained and defined as Quenco it's useful to try and find some places where it attempts to "jump the fence" if you can find a place where it does it greatly simplifies evaluating the idea.

A few experimental physicists and many engineers I've met scorn mathematicians for an over focusing on theory.  Some of that criticism is well-deserved.  For example anyone who's taken year 1 comp-sci will have spent a fair amount of time on recursion and recursive algorithms however in the workplace you rarely use them.  However what I'm highlighting here is different.  Either you believe you can build a machine that can deterministically tell you if a computer program will end...or you don't.   If you don't then you might ponder some of the hard questions I mentioned to forcefield earlier on.  If you do,  then you understand that mathematics have a certain degree of control over the world you live in.