People actually unironically developing an open source perpetual motion motor?

[Refrigerator]

By unironically i mean they seem quite adamant about it but we all know the ugly truth that comes from our wonderful laws of physics.
And by people i mean an entire forum, look here:
https://www.mooker.com/showthread.php?tid=95

Search didn't show any mentions of this place on the eevblog forum so i thought i'd share it here. Not to point and laugh, we don't do that here 
It claims to be an open source free energy forum, which you already know means it's all about perpetual motion and friggin' magnets (how do they work?).
I mean free energy does exist. We get free energy from the sun, if not PV, then just heat. It's energy and it's free But i digress.

What intrigues me is what kind of thinking process leads them to believe that this is possible? These things are something i would have thought was possible back in third grade when i was a kid and even dumber than i am now. 
Also it's really fun watching them try to find out how to replicate and reverse quackgineer someone else's magnet motor, because the original creator is keeping his sauce a secret. So much for open source huh? 
They even made youtube videos to explain their thinking and how they can make their motor work. Their philosophy really is something else.

And let's get real for a moment. If they got this far in life and still believe they can make it work, then we won't change their mindset and there's no point intruding in their forum to make them change their thinking. Some people really do forget this fact sometimes You don't play chess with pigeons.

But that doesn't mean we can't appreciate all the mind-bending ways they try to reason their way out of basic thermodynamics. 

[tooki]

What intrigues me is what kind of thinking process leads them to believe that this is possible?

Two things, IMHO:
1. Dunning-Kruger
2. Anti-intellectualism (the distrust of formal education, and more recently “alternative facts”, i.e. the “my thoughts, feelings, and wishes trump your facts” attitude)

[Refrigerator]

What intrigues me is what kind of thinking process leads them to believe that this is possible?

Two things, IMHO:
1. Dunning-Kruger
2. Anti-intellectualism (the distrust of formal education, and more recently “alternative facts”, i.e. the “my thoughts, feelings, and wishes trump your facts” attitude)

Does the latter also include those "negative ion" wackos that would buy pendants and other garbage laced with radioactive thorium oxides? 

[pcprogrammer]

Watched the first "motor" video there. "Ah there is still the sticky moment, that should not be there. How strange."     

Also watched the "monopole" magnet making video. 

One side of the permanent magnet repels the ball baring and the other side attracts it. Is that not normal magnet behavior? Two south or two north poles repel each other, and a north and a south pole attract each other. So clearly the ball baring extends the magnetic field of the speaker magnet in a normal way. Nothing true monopole there.

[Refrigerator]

Watched the first "motor" video there. "Ah there is still the sticky moment, that should not be there. How strange."     

Also watched the "monopole" magnet making video. 

One side of the permanent magnet repels the ball baring and the other side attracts it. Is that not normal magnet behavior? Two south or two north poles repel each other, and a north and a south pole attract each other. So clearly the ball baring extends the magnetic field of the speaker magnet in a normal way. Nothing true monopole there.

I think their unfathomable logic is an evolutionary trait that has allowed them to survive long enough to gather a small community. Strictly through draining the mental capacity of anyone with functioning logical thinking to a point where they choose to stand back. 

[Benta]

I see it in a positive light.
Creative endeavours is much better than joining the IS or the Proud Boys.

[SiliconWizard]

Many people would do anything to get some exposure these days. I think you're overthinking it and are trying to apply your own thought process to them.
They are just looking for exposure.

[rsjsouza]

"...clout is a powerful drug... "

[ArdWar]

Eh, just let them be. At least it's (mostly) harmless. Also who knows, off chance that we might actually get something useful out of their effort lol.

It's only when they try to grift governments/politician (which eventually means my tax money) or poor people that I have problems with.

[Whales]

It looks like they're having fun.  Free energy might be impossible, but that doesn't negate having fun making stuff, sharing designs and the feeling of community.

[pcprogrammer]

It looks like they're having fun.  Free energy might be impossible, but that doesn't negate having fun making stuff, sharing designs and the feeling of community.

Absolute.

But "Free" is a poor word in all these experiments. A 3D printer and filament does not come that cheap. 

[DiTBho]

Free energy is possible… if…
We could orbit a black hole and drop a bucket into it
Which is impossible to do
So it's impossible

-

However, from what emerges today, it seems impossible - at the principle level - to drop a bucket or anything else beyond the event horizon of most black holes (wtf!), so I'm not even sure anymore.

