Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] Perpetual Motion Machine?

[Michael <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

> My understanding (and I do admit I don't know a lot about him) is that 
> Tesla's inventions, although they appeared magical, were completely in 
> line with the known laws of physics.  So a scientist or engineer might 
> at first express a certain disbelief, but after it is explained to him 
> will go "wow, that's amazing!"
Of course. If it was magic then it wouldn't be science.
> The thing abotu perpetual motion is that a new invention appears quite 
> frequently, and they never work.  I don't think that one can preclude 
> that there is some way to get energy out of nothing, but it will 
> require a complete rewriting of physics, and it will take a genius 
> first class to do it, and probably the theory will be found before the 
> practical application (e.g. like E=mc^2 which took decades to even 
> partially implement).
I think the biggest problem is that every time something gets close it 
squeezes the definition. Solar power would have seemed like perpetual 
motion, or free energy, not all that long ago but now fails the 
definition because the definition has altered. Nuclear power could be 
damn near perpetual for most practical purposes - if we felt like 
designing it to be that. It really all comes down to how literal you 
want to take the term and how restrictive you want to be. If you 
disallow any interaction with outside forces then it becomes a pointless 
exercise anyway.
> These articles just seem so like previous articles that didn't pan 
> out, that Bayesian analysis will firmly persuade one that this article 
> is also a fake.
Probably not. Again, I'm not saying anyone has done this - just allowing 
for the fact that it is doable.

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