Very often we hear about how good it would be if there was a perpetual motion machine. Not a single year is complete without some clever man assembling his “perpetual motion machine” in the basement. But in the end, each of them turns out to be either idle or working due to some external force, and then it is no longer eternal, since without the presence of external influence it will not function. All this is based on one simple law of conservation of energy. Therefore, first we will talk about him. And we will begin with history.
History of law
Here you can start telling more from the days of the ancient world. Even ancient philosophers gave the prerequisites for understanding this simple truth: energy does not appear from nowhere, but is transformed from one form to another.
In the Middle Ages, Rene Descartes in his Principles of Philosophy wrote: " When one body collides with another, it can tell him only as much movement as it will lose at the same time, and take away from it only as much as it increases its own movement."
A little later, Lomonosov in a letter to Leonard Euler expressed a similar point of view. He said that if in one place matter disappears, then in another it must certainly appear.
In the nineteenth century, Michael Faraday, who studied electrochemical phenomena, made similar conclusions, realizing that electric current can have magnetic, electrodynamic, chemical and thermal effects.
For many centuries, scientists have proved the inviolability of this law one after another: James Joule, Hermann Helmholtz, Robert Meyer. All of them proved that energy cannot just disappear somewhere: it just goes into different forms. Of course, this law categorically denies the existence of perpetual motion machines, as this would mean the possibility of producing energy from nowhere.
Well, now a few theoretical calculations and justifications of the above theses.
Theory
The general justification of the law of conservation of energy is quite complicated and cumbersome. It includes formulas with partial differential equations. Therefore, we restrict ourselves to considering particular cases of the law of conservation of energy.
In classical mechanics, Newton’s second law applies, which states that the resultant of all forces applied to the body is equal to the product of mass and acceleration.
In thermodynamics, this law is expressed by the first principle. It states: a change in the internal energy of the system is equal to the sum of the energies spent on the transition and the heat released in this process.
In addition to these two disciplines, special cases of the law of conservation of energy manifest themselves in quantum mechanics, and in hydrodynamics, and in optics. They are not so easy to understand, but it all boils down to one thing: all energy can be transformed into its other form and cannot be created from nothing.
It is time to move on to the main topic of our article, namely, to what the zero point energy is.
Zero point theory
The concept of zero-point energy has long been used by science fiction writers to describe time travel technology. And until recently, this was in no way consistent with actual results. In fact, the zero point and its energy are not always considered in the correct sense. Many understand this as infinite spatial energy, which can be converted into forms convenient for us and used. This is actually not the case.
Zero-point energy, free energy of a vacuum - all these are the names of the energy form that has not yet been studied, which is space-time and is contained in cosmic void at the level of matter. In fact, today we are not able to look at this level, therefore we cannot confirm this theory.
Using this hypothesis, many fraudsters collect devices that supposedly "pump out" the energy of the vacuum and turn it into electricity. People who do not understand anything about this, willingly believe compelling videos with different perpetual motion machines.
Let's talk about this in more detail and find out what tricks today are used by newly-minted kulibins.
Around cheating
In pursuit of the zero point, free energy has become a term identical to the perpetual motion machine. And many scammers are trying to cash in on this. Many of them firmly believe in their inventions, which at best causes laughter from the scientific community. But the scientific community is one. And completely different - the public and ordinary inhabitants. Fraudsters very cleverly lure ordinary people with little understanding in physics, promising them "infinite energy", taken from the "ether".
But all this is just a way to make money. The most successful fraudster today is John Searle, whose generator allegedly has more than 100% efficiency. Like any "hero", he has a difficult fate. When he launched his first generator, a few years later he was sent to prison for the theft of electricity. A few years later he left, and now he is fighting with renewed vigor for the deceived minds of the public and businessmen who finance this nonsense.
But we will not be unfounded, and in the next section we will describe how generators work based on such phenomena as zero-point energy, antigravity and free energy.
Scam generator circuit
The Searl Generator is powered by permanent magnets. And this is not the first or last design of a perpetual motion machine based on magnetic fields. But, unlike previous Kulibins, who assembled the engine without justification, where does the energy come from, John Searle promotes the theory that this zero-point energy field drives the magnets and provides rotation.
In fact, this is a simple interaction of magnetic fields, leading to the rotation of small neodymium magnets around one large one. But the whole point is that no matter how long these magnets rotate, the energy from their rotation must be somehow extracted, otherwise it will not lead to anything. And the extraction of energy will lead to a complete stop of the entire structure. Also, a factor that does not play into the hands of perpetual motion machines is the energy loss due to friction, which inevitably occurs in any structure. And here no zero point energy will help. A zero-generator circuit, if you look at it carefully, will turn out to be just a fake, where instead of rotational energy converters there are installations that ensure the operability of the whole structure due to external power supply.
And why, in fact, this design has no right to exist? In the pictures of the Searle generator, we can clearly see several magnetic cylinders located opposite other magnets (or, rather, electromagnets powered by a battery). It is argued that when the cylinders rotate, the magnets around the perimeter of the installation will push them in the direction of motion, thereby providing rotation. But the rotation will occur only until the rotation energy, applied by the human hand to spin the installation, ends in the system. At some point, each cylinder will fall into a magnetic well - that is, into an area where the forces of attraction and repulsion from other magnetic fields are reduced to zero, and the cylinder cannot move.
