"free energy"

[Paul Paryski]

At a Christmas eve party here in Santa Fe (the city very different) , a  
number of new age or whatever folks were talking about "free energy" which they  
claimed was a scientific reality.  Being somewhat of a sceptic and cynic, I  
cried out a Dickens'  humbug. But thought I would toss this  out to the FRIAM
list to see if anyone knew anything about so-called "free  energy".  cheers Paul



**************************************See AOL's top rated recipes
(http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop00030000000004)
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[Roger Critchlow-2]

Well, in thermodynamics we have a Gibbs free energy (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibbs_free_energy) and a Helmholtz free energy
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmholtz_free_energy).

Free energy is not free in the sense of free beer or of free speech, it is
free in the sense of being liberated by a transformation.

Given the context, your celebrants were probably talking about free (beer)
energy?

-- rec --

On Dec 26, 2007 3:48 PM, <PPARYSKI at aol.com> wrote:

>  At a Christmas eve party here in Santa Fe (the city very different) , a
> number of new age or whatever folks were talking about "free energy" which
> they claimed was a scientific reality.  Being somewhat of a sceptic and
> cynic, I cried out a Dickens'  humbug. But thought I would toss this out to
> the FRIAM list to see if anyone knew anything about so-called "free
> energy".  cheers Paul
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> See AOL's top rated recipes<http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop00030000000004>and easy
> ways to stay in shape<http://body.aol.com/fitness/winter-exercise?NCID=aoltop00030000000003>for winter.
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>

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[Stephen Guerin]

Free energy is the amount of energy in a system that is available to do work. A
room with all its air molecules equally distributed will have energy but no free
energy. If you put a heater in one corner of the room and a cooler in an
opposite corner, this second system would have free energy and a device could be
introduced to extract work from it.

How living systems identify sources of free energy and construct devices to use
it is a central question in complex systems research (or should be more). Both
Boltzmann and Shrodinger suggested living systems struggle not for energy but
for free energy.

Here's a recent working paper abstract from Eric and Harold Morowitz:

Harold Morowitz and Eric Smith have a very approachable working paper on Origin
of Life:
http://www.santafe.edu/research/publications/wpabstract/200608029

ABSTRACT: Life is universally understood to require a source of free energy and
mechanisms with which to harness it. Remarkably, the converse may also be true:
the continuous generation of sources of free energy by abiotic processes may
have forced life into existence as a means to alleviate the buildup of free
energy stresses. This assertion -- for which there is precedent in
non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and growing empirical evidence from
chemistry -- would imply that life had to emerge on the earth, that at least the
early steps would occur in the same way on any similar planet, and that we
should be able to predict many of these steps from first principles of chemistry
and physics together with an accurate understanding of geochemical conditions on
the early earth. A deterministic emergence of life would reflect an essential
continuity between physics, chemistry, and biology. It would show that a part of
the order we recognize as living is thermodynamic order inherent in the
geosphere, and that some aspects of Darwinian selection are expressions of the
likely simpler statistical mechanics of physical and chemical self-organization.

-S

> -----Original Message-----
> From: PPARYSKI at aol.com [mailto:PPARYSKI at aol.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2007 3:48 PM
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: [FRIAM] "free energy"
>
> At a Christmas eve party here in Santa Fe (the city very
> different) , a number of new age or whatever folks were
> talking about "free energy" which they claimed was a
> scientific reality.  Being somewhat of a sceptic and cynic, I
> cried out a Dickens'  humbug. But thought I would toss this
> out to the FRIAM list to see if anyone knew anything about
> so-called "free energy".  cheers Paul
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> See AOL's top rated recipes
> <http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop000300000000
> 04>  and easy ways to stay in shape
> <http://body.aol.com/fitness/winter-exercise?NCID=aoltop000300
> 00000003>  for winter.
>

[Carl Tollander]

I'd ask what they meant by "free".  Free as in beer, free as in freedom,
free as in kittens?

Carl

PPARYSKI at aol.com wrote:

> At a Christmas eve party here in Santa Fe (the city very different) ,
> a number of new age or whatever folks were talking about "free energy"
> which they claimed was a scientific reality.  Being somewhat of a
> sceptic and cynic, I cried out a Dickens'  humbug. But thought I would
> toss this out to the FRIAM list to see if anyone knew anything about
> so-called "free energy".  cheers Paul
>
>
>
> See AOL's top rated recipes
> <http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop00030000000004> and
> easy ways to stay in shape
> <http://body.aol.com/fitness/winter-exercise?NCID=aoltop00030000000003>
> for winter.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Steve Smith]

Guerin -

Very well stated....

