In reply to Paul's message of Mon, 9 Oct 2006 14:22:13 -0700
(PDT):
Hi Paul,
[snip]
>I apologize. In a nutshell the design collects MCE
>(Magnetocaloric effect) energy. When the intrinsic
>electron spins flip the entire atom precesses as it
>rotates. This rotation/flip gives off radiation,
>typically in the hundreds of MHz. Unless using
>specific techniques, the magnetic material absorbs
>nearly all of this internal radiation.
[snip]
Ah, the penny drops! :)
So essentially you are converting random thermal energy into
coherent microwave energy by forcing all the atoms to release
their energy at one time. Then they absorb more thermal energy,
and you convert it to microwaves again.
I like the concept. You mention small domains as being
advantageous. Could this be attained by reducing the density of
the active atoms? IOW could you simply use a compound that is
essentially an insulator, with say only one active atom among ten
"insulator atoms"? That would appear to result in domains
comprising single atoms.
The disadvantage is that it would be a bit bulkier, but perhaps
lots more efficient, and the insulator is hardly going to bother
the microwaves, which should easily pass through and can be
collected externally. Apparently Metglas makes a whole variety of
products (http://metglas.com/products/page5_1_2.htm), did you have
any particular one in mind? (And do any of them meet the
description I just gave)?
BTW you may find this interesting too. It's an email I posted to
Vortex back in 1998:-
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sun Jul 12 23:18:24 1998
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Resent-Date: Sun, 12 Jul 1998 23:10:34 -0700
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Robin van Spaandonk)
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Entropy?
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 06:10:46 GMT
Organization: Improving
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On Sun, 12 Jul 1998 11:05:30 -0700, Ross Tessien wrote:
[snip]
>The loss is because you will only have coupled some of the low grade energy
>back into high grade. The balance is lost to "heat", ie background thermal
>energy.
The point I was trying to make, was based on the concept of *only*
producing radio waves, without any background thermal energy. The
concept being that in theory at least, I can do work while
converting
heat into radio waves, because radio waves are longer than heat
waves.
Practically, this could perhaps be done out in deep space (or the
dark
side of the moon etc.) where a heat engine could attain close to
100%
efficiency, by radiating energy away at the temperature of the
microwave background (i.e. 2.7 K). However because the radiated
energy
is in the form of microwaves, almost all of it can be recaptured
and
reused. IOW almost all of the energy can be used twice, iso once,
and
then most of that can be used again, etc. If you add up all the
partial re-uses of the same energy, before you finally lose
everything, you have done much more work with the initial amount
of
energy than is normally taken into account when calculating the
increase in entropy (which basically assumes that you lose the
energy
after one pass - see Carnot efficiency). (This is also a concept
that
Tom Bearden pushes).
So if I have a microwave capture and conversion efficiency of 80%
(is
this a reasonable number?), then in total, I can do 1/1-.8 = 5
joules
of work with only one joule of energy.
The reason this is currently seen as so outlandish, is that we are
used to thinking in terms of energy dissipation and loss. We think
in
these terms, because we usually "give up" on recovering energy
when it
reaches the thermal stage. We see "low grade" thermal energy as
useless and throw it away. But looked at from the point of
wavelength,
it is actually "higher grade" than radio waves. Yet we are able to
gather and "upgrade" radio waves, into energy of almost any grade,
by
means of electric conversion.
The *only* reason that heat is seen as low grade, is that we don't
have a "heat diode". (Well actually we do, they're called solar
cells,
but these are only about 25% efficient at best).
What we really need, is a substance that is a strong radio-emitter
when heated (or even just warmed :). Something that might serve
the
purpose, would be a gas with long molecules, that has ions stuck
at
the ends. If the molecules are long enough, and able to move
freely,
then when the plastic is immersed in a magnetic field, thermal
motion
will agitate the end ions, causing them to accelerate in the
magnetic
field, and radiate radio waves.
Such a substance would absorb heat energy from the environment,
and
convert it into longer wavelength radio waves that we could then
rectify and turn into electric current. As far as conventional
entropy
calculations are concerned this material would be down-converting
radiant energy, so it would be seen as an increase in entropy.
>
>So Entropy works. If you think entropy failed in some well understood
>process, see the first comment. If you think entropy failed in some ou
>experiment, see the first comment again and go looking for where the extra
>energy came from in the experiment.
The bottom line as far as I am concerned, is that the ability to
rectify a wave, results in negative entropy, i.e. it gives us the
ability to convert random motion into directed motion.
Our second "law" was written at a time when energy, once
"randomised"
could not be recovered. That may now be changing.
Ok, having now made abundantly clear for all the world to see,
that I
haven't really a clue what entropy really is, I will leave it to
the
rest of you to put me straight. :-)
PS Don't worry Ross, your discourse was not wasted on me, but I
want
to see where this leads before "surrendering".
Regards,
Robin van Spaandonk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Regards,
Robin van Spaandonk
http://users.bigpond.net.au/rvanspaa/
Competition provides the motivation,
Cooperation provides the means.