And, in fact, why is this all done? Yes, only for two things: to assure businessmen and knock out investments (that is, steal money and throw it away), and in order to become famous.
It is also alleged that, in addition to the perpetual motion machine, generators based on the “Searl effect” (the fraudster called his name a fictitious effect) are able to create an anti-gravity field, and with a sufficiently large installation volume it can freeze a meter above the ground. This is not supported by anything and there are no videos proving this.
Sea of quacks
But John Searle is not alone. And in Russia there are people who sincerely believe in the existence of the ether and that the inventor of such a thing as zero point energy is Tesla, who supposedly did not transmit electricity at a distance to other objects, but scooped it from the ether. First, the theory of ether has long been outdated and is not accepted by any respected scientist. Why? Because for more than a hundred years she has not received any evidence and is declared insolvent. A theory of boiling vacuum, more similar to reality, also remains unproven. You will say that if a theory is not proven, this is not a reason for the failure of a generator that uses its laws, because it is possible, after all, that in the end this theory will be proved. But no. People have already succeeded quite well in magnetic field physics, and it is safe to say that there can be no talk of any zero-point energy field. And if such developments could really exist, no one could hide it from the public.
We figured out that zero-point energy, antigravity, and so on are the concepts of charlatans. If you hear something like this - do not even delve into the explanations, immediately go away and cover your ears. Do not let yourself be fooled. Now let’s analyze a little more real hypotheses and theories that operate on the concept of “zero point”, but do not give a chance for the existence of a perpetual motion machine.
Reality
By zero energy in physics we mean the minimum energy level at which a physical system can exist. As a rule, this concept is used in quantum mechanics to describe the energy that fills a vacuum and space-time. This is the minimum energy possible for a given area of space.
These concepts are not accepted by the scientific community, but are also included in theories to explain certain things, for example, the cosmological constant. But no one has yet expressed any versions or hypotheses on how to convert such a quantity as zero-point energy into a form that we can consume.
There is a so-called theory of boiling vacuum. And she is very well developed and has a good experimental base. This theory allows us to explain the Casimir effect, which consists in the mutual attraction of two uncharged bodies in a vacuum. It is explained by the fact that electromagnetic waves constantly appear and disappear in empty space, and they are able to act on objects. In the space between the two plates, a small number of waves are absorbed due to resonance. Thus, more wave fluctuations press on the plates from the outside than inside, and the plates are attracted.
These are all very interesting theories that are taken seriously by scientists and are really promising for further development in order to explain some physical phenomena. But they all say one thing: the zero point is not a panacea. To extract energy from a vacuum, you need to spend the same, if not more, other energy. All this follows from the unshakable law of conservation of energy, for which thousands of evidence has been found to date, but not a single refuting fact.
Despite all the arguments and justifications, there are people who say the exact opposite. They operate with fictitious data and experiments and almost never reinforce their thoughts with theory, but only demonstrate supposedly working installations that are able to feed an entire cottage village. These are all deceivers and scammers. They say that if we all use the mythical zero-point energy technology, we can open the way to a new future with endless sources of energy and will not deny ourselves anything. But everything is not so rosy.
Next, let's talk about methods of dealing with such charlatans.
Knowledge is power
The main reason that such people exist and are capable of deceiving us is the illiteracy of the population and the holy faith in the existence of an endless source of free energy. Indeed, you must admit that everyone wants to have an inexhaustible source of energy in their home in order to supply them with whatever they want, and also to sell what they could not use. But alas, free energy does not exist, and will not exist. You can’t get it out of nothing, and the efficiency of converting one form to another never exceeds 100%. And this is a law that no one can refute.
Another utopia that promises including the Searl generator is antigravity. More on this in the next section.
Antigravity
Two forces acting on a charge in a magnetic field, attraction and repulsion, are also applicable to an uncharged body located in the field of gravitational pleasure. The nature of gravity is still poorly understood, and it is assumed that there are particles that provide it - gravitons. It is also interesting that, according to the theory of relativity, the structure of space-time and gravity are very strongly related to each other and to the physical characteristics of bodies in space. Although these two forces are connected, nothing is known about antigravity, that is, on the contrary, not by attraction, but by the repulsion of bodies from each other. It is possible that in our measurement antigravity is impossible due to the specific structure of the substance. But antigravity may well be possible with the interaction of antimatter. In any case, we know little about all these phenomena.
But our knowledge is quite extensive in order to say with accuracy that under any magnetic phenomena it is impossible to create either an anti-gravity field, a black hole or other nonsense. This is another mistake of the creators of perpetual motion machines, who assure that their cars, among other things, have the property of antigravity.
Conclusion
Much has been said about scammers and people who sacredly believe in their cause. It was said about why this is happening. But the 21st century has long come, in which fewer people believe in fairy tales about zero energy and perpetual motion machines. Fewer people are now engaged in such nonsense, but still there are such units as, for example, John Searle, who have been artificially deceiving people for decades.
People can be stubborn and stand their own way, but science and common sense should be higher and not allow charlatans to deceive ordinary inhabitants.