However, considering the source, it is very much more likely:
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy

Don't (ever) forget that "newage rhymes with sewage".

The ever-recurring "zero-point energy" scam that people
fool themselves with at least as often as perpetual motion
devices.  Or better yet, contrive perpetual motion devices
which aspire to tap said "zero-point energy"

In my apprehension, Zero-Point energy is nearly useless
and therefore mostly boring except for the related Casimir
effect which will likely play an important role in practical
nanomachinery which does not necessarily exclude
biology.

In fact, is would surprise me if there were no significant
nanoscale effects in biology.  I don't track closely enough
to have examples or counter-examples.  It seems at least
likely that the Van der Waals force is significant to biological
processes.  (shit, before I could hit "send" my parallel
research discovered that Gecko glass-climbing is
attributable to Van der Waals)

It reminds me of the time I was at a party in Santa Fe and
had someone ask me if I used "ESP" in my work.    I told
them that "absolutely, I use it all of the time!"   Of course
it took at least 15 minutes of mutual misunderstanding
before I realized they were talking about "extra-sensory-perception"
and I was talking about "easy structured programming"
(a lab developed visual programming language
pre-processor for Fortran which used ... if you can imagine...
ascii-art diagrams of block-programs to design and
self-document and make modular Fortran IV code!
It parsed Whiles and Untils (comparison done at the
end of the loop instead of the beginning) into if/then/goto
structures similar to RatFor.

I found some line-printer output from my ESP
coding days while cleaning out my files... I should like
offer it to some museum maybe... too bad I threw
away my MANIAC manuals 3 moves ago!


Damn... I'm old.

- Steve

- Smith



On Dec 26, 2007, at 5:47 PM, Stephen Guerin wrote:

> Free energy is the amount of energy in a system that is available to  
> do work. A
> room with all its air molecules equally distributed will have energy  
> but no free
> energy. If you put a heater in one corner of the room and a cooler  
> in an
> opposite corner, this second system would have free energy and a  
> device could be
> introduced to extract work from it.
>
> How living systems identify sources of free energy and construct  
> devices to use
> it is a central question in complex systems research (or should be  
> more). Both
> Boltzmann and Shrodinger suggested living systems struggle not for  
> energy but
> for free energy.
>
> Here's a recent working paper abstract from Eric and Harold Morowitz:
>
> Harold Morowitz and Eric Smith have a very approachable working  
> paper on Origin
> of Life:
> http://www.santafe.edu/research/publications/wpabstract/200608029
>
> ABSTRACT: Life is universally understood to require a source of free  
> energy and
> mechanisms with which to harness it. Remarkably, the converse may  
> also be true:
> the continuous generation of sources of free energy by abiotic  
> processes may
> have forced life into existence as a means to alleviate the buildup  
> of free
> energy stresses. This assertion -- for which there is precedent in
> non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and growing empirical evidence  
> from
> chemistry -- would imply that life had to emerge on the earth, that  
> at least the
> early steps would occur in the same way on any similar planet, and  
> that we
> should be able to predict many of these steps from first principles  
> of chemistry
> and physics together with an accurate understanding of geochemical  
> conditions on
> the early earth. A deterministic emergence of life would reflect an  
> essential
> continuity between physics, chemistry, and biology. It would show  
> that a part of
> the order we recognize as living is thermodynamic order inherent in  
> the
> geosphere, and that some aspects of Darwinian selection are  
> expressions of the
> likely simpler statistical mechanics of physical and chemical self-
> organization.
>
> -S
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: PPARYSKI at aol.com [mailto:PPARYSKI at aol.com]
>> Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2007 3:48 PM
>> To: friam at redfish.com
>> Subject: [FRIAM] "free energy"
>>
>> At a Christmas eve party here in Santa Fe (the city very
>> different) , a number of new age or whatever folks were
>> talking about "free energy" which they claimed was a
>> scientific reality.  Being somewhat of a sceptic and cynic, I
>> cried out a Dickens'  humbug. But thought I would toss this
>> out to the FRIAM list to see if anyone knew anything about
>> so-called "free energy".  cheers Paul
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>> See AOL's top rated recipes
>> <http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop000300000000
>> 04>  and easy ways to stay in shape
>> <http://body.aol.com/fitness/winter-exercise?NCID=aoltop000300
>> 00000003>  for winter.
>>
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Phil Henshaw-2]

What I found from http://www.free-energy.ws/ that fits the hype is:

"In the simplest terms, free energy is any energy that is provided by
the natural world. In science, energy is defined as "the ability to do
work". Free energy is called by many names, such as renewable energy,
alternative energy, or non-conventional energy, to list a few. Examples
of free energy technologies include a wind generator on a remote
homestead, or a solar panel on the International Space Station. But this
is only the tip of the iceberg. Free energy also includes amazing
technologies like a car powered by a water fuel cell, a battery charger
powered by the earth, or a home furnace powered by permanent magnets.
The best free energy systems deliver energy at no on-going cost to the
user, without detrimental effects to the environment, and at extremely
low costs for the maintenance of the equipment."

