This is the future, I was promised perpetual motion machines! April 15, 2010 7:45 AM Subscribe
I recall reading relatively recently (maybe within the past 3 months?) on the Blue about a comment listing some consequences if the law of Conservation of Energy is wrong. One of my coworkers just got into some "over-unity" nonsense, and I need to show him what for. I'm having some trouble Googling for it, or I wouldn't ask. Thanks in advance!
There is a less well-known principle you might want to keep in mind which says you can never recover any of the time you waste trying to argue with your over-unity coworker.
posted by Wolfdog at 8:49 AM on April 15, 2010 [6 favorites]
posted by Wolfdog at 8:49 AM on April 15, 2010 [6 favorites]
There is a less well-known principle you might want to keep in mind which says you can never recover any of the time you waste trying to argue with your over-unity coworker.
Actually, it's the same principle: conservation of energy.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:02 AM on April 15, 2010 [2 favorites]
Actually, it's the same principle: conservation of energy.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:02 AM on April 15, 2010 [2 favorites]
I like to assume that madcap ideas are right. If over-unity exists, why hasn't our galaxy been completely swarmed by von Neumann machines powered by over-unity devices, built by aliens who want to build a really big parking lot? Nothing would stop you from making the "seeders" zip past solar systems at nearly c, either. You could start at the edge of the Milky Way and coat the entire thing with your replicating, no-batteries-required machines in a little over 100,000 years.
posted by adipocere at 9:06 AM on April 15, 2010
posted by adipocere at 9:06 AM on April 15, 2010
Nobody falling for over-unity nonsense is going to be swayed by Noether's Theorem. They might not even understand 2 + 2.
posted by DU at 9:09 AM on April 15, 2010
posted by DU at 9:09 AM on April 15, 2010
Many of "Harry's" objections to magic (from Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality) could be just as easily applied to over-unity / zero-point energy. It's just that the ZPE crowd is less amusing to argue with.
But what many people fail to grasp is that the conservation laws have effects far beyond where they're explicitly invoked. Many equations, including Maxwell's and Schrödinger's, depend implicitly upon and assume energy conservation. It's tough to even play a "what if" mind game where you assume nonconservation, because it would upset so much well-established (and more importantly, experimentally verified, predictively useful) theory.
It's not like changing the value of a more-or-less arbitrary physical constant, e.g. "what would the world be like if C were 20 mi/hr?" You can reason something like that out, because you're not really affecting the theoretical framework, but changing one of the inputs. That's very different from just tossing most of the rules out.
All that said ... if cornered, I would have to admit that it is possible that there exists some limited regimes where established physical laws as we currently understand and model them might not apply. Similar to how the observation of quantum-scale effects forced a rethinking of classical mechanics by showing that the classical laws didn't predict subatomic behavior, it's possible that we could discover some regime where the current energy/mass conservation laws don't apply. But that wouldn't suddenly invalidate those theories in the rest of the universe, any more than the discovery of quantum tunneling means you and I can suddenly teleport through walls.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:12 AM on April 15, 2010
But what many people fail to grasp is that the conservation laws have effects far beyond where they're explicitly invoked. Many equations, including Maxwell's and Schrödinger's, depend implicitly upon and assume energy conservation. It's tough to even play a "what if" mind game where you assume nonconservation, because it would upset so much well-established (and more importantly, experimentally verified, predictively useful) theory.
It's not like changing the value of a more-or-less arbitrary physical constant, e.g. "what would the world be like if C were 20 mi/hr?" You can reason something like that out, because you're not really affecting the theoretical framework, but changing one of the inputs. That's very different from just tossing most of the rules out.
