The endless quest for safe, easy accessible energy.
Posted: Mon Jan 27, 2020 8:20 pm
There is no perpetual motion. We all know that. However there has been posited that there is a universal energy source. Tesla was one of the first to propose it. Quantum theory relies on energy as a supposed zero point energy field. Today, many purport to view the zero point energy as a possible source of universal energy. Tesla did not know of this but he did say.......
"Electric power is everywhere present in unlimited quantities and can drive the world's machinery without the need for Coal, oil, gas or any other of the common fuels."
To this I must add and explain our energy dilemma and note the fact that Tesla did understand, should his prophesy not be found to be true, what would forever limit man's energy.
When Tesla made the above statement he had “ideas”. There is no doubt that electrons abound loose and free here on earth, or there would be no static electricity to shock you and no lightning. Electrons are electricity. Nothing else in the real world can produce electricity without the flowing charge bound up in the electron. Free electronic charges do exist in nature. Not everything is strictly electrically neutral at all times. Tesla knew this. All positive charges in the macroscopic sense are due to an imbalance absence or loss of electrons, while all negative charge is due to a collection of excess electrons.
Tesla’s mind raced far ahead of his ability to prove many of his musings. Today, we know many of his thoughts, even when he was in command of his senses, are wrong. Tesla was careful to not allow himself to be linked to the impossible physics of perpetual motion so long held by the loony fringe in science for over a thousand years. The laws of thermodynamics will now allow that and Tesla knew it.
Instead, he envisioned a mechanism that could tap into what he considered a pre-existing font of natural energy found throughout the universe. Thus, the statement he made above. All of this was laid out in his huge article in 1900, “On Increasing Human Energy”, (Century magazine)
Tesla had just returned from the heady days in Colorado and had it in his head that such a universal field of energy existed all around us. He could not prove it, but had huge hopes for the idea. In the above grandiose statement, he followed up within a number of news paper articles a proviso. This proviso, none of his boosters ever notes due to their being besotted with everything Tesla and their abject lack of knowledge related to the physics of the universe. Tesla, when pressed, tended to tell both sides, but to the press, he waxed eloquent with speculations which any good newspaperman would pump to a higher and more fantastical level to sell papers and make Tesla appear as if he stepped down from Mount Olympus.
Now to what Tesla predicated in his bold statement regarding universal energy. After his firm belief in a universal font of electrical energy just waiting to be tapped into, he noted, and I paraphrase as close to his quote as I can.
“I seek, via mechanisms made by man, to connect with the very wheel work of the universe…. To capture unlimited amounts of energy from the boundless font which makes up the very fabric of the universe. If man fails in this effort, he will forever be doomed to be a hunter-gatherer.”
I hold this to be the most prophetic and well spoken statement Tesla ever made so long as he lived. Tearing this statement apart, you can see his true genius and depth of thought. With his seeing the power of his work in Colorado Springs in 1899, he had come to believe in a universal source of energy just waiting to be tapped which lay just beyond his immediate grasp. Realizing that the laws of thermodynamics might limit this dream, should there be no such real source of hidden universal energy, Tesla noted the fact that man has always been a hunter-gatherer and may yet be doomed to continue along this path. So….. 1.Tesla had dreams and hopes firmly in his mind related to endless energy. 2. He, as a trained college science graduate and knowing physics and the laws of thermodynamics had to admit that with no such energy source, man would have to continue along his ancient path of seeking out energy sources containing “pre-cocked”, “energy guns”. 3. In such gatherings, all we had to do is apply a tiny amount of seed energy (pulling the trigger) to reap that stored molecular energy found bound up in what we had gathered up.
In short, man must gather up sticks or mine coal which have stored molecular energy due to photosynthesis from the sun over years (wood) or millennia (coal). Then, to pull the "trigger" by applying a single small flame for but a moment. Finally, to stand back and allow that stored energy to pour out over hours to warm us at the hearth or to boil water to drive steam trains and boats. This, is hunter-gathering in man’s effort to capture and use energy forever for as long as he has existed. We are still nothing but hunter-gatherers to this very day. Nothing has changed nor will it ever in the foreseeable future.
Tesla had no idea about nuclear energy. Yet all of nuclear energy is just hunter-gathering! All nuclear energy derives from stored binding energy… Give it a thought as a scientist…. Uranium and all matter beyond hydrogen is created only in long ago, exploded, giant super novae. In these giant explosions, energy is created solely by the potential energy source of gravity. Gravity has acted upon the collapsing star to force an energetic explosion of such a magnitude that the helium thru carbon which fused during the life time of the exploded star can only now fuse even these “unfusable” stellar products to produce yet more massive higher elements.
The "stellar vomit" resulting from these huge explosions drifts through space and ultimately form a nebula and a new star is born: our sun. Much of the solid elemental rubble is kept away from the new star by the violent solar radiation pressure. Doomed to orbit the star at various distances and to, ultimately, accrete into planets with all the heavy elements.
