Can the dipole field of a capacitor continuously push electrons around a loop?

[LeoFreeman]

Seasons Greetings to everyone!
I'm sure this is a well-known, classic fallacy, but for the life of me, I can't see why it shouldn't work. I haven't been able find anything similar in web searches, probably because I didn't use the right descriptors. Anyway, I was hoping that someone could lay this to rest by putting a name to the concept and explaining why it shouldn't be able to power a circuit indefinitely.

Fig 1 shows a parallel plate capacitor with a wire running through holes in the plates (but not touching them) and continuing around in a closed loop through a resistive load (the light bulb). The capacitor is not directly connected to the circuit, so it won't lose it's charge and dipole field.Only the capacitor's field interacts with the wire. The circuit outside the plates is shielded from all EM effects (if that's even necessary, as the field outside a capacitor is negligible.)

Fig 2 is a cutaway section showing how I imagine the charges on the unshielded wire segment between the plates might move in response to the electric field. Fig 3 is the circuit diagram showing the same charge buildup near each plate.

Fig 4 Once the charges collect near each plate, and the wire segment is broken, it forms two reversely charged,  open-ended capacitors connected by a wire. The switch represents the light-bulb. If the switch is closed, the charges on the connected plates should move to neutralize the plates. This charge movement is a tiny bit of free energy, and it brings the circuit back to the starting point from where the process can repeat indefinitely.

This circuit idea is so basic and simplistic that it must been described in detail long ago. at least by Faraday's era, but I haven't seen anything similar.

[pomodoro]

The field between cap plates is very directional from one plate to another, there are no more of the field lines you normally see around a single charge. This means that the parallel wire will not feel any electrical attraction from the charges as the field lines are completely parallel to the wire.
Take two spherical balls one positive and one negative instead of the plates, far from each other. Then induction to nearby wires definitely  will take place and will charge them as you show. Current will indeed flow only he first time the switch is closed. After that, equalization has taken place in the wire circuit.To get more current to flow work is required to move the wires away and reopen the switch. Is this similar to the capacitor you have or is there another mechanism you are describing?

[LeoFreeman]

Thank you for your reply! I'm not too familiar with the nitty-gritty of electronics, so there are probably lots of things I'm overlooking.

About your suggestion that parallel electric field lines would not interact with a wire running perfectly parallel to them:
  If the wire was angled slightly, would that make a difference? Perhaps the wire itself attracts the field lines?

A variation of this idea would be to remove the wire segment between the plates and instead, have the electrons jump the gap, using an electron gun.
At the negative plate, the free end of the wire loop could be turned into a thermionic emitter (by heating up the end of the wire).

The field between the capacitor plates should then accelerate the electrons across the gap towards the + plate, where they would strike a collector target located within the hole in the + plate.
Now this is speculation: Eventually, there would be a large negative charge buildup at the target. I'm sure these crowded electrons would opt to take the long way around the circuit, through the light bulb, back to the emitter end of the circuit. That would be free energy, even though we had to pay a small cost for heating the thermionic emitter (that is just a surface effect, so not much energy is needed to liberate the electrons compared to the energy they would gain from the electric field. Once more, this is just speculation...

If it doesn't work, then the charge distribution shown in fig 4 should remain even after the switch is closed. That means that the connected plates of the two capacitors should not neutralize their charges. But I'm fairly certain that they would, even with the electrostatic forces trying to keep the charges on the plate.

[pomodoro]

Umm sounds a bit like this chaps invention. Have a gander if you haven't already seen it.
http://overunity.com/15667/thermionic-overunity-generator-my-gift-to-the-world/#.WGCzD5vmh75

[LeoFreeman]

Hi, Pomodoro, Thanks for this lead!  I hadn't heard of Sadaly or his device before. 

I only mentioned the electron-gun approach to illustrate the point that electrons can be actually made to jump across a gap using an externally applied electric field.  A simple wire segment, however, in my opinion, would be much easier, avoiding the need for heating circuits and vacuum chambers.
Maybe it would work in theory, but in practice, the high plate charge would instantly arc across to the wire segment, unless the shielding sleeve on the wire circuit extended a considerable distance into the gap, far away from the plates.

Alternatively, some very high-voltage resistant insulating coating could be used around the wire segment; maybe the whole capacitor could be embedded in some sort of insulating resin. I'm not sure how this would affect the electric field strength, though. 

Another option, instead of having just a single the wire segment running down through the middle of the capacitor plates, the wire could be wound around and around like a toroid, so that it re-enters the capacitor field many times before proceeding to the load. [Sketchup 3D Warehouse image credit: KHF ]

I'll certainly look into Sadaly's machine more. 
Regards, Leo