All that said ... if cornered, I would have to admit that it is possible that there exists some limited regimes where established physical laws as we currently understand and model them might not apply. Similar to how the observation of quantum-scale effects forced a rethinking of classical mechanics by showing that the classical laws didn't predict subatomic behavior, it's possible that we could discover some regime where the current energy/mass conservation laws don't apply. But that wouldn't suddenly invalidate those theories in the rest of the universe, any more than the discovery of quantum tunneling means you and I can suddenly teleport through walls.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:12 AM on April 15, 2010
why hasn't our galaxy been completely swarmed by von Neumann machines powered by over-unity devices, built by aliens who want to build a really big parking lot?
obviously because either they don't exist or haven't thought of it.
posted by empath at 9:25 AM on April 15, 2010
obviously because either they don't exist or haven't thought of it.
posted by empath at 9:25 AM on April 15, 2010
If the comment linked by empath isn't what you are referring to my guess is another comment about how "everything will change" if someone did invent a perpetual motion machine. Something about how we would essentially become gods. I don't have a link, but does that sound more like what you're looking for?
posted by Green With You at 9:25 AM on April 15, 2010
posted by Green With You at 9:25 AM on April 15, 2010
any more than the discovery of quantum tunneling means you and I can suddenly teleport through walls.
Speak for yourself there, buddy.
posted by nickmark at 9:27 AM on April 15, 2010 [1 favorite]
Speak for yourself there, buddy.
posted by nickmark at 9:27 AM on April 15, 2010 [1 favorite]
I've been teleporting through walls for years. The trick involves special teleporter knobs that make whole sections of the walls open right up. Then you can stroll right on through, plain as day. I have other alien technologies, too, but I'm not at liberty to disclose those at this juncture. Stay tuned.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:44 AM on April 15, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:44 AM on April 15, 2010 [1 favorite]
I'm convinced that we can walk through walls, not only me, anyone. Cops. People. People in Nashville. I tried to exert the full force of my mind on all the atoms of my body so that they will mix and re-arrange and fit exactly all the holes in that wall. Then I tried the laboratory method, I tried to walk through it, through the wall, just like a few minutes ago when I took a running bash and I failed. Horribly.
*hits the wall with a hammer*
I am punishing the atoms by making an example of them, an object lesson, a thing, so when the other atoms see what's coming they'll let me pass through. Independent snots! Shape up or ship out!
posted by adipocere at 11:25 AM on April 15, 2010 [1 favorite]
*hits the wall with a hammer*
I am punishing the atoms by making an example of them, an object lesson, a thing, so when the other atoms see what's coming they'll let me pass through. Independent snots! Shape up or ship out!
posted by adipocere at 11:25 AM on April 15, 2010 [1 favorite]
Something about how we would essentially become gods.
I'd love a time machine so that I could go back to the enlightenment period and ask the great philosophers to imagine a world in which everyone not in poverty would have access to essentially all of human knowledge within seconds at all times and places.
I bet they'd imagine porn and lolcats.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:34 AM on April 15, 2010 [1 favorite]
I'd love a time machine so that I could go back to the enlightenment period and ask the great philosophers to imagine a world in which everyone not in poverty would have access to essentially all of human knowledge within seconds at all times and places.
I bet they'd imagine porn and lolcats.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:34 AM on April 15, 2010 [1 favorite]
I am punishing the atoms by making an example of them, an object lesson, a thing, so when the other atoms see what's coming they'll let me pass through.
The good news is that it's theoretically possible!
The bad news is that you'll be trying for a long time.
posted by empath at 11:51 AM on April 15, 2010
The good news is that it's theoretically possible!
The bad news is that you'll be trying for a long time.
posted by empath at 11:51 AM on April 15, 2010
Kadin2048, it looks like the line I was thinking of was contained within the linked fanfic on the Harry Potter post. Thanks for that!
posted by Xoder at 12:27 PM on April 15, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by Xoder at 12:27 PM on April 15, 2010 [1 favorite]
Thanks, adipocere. I was going to post that. That movie is nuts. (The movie is The Ninth Configuration.)
posted by loquacious at 12:49 PM on April 15, 2010
posted by loquacious at 12:49 PM on April 15, 2010
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posted by empath at 8:38 AM on April 15, 2010