They leave out the most important free energy source, though, the one
the IPCC and other governmental long rang plans are committed to having
us use for growing the economies by literally 10^15 times their present
size in real terms over the next millennium...  The free energy of
ingenuity bye itself will simply make rapidly multiplying wealth
independent of the need for resources.  It'll probably take 50 years to
accomplish it, or so they think.  As Bjorn Lomberg (author of 'Cool it')
explains, in 100 years it'll raise the average income of people in the
developing world to $100k per year.  You can see how it is supposed to
work in the long published economic projections on which the world's
global warming plan is based.  www.synapse9.com/design/ClimateLags.pdf



Phil Henshaw                       ????.?? ? `?.????
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
680 Ft. Washington Ave
NY NY 10040                      
tel: [phone]                
e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com          
explorations: www.synapse9.com    
-- "it's not finding what people say interesting, but finding what's
interesting in what they say" --

> -----Original Message-----
> From: friam-bounces at redfish.com
> [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
> Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2007 10:32 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: [FRIAM] Zero-point energy and ESP was: "free energy"
>
>
> Guerin -
>
> Very well stated....
>
> However, considering the source, it is very much more likely:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy
>
> Don't (ever) forget that "newage rhymes with sewage".
>
> The ever-recurring "zero-point energy" scam that people
> fool themselves with at least as often as perpetual motion
> devices.  Or better yet, contrive perpetual motion devices
> which aspire to tap said "zero-point energy"
>
> In my apprehension, Zero-Point energy is nearly useless
> and therefore mostly boring except for the related Casimir
> effect which will likely play an important role in practical
> nanomachinery which does not necessarily exclude biology.
>
> In fact, is would surprise me if there were no significant
> nanoscale effects in biology.  I don't track closely enough
> to have examples or counter-examples.  It seems at least
> likely that the Van der Waals force is significant to
> biological processes.  (shit, before I could hit "send" my
> parallel research discovered that Gecko glass-climbing is
> attributable to Van der Waals)
>
> It reminds me of the time I was at a party in Santa Fe and
> had someone ask me if I used "ESP" in my work.    I told
> them that "absolutely, I use it all of the time!"   Of course
> it took at least 15 minutes of mutual misunderstanding
> before I realized they were talking about
> "extra-sensory-perception" and I was talking about "easy
> structured programming" (a lab developed visual programming
> language pre-processor for Fortran which used ... if you can
> imagine... ascii-art diagrams of block-programs to design and
> self-document and make modular Fortran IV code! It parsed
> Whiles and Untils (comparison done at the end of the loop
> instead of the beginning) into if/then/goto structures
> similar to RatFor.
>
> I found some line-printer output from my ESP
> coding days while cleaning out my files... I should like
> offer it to some museum maybe... too bad I threw
> away my MANIAC manuals 3 moves ago!
>
>
> Damn... I'm old.
>
> - Steve
>
> - Smith
>
>
>
> On Dec 26, 2007, at 5:47 PM, Stephen Guerin wrote:
>
> > Free energy is the amount of energy in a system that is available to
> > do work. A
> > room with all its air molecules equally distributed will
> have energy  
> > but no free
> > energy. If you put a heater in one corner of the room and a cooler  
> > in an
> > opposite corner, this second system would have free energy and a  
> > device could be
> > introduced to extract work from it.
> >
> > How living systems identify sources of free energy and construct
> > devices to use
> > it is a central question in complex systems research (or should be  
> > more). Both
> > Boltzmann and Shrodinger suggested living systems struggle not for  
> > energy but
> > for free energy.
> >
> > Here's a recent working paper abstract from Eric and Harold
> Morowitz:
> >
> > Harold Morowitz and Eric Smith have a very approachable working
> > paper on Origin
> > of Life:
> > http://www.santafe.edu/research/publications/wpabstract/200608029
> >
> > ABSTRACT: Life is universally understood to require a source of free
> > energy and
> > mechanisms with which to harness it. Remarkably, the converse may  
> > also be true:
> > the continuous generation of sources of free energy by abiotic  
> > processes may
> > have forced life into existence as a means to alleviate the
> buildup  
> > of free
> > energy stresses. This assertion -- for which there is precedent in
> > non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and growing empirical
> evidence  
> > from
> > chemistry -- would imply that life had to emerge on the
> earth, that  
> > at least the
> > early steps would occur in the same way on any similar planet, and  
> > that we
> > should be able to predict many of these steps from first
> principles  
> > of chemistry
> > and physics together with an accurate understanding of geochemical  
> > conditions on
> > the early earth. A deterministic emergence of life would
> reflect an  
> > essential
> > continuity between physics, chemistry, and biology. It would show  
> > that a part of
> > the order we recognize as living is thermodynamic order
> inherent in  
> > the
> > geosphere, and that some aspects of Darwinian selection are  
> > expressions of the
> > likely simpler statistical mechanics of physical and chemical self-
> > organization.
> >
> > -S
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: PPARYSKI at aol.com [mailto:PPARYSKI at aol.com]
> >> Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2007 3:48 PM
> >> To: friam at redfish.com
> >> Subject: [FRIAM] "free energy"
> >>
> >> At a Christmas eve party here in Santa Fe (the city very
> >> different) , a number of new age or whatever folks were
> talking about
> >> "free energy" which they claimed was a scientific reality.  Being
> >> somewhat of a sceptic and cynic, I cried out a Dickens'  
> humbug. But
> >> thought I would toss this out to the FRIAM list to see if
> anyone knew
> >> anything about so-called "free energy".  cheers Paul
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ________________________________
> >>
> >> See AOL's top rated recipes
> >> <http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop000300000000
> >> 04>  and easy ways to stay in shape
> >> <http://body.aol.com/fitness/winter-exercise?NCID=aoltop000300
> >> 00000003>  for winter.
> >>
> >
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures,
> > archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>
>