Man, in the late 1890’s, discovers radioactivity from only the heaviest two metallic elements. They seem to violate the laws of thermodynamics so closely guarded by science. Slowly we learn that molecular energy is not the only store of universal energy! The nuclei of these heavy elements are unstable and as the nucleus decays, a far more vast outpouring of energy called nuclear energy is released. This nuclear energy makes the chemical molecular energy appear as but a baby’s breath in comparison, mass for mass with wood or coal. The process is called fission. (we split atoms with pre-cocked energy guns)… We quickly, and almost overnight, learn to use nuclear energy to first kill and then to grow our society by leaps and bounds. What pulls the nuclear trigger in nuclear energy? First hunt for it, then, gather it, refine it, separate out one isotope of uranium. Then, merely bring two pieces of it close together and unbelievable amounts of energy will pour out, releasing stored nuclear binding energy from that original nova billions of years ago.
Oddly, and by accident, we determine that the very lightest of stable elements can also produce energy just as the sun does via fusion! (forcing the lighter elements together violently and against their electrostatic and nuclear will as dictated by physics). But there is a snag. We can only fuse and obtain such energy from these lightest elements if we first raise the temperature to hundreds of millions of degrees. We must also contain the resultant energy. The only thing that can do this is the energy released in the fission of uranium. We do powerful fusion first in a device designed to only kill, (H-bomb). We surround the light elements with an atomic bomb, (fission) to make it happen. The energy from the H-bomb far exceeds that from the fission bomb used to trigger the fusion reaction.
But now, why not use it to produce useful, controlled fusion energy? To control fusion we must heat the light atoms to temperatures as in the H bomb, but we can’t use fission. Some plasmas are in the right temperature range. We try that and we do indeed get well controlled fusion. However, we do not get enough fusion energy to even begin to approach the energy that we put in to achieve the fusion reaction! With more energy, we create more fusion, but a problem rears its ugly head. The laws of physics are ever mindful and prevent such reactions as fusion to occur. As fusion energy grows, the forces needed to contain the violent reaction needed to boil water begin to destroy the reactor vessel. This, and other factors, tend to kill the fusion process. The ruling force is electrostatic repulsion.
Quantum theory is brought to bear here and all fusion is a mere probability that the ions of the lighter elements will or will not fuse even at fusion temperatures! In an H-bomb, the probabilities allow for a high order of positive probability due to a gross and instantaneous temperature rise due to the fission explosion far beyond and many times the fusion temperature required.
To this day, we have no way to control fusion in a reactor at or even near fusion “ignition” temperatures. Only gravity, a potential energy, is seen to be the controller and creator of fusion throughout the universe in far flung remote units called stars separated by light years.
Richard Hull
"Electric power is everywhere present in unlimited quantities and can drive the world's machinery without the need for Coal, oil, gas or any other of the common fuels."
To this I must add and explain our energy dilemma and note the fact that Tesla did understand, should his prophesy not be found to be true, what would forever limit man's energy.
When Tesla made the above statement he had “ideas”. There is no doubt that electrons abound loose and free here on earth, or there would be no static electricity to shock you and no lightning. Electrons are electricity. Nothing else in the real world can produce electricity without the flowing charge bound up in the electron. Free electronic charges do exist in nature. Not everything is strictly electrically neutral at all times. Tesla knew this. All positive charges in the macroscopic sense are due to an imbalance absence or loss of electrons, while all negative charge is due to a collection of excess electrons.
Tesla’s mind raced far ahead of his ability to prove many of his musings. Today, we know many of his thoughts, even when he was in command of his senses, are wrong. Tesla was careful to not allow himself to be linked to the impossible physics of perpetual motion so long held by the loony fringe in science for over a thousand years. The laws of thermodynamics will now allow that and Tesla knew it.
Instead, he envisioned a mechanism that could tap into what he considered a pre-existing font of natural energy found throughout the universe. Thus, the statement he made above. All of this was laid out in his huge article in 1900, “On Increasing Human Energy”, (Century magazine)
Tesla had just returned from the heady days in Colorado and had it in his head that such a universal field of energy existed all around us. He could not prove it, but had huge hopes for the idea. In the above grandiose statement, he followed up within a number of news paper articles a proviso. This proviso, none of his boosters ever notes due to their being besotted with everything Tesla and their abject lack of knowledge related to the physics of the universe. Tesla, when pressed, tended to tell both sides, but to the press, he waxed eloquent with speculations which any good newspaperman would pump to a higher and more fantastical level to sell papers and make Tesla appear as if he stepped down from Mount Olympus.
Now to what Tesla predicated in his bold statement regarding universal energy. After his firm belief in a universal font of electrical energy just waiting to be tapped into, he noted, and I paraphrase as close to his quote as I can.
“I seek, via mechanisms made by man, to connect with the very wheel work of the universe…. To capture unlimited amounts of energy from the boundless font which makes up the very fabric of the universe. If man fails in this effort, he will forever be doomed to be a hunter-gatherer.”
