THERMODYNAMICS AND FREE
ENERGY
© May 8, 1994 by Peter A. Lindemann.
Reprinted from The Journal of Borderland Research
The mainstream scientific community dismisses
the idea of "Free Energy" or "Over-Unity"
machines because they say that the behavior of such machines
violates the "Second Law of Thermodynamics." The
purpose of this article is to squarely face this issue from an
alternative science point of view. Many engineers and inventors,
working in the alternative energy field, still mistakenly believe
that the "Laws of Thermodynamics" are universally true.
For them, the "free energy" machine can only be a
clever scientific slight of hand where the machine becomes
"outlaw", breaking some fundamental universe law. For
progress to be made in this field, the limitations and errors
inherent in the "Laws of Thermodynamics" must be
exposed. Only then will people realize that scientific
experimentation is the only reliable tool for revealing the
behavior of physical reality.
In order to bring this about, it will be
helpful to quickly review some of the pivotal historical events
which helped shape the modern scientific era with regards to
thermodynamics. Before the year 1800, perpetual motion machines
were considered possible and heat was not regarded as a form of
energy. Both of these long standing assumptions, dating back
thousands of years, were effectively toppled by the ideas of
Hermann von Helmholtz in 1847 when he postulated that
since no one had ever been able to build a working perpetual
motion machine, that just probably, it was not possible. In order
to deny the possibility of perpetual motion and hold the argument
together, he had to assume that energy in the system was being conserved.
It had long been observed that mechanical devices could not
transfer energy perfectly. There was always some friction in the
working parts. Friction was not only known to impede the transfer
of energy in the machine, but it was known to produce heat. In
order to simultaneously explain the work loss and the heat gain,
so that conservation could be satisfied, Helmholtz
postulated that heat was a form of energy consisting of a small,
random motion in the molecules of matter. He went on to speculate
that the loss of work in the machine as large scale motion was
still present as heat in the small scale motion of the molecules
in the material the machine was made of. He suggested from this
that both the heat and work must be considered energy, and that
it was the total that was conserved, rather than the heat
or work separately.
By 1850, Rudolf Clausius was able to synthesize
the work of Helmholtz, James Joule, Sadi Carnot and others to
express a generalized statement that has become known as the
"First Law of Thermodynamics." It states that
"energy can be changed from one form to another, but it is
neither created nor destroyed." By the time this thought
became universally believed, it had totally transformed the
intellectual landscape of mechanics, physics and energy dynamics.
This was a clean break from the set of thoughts and assumptions
that had come forward from antiquity. A new era in science had
begun.
In understanding these historical developments,
it is important to realize that besides the new theoretical
explanation about the nature of heat, all of the other data that
led to the new theoretical generalizations was derived
experimentally. This can be illustrated by an observation made by
Sadi Carnot in his extensive work regarding the behavior of heat
in machines. He states that "in all cases in which work is
produced by the agency of heat, a quantity of heat is consumed
that is proportional to the work done; and conversely, by the
expenditure of an equal quantity of work, an equal quantity of
heat is produced." This statement by Carnot was based on
hundreds of experimental measurements. After such convincing
experimentation, it was not unreasonable for Clausius to conclude
that heat could be converted into mechanical work. It was,
however, a theoretical leap of logic to conclude that energy, in
general, could be changed from one form to another.
Before we go on, it is important, for our
purposes, to be reminded that this new idea expressed as the
"First Law of Thermodynamics" consists of a number of
overlapping ideas and assumptions that can be expressed as
follows:
1) Perpetual motion machines are impossible
2) The nature of heat is reduced to the random
motions of molecular matter
3) Energy can be changed from one form to
another without any explanation as to how this conversion is
actually accomplished in any specific case
4) Energy is not created in or destroyed by its
passage through a mechanism
5) All forms of energy behave the same way
All of these ideas are fundamentally inherent
in "The First Law of Thermodynamics." From an
alternative science point of view, the experimental work of
Carnot and Joule will stand for all time. It is the intellectual
overlay of Helmholtz and Clausius, on this experimental work,
where the problems are introduced. The theory of conversion
and the ideas about the nature of heat will be taken up again
later in this article, after more ground work has been laid.
