Chapter 1: Conservation of Energy
According to the law of conservation of energy it is impossible to create energy out of nothing:
The law of conservation of energy is an empirical law of physics. It states that the total amount of energy in an isolated system remains constant over time (is said to be conserved over time). A consequence of this law is that energy can neither be created nor destroyed: it can only be transformed from one state to another. The only thing that can happen to energy in a closed system is that it can change form: for instance chemical energy can become kinetic energy.
The fundamental foundation for the law of conservation of energy lies in Newton's third law:
To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts.
In essence energy (work) is an integration (summation) of a force enacted between two bodies - or particles or even the fundamental 'God' particles or whatever the aether/medium may be composed of - over the effect of the force, the movement of the body over a certain distance or a displacement in/of the aether/medium.
In other words, energy is in essence a measurement of the effect of the interaction between two bodies/particles and/or the medium. Fundamental point is that it is always a measurement of the effect of an interaction. And since action equals minus reaction, there can be no other way than that energy is always conserved. Because after all, as Tesla said, something cannot act upon nothing:
It might be inferred that I am alluding to the curvature of space supposed to exist according to the teachings of relativity, but nothing could be further from my mind. I hold that space cannot be curved, for the simple reason that it can have no properties. It might as well be said that God has properties. He has not, but only attributes and these are of our own making. Of properties we can only speak when dealing with matter filling the space. To say that in the presence of large bodies space becomes curved, is equivalent to stating that something can act upon nothing. I, for one, refuse to subscribe to such a view.
It is this law of conservation of energy that causes any device which appears to produce "useful work" without the use of a visible or obvious energy source to be considered "impossible" and done away with as perpetual motion (version of August 2010):
Perpetual motion describes hypothetical machines that once started operate or produce useful work indefinitely. This definition has been expanded to include any machine that produces more work or energy than it consumes, whether or not it can operate indefinitely. Despite that[sic] fact that such machines are not possible within the framework of our current formulation of physical law the pursuit of perpetual motion remains popular.
However, even though the law of conservation is correct, this does not mean it is impossible to create "machines that once started operate or produce useful work indefinitely" at all, provided you do not take the word 'indefinitely' too literally. But what this is really about, is the second part: "any machine that produces more work or energy than it consumes". Yes, this is correct, you cannot build a machine that produces energy out of nothing, you can only make a machine that uses some (external) energy source to do useful work. The current WikiPedia revision on perpetual motion (April 20th 2015) is much more nuanced:
Perpetual motion is motion that continues indefinitely without any external source of energy. This is impossible to ever achieve because of friction and other sources of energy loss. A perpetual motion machine is a hypothetical machine that can do work indefinitely without an energy source. This kind of machine is impossible, as it would violate the first or second law of thermodynamics.
In some way, the way the description of perpetual motion has changed over at WikiPedia illustrates that regarding this matter things are not as easy as they seem and that the detail regarding the use of an external energy source is an important distinction to make indeed.
Either way, in most cases, we can use the energy source of choice more or less directly, like burning fuel, and we don't count the energy we have to spend in order to get our energy source. But of course it also takes energy to drill a hole in the earth in order to extract oil for making fuel. So, in essence, the fuel supply chain ("a machine") as a whole provides more energy than it consumes, that is, the energy needed to make fuel is less than the energy released when burning the final product, the fuel.
To continue in this line of thinking, the ground source heat pump is a perfect example of a machine that uses a certain amount of energy in order to extract energy from some other external energy source provided by nature, heat naturally stored in the ground:
Ground source heat pumps, which are also referred to as Geothermal heat pumps, typically have higher efficiencies than air-source heat pumps. This is because they draw heat from the ground or groundwater which is at a relatively constant temperature all year round below a depth of about thirty feet (9 m).
Of course, we can apply this same principle in various ways, if we can find an appropriate external energy source provided by nature, preferably free of charge. Fortunately, an energy source exists that is available everywhere in the universe for free. It's an energy source that could in theory provide limitless energy without any pollution whatsoever, if only we could find a way to utilize it. This energy source is most generally known under the name "zero-point energy":
Zero-point energy, also called quantum vacuum zero-point energy, is the lowest possible energy that a quantum mechanical physical system may have; it is the energy of its ground state. All quantum mechanical systems undergo fluctuations even in their ground state and have an associated zero-point energy, a consequence of their wave-like nature. The uncertainty principle requires every physical system to have a zero-point energy greater than the minimum of its classical potential well. This results in motion even at absolute zero. For example, liquid helium does not freeze under atmospheric pressure at any temperature because of its zero-point energy.
So far, we have not covered anything controversial. We have covered the fundamental law of conservation of energy, we have established that because of that one cannot build devices which produce energy out of nothing and we have identified zero-point energy as an energy source that could be used, in principle, as far as the law of conservation of energy is concerned, that is.
However, the question remains whether or not this is actually possible in practice, the so-called the Utilization controversy (WikiPedia):
As a scientific concept, the existence of zero-point energy is not controversial. However, the ability to harness zero point energy for useful work is considered pseudoscience by the scientific community at large.
The source for the 'pseudoscience' label is a document by the US Army National Ground Intelligence Center (copy):
While it is tempting to think that the energy of the vacuum in its abundance might somehow be harvested for our general use, this is sadly not possible. Extracting energy from a ground-state system would imply that the resulting system would have a lower energy, which is a nonsensical concept given that the system is (by definition) already at its lowest energy state. Forays into "free energy" inventions and perpetual-motion machines using ZPE are considered by the broader scientific community to be pseudoscience.
