Hoyt A. Stearns Jr. wrote: What would your explanaton be if it can be conclusively proved that the > energy released when two attracting magnets > approach each other over some distance d is more than the energy absorbed > retracting them back distance d :-) ? > > Many ask "Where did the extra energy come from?"
That would be so surprising I wouldn't know what to think. But as far as I know energy has to come from mass converting to energy. All forms of energy release result in mass annihilation, even a spring unwinding. That is the conventional view, and I always stick to the conventional until it is clearly proven wrong. There have been discussions over the years about "zero point energy" which is supposedly very dense. I asked Scott Little about that once. He said he gave up on zero point energy theory when someone computed that the potential energy in a few cubic centimeters was enough to boil away the oceans of the earth. He thought that's gotta be a theory "exploding" into a meaningless conclusion, like a division by zero error. I suppose so. - Jed