The "Second Law of Thermodynamics"
evolved out of further studies of the behavior of heat in closed
systems. Remarkably, there is no one statement that is
universally recognized as the definitive expression of this so
called "Law". Among the more popular statements which
reflect the general understanding of the "Second Law of
Thermodynamics" are the following: "In a closed system,
entropy does not decrease", "The state of order in a
closed system does not spontaneously increase without the
application of work", "Among all the allowed states of
a system with given values of energy, number of particles and
constraints, one and only one is a stable equilibrium
state", and "It is impossible to construct a device
that operates in a cycle and produces no other effect than the
production of work and exchange of heat with a single
reservoir." For those who can fathom the language, these
statements clearly do not all express the same idea. Some have
broad ramifications while others are more narrowly defined. All
of these statements grew out of the idea, expressed fairly well
as the last statement in the series, that a perpetual motion
machine could not be made that operated on the principle of a
work/heat exchange when this process was limited to a known
quantity of heat at the start. After that amount of heat was converted
to work and the temperature of the reservoir was reduced to the
ambient temperature outside, no further work could be expected to
be produced. This is not only reasonable, but it is backed up by
thousands of experiments. As long as the "Law" is
clearly and narrowly defined as a statement that reflects upon
the behavior of heat in closed systems, this author has no
problem with agreeing completely.
Problems arise, however, with some of the more
generalized interpretations of the "Law" such as
"the state of order in a closed system does not
spontaneously increase without the application of work." In
order to understand why this statement is not universally true,
it is important to clearly define our terms. We must understand
what is meant by the "state of order" in a system, and
we must define the boundaries of the "closure" of that
system. In the first case, the "state of order" in the
system is generally regarded as the temperature. Understanding
this, we can rephrase this statement to say, that in a thermally
isolated enclosure, the temperature will not increase unless work
or energy is added to the system. Here again, by clearly defining
our terms, and limiting the discussion to heat and work, we have
a universally true statement backed up by mountains of
experimental data. If, however, we define the "state of
order" as a generalized "quantity of energy", and
we further define the "closed system" as the Universe,
we are led to believe that under no circumstance is it possible
to create a condition where the concentration of energy will
increase spontaneously. This is not true!
While it should be understood that most known
chemical processes, standard electrical equipment and heat
generally do behave this way, the Etheric Energy Field of the
planet does not. The Etheric Energy Field behaves in direct
opposition to the more generalized understandings of the
"Second Law of Thermodynamics" and this fact is backed
up by considerable experimental data. One of the best documented
examples of this is the spontaneous temperature rise observed in
the "orgone accumulator", invented by Dr. Wilhelm Reich
in 1940. Here, a simple enclosure made of alternating layers of
organic and inorganic material, allows the ambient density of the
Etheric Energy Field to become more concentrated in the local
area, without the application of work. This new and higher
energy concentration is then reflected as a spontaneous rise in
temperature. This situation does not break the "Second
Law" in the narrow case, because we admit that new energy is
entering the system. It does break the "Second Law" in
the general case because this energy is entering without the
application of external work. Reich's accumulator was designed as
an attempt to shield and isolate this energy from its presence in
the environment. His data clearly showed, however, that he was
not able to isolate the energy effects inside the accumulator
because the Etheric Energy Field easily penetrated the walls of
the enclosure. He eventually realized that with regard to Etheric
Energy Fields, it was impossible to "close the system"
in the local sense. This is important to understand because it
directly refutes the assumption that the universe consists only
of closed systems at all levels of activity.
