The Solution vs Hoax equation

[Tusk]

@ TK

So... unless I have access to a fully functioning set of controls I do not fly in heavier-than-air aircraft.

And you accuse ME of overconfidence lol ..... do you have no faith at all in your fellow aviators?

But therefore at least you know whereof I speak; address all doubts during a thorough and detailed preparation, then commit with full authority. The question for you now becomes 'was his preparation sufficient or will he crash and burn?' Whereas I have no doubts; I wouldn't be here wasting your time if it was otherwise.







 

 

[Tom Booth]

I kind of gave up Tom.

Well, I just got here, so I'm still enthusiastic. The title of the thread doesn't really reflect the content. I mean, as far as your proposed solution or idea for a place to submit "open source" if you will, collaborative research projects. I've had the same idea myself, or a very similar idea for a long time and call it "People's Research Center".

If the idea doesn't fly here, I'm also a computer programmer. Well, at least I know enough to register a domain name and install (or possibly write) a message board system, similar to this one (minus all the advertising).

But you might try starting another thread with a more pointed heading. I only stumbled in here because I'm kind of fed up with all the "free energy" hoaxes and am rather skeptical, even of my own "invention". I can't really imagine it could work. It seems too obvious or simple. Rather low tech and relatively cheap to make, I should think. Given that, other than the second law of thermodynamics, which seems more a rule of thumb than a fact, and probably inapplicable to this device since it is an open system, I can't figure out any reason why it shouldn't work. That is, running the cycles in my head I don't see, or cannot locate any failure point. It just keeps running. So I think it would be worthwhile to at least build a "Tin can" prototype, as an educational exercise if nothing else - to find out why it fails and further validate the second law or something. Besides I think it would be fun.

However, I did get some valuable insight from the thread, plus I got to coin some terms for myself:

1.  P.E.T  (Practical Energy Technology)  "I am working on a P.E.T. Project"

and

2.  "A committee of exceptional thinkers in chaos".  I just love that one

There is always a positive outcome.

LOL...

I still think it is an excellent idea.

Personally I'm not in favor of any kind of "non disclosure" arrangement. I'm an "open source" Perl Programmer and I believe in the open source model. Besides it flies in the face of pure scientific research or "Scientific Methodology" which demands full disclosure to the community. We can go open source and move ahead together or we can have an eye for some kind of big payoff and work in isolation keeping everything secret. There may not be time for the latter. We need some kind of energy solution pronto before we destroy ourselves and the earth beyond repair.

So, IMO, some kind of open source energy research forum is something that could move things ahead and speed progress. The pay off would be cheap clean energy for the world and future generations. If that isn't pay off enough for anybody I would say they haven't looked around. What good is money in your pocket if you live in a world where the air isn't fit to breath and the water isn't fit to drink and the food is radioactive? Aside from the host of other problems conventional energy sources have brought us.

So, don't give up on the idea. We could set up another forum if necessary.

Anyway, as I said, what you propose is not what I expected to find here going by the title. Seems more an invitation to debate - solution vs hoax - believers vs skeptics - something along those lines. So I'd try a new thread with a different title. One that more directly reflects the idea you are actually proposing.

[Liberty]

Well, there is a lot there, and going from back to front: I don't fly commercially because I know too much. I hold FAA Airframe and Powerplant Maintenance Technician's licences, commercial pilot ASEL, flight instructor glider licenses (no longer currently flying though due to health issues) and I have over 2000 flight hours logged as PIC and as flight instructor. I've flown a low-performance sailplane, the SGS1-26, over 500 km in a single flight with no power except the aero tow to 1600 feet agl. I've been to over 30,000 feet altitude in sailplanes more times than I can count, and I used to give aerobatic demonstrations at air shows in a big two-seater glider called the IS28-B2 Lark, and I also gave flight instruction in aerobatics in that sailplane and other two seaters. I owned a 300-HP Cessna A188A ag-wagon converted to a glider towship and used it during the 1991 World Soaring Championships in Uvalde Tx, then sold it to a fellow that wanted to turn it into a Stuka dive-bomber replica.

So... unless I have access to a fully functioning set of controls I do not fly in heavier-than-air aircraft.