[Russell Standish]

This quoted paragraph doesn't make sense.

On Wed, Dec 26, 2007 at 11:01:50PM -0500, Phil Henshaw wrote:
> What I found from http://www.free-energy.ws/ that fits the hype is:
>
> "In the simplest terms, free energy is any energy that is provided by
> the natural world.

There is no energy _not_ provided by the natural world.

> In science, energy is defined as "the ability to do
> work".

Well that is actually the definition of "free energy", as it is used
by physicists.

> Free energy is called by many names, such as renewable energy,
> alternative energy, or non-conventional energy, to list a few.

These alternate names are not equivalent. "Alternative" and
"Non-conventional" are probably equivalent, but would also include
things like shale oil, and underground gasified coal. These latter
resources are obviously not renewable.

Furthermore, I can do work with conventional sources of energy such as
petrol, so the usual physicist's definition of free energy covers
these as well.

> Examples
> of free energy technologies include a wind generator on a remote
> homestead, or a solar panel on the International Space Station. But this
> is only the tip of the iceberg. Free energy also includes amazing
> technologies like a car powered by a water fuel cell,

What is a "water fuel cell"? Chemically, there isn't much free energy
in water, unless it is contact with sodium, in which case it is hardly
renewable.

> a battery charger
> powered by the earth,

It would be an unusual battery charger to be powered by geothermal
energy. Geothermal projects generally involve drilling thousands of
metres into the crust.

> or a home furnace powered by permanent magnets.

There isn't any free energy in magnets. At best, there is some
potential energy, which is decidedly nonrenewable.

> The best free energy systems deliver energy at no on-going cost to the
> user, without detrimental effects to the environment, and at extremely
> low costs for the maintenance of the equipment."
>
> They leave out the most important free energy source, though, the one
> the IPCC and other governmental long rang plans are committed to having
> us use for growing the economies by literally 10^15 times their present
> size in real terms over the next millennium...  The free energy of
> ingenuity bye itself will simply make rapidly multiplying wealth
> independent of the need for resources.

Why is ingenuity an energy?