Here then is a major problem with how the
scientific community regards the "Laws of
Thermodynamics." When the discussion is limited to the
behavior of heat in closed systems, the "Second Law of
Thermodynamics" is a well tested and accurate description of
what happens under those circumstances. It is when it is
incorrectly assumed that all forms of energy behave this way and
that enclosure of the system is possible at all levels, that
grossly false conclusions can be drawn from what started out as
experimentally derived observations. The scientific
community-at-large obviates these problems simply by denying the
existence of the Etheric Energy Field because it doesn't fit
within their intellectual model. Unfortunately for them, the
mounting experimental evidence is making this increasingly hard
to do.
Certainly, the best evidence to date of the
existence of the Etheric Energy Field and its capability of being
drawn to high concentrations without the application of work is
demonstrated by the Etheric Weather Engineering techniques
developed by Trevor James Constable and his Atmos Engineering
group. As a member of this group, I have personally seen how
simple Etheric Energy projectors, that do no work in the
classical sense, can cause the etheric potentials in the
atmosphere to rise to such high concentrations that millions of
gallons of water will precipitate from the air for hours at a
time.
When these Etheric Energy projectors are
motorized, they draw a few hundred watts of electric energy. If
the rain produced is dropped behind a dam and then released
through a hydro-electric turbine, the electrical energy gain in
the system can be enormous, on the order of 100,000 to 1. This
method of creating "free energy" is a practical reality
today. While I know of no community using this method for
supplying its energy needs, it is eminently practicable. This
example is theoretical in the sense that it has never been done,
but it is a good model of other "free energy" systems
under development around the world today.
Because the input to motorize the Etheric
Energy projectors is electric and the output from the
hydro-electric generators is electric, many people might mistake
this for a so-called "over-unity" system. There is
nothing "over-unity" about this situation. Each and
every component of the machinery used in this system has
operational and frictional losses. The energy tapped by the
system is the atmospheric ether and all of the energy gain in the
system occurs outside of the equipment. The fact that a small
electric input yields a huge electric output does not mean the
system is operating "over-unity.
The problem with the "over-unity"
concept goes back to the "First Law of Thermodynamics"
and its inherent idea about the ability to convert one
form of energy into another. This assumption includes the idea
that these various conversions are accomplished at known
and accepted rates of exchange. The idea of efficiency of
conversion requires that the various rates of exchange are fixed
and act as an upper limit for the calculation of a ratio that
approaches one (100%) where the numerator of this fraction is the
"output" and the denominator is the "input."
Since it is generally agreed that every machine experiences
so-called losses, the idea that this ratio could be greater than
one is, of course, ridiculous. This, coupled with the assumption
in the "Second Law" that all energy systems are closed,
(meaning that no new energy can enter the system in-between the
"input" and the "output") makes the idea of
an "over-unity" system even more impossible than a mere
perpetual motion machine. The line of logic embodied in the
"Laws of Thermodynamics" is flawless. The problem
doesn't exist in the logic, but it does illustrate that logic
alone is not enough to reveal the truth. The problem exists in
certain interpretations of these "Laws." Let's go back
and look at the "First Law" again in light of our
"over-unity" discussion. "Energy can be changed
from one form to another, but it is neither created nor
destroyed." This seems simple enough to understand.
Underneath the surface, however, there is an assumption that this
also means that energy will not spontaneously appear or disappear
from the system. This is also a necessary condition if conservation
of energy is to be satisfied LOCALLY as well as UNIVERSALLY.
This discussion becomes relevant, for instance,
in describing the operation of the rotating magnet generator, the
so called N-machine or Space Power Generator (SPG). Most of the
important work in this field has been done by Bruce DePalma and
Parmahamsa Tewari. The following is a brief summary. The rotation
of the magnet sets up two force fields that act at right angles
to each other. These two force fields are the radially
distributed inertial frame of space (centrifugal force) and the
intersecting axially distributed magnetic field of the rotating
magnet. The area of magnetized, polarized, inertial space appears
to open up a region through which new energy can enter the
system. When careful measurements are taken of current flows in
the generator and in the external circuit, evidence suggests that
electric charges are appearing at the periphery of the generator
and disappearing at the center of the generator that do not
actually pass through the generator. This experimental
finding may explain why this configuration of electric generator
experiences less mechanical drag than standard generator designs
for each unit of electrical output produced. While energy is
probably not being created or destroyed in the universal context,
it is apparently appearing and disappearing from the machine
during operation in the local space. This extra energy can be
used to produce useful work in external circuits. Tewari has
shown that twice as much hydrogen can be generated from an
electrolysis cell run from the output of a SPG than if the cell
is run directly. It is impossible to rationalize the behavior of
this style of electric generator with the ideas of simple conversion
and local conservation as they are postulated in the
"First Law of Thermodynamics."