As to the rest... I am distracted right now because of this:
http://www.techcentral.ie/20420/apple-wireless-charging-system-revealed-in-patent-application (find the claims and read them)
and this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhBgAAJUPsw
(note the date)

You will forgive me, I hope, if I go and sulk for a while.

And of course there is this, for your amusement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYovJzmCLdw

I can see that there will be a very limited need for wireless power in the future anyway, so don't be too down.  There will probably be units that are self powered, and will not need power transmitted to them, in the future.

[Tom Booth]

@ Tom Booth

Sounds promising Tom, Stirling's are a favourite of mine also. Why not drop the material into a new thread under the appropriate 'department' i.e. 'Mechanical' or wherever you think it should reside (be advised I'm no expert on forum etiquette). I look forward to taking a look myself.

Starting a new thread here would be rather superfluous. I've already posted the basics of this idea and have had lengthy debates to the point of exhaustion in other forums.

If you are really interested, I always use my real name when posting on the internet as I have done here. Just google my username along with stirling or heat engine.

If a kind of formal submission area could be set up as proposed, I think that would be interesting. There are some aspects or possible improvements of the engine I haven't yet discussed anywhere. Particularly in regard to the regenerator, and a few other things, but I never really got much of a chance to get into the details or nitty gritty as I was more often than not, in other forums, clobbered over the head with the second law. No matter that nobody could tell me the actual failure point or the WHY as far as why it wouldn't work, other than that the second law forbids it or that it is "perpetual motion" and therefore impossible. At that point all rational argument seems to go out the window. Quite often I've simply been banned from a forum or had my thread locked down by the forum moderator.

In the Stirling Engine forums I'm told it isn't a Stirling Engine and therefore discussion about it is inappropriate, though it is squarely based on Stirling's basic principles and incorporates some Stirling Engine components. Don't really know how else to classify it. I very much enjoy the debates in the science forums but too often the idea is dismissed off hand without actually understanding it. It just won't work because it is impossible. And when my logical arguments cannot be refuted I'm simply shut up by being banned or having my forum locked for some minor transgression. Like fairly recently I had a forum locked (I didn't even start the thread BTW) because I mentioned "perpetual motion". Though I was only trying to refute someone elses argument that sounded to me like perpetual motion. That is, their argument was, in general that HEAT passes THROUGH a heat engine. My argument was NO, the heat is CONVERTED, so that much of the heat does not actually ever reach the sink. It is converted to another form of energy and goes out of the system as such - motive power or electricity or whatever. I said if the heat simply passed through it would be available for reuse and THAT would be a basis for perpetual motion.

So the thread was locked because I mentioned perpetual motion.

Really?

If you want some amusement you can view that particular thread here:

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?86181-Electricity-from-ambient-heat/page10

[audiomaker]

<snip>

If a kind of formal submission area could be set up as proposed, I think that would be interesting. <snip>
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?86181-Electricity-from-ambient-heat/page10

Well Tom, I didn't start this thread as a crusade to begin a new forum.  I really was just examining the possibility, or likelihood that a device might already exist and gone unnoticed.

It wasn't long into the thread however, that it became very apparent (to me) that a better mechanism of discovery was needed.  This would be of benefit both to the enthusiasts and the skeptics.

For myself, I simply wanted an organized place where all the hoaxes and frauds were disproved, and with "proof of the disproval" if you will, and also listings of "submissions" that were still being considered.
That hypothetical forum would need to have some teeth, not just chatter.  The teeth of it being that if a submission had not been obviously disproved and were perplexing the observers of this board, the board itself could take action to solidly place it in the "hoax" category...with explanation of that exposure.   

The rough draft I proposed included a "poll", which means members could vote further action up or down.  "Polls" are often built into the software of internet message boards, although I don't know about this one.

Anyway, my process was a rough draft and I was expecting some interests and suggestions on how one would make such a forum fair and effective.

After witnessing the path that many (not just this one) threads take, I would also add to my original format that only one post per member be allowed in each thread, and that post should directly reflect the person's analysis of the item being submitted.  In other words, members may offer a summary.

That collection of summaries, over a certain period of time (say 2 weeks) produces a certain percentage of "votes" in the "poll" that if > than "X" (75%?) triggers the "teeth" of the forum which draws from a fund to put boots on the ground at the site where the device resides.

The rest of my thoughts on format are back in this thread somewhere.