K LEO ABOUT
THERMO K LEO ABOUT
THERMO Q. An acquaintance of mine is fascinated by a company that has made an astonishing discovery: a technology that can provide a free and continuous supply of energy from nothing. However, my acquaintance has been disappointed at the slow progress of the company, so far, in validating the principle of the technology. My acquaintance accepts that validation is a time-consuming process, but they are anxious that the benefits of the technology should be realised as quickly as possible. This technology will eliminate the need for batteries in mobile devices and for fuel in vehicles, aircraft and spacecraft. It will also replace traditional power plants, eliminate pollution from burning fossil fuels and solve the problem of global warming. There will be no further need to mine coal or extract oil or natural gas. There will be no further need to exploit nuclear power or renewable energy sources. My acquaintance is not perturbed by the fact that this technology is highly controvesial and appears to violate the principle of conservation of energy: they are aware that many previous discoveries that have upturned contemporary scientific understanding were vehemently rejected by the establishment at the time. Neither is my acquaintance unduly perturbed that the company seems to have incurred increasing losses over a number of years as it has sought to validate the technology.
I know that you are a distinguished scientist and engineer and I realise that you may have doubts about the validity of the technology that has fascinated my acquaintance. I too have such doubts, although I am not an expert. However, I would ask you to please consider giving a hypothetical respose to my question on the premise that free-constant-energy technology is valid and implementable. My acquaintance has considerable means and, I suspect or fear, would perhaps like to use their influence or even, conceivably, provide further investment, in order to speed up the process of validating the technology so that the benefits can be realised as quickly as possible. My acquaintance has a philanthropic disposition and is not in need of increasing their personal wealth. However, they are anxious that mankind should benefit from free-constant-energy technology as soon as possible. How would you advise my acquaintance to proceed?
R. I think of the rejection suffered by a colleague of former times, Galileo Galilei, and recognise that the laws and assumptions of science are there to be challenged. The laws and assumptions only stand for as long as they are seen to be valid.
I would urge your acquaintance to use their influence with the company to persuade it to abandon any attempts to validate the free-constant-energy technology. All that is required is to implement the concept. If the company by which your acquaintance is fascinated knows how to build the device then it should proceed, carefully, to do so. A miniature- or even micro-demonstration would suffice. Once a steady stream of energy can be provided from nothing then the energy-creating device should be commercialised. While it might be difficult to persuade the marketplace about the validity of a principle, the marketplace will always be interested in a stream of energy, e.g. as electric power, that is available on demand—provided of course that the price is attractive. It would make the most sense for the company to keep the principle of operation of the device secret while using the revenues generated from the sale of the freely-generated energy to ramp-up production capacity, eventually dominating the world energy market.
If the motives of your acquaintance are truly philanthropic, you should urge them to use their influence to discourage the company from wasting time or resources in a non-helpful or unnecessary way. It is difficult to see how your acquaintance might do this, because it would appear the company is already employing more capital than necessary. If your acquaintance had any influence with the existing stakeholders they might encourage them to reduce their existing investment in the company, if this were possible, to an amount that would allow only the construction of the energy-creating-device on the smallest feasible scale. Sometimes one has to be cruel to be kind! Once the device is in operation on a miniature scale, the existing stakeholders or your acquaintance could consider providing early-stage financing to speed-up the process of saturating the energy market. Any such further capital would only be needed for a short period of time, as energy-on-tap is such a valuable commodity.
On a cautionary note, energy must be handled carefully: energy transfer brings about change (at the very least in the energy-content of the system or sink that receives the energy). Vast amounts of freely-created energy could bring about vast amounts of change. If the energy were created very rapidly then change might occur very rapidly. Your acquaintance should use their influence to urge the company to always ensure that they have installed a turn-off switch whenever they are testing the prototype device. I would also recommend an energy-flow fuse: a device that would interrupt the operation of the free-constant-energy device if the rate of creation of energy should ever become excessive.
Although increased levels of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere contribute to global warming, the release of stored energy or the creation of energy from nothing are also capable of causing global warming. You might like to suggest to your acquaintance that they enquire from the company about the possiblity that the free-constant-energy device might be capable of being operated in reverse. As an ‘energy destroyer’ it could then be used in a very helpful way to reduce global warming, cool cupfuls of hot tea or achieve other beneficial effects. With an ability both to create or destroy energy on demand, the technology would be truly idyllic.
Just as a law or assumption of science only stands until is shown not to apply, a novel device that is supposed to do something does not exist until it is shown to do what it is supposed to do. A device that is supposed to do something, but has not yet been shown to do it, cannot be used to invalidate any law or assumption of science. Without a counter-demonstration for a law or assumption of science it would be pointless for your philanthropic acquaintance to financially support challenging that law or assumption. Please give my regards to your acquaintance. The world is in great need of philanthropy at this time.
Leo Nest, ULFC
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