>  It'll probably take 50 years to
> accomplish it, or so they think.  As Bjorn Lomberg (author of 'Cool it')
> explains, in 100 years it'll raise the average income of people in the
> developing world to $100k per year.  You can see how it is supposed to
> work in the long published economic projections on which the world's
> global warming plan is based.  www.synapse9.com/design/ClimateLags.pdf
>
>
>
> Phil Henshaw                       ????.?? ? `?.????
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 680 Ft. Washington Ave
> NY NY 10040                      
> tel: [phone]                
> e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com          
> explorations: www.synapse9.com    
> -- "it's not finding what people say interesting, but finding what's
> interesting in what they say" --
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: friam-bounces at redfish.com
> > [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
> > Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2007 10:32 PM
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > Subject: [FRIAM] Zero-point energy and ESP was: "free energy"
> >
> >
> > Guerin -
> >
> > Very well stated....
> >
> > However, considering the source, it is very much more likely:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy
> >
> > Don't (ever) forget that "newage rhymes with sewage".
> >
> > The ever-recurring "zero-point energy" scam that people
> > fool themselves with at least as often as perpetual motion
> > devices.  Or better yet, contrive perpetual motion devices
> > which aspire to tap said "zero-point energy"
> >
> > In my apprehension, Zero-Point energy is nearly useless
> > and therefore mostly boring except for the related Casimir
> > effect which will likely play an important role in practical
> > nanomachinery which does not necessarily exclude biology.
> >
> > In fact, is would surprise me if there were no significant
> > nanoscale effects in biology.  I don't track closely enough
> > to have examples or counter-examples.  It seems at least
> > likely that the Van der Waals force is significant to
> > biological processes.  (shit, before I could hit "send" my
> > parallel research discovered that Gecko glass-climbing is
> > attributable to Van der Waals)
> >
> > It reminds me of the time I was at a party in Santa Fe and
> > had someone ask me if I used "ESP" in my work.    I told
> > them that "absolutely, I use it all of the time!"   Of course
> > it took at least 15 minutes of mutual misunderstanding
> > before I realized they were talking about
> > "extra-sensory-perception" and I was talking about "easy
> > structured programming" (a lab developed visual programming
> > language pre-processor for Fortran which used ... if you can
> > imagine... ascii-art diagrams of block-programs to design and
> > self-document and make modular Fortran IV code! It parsed
> > Whiles and Untils (comparison done at the end of the loop
> > instead of the beginning) into if/then/goto structures
> > similar to RatFor.
> >
> > I found some line-printer output from my ESP
> > coding days while cleaning out my files... I should like
> > offer it to some museum maybe... too bad I threw
> > away my MANIAC manuals 3 moves ago!
> >
> >
> > Damn... I'm old.
> >
> > - Steve
> >
> > - Smith
> >
> >
> >
> > On Dec 26, 2007, at 5:47 PM, Stephen Guerin wrote:
> >
> > > Free energy is the amount of energy in a system that is available to
> > > do work. A
> > > room with all its air molecules equally distributed will
> > have energy  
> > > but no free
> > > energy. If you put a heater in one corner of the room and a cooler  
> > > in an
> > > opposite corner, this second system would have free energy and a  
> > > device could be
> > > introduced to extract work from it.
> > >
> > > How living systems identify sources of free energy and construct
> > > devices to use
> > > it is a central question in complex systems research (or should be  
> > > more). Both
> > > Boltzmann and Shrodinger suggested living systems struggle not for  
> > > energy but
> > > for free energy.
> > >
> > > Here's a recent working paper abstract from Eric and Harold
> > Morowitz:
> > >
> > > Harold Morowitz and Eric Smith have a very approachable working
> > > paper on Origin
> > > of Life:
> > > http://www.santafe.edu/research/publications/wpabstract/200608029
> > >
> > > ABSTRACT: Life is universally understood to require a source of free
> > > energy and
> > > mechanisms with which to harness it. Remarkably, the converse may  
> > > also be true:
> > > the continuous generation of sources of free energy by abiotic  
> > > processes may
> > > have forced life into existence as a means to alleviate the
> > buildup  
> > > of free
> > > energy stresses. This assertion -- for which there is precedent in
> > > non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and growing empirical
> > evidence  
> > > from
> > > chemistry -- would imply that life had to emerge on the
> > earth, that  
> > > at least the
> > > early steps would occur in the same way on any similar planet, and  
> > > that we
> > > should be able to predict many of these steps from first
> > principles  
> > > of chemistry
> > > and physics together with an accurate understanding of geochemical  
> > > conditions on
> > > the early earth. A deterministic emergence of life would
> > reflect an  
> > > essential
> > > continuity between physics, chemistry, and biology. It would show  
> > > that a part of
> > > the order we recognize as living is thermodynamic order
> > inherent in  
> > > the
> > > geosphere, and that some aspects of Darwinian selection are  
> > > expressions of the
> > > likely simpler statistical mechanics of physical and chemical self-
> > > organization.
> > >
> > > -S
> > >
> > >> -----Original Message-----
> > >> From: PPARYSKI at aol.com [mailto:PPARYSKI at aol.com]
> > >> Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2007 3:48 PM
> > >> To: friam at redfish.com
> > >> Subject: [FRIAM] "free energy"
> > >>
> > >> At a Christmas eve party here in Santa Fe (the city very
> > >> different) , a number of new age or whatever folks were
> > talking about
> > >> "free energy" which they claimed was a scientific reality.  Being
> > >> somewhat of a sceptic and cynic, I cried out a Dickens'  
> > humbug. But
> > >> thought I would toss this out to the FRIAM list to see if
> > anyone knew
> > >> anything about so-called "free energy".  cheers Paul
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> ________________________________
> > >>
> > >> See AOL's top rated recipes
> > >> <http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop000300000000
> > >> 04>  and easy ways to stay in shape
> > >> <http://body.aol.com/fitness/winter-exercise?NCID=aoltop000300
> > >> 00000003>  for winter.
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > > ============================================================
> > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures,
> > > archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
> >
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
> >
> >
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/Prof Russell Standish                  Phone [phone] (mobile)
Mathematics                        
UNSW SYDNEY 2052                 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au
Australia                                http://www.hpcoders.com.au
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[David Breecker]