In a standard generator, if all losses are
ignored for the moment, conventional theory says if 550 Ft-Lbs of
work are applied to the input shaft in one second, 746 Watts will
be delivered at the output. If I blindly believe that the
generator simply has the mysterious ability to convert the
mechanical energy into electrical energy, I don't ask the
following questions: what is the mechanism of this conversion?,
where does the torque go?, and where does the electrical energy
come from? The apparent observation that the generated current
produces a motoring effect that opposes the input torque should
not be interpreted as a vindication of the conservation rule, but
as an admission that this is an inefficient way to generate
electricity. The Space Power Generator experiences far less drag
per unit of electrical output than a standard generator.
This opens up a much larger discussion about
the validity of the conversion idea all together. Are
there actual and universal equivalents between the various forms
of heat, mechanical work, and electricity? At this point, all we
know for sure are the various measurements that have been taken
from the devices that demonstrate these energy translations. For
instance, in 1845, James Joule found that if he placed a small
paddle wheel in a bucket of water, he had to apply 772.5
foot-pounds of mechanical work to spin the paddle wheel to raise
the temperature of one pound of water, one degree Fahrenheit.
This has led to very careful calculations that now set this
"universal conversion" between mechanical work and heat
at 778.26 FT-Lbs = 1 BTU. For paddle wheels in water, this is no
doubt true. But what happens if paddle wheels are not used? Is
there another method that does not use paddle wheels in water to convert
mechanical work to heat that does the job better, with less
expenditure of work for the same heat gained? The answer is yes.
In fact, there are numerous patents on record to accomplish this.
One uses rotating parallel disks, not unlike the design of
Tesla's turbine, to heat water with less than half the mechanical
expenditure.
Once again, we have entered a new scientific
era where the exact equivalence between mechanical work as
foot-pounds, electrical work as watt-hours, and heat work as
BTU's is not known! A wide variety of physical experiments
have demonstrated a broad range of differing energy translation
effects. The intellectual edifice of Clausius' conversion
idea is crumbling, and no one should allow their thinking to be
constrained by it any longer. The results of physical experiments
have all but disproved it. The "First Law of
Thermodynamics" should be seen only as an outmoded,
intellectual MODEL that is not supported by all of the
experimental data. Likewise, the idea of "over-unity"
should be abandoned by those working on "free energy"
systems as it is an intellectual contradiction based both on the
belief in conversion and the ability to circumvent it.
"Over-unity" is an oxymoron that should be removed
from the vocabulary of the alternative science community.
This brings me back to the other problem
presented earlier, namely, the nature of heat itself. Is heat, as
Hermann von Helmholtz suggests, simply the random motion of
molecular matter, or is it something completely different, whose
presence causes molecular matter to exhibit random motion? This
is a very long and involved exploration that has already been
handled masterfully by Rudolf Steiner in March of 1920 and
published as his Warmth Course. I will summarize
some of these ideas briefly.
The ancient's believed that there were four
"elements" that all physical reality was composed of.
These were Earth, Water, Air and Fire. In modern language, we can
restate this as follows. There are four "states" that
all matter appears as. These are solid, liquid, gas and heat.