Let's first examine the conclusions of the US Army document:
ZPE has been a controversial topic similar to cold fusion and antigravity for a number of years because of the hope it creates for "free energy" and grandiose solutions to the world's energy problems. This hope has made it sometimes difficult to separate the hype spread by pseudoscientists and inventors from very real and noncontroversial application potential of the small-scale forces generated by the Casimir effect stemming from vacuum energy for nanoscale devices. While pockets of research in the field do exist, those with any promise for military technologies of tomorrow are less likely to affect space travel and more likely to affect future nanoscale devices.
Let's get this straight: according to this official US Army document, "a nonsensical concept given that the system is (by definition) already at its lowest energy state" has "very real and noncontroversial application potential".
Provided it is only applied at the nanoscale, of course.
But what about the microscale? After all, the Casimir effect, which accordingly does have very real and noncontroversial application potential, has been demonstrated at the microscale by Lamoreaux at the University of Washington:
Demonstration of the Casimir Force in the 0.6 to 6 um Range
The vacuum stress between closely spaced conducting surfaces, due to the modification of the zero-point fluctuations of the electromagnetic field, has been conclusively demonstrated. The measurement employed an electromechanical system based on a torsion pendulum. Agreement with theory at the level of 5% is obtained.
Now what is the Casimir effect?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect
In quantum field theory, the Casimir effect and the Casimir–Polder force are physical forces arising from a quantized field. They are named after the Dutch physicist Hendrik Casimir.
The typical example is of two uncharged metallic plates in a vacuum, placed a few nanometers apart. In a classical description, the lack of an external field also means that there is no field between the plates, and no force would be measured between them. When this field is instead studied using the QED vacuum of quantum electrodynamics, it is seen that the plates do affect the virtual photons which constitute the field, and generate a net force—either an attraction or a repulsion depending on the specific arrangement of the two plates.
Note that in the quantum electrodynamics interpretation, there is no fundamental understanding of the phenomenon. While it is clear that actually some kind of kinetic field exists which causes the Casimir effect, this field is being attributed to virtual photons, which by definition do not actually exist. However, the need for using photons to describe the phenomenon implies that some kind of oscillating field is involved, which has shown to have real, measurable effects. However, if it has real physical effects, the logical conclusion would be that it also has a real, physical origion and thus we can come to the following hypothesis:
A real, physical field of force with an oscillating nature exists, which amongst others causes the Casimir effect.
In other words: we postulate that the field causing the Casimir effect is not virtual (and thus actually non-existent) in nature, but very real and physically existing. And since it is of an oscillating nature it is a kinetic field of force and not a static one.
The US Army document also contains an alternate view:
As stated in the conclusion, ZPE has met with much controversy and debate. An alternate view of the topic is provided below by an analyst at Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
"The topic of successfully exploiting zero point energy (ZPE) has importance because it represents a high-risk/high pay-off technology. This is not pseudo-science but a very serious discipline where very serious research is underway worldwide that range from investigating the Casimir effect, finding new alternative sources of energy, and developing a means of future long-range space travel. Efforts are currently underway at a U.S. aerospace corporation to include creating hardware to investigate using ZPE to provide energy. Finally, one would like to see experimental data and, hopefully, replication of such experiments representative of 'good' science. However, the amount of U.S. research dollars spent in this endeavor is abysmal such that even the simplest experiment cannot be performed. Although we are aware of only modest funding worldwide for this type of research, the Intelligence Community should monitor the more controversial aspects of ZPE, or we may miss an important foreign innovational leap forward, thereby leaving us vulnerable to technology surprise."
Note: This alternate view was provided by an analyst of DIA and represents the view of this one analyst. It does not represent a DIA position.
Apparently, within "three letter US agencies" there is still room for debate on this one...
Wikipedia also refers to another document, a NASA contractor report:
According to a NASA contractor report, "the concept of accessing a significant amount of useful energy from the ZPE gained much credibility when a major article on this topic was published in Aviation Week & Space Technology (1 March 2004), a leading aerospace industry magazine".
This report reads (page 66):
One can put forth the hypothesis that ZPE is potentially such an energy source that can possibly explain the "excess output" inventors have claimed to observe. The calculated spatial density of ZPE is incomprehensibly large (as described in Section 4.1). If these calculated values are correct and a very small fraction of ZPE could be obtained in a system output, then this output could readily exceed the conventional types of energy entering the system. The working hypothesis in this report is that (excluding claims associated with poor measurements and intentional fraud) ZPE has been demonstrated a number of times, and that an examination of what is common or similar between claimed technologies could lead to a theoretical understanding of the science involved. Once the underlying scientific theory is understood, it may be possible to derive a short-list of "principles" that could be used to develop ZPE technology.
This seems like a very sensible working hypothesis to me, which I fully subscribe to. Furthermore, the idea to examine what is common or similar between a number of claimed technologies in order to come to a theoretical understanding of the science involved is exactly the purpose of this work.
However, doing so is not an easy task. It involves returning to the roots of our current scientific models, correcting some fundamental errors which have been introduced in the 20th century, dealing with rather nonsensical predictions of Quantum Mechanics, such as alleged "entanglement", and an alleged curving of space-time itself. By returning to an aether theory, whereby we model the aether as being a compressible gas/fluid, we can finally come to the long sought for 'Unification of Physics' and thus come to a workable theoretical understanding of the science involved.
But before we do that, we shall first examine the nature of the electric field, thereby assuming that the static electric field, whatever it may actually be, is a kinetic force caused by some kind of movement with a finite speed.