Apropos of which, my contractor tells me that geothermal heating/
cooling systems (using shallow trenches at 57F and a delta-T heat-
pump to surface temperatures) work great.

Perhaps that's what Paul's guests had in mind.  Although I still  
don't know what happens when the surface ambient is 57F...
db

dba | David Breecker Associates, Inc.
Santa Fe: 505-690-2335
Abiquiu:   505-685-4891
www.BreeckerAssociates.com



On Dec 26, 2007, at 5:47 PM, Stephen Guerin wrote:

> If you put a heater in one corner of the room and a cooler in an
> opposite corner, this second system would have free energy and a  
> device could be
> introduced to extract work from it.

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[Jan Hauser]

 

Zero Point Energy, AKA ZPE, has been a somewhat serious undertaking of
various scientists.  There is also TONS of new-age quackery in this area.


One of the two Scientists I know personally who are looking at the whole ZPE
thing is Bernard Haisch.  See his bio below and.


Also see some more colorful and far less credible ZPE stuff at The Tom
Bearden website:  http://www.cheniere.org/


I don't  know Bearden from adam, but what I love most about this site is
what happens when you drag your mouse around the top of the page-try it!  -
Jan


Bernard Haisch, Ph. D.


Bernard is an astrophysicist and has authored or co-authored over 130
scientific publications and has been a principal investigator on numerous
NASA research projects. He served for ten years as a scientific editor for
the "Astrophysical Journal" and has been on the editorial board of "Solar
Physics" and "Speculations in Science and Technology." For twelve years, he
acted as Editor-in-Chief of the "Journal of Scientific Exploration." He has
been a visiting fellow at the Max-Planck-Institute fuer Extraterrestrische
Physik in Garching, Germany; a visiting scientist at the University of
Utrecht in the Netherlands; and Deputy Director of the Center for EUV
Astrophysics at the University of California, Berkeley. He co-chaired two
major conferences of the International Astronomical Union: "Solar and
Stellar Flares" at Stanford University in 1988 and "Astrophysics in the
Extreme Ultraviolet" at the University of California, Berkeley in 1995.

Bernard received his doctorate in astronomy from the University of Wisconsin
in Madison and completed three years of postdoctoral research at the Joint
Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics at the University of Colorado. He
spent 20 years as a staff scientist at the Lockheed Palo Alto Research
Laboratory and the Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory. From
1999 to 2002 he led a team of five postdoctoral physicists studying problems
in fundamental physics related to the quantum vacuum at the privately-funded
California Institute for Physics and Astrophysics in Palo Alto, California.
His biography appears in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in Science and
Engineering, and American Men and Women of Science.

 

 

  _____  

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of PPARYSKI at aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2007 2:48 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: [FRIAM] "free energy"

 

At a Christmas eve party here in Santa Fe (the city very different) , a
number of new age or whatever folks were talking about "free energy" which
they claimed was a scientific reality.  Being somewhat of a sceptic and
cynic, I cried out a Dickens'  humbug. But thought I would toss this out to
the FRIAM list to see if anyone knew anything about so-called "free energy".
cheers Paul





  _____  

See AOL's top
<http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop00030000000004>  rated
recipes and easy
<http://body.aol.com/fitness/winter-exercise?NCID=aoltop00030000000003>
ways to stay in shape for winter.

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[Steve Smith]

Here's another thought about this...

> Zero Point Energy, AKA ZPE, has been a somewhat serious undertaking  
> of various scientists.  There is also TONS of new-age quackery in  
> this area.

I accede to Jan's assertion that ZPE is a serious undertaking of  
scientists.  I even am willing to posit that there may be some "way  
cool" results that come from this work.