Just as I am no longer sure that the deep field cosmological analysis really works, given that it seems that we have just identified 60,000 possible Dyson spheres!
Not an example of free energy, but a possible sci-fi way to use a star's energy much more efficiently than we are limited to with solar panels.

[DiTBho]

Many people would do anything to get some exposure these days.
I think you're overthinking it and are trying to apply your own thought process to them.
They are just looking for exposure.

Something that many Youtubers don't do?

I saw a guy build bikes with a 3 meter diameter rear wheel, what the hell is the point?
He made 4 videos of us, to recover the material, weld it, and try that thing on the road....
It even ended badly because the frame literally folded in two and fell, even breaking the camera.
But who cares! It got us almost 2 million views! with a sponsor!

what the hell is the point? in sticking two electric skateboards (1000 euro each) under the sofa
and then try it on the street, among cars!?!  The police stopped him, and fined him!
But who cares! It got us almost 3 million views! with a sponsor!

That's the point -> money!

-

Just wait until @ElectroBOOM sees that forum with that nosense "free-energy" they are taking about ...
Then I am sure he will definitely make a couple of videos where he slaps everyone 

[Nominal Animal]

I like the inquisitiviness 👍, but the anti-intellectualism tooki pointed out, and honestly (in my opinion) the anti-science stance, makes me utterly sad. 😢

There is "free" energy all around us, ready for harvesting, ready to be converted into more useful forms.

Just consider heat pumps.  The technology involved is old!  Refrigerants like propane (R290) have been used a long time, we just have a bit more efficient electric motors for the pumping action, and somewhat better materials (better quality cheap aluminium, mainly).  People just didn't consider using a heat pump for heating their houses fifty or a hundred years ago.  (Except for unique exceptions like the Geneva City Hall since 1928.)  Many today still do not realize that when correctly installed and working, they provide much more heat per buck than direct heating!

That kind of innovative thinking is what we need.  Synthesis.  Exploration.  Looking at existing stuff with open new eyes to see new useful applications.

I do not want the perpetual motion enthusiasts to stop, per se.  I want them to see that there are almost as enticing, but actually feasible and achievable discoveries waiting out there, achievable even for enthusiasts and hobbyist explorers.  That is the true unexplored frontier right now, in my opinion.

[pcprogrammer]

I do not want the perpetual motion enthusiasts to stop, per se.  I want them to see that there are almost as enticing, but actually feasible and achievable discoveries waiting out there, achievable even for enthusiasts and hobbyist explorers.  That is the true unexplored frontier right now, in my opinion.

Sure, but the problem with the feasible options it that getting proper efficiency requires more refined equipment than the average hobbyist has.

Take for instance the heat of the earth's core. Scientists think it is a good sustainable source of energy, but to tap into it you need to drill quite deep. So you need proper and expensive equipment for doing simple experiments.

A fun thing I saw recently is a spring motor, that can run on it's own for a while, and you see youtube videos about them as being the next revolutionary thing for free energy, but these things have a fine balance between the flywheel and the spring tension, and my guess is that as soon as you load it with a generator the balance will be gone and it just grinds to a halt.

But like DiTBho wrote, there is money in the views they get.

[Ground_Loop]

I had an Uber ride last week. And the driver had one of those free energy whirley gig things on his dash. I didn’t say a word.

[RJSV]

As far as impinging some set of beliefs, that's relatively 'provable', but, alas, we must first agree, on meaning of 'provable'.

   Heck, I offer, as example, Two Cats, of whom I managed to 'convince', thru audio cues, that I had an actual LASER pointer, flashing around in the room!
   Nope, no pointer, just a set of audible cues, to 'sound' like a laser, (at least the comical movie style "whoosh" of some big fat beam).

People, and cats, are trainable.  Especially cats.

[SiliconWizard]

I'm sure a lot more concerned by wide misuse of public money on dead-end projects, rather than individuals trying funky (or just plain stupid) stuff and talking about it in videos. They make money from the exposure, sure, but at least they're not taking money from people without their consent. So I don't have much problem with that. And there are enough of us to debunk the stupid stuff.

I agree with Nominal that just getting people interested in those topics and experimenting is a good thing.

