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Hairyloon
Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15433
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.
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dpack
Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46308
Location: yes
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Tom Booth
Joined: 06 Jan 2025
Posts: 15
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Hairyloon
Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15433
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.
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tahir
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45695
Location: Essex
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Tom Booth
Joined: 06 Jan 2025
Posts: 15
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dpack
Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46308
Location: yes
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Tom Booth
Joined: 06 Jan 2025
Posts: 15
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Hairyloon
Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15433
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.
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Tom Booth
Joined: 06 Jan 2025
Posts: 15
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 Posted: Sun Feb 09, 25 12:18 am Post subject: |
 
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| Hairyloon wrote: |
.....
I think there were only two users left, and the relationship between them had gone bad...
I couldn't work out if there was actually any basis for it or if it was just one of those interfacing problems that come up from time to time. |
There were, or are, several other members of that forum, but most had given up trying to post anything as it just got buried under the avalanche of spam.
The disagreement between myself and a few others there has been long standing going back a few years.
It really started with this post where I had voiced some speculations regarding the thermodynamics of Stirling engines:
Archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20241109114148/https://stirlingengineforum.com/about478.html
That was actually way back in 2010.
What actually happens to the heat or "thermal energy" that goes into a heat engine?
We know that we get "work" or mechanical energy out of the engine, but how does that transformation from heat into work take place? Or does it?
Old school thermodynamics (Carnot theory) Kelvin, etc. believed heat ("caloric") passed right through the engine in much the same way that water flows through a turbine, such as a mill wheel.
If heat is itself a form of energy, however, this would seem to be a violation of conservation of energy, to put in heat and get out mechanical work and still have heat coming out the other side of the engine.
To settle the issue, I bought a number of model Stirling engines and did some experiments to see if the heat was going through the engine and coming out the other side or not.
As it turned out, in numerous experiments, I found that the heat does not go through the engine and out the other side at all.
As far as I was concerned, that was that. The issue was settled.
Some others, however, found my experimental results absolutely intolerable. I was accused of practicing "pseudoscience", of doing faulty experiments, of making fake videos using Photoshop, of being "stubborn" and unwilling to learn, of being a "perpetual motion" crackpot, claiming to have violated the second law of thermodynamics, etc.
So I did more experiments, taking suggestions for correcting the "mistakes" I had made, with much the same results.
The results of my experiments were considered completely unacceptable. It seemed to drive some individuals completely psycho and, well, too much to go into, but things just snowballed over the years.
I posted videos of my experiments on various science and physics forums asking for feedback, were such results normal or expected? I didn't know. I had assumed similar experiments had been done previously.
This only created more uproar and I ended up getting banned from several science and physics forums, not for any misbehavior in particular, but for advocating "perpetual motion".
I tried to point out that I was only experimenting with off-the-shelf, model Stirling engines that were hardly perpetual motion machines. They said that a heat engine that does not "reject" a certain percentage of "waste heat" is by definition a perpetual motion machine.
My experiments were dismissed offhand.
Some from the science forums, even after I was banned, followed me back to the Stirling engine forum and would simply not leave me alone. I could really care less about the "second law" one way or the other, but I was not about to make a retraction or ignore the results of my own experiments.
Anyway, when Hairyloon showed up and was asking about Stirling engines he was inadvertantly walking into a veritable battleground. There was me and a few others doing various experiments and engine modifications and then there were the 2nd Law die hards trying to thwart and disrupt progress. Anyone who took my side was ridiculed, including the forum owner who from time to time tried to moderate the debate.
Once he unexpectedly passed away things really got out of hand and the forum went to ruins.
I started setting up a new Stirling engine forum.
At about that time Hairyloon came in just before the domain was about to expire.
He applied for membership on the new forum I had been setting up and I did not really want the madness to carry over.
Anyway, I only wanted to know how a Stirling engine REALLY operates, because the debate has been going on for over a century, long before any of us were born.
All I wanted to do was build a DIY off-grid energy source the same as Hairyloon. To do that I figured I needed to know something about how they operate, but there seems to be no real agreement on the subject.