The second point Jan makes (TONS of "newage" quackery)  fits the Orbo  
announcements, although it isn't as much "newage" as modern business  
snake-oil.  If what they claim is real, let's just wait for it,  
because it *should* transform much more than just the bottom line of  
their company.

What I am curious about, what I want to know what others think about  
this, is why do we believe that *more* available energy will improve  
the world?

Does it not seem possible (even likely if we look closely) that the  
ills of this planet today are very likely positively correlated with  
energy consumption?

I think the main axis of the trade-space is "global" vs "local" (in  
space and time) optimizations.

What is the collective belief here?  Is more accessible energy really  
going to improve the lot of the planet or merely allow us to pave it  
over more quickly?

- Steve
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[James Steiner]

On Dec 27, 2007 12:33 PM, Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
> Does it not seem possible (even likely if we look closely) that the ills of
> this planet today are very likely positively correlated with energy
> consumption?

Maybe, but correlation does not always mean causation. I think the big
problems have more to do with energy "collection" or "conversion"
rather than consumption.  That is, the environmental and human costs
of mining coal and drilling oil; the by products of burning coal and
oil, really, the entire life-cycle of fossil fuels. Not to mention
mining, processing, consuming and disposing of fuels for nuclear
fission.  ZPE promises to take away all that nastiness, all while
failing to increase the entropy of the universe. Wouldn't that be
neat?

~~James

[David Breecker]

Personally, I think we'd better come up with a far better (and  
faster) incentive for not paving the planet than resource  
constraints, because there's plenty enough oil and coal, and at a  
damn good price (i.e., less than bottled water), to destroy  
everything we have through carbon emissions.  That is, if we haven't  
already done so.

How do we get people to change their way of *thinking* about  
"development"?
db

dba | David Breecker Associates, Inc.
Santa Fe: 505-690-2335
Abiquiu:   505-685-4891
www.BreeckerAssociates.com



On Dec 27, 2007, at 10:33 AM, Steve Smith wrote:

> Is more accessible energy really going to improve the lot of the  
> planet or merely allow us to pave it over more quickly?

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[Steve Smith]

> On Dec 27, 2007 12:33 PM, Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
>> Does it not seem possible (even likely if we look closely) that the  
>> ills of
>> this planet today are very likely positively correlated with energy
>> consumption?
>
> Maybe, but correlation does not always mean causation.

Nope, it doesn't.  But correlation might be more important
than causation in this situation.   I am not suggesting that
energy consumption *itself* is questionable, but rather
the never-ending pursuit of more/faster/cheaper and the
single-variable optimization we are so good at.   The
pursuit of "free energy" might just be the epitomy of
this.

> I think the big
> problems have more to do with energy "collection" or "conversion"
> rather than consumption.
When we reduced our automobile emissions to being nearly
"pure" C02 and H20 we were pretty proud of ourselves.  Until
we woke up one day and discovered that while C02 is quite
"natural", the volumes we are releasing into the atmosphere
might be the greatest problem the planet and humankind
have faced yet (or not).

>  That is, the environmental and human costs
> of mining coal and drilling oil; the by products of burning coal and
> oil, really, the entire life-cycle of fossil fuels. Not to mention
> mining, processing, consuming and disposing of fuels for nuclear
> fission.
Absolutely, these are all the "evils we know".  Some (those who
gain more than others from a given "known evil") will argue that
this or that extraction or waste product is "not so bad", but I
think we all pretty much agree that the existing sources of
"energy" are various lessers and greaters of evil.

> ZPE promises to take away all that nastiness, all while
> failing to increase the entropy of the universe. Wouldn't that be
> neat?
Yes, it would be very neat.   But it also might be a red herring and
it might also be "the evil we don't know".   I'm a little too steeped
in classical statistical physics to easily imagine we are going to
find/create/harness a "limitless source of free energy which does
not require an increase of entropy to exploit".

I'm "just saying" that instead of forever chasing the carrot of
cheaper/cleaner/etceteraier "energy" we might contemplate
how we use that energy.

Stephen J. Gould said in an interview about a year before he
died that the *one thing* we could do to stop the destruction
of species was to *stop traveling*.   He pointed out that most
of the species destruction on the planet came from the constant
stirring of pests, predators, bacteria, viruses, etc. we have been
doing at increasing rates  since the beginning of the age
of exploration.

Has anyone noticed (or asked Al Gore) why we lifted the 55
speed limit?  Issues of efficiency aside...

  I *hated* it, but I also noticed that lifting it boosted
our economy wonderfully by allowing OTR truck drivers to
drive further in one day... moving more product more miles
to more markets.  Sounds great for everyone!   The truck
drivers make more money, they buy new trucks, the fuel
companies make more money, the federal coffers overflow
with tax money, the product suppliers move more product,
the consumers have more choice at lower prices.