[iMo]

I'm sure a lot more concerned by wide misuse of public money on dead-end projects, rather than individuals trying funky (or just plain stupid) stuff and talking about it in videos. They make money from the exposure, sure, but at least they're not taking money from people without their consent. So I don't have much problem with that. And there are enough of us to debunk the stupid stuff.

I agree with Nominal that just getting people interested in those topics and experimenting is a good thing.

.. and be sure the people who decide on the EU/public spending on "dead-end" (or I would call idiotic) projects usually spend the whole day watching those funky videos.. 

[Nominal Animal]

I'm sure a lot more concerned by wide misuse of public money on dead-end projects, rather than individuals trying funky (or just plain stupid) stuff and talking about it in videos. They make money from the exposure, sure, but at least they're not taking money from people without their consent. So I don't have much problem with that. And there are enough of us to debunk the stupid stuff.

I agree with Nominal that just getting people interested in those topics and experimenting is a good thing.

.. and be sure the people who decide on the EU/public spending on "dead-end" (or I would call idiotic) projects usually spend the whole day watching those funky videos.. 

I bet we could replace our EU parliament, commission, and all upper echelons of civil servants with ChatGPT, with everyone else only becoming happier and more prosperous.

No matter what those people watch or do not watch, their decisions seem to be generated as a side effect of gut microbiota or fermentation, take your pick.

[eutectique]

No matter what those people watch or do not watch, their decisions seem to be generated as a side effect of gut microbiota or fermentation, take your pick.

I just imagined a colony of ants consumed by Ophiocordyceps unilateralis.

[Picuino]

What I don't understand is this insistence on making bizarre perpetual motion inventions work, when there are already virtually perpetual and very cheap sources of energy (such as photovoltaic + batteries).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_perpetual_motion_machines

[TimFox]

Free energy is possible… if…
We could orbit a black hole and drop a bucket into it
Which is impossible to do
So it's impossible

-

However, from what emerges today, it seems impossible - at the principle level - to drop a bucket or anything else beyond the event horizon of most black holes (wtf!), so I'm not even sure anymore.

Just as I am no longer sure that the deep field cosmological analysis really works, given that it seems that we have just identified 60,000 possible Dyson spheres!
Not an example of free energy, but a possible sci-fi way to use a star's energy much more efficiently than we are limited to with solar panels.

About 50 years ago, I attended a lecture by an astrophysicist about the theoretical implications of lowering a mass into a black hole from orbit.
To oversimplify his thought experiment, imagine an unbreakable fishing line connected to a reel that allowed the mass to fall slowly past the event horizon as the reel rotation delivered power to a suitable generator and load.
As I remember the analysis, this allowed extracting energy equal to the relativistic mass-energy  mc²  of the falling object.
He pointed out that you can't extract that much energy in a nuclear or similar reaction, since they are limited by conservation of baryon (heavy particle) number:  in normal nuclear reactions, roughly, a neutron changes into a proton plus other particles, with a net change of baryon mass of about 0.8 MeV/c² out of a neutron mass of about 940 MeV/c², while conserving baryon number.

[SiliconWizard]

I'm sure a lot more concerned by wide misuse of public money on dead-end projects, rather than individuals trying funky (or just plain stupid) stuff and talking about it in videos. They make money from the exposure, sure, but at least they're not taking money from people without their consent. So I don't have much problem with that. And there are enough of us to debunk the stupid stuff.

I agree with Nominal that just getting people interested in those topics and experimenting is a good thing.

.. and be sure the people who decide on the EU/public spending on "dead-end" (or I would call idiotic) projects usually spend the whole day watching those funky videos.. 

I bet we could replace our EU parliament, commission, and all upper echelons of civil servants with ChatGPT, with everyone else only becoming happier and more prosperous.

By conventional "expert systems", probably (although of course that's still questionable). But LLMs? Certainly not, as those are by nature just generating a mix of already existing stuff, so we'd end up with the worst of what we have already done. No thanks.

No matter what those people watch or do not watch, their decisions seem to be generated as a side effect of gut microbiota or fermentation, take your pick.

I would prefer to think so. Unfortunately, corruption through lobbying, which the EU parliament is infested with, is usually the explanation.

[jonovid]

a collaborative snake oil development program