This was my first post on that forum back in 2006
https://web.archive.org/web/20250209000139/https://stirlingengineforum.boydhouse.com/about77.html&sid=00369efbafe68fe652608ca93b373efe
I had basically the same goal: a "Home Built Stirling for Remote Power Generation".
That was 20 years ago.
At this point I'm pretty sure that Stirling engines do not work the way people have believed for the past 100 years or more, but there doesn't seem to be much chance of convincing anyone else, and frankly I don't really care to.
I just want to build a Stirling engine that actually works and produces a modest power output to supply some or all of the energy needs for a small home.
So far, I've managed to get a Stirling engine "toy" to run a string of LED Christmas lights:
https://youtu.be/-e-N-Hin5hg?si=RI_TngPhn8hCvJn1
And another to charge a cell phone:
https://youtu.be/QRs-ex8Y4TA?si=vEsV6JlDf8BRDf2n
Not much but it's a start, and only took me 20 years. |
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Mistress Rose
Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 16075
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dpack
Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46308
Location: yes
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Tom Booth
Joined: 06 Jan 2025
Posts: 15
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| Posted: Sun Feb 09, 25 5:28 pm Post subject: |
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The open mindedness here, to the possibility of discovering something new is refreshing.
My father was a chemist, studying to become a professor while I was growing up as a young boy with four older brothers who all occupied their time doing experiments in my father's home chemistry lab for fun.
It was like having Bill Nye the science guy times five.
I always loved science
But today, some of these advocates of the "second law of thermodynamics" seem like a religious cult that cannot abide a "heretic". That, to me, is the antithesis of real science, which is eminently open minded (objective, not based on preconceived opinions but rather the objective observed outcome of experiments).
With these online science forums today, it is just about the curriculum. Teaching and upholding and defending the "established" science these folks are getting paid to deliver. No wiggle room. They think exploring a new idea or possibility is "dangerous". Censorship is rampant.
I started a thread on the Stirling engine forum after venturing into some science forum to ask about the results of my experiments and getting banned, I titled it "Is Science Dead?"
Some from the Science forum (apparently) came in to defend their position and paint me as a bad guy.
Eventually the debate got so heated and personal the forum owner had to delete the thread and also banned some or all of the "Second Law" "Carnot limit" advocates (fanatics IMO) for violating forum fules as far as stalking and harassing other members
Boy, they, or at least one, did not take being banned very well he kept getting back in using different names and IP addresses, called the forum owner at his home, threatened to sue him. I told the forum owner I could start my own forum to save him the headaches, but he said he would not be intimidated and told me to just carry on as usual.
The forum was getting more and more spam attacks and hacking attacks and the owner direct messaged me that he had to pay for additional security and had the forum backed up and mirrored.
Sometimes I thought the forum owner was pulling my leg. Could these people really be that crazy? It's a hobby forum for people who like to build Stirling engines out of tin cans. These people act like a toy heat engine could bring about the end of the world
When asked to stop harassing me or get banned, one guy said no, he said science was more important and that if banned he could get back in. He was totally defiant.
IMO there is something more to it than simply strong opinions or a disagreement.
I think Stirling engines are a real threat to the global power elite as it could basically provide "free energy" to all and mean the end of enslavement to the energy monopolies.
Interestingly, in the course of my research and experiments I came across an article by Nikola Tesla from 1900 about heat engines and the second law as expressed by Kelvin, interpreting Carnot, at that time
Tesla had been secretly working on a heat engine that could run on and at the same time produce liquid air. It could, he said, run on the stored solar energy in the atmosphere or the surrounding ambient heat in the air.
Some combination of a heat engine and air compressor and heat pump/refrigerator. He also dismissed the Carnot theory and the Second Law of thermodynamics saying that heat was not a fluid like water but energy that could, or was infact converted in a heat engine completely, or at least potentially so, if perfected.
He called this a "Self-Acting Engine".
Apparently this was Tesla's actual "Free Energy" lifelong project, not some electrical device or tower.
I'm accused of being a Tesla nut or fanatic of some sort, but I really knew nothing about Tesla or his secret project.
I knew nothing about Carnot or the Second Law.
