Just a reminder to the naysayers-
The second law of thermodynamics that many cling so tightly to, were based on hydraulic circuits assuming a closed system.
Period.
Electrical / electronic circuits can at times assume a closed system as well, but the problem comes in where electromagnetic waves go beyond the confines of the conductor and interact with the environment. Resonant tank circuits can entrain the magnetic field of the earth and or the vacuum and produce these effects.
At this point the second law of thermodynamics no longer applies.
This interaction with the environment is the primary source of  over unity gain phenomena.
Any AM transmitter is proof of this, RF engineers have known this for many years.

another fun experiment to try is take two of the identical caps (same size and voltage rating)  measure the capacitance with a reliable meter and record the value for each.
charge one cap up to its full level record the voltage. you can now calculate the charge contained in the cap in coulombs. now briefly connect the second cap to the first in paralell so that the voltage equalizes between the two.
now measure the voltage in each cap and calculate the charge in each cap.
generally you will wind up with more charge than you started with.

kind regards,
zatheros

ZathEros:

I think that you are missing on some subtleties with respect to science and the second law.

I think that "closed system" vs. "open system" concept is interpreted to liberally sometimes and can be applied out of context.

Electromagnetic waves and the environment are all part of a single whole system.  So if a system is radiating electromagnetic radiation into space or receiving electromagnetic radiation from space, then that is all part of the entire system that you are looking at. Therefore all of the energy balances in the system, you can't ignore the EM effects.  Therefore the laws of thermodynamics do apply here.

If you interact with the environment and absorb energy from it, that is not an over unity gain phenomena.  Take the example of a solar panel.  It's not OU, it's just taking advantage of the power source of the sun and harvesting some of the available energy.  The sun will eventually run out of fuel and then you get nothing from your solar array.

An AM transmitter is like a miniature sun.  It follows all of the laws of thermodynamics.  Solar energy -> plants -> fossil fuel -> oil-fired electrical plant -> electrical amplifier -> electromagnetic transmitting antenna radiating energy into space.   That transmitting energy originally came from the sun, and the sun's energy came from the thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium.  It is as simple as that.

For your capacitor experiment there is nothing special also.  A small amount of charge at a high potential can be turned into a larger amount of charge at a lower potential and energy is conserved.  You actually loose 1/2 of the energy in the after case in your experiment.  The interesting thing is for both the before case and the after case, the actual net charge on the capacitor or capacitors is actually zero.

MileHigh

Not that it matters much, but R7 in my charging circuit was 1.86 ohms, and R7 in the discharging circuit was 0.100 ohms.

The current & voltage graph are merely the ADC output. Technically the current graph is just the voltage across either the 1.86 ohm or 0.100 ohm resistor. During the discharge phase the voltage across the 0.100 ohm resistor starts off slightly higher than the voltage across the 1.86 ohm resistor in the charging phase, but the resistance is 18.6 times less, so the current is 18.6 times higher.

Paul

@ Paul,

Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou.

This is going to be one of the tools I will be using in my quest for OU, it truly will be.
We will all owe you a lot Paul, you are a treassure indeed.

My email addy is to the left here if you would email me the software when ready.

jim

One of My heater circuits has been running two weeks now . The run battery started at 1.355 and the Bcap started at .5 . in approximatly 19 hours the bcap reached 1.800 volts .  the remaining power in the battery is 1.301 as of today / cap is holding its own at 1.801  I then hooked a 1.2 volt flashlight bulb in series from pos to pos  after that two weeks ago y with a screw in socket for about 30 minuits every few days . The battery charges slowley and and the bcap discharges even slower . so today the battery is 1.301 and the cap is 1.8 volts after two weeks  and about 5 jumps thru the flashlight bulb . After the OU control Circuitry is built this will work as i proved without a doubt in my mind that this circuit will hold its own and self run .  Stick that in you Head Scientist !!

Albert