I hold this to be the most prophetic and well spoken statement Tesla ever made so long as he lived. Tearing this statement apart, you can see his true genius and depth of thought. With his seeing the power of his work in Colorado Springs in 1899, he had come to believe in a universal source of energy just waiting to be tapped which lay just beyond his immediate grasp. Realizing that the laws of thermodynamics might limit this dream, should there be no such real source of hidden universal energy, Tesla noted the fact that man has always been a hunter-gatherer and may yet be doomed to continue along this path. So….. 1.Tesla had dreams and hopes firmly in his mind related to endless energy. 2. He, as a trained college science graduate and knowing physics and the laws of thermodynamics had to admit that with no such energy source, man would have to continue along his ancient path of seeking out energy sources containing “pre-cocked”, “energy guns”. 3. In such gatherings, all we had to do is apply a tiny amount of seed energy (pulling the trigger) to reap that stored molecular energy found bound up in what we had gathered up.
In short, man must gather up sticks or mine coal which have stored molecular energy due to photosynthesis from the sun over years (wood) or millennia (coal). Then, to pull the "trigger" by applying a single small flame for but a moment. Finally, to stand back and allow that stored energy to pour out over hours to warm us at the hearth or to boil water to drive steam trains and boats. This, is hunter-gathering in man’s effort to capture and use energy forever for as long as he has existed. We are still nothing but hunter-gatherers to this very day. Nothing has changed nor will it ever in the foreseeable future.
Tesla had no idea about nuclear energy. Yet all of nuclear energy is just hunter-gathering! All nuclear energy derives from stored binding energy… Give it a thought as a scientist…. Uranium and all matter beyond hydrogen is created only in long ago, exploded, giant super novae. In these giant explosions, energy is created solely by the potential energy source of gravity. Gravity has acted upon the collapsing star to force an energetic explosion of such a magnitude that the helium thru carbon which fused during the life time of the exploded star can only now fuse even these “unfusable” stellar products to produce yet more massive higher elements.
The "stellar vomit" resulting from these huge explosions drifts through space and ultimately form a nebula and a new star is born: our sun. Much of the solid elemental rubble is kept away from the new star by the violent solar radiation pressure. Doomed to orbit the star at various distances and to, ultimately, accrete into planets with all the heavy elements.
Man, in the late 1890’s, discovers radioactivity from only the heaviest two metallic elements. They seem to violate the laws of thermodynamics so closely guarded by science. Slowly we learn that molecular energy is not the only store of universal energy! The nuclei of these heavy elements are unstable and as the nucleus decays, a far more vast outpouring of energy called nuclear energy is released. This nuclear energy makes the chemical molecular energy appear as but a baby’s breath in comparison, mass for mass with wood or coal. The process is called fission. (we split atoms with pre-cocked energy guns)… We quickly, and almost overnight, learn to use nuclear energy to first kill and then to grow our society by leaps and bounds. What pulls the nuclear trigger in nuclear energy? First hunt for it, then, gather it, refine it, separate out one isotope of uranium. Then, merely bring two pieces of it close together and unbelievable amounts of energy will pour out, releasing stored nuclear binding energy from that original nova billions of years ago.
Oddly, and by accident, we determine that the very lightest of stable elements can also produce energy just as the sun does via fusion! (forcing the lighter elements together violently and against their electrostatic and nuclear will as dictated by physics). But there is a snag. We can only fuse and obtain such energy from these lightest elements if we first raise the temperature to hundreds of millions of degrees. We must also contain the resultant energy. The only thing that can do this is the energy released in the fission of uranium. We do powerful fusion first in a device designed to only kill, (H-bomb). We surround the light elements with an atomic bomb, (fission) to make it happen. The energy from the H-bomb far exceeds that from the fission bomb used to trigger the fusion reaction.
But now, why not use it to produce useful, controlled fusion energy? To control fusion we must heat the light atoms to temperatures as in the H bomb, but we can’t use fission. Some plasmas are in the right temperature range. We try that and we do indeed get well controlled fusion. However, we do not get enough fusion energy to even begin to approach the energy that we put in to achieve the fusion reaction! With more energy, we create more fusion, but a problem rears its ugly head. The laws of physics are ever mindful and prevent such reactions as fusion to occur. As fusion energy grows, the forces needed to contain the violent reaction needed to boil water begin to destroy the reactor vessel. This, and other factors, tend to kill the fusion process. The ruling force is electrostatic repulsion.
Quantum theory is brought to bear here and all fusion is a mere probability that the ions of the lighter elements will or will not fuse even at fusion temperatures! In an H-bomb, the probabilities allow for a high order of positive probability due to a gross and instantaneous temperature rise due to the fission explosion far beyond and many times the fusion temperature required.
To this day, we have no way to control fusion in a reactor at or even near fusion “ignition” temperatures. Only gravity, a potential energy, is seen to be the controller and creator of fusion throughout the universe in far flung remote units called stars separated by light years.
Richard Hull