From an etheric science point of view, heat is the fourth state
of matter and the transition state between matter and ether. Here
is why. The only difference between the appearance of ice, water,
or steam, for example, is its temperature or internal heat
condition. Heat is absolutely fundamental in all considerations
regarding matter because a change in heat is the only element
required to bring about a change of state from solid to liquid or
from liquid to gas. In solid matter, the "atoms" are
very close together and they bind each other in a way that allows
them to hold their shape without being in a container. Heat can
be added to the solid and its temperature will rise,
correspondingly, until the melting point is reached. At this
point, adding more heat does not raise its temperature, but
rather causes the material to change state as the solid melts
into a liquid. Once all of the material is liquified, adding more
heat once again causes the temperature to rise. In liquid matter,
the "atoms" are less close together and they bind each
other in a way that allows the liquid to take the shape of
whatever open topped container it is put in. As more heat is
added to the liquid, the "atoms" move farther apart
until the boiling point is reached. At this point, once again,
adding more heat does not raise its temperature, but rather
causes the material to change state as the liquid boils into a
gas. Once all of the material is gaseous, adding more heat once
again causes the temperature to rise. In gaseous matter, the
"atoms" are so far apart that they will hold no shape
at all and can only be contained by a complete enclosure. As more
heat is added to the gas, the "atoms" become so
dispersed that eventually, all that is left is the heat. The
relationships between heat, temperature, matter and state are
quite complex and cannot easily be reduced to simple
explanations. Steiner's explorations of these relationships go
into great detail, forming a seamless line of logic, backed up by
a great deal of experimental data. Anyone interested in the
nature of heat should study Rudolf Steiner's Warmth Course.
While this may make no sense to people trained
in mechanistic thought processes, it is much closer to the truth
about heat than the ideas of Helmholtz, with which Steiner was
completely familiar. Helmholtz's idea that the nature of heat can
be fully described by the random motions of molecular matter is
far too simplistic. It ignores many of the well known behaviors
of heat and matter as well as the existence of the Etheric Energy
Field. It should be considered an "interesting"
historical attempt to describe heat that is not supported by all
of the experimental data.
For those who are not familiar with etheric
science, it might be useful to review some of the characteristics
of the Etheric Energy Field at this time. The Etheric Energy
Field is made up of an extremely fine, mass-free fluid. Its
activity can be divided into four main levels. These different
aspects of the Ether have been called: the Warmth Ether, the
Light Ether, the Tone (or Chemical) Ether, and the Life Ether.
The Etheric Energy Field, as a whole, penetrates all matter,
flows around and through the planet in well defined ways,
exhibits elastic characteristics, and spontaneously moves from
low concentrations to high concentrations before discharging.
Understanding all of these factors has made engineering the
weather a practical reality today. Many other amazing
technologies also become possible when the ether is fully
understood. Likewise, many aspects of today's science that are
still confusing eventually become clear.
One area of the greatest confusion lies in the
field of electrical science. The entire study of what has been
called "static electricity" is just a confusing
encounter with the Light Ether as it behaves under certain
circumstances. When fully understood, so-called "static
electricity" will be seen to be neither static nor
electricity. Normal electricity always flows from high potential
to low potential and usually requires metallic conductors to flow
along. On the other hand, "static electricity" does not
discharge in the same way, and readily moves and collects on both
conductors and insulators. Because "static electricity"
behaves more like ether than electricity, I am going coin a term
for this form of energy when it is present in wires and circuits.
I call it "ETHERICITY", to distinguish it from
electricity all together.
In some ways, ethericity behaves like
electricity and in some ways it behaves differently. This has
been the source of confusion. Up until now, most people have
thought that there was only one kind of energy moving in
electrical style circuits. This can now change. Electric
appliances are designed to run on the discharge of electric
potential from high to low, as in the draining of a battery to
power a load. Properly designed circuits employing ethericity run
the appliance on the charging phase, as the energy spontaneously
moves from low potential to high. Once the behaviors of
ethericity are clearly understood, it will be just as easy to run
motors and lights from this source as we now do on electricity.
In the 1940's, Dr. Wilhelm Reich demonstrated both lighting and
motoring effects running on the Etheric Energy Field that he
tapped using his "orgone accumulators" and special
circuitry. But many other ways have been discovered to harness
ethericity. The patent office has many designs of so-called
"electrostatic" motors on file that work quite well.