I just found it rather curious that Tesla confirms or agrees with my own experimental results. I'm not any kind of Tesla advocate. I only ever read his one article as it came up in a search about heat engines while researching about Stirling engines.
There are, or have been many other scientists who have questioned the validity of the Carnot limit/Second Law theory.
I balk at calling any scientific theory a "LAW" in the first place, personally. That is old school natural philosophy, discovering "Laws" of nature. So it is "the second law" that constitutes "pseudoscience" by modern scientific standards it is not based on actual observation of experiment.
I was very surprised that none of my simple Stirling engine experiments have ever been conducted previously. At least I could not find any historical records of any, which is why I finally felt compelled to spend a lot of time and money to do my own experiments
Nobody ever actually measured the "waste heat" coming out of, or supposedly going "through" a Stirling engine, it was just an assumption
Tesla tried to set the record straight in his year 1900 article, explaining that heat does not flow through a heat engine but rather is converted, in the process, producing cold or refrigeration, but he was ignored, or his research suppressed. In his article he talks about how his heat engine project came to a halt when his workshop burned down. A likely suspect IMO would be the Standard Oil Company. They had a corner on lamp oil and were trying to suppress the emergence of electrical lighting generally, both Edison and Tesla.
I think maybe I stumbled into a "secret" that has been actively and knowingly suppressed for centuries, though that hardly seems possible
On the other hand, after all I've been through, on both the Science and Stirling engine forums, I'm not so sure. |
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Tom Booth
Joined: 06 Jan 2025
Posts: 15
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| Posted: Sun Feb 09, 25 7:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Mistress Rose wrote: |
| If you can publish your findings one day someone will either find you are right, or find the real way Stirling engines work. I have been ahead of the field all my life and it isn't comfortable; in fact it contributed to my ill health. The trouble with the internet is that it is immediate and people can post things in some ways 'anonymously' with just a name and nothing else. I have no idea if you are right or not. Carry on with your experiments if you are really interested and get a sensibly working Stirling engine, and this may tell you if you are right or not. It doesn't really matter either way, and getting a working engine is more important than the theory. One day it will be worked out, but it may take another 100 or more years. |
Not to be disagreeable, but the Stirling engine was patented in 1816. "Sensibly working engines" have existed ever since.
I am often misunderstood in that people think I'm trying to invent something that never existed before based on some new principle. All I've been doing is trying to sort through the mountains of misinformation or conflicting and confused theories to see which actually apply to actual engines that already exist.
If heat is energy that is "consumed" by a Stirling engine as "fuel" then saying that a Stirling engine REQUIRES a "cold reservoir" to dump "excess waste heat" into is like saying your car will be much more efficient if you punch a gaping hole in the gas tank so the gasoline can run out onto the road making the car lighter so it can go further on less gasoline.
My experiments have basically involved insulating a conventional Stirling engine or building the engine out of non-heat conducting material to plug the "leaks" and retain as much heat as possible instead of throwing the majority of the heat away, intentionally, on the false assumption that it is necessary to let the heat "flow through" in order to avoid overheating
A Stirling engine, apparently, is a form of heat pump or refrigeration system that consumed heat by converting heat into work, producing cold in the process. It does not REQUIRE the application of cold, it produces cold as a consequence of converting heat into "work".
So it is not a matter of taking another 100 years, it's just a simple matter of using common sense now. Stop intentionally throwing heat away with air cooling fins and cooling water jackets. Appropriately insulate the engine to retain heat so the heat can be converted to power output instead of deliberately diverting the heat input to a "heat sink" heat exhaust.
My INFINIA/NASA engine (pictured above) has a copper lined water cooling jacket in direct contact with and surrounding the solar heat input surface. Like having a hole in your fuel input line to drain away the "fuel" before it even reaches the gas tank. That is simply because, I believe, those engines were constructed on the basis of old school or "well established" Carnot/Kelvin thermodynamic theories and formula which were/are based on a completely false assumption about the nature of heat and how Stirling heat engines actually operate, by, according to the Carnot idea, having the heat pass into and back out of the engine rather than passing into the engine and "disappearing" by being converted to another form of energy leaving behind "cold" or the absence of "heat". |
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