MadSci Network: Engineering
Query:

Re: How do you build a 'prepetual' magnetic generator?

Date: Sat Jun 13 14:10:08 1998
Posted By: Lawrence Skarin, Faculty, Electrical Engineering, Monroe Community College
Area of science: Engineering
ID: 896899993.Eg
Message:

Sorry, Larry, I have bad news. You're looking for something that cannot exist. A perpetual magnetic generator, as you describe it, cannot be built because it violates the First Law of Thermodynamics. You cannot create energy from nothing. The magnetic motor is one of the oldest chestnuts in technology. Many have thought of gearing magnets to swing into the proper position to attract/repel a rotor into rotation, but the energy needed to swing the magnets happens to equal any that is produced even assuming perfect bearings and gears. It is true new permanent magnets using neodymium are extremely powerful, but that won't help you here. As to Generous Electric experimenting with zero-energy requirement refrigerators or power companies suppressing the technologies endangering their income — well, these and the carburetor that runs on water are hoary legends that never die. And don't worry about making energy companies into enemies. They take care of themselves very well. I am pleased you want to experiment and build things. Bill Beaty's site at http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/ is apt to interest you. But it is disturbing you got your evidence for existence of the machine on a popular television show. You may have seen the entertainer, Uri Geller, do some magic tricks on the same program. The man who showed his machine is a fraud if he claimed he made energy from nothing. These charlatans continually emerge from their garages claiming they need just a little money to develop their idea. And it falls to people like me to disappoint folks who believe them with the facts. Yes — I can be accused of being a spoilsport or naysayer, but I don't want people to seek the unattainable. One of science's powers is selecting out that which is impossible so people don't waste their time. One of my favorite sites is Don Simanek's page at http://www.lhup.edu/%7Edsimanek/. Don is a Physics professor in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, and has as much patience with science frauds as me. Please believe me when I tell you our motives as science educators are kindly and not malicious. Better a disappointment than sending money to crooks. Good luck! Larry Skarin


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