They all run on ethericity, including some powered by circuits
set up between the ground and a wire suspended high in the air.
Many types of capacitors will spontaneously charge up on days
with low relative humidity. This, too, is the classic appearance
of ethericity. I have seen how an "electrostatic"
generator failed to do anything, one humid morning, until the
moment that sunlight fell on the metallic surfaces. It then
jumped to life. This was one of the most convincing
demonstrations I have ever seen that "static
electricity" (ethericity) is related to light (the Light
Ether).
Here then are some of the known characteristics
of ethericity that engineers and inventors should understand:
1) Ethericity can be accumulated from the
ground or the air at almost any location
2) It can be "reflected" down wires
(this is not conduction)
3) Flows of ethericity can be interrupted by
diodes and Mosfet type devices
4) Its potential can be raised or lowered in
air core transformers
5) It can be stored in capacitors
6) It will operate neon style lighting, when
the potential is high enough
7) It can create fields of opposing forces in
coils and motor windings
"Free energy" is here in the Etheric
Energy Field. Etheric Energy can be accumulated without the
expenditure of work, and then released in controlled ways to
perform work, in properly engineered systems. Understanding this
fact presents engineers and inventors the clearest and most
direct path to follow. Systems that precipitate heat directly
from the ether have already been demonstrated in Dr. Reich's
accumulator. Placing one of these accumulators over a moving body
of water increases the precipitation of heat dramatically. This
is a rich vane of truth waiting to reveal its secrets to the
systematic researcher. Likewise, power circuits that run on
ethericity for lighting and motive power are waiting to be
perfected.
Researchers in the "free energy"
field should not concern themselves with the ideas presented as
the so-called "Laws of Thermodynamics". The "First
Law", with its ideas of conversion and conservation, is
essentially incorrect. There is no way to convert mechanical
energy into etheric energy, actually make one into the other.
This one example is enough to disprove the universal
interpretation of the conversion idea all together. Beyond this,
the energy forms that can be transmuted by the action of certain
kinds of machines, apparently do so within a wide range of
activity, depending on the geometry of the machine. This throws
into question the idea of conservation, especially local
conservation. These experimental findings render the "First
Law" without any basis in fact. The real universe does not
behave in accordance with these ideas.
In the narrow case, the "Second Law"
is really only a statement which describes the behavior of heat
under certain circumstances. This much is basically true, as it
is founded on experimental observation. In the general case,
however, the "Second Law" is an intellectual
extrapolation that does not accurately describe the behavior of
physical reality under all circumstances. It embodies an
erroneously concept of a mechanical universe which mysteriously
burst forth (Big Bang) as a fully wound spring that has been
unwinding ever since ("in a closed system, entropy does not
decrease"). It is a lifeless, empty vision that ignores the
Source of the energy it started with and closes the minds of its
adherents to the solutions at hand.
Learning how to tap the non-thermodynamic
forces in nature is the hope of the future. A modern society
needs light, heat, and motive power, all of which can be derived
directly from the Etheric Energy Field without consuming limited
physical resources owned by monopoly interests.
In this society, theoretical science has been
elevated to a very high level of prestige. Under this system of
belief, the real needs of humanity have not been well served. It
is time that these incorrect theories be carefully examined and
discarded, so that experimental science can once again take the
leading role in defining the nature of physical reality. Only
then will Etheric Science be free to offer its bounty of
solutions to a desperate and waiting world.
Bibliography
1) The Cancer Biopathy by Dr. Wilhelm
Reich
2) Man or Matter by Ernst Lehrs, Rudolf
Steiner Press
3) The Cosmic Pulse of Life by Trevor
James Constable, Borderland Sciences
4) Warmth Course by Rudolf Steiner,
Mercury Press
5) Cosmic Formative Forces by Guenter
Wachsmuth, Borderland Sciences
6) The Vril Compendium by Gerry
Vassilatos, Borderland Sciences
7) Loom of the Future by Trevor James
Constable, Borderland Sciences
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