And how does *that* fit with global climate change?  Has
anyone asked Al?  Has he volunteered anything?

Just a thought.

I'm not a luddite, but I do question whether "levers"
are as "neat" as we like to think.   Most of us probably
broke the thing we were moving or the fulcrum (or the
lever) the first (few?) time(s) we used a lever.  Some
of us may still be breaking things with levers...

"free energy" might just be a bigger lever?

- STeve

[Marcus G. Daniels]

Steve Smith wrote:
> I'm a little too steeped
> in classical statistical physics to easily imagine we are going to
> find/create/harness a "limitless source of free energy which does
> not require an increase of entropy to exploit".
Some fun related stuff..

http://www.quantumfields.com/gedanken%20spacecraft.pdf
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/291/5510/1941

[Steve Smith]

Marcus G. Daniels wrote:

> Steve Smith wrote:
>  
>> I'm a little too steeped
>> in classical statistical physics to easily imagine we are going to
>> find/create/harness a "limitless source of free energy which does
>> not require an increase of entropy to exploit".
>>    
> Some fun related stuff..
>
> http://www.quantumfields.com/gedanken%20spacecraft.pdf
>  

Holy Shit Batman.  I'm a huge fan of Bob Forward both as a scientist and
a science/technology evangalist.  This is work I was unfamiliar with and
who could resist a tile such as "GedankenSpacecraft" !

> http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/291/5510/1941
>  

And double-holy-shit, I am just looking more closely at the performance
envelope of MEMS based micromirror arrays (TI DLPs) and here you hand me
nano-scale Casimir-effect mediated (sub)micromirror array actuators.

So, you have me sufficiently distracted... everyone, carry on and finish
paving the planet, I believe that in a post-human embodiment, I can
outrun the paving of the universe on my GedankenSpacecraft!   How long
is a lifetime anyway?  And my progeny?  They are well educated and even
young, they can come with me.

- Steve

[Steve Smith]

> Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
>  
...
>> Some fun related stuff..
>>
>> http://www.quantumfields.com/gedanken%20spacecraft.pdf
>>  
>>    
While it is not a direct analogy, one's attention gets drawn to the
technology of "supercavitation" in torpedoes traveling through water.


- Steve

[Phil Henshaw-2]

Steve,
You ask, "What I am curious about, what I want to know what others think
about this, is why do we believe that *more* available energy will
improve the world? "
 
Your quite right to observe that the popular fixation on energy might
conceal a basic error in thinking.   There are many sides, but first,
though, I think a big part of it is that when you have a failing
solution people are first likely to redouble their faith and efforts in
it.  
 
The end point is realizing that what we need is not to figure out how to
go beyond our limits, but how to *comfortably* stay within them.   I
think my language is improving on it a little.   I think that in
combination with discovering *that* we need to live within our limits
(and redouble our efforts on what's not working) we then also need an
idea of *how"  
 
The same link in my note to Russell offers a rigorous general approach
for responding to limits:
<http://www.synapse9.com/drafts/WholeSysEfficiencyLimits.pdf>
www.synapse9.com/drafts/WholeSysEfficiencyLimits.pdf
 

Phil Henshaw                       ????.?? ? `?.????
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
680 Ft. Washington Ave
NY NY 10040                      
tel: [phone]                
e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com          
explorations: www.synapse9.com <http://www.synapse9.com/>    
-- "it's not finding what people say interesting, but finding what's
interesting in what they say" --

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On
Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2007 12:33 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] "free energy"


Here's another thought about this...



Zero Point Energy, AKA ZPE, has been a somewhat serious undertaking of
various scientists.  There is also TONS of new-age quackery in this
area.


I accede to Jan's assertion that ZPE is a serious undertaking of
scientists.  I even am willing to posit that there may be some "way
cool" results that come from this work.

The second point Jan makes (TONS of "newage" quackery)  fits the Orbo
announcements, although it isn't as much "newage" as modern business
snake-oil.  If what they claim is real, let's just wait for it, because
it *should* transform much more than just the bottom line of their
company.

What I am curious about, what I want to know what others think about
this, is why do we believe that *more* available energy will improve the
world?  

Does it not seem possible (even likely if we look closely) that the ills
of this planet today are very likely positively correlated with energy
consumption?

I think the main axis of the trade-space is "global" vs "local" (in
space and time) optimizations.  

What is the collective belief here?  Is more accessible energy really
going to improve the lot of the planet or merely allow us to pave it
over more quickly?

- Steve

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