Jack Sarfatti wrote:"Consider again the thought experiment below. Assume for simplicity's sake that all the hydrogen electrons are excited into the n=2 state outside the pipe. Some pressure is applied to push the hydrogen gas through the pipe and out the other side. Inside the pipe some of the electrons will de-excite to the n=1 level, some will not and remain in n=2. I see no reason why there should be any difference between the flow rate of the two populations. Being pressure forced through the pipe and de-exciting (or not) are completely unrelated processes."
So, Nick where specifically do you disagree with Bernie's remarks above and below? What sentences he wrote do you think are wrong? I am not sure if Nick's spin example is a good analogy with what Haisch & Moddell propose. I think Bernie's point is that the work needed to overcome the ZPF energy barrier in the two different vacuum phases inside and outside the cavity is for the center of mass of the atom. In contrast, the energy gain they are talking about is in the internal electron orbital shift and that the two degrees of freedom are essentially decoupled. In order for their scheme to work however, you and David S make a valid point that the alleged internal orbital zpf energy shift gain must be larger than the work done on the CM degree of freedom in getting the atoms back out of the cavity in their circulating "heat exchanger" sort of design. Off hand, I see no fundamental reason for assuming that the CM work and the orbital electron shift must add to zero or less always. But I have not thought very deeply about this and perhaps you and David are right. The best way to settle this is with more precise mathematical toy model gedankenexperiments.
"David S is spot on. A nice concise refutation of the Haisch-Moddell ZPF Proposal. One can build a simpler version of HM that has the same flaw Send a properly spin oriented beam of excited atoms into a uniform magnetic field such that the Zeeman splitting puts the atoms in a slightly lower energy state. Mechanism is the same. So is the flaw. Any energy you get from increased photon energy due to Zeeman splitting you will lose by the work done extracting the atoms from the magnetic field."
On Mar 2, 2010, at 11:09 AM, JACK SARFATTI wrote:
Force ~ negative spatial gradient of the potential energy
On Mar 2, 2010, at 10:52 AM, David S wrote:
"Here is the fallacy with the Haisch patent, I believe : Since the atoms of the gas are in a lower energy state within the Casimir cavity, they are, in effect, in an energy well. Hence, they will experience a net force causing them to remain in the cavity. The energy required to remove them from the cavity will be exactly balanced by the net gain from the ambient ZPF. Of course , additional frictional losses will lead to a net negative gain in energy rendering the invention useless as a free energy source."
"A thought experiment clarifying the Haisch-Moddel patent (7,379,286) concept
Imagine a monatomic hydrogen gas exposed to Lyman-alpha radiation at 121.5 nm which excites the electron into the n=2 level. Now let some of the gas enter a pipe which blocks the radiation. The hydrogen electron will drop back to the ground state, n=1. We can certainly capture the emitted radiation in the pipe. On exiting the pipe the hydrogen is again exposed to Lyman-alpha radiation and the electron is excited into the n=2 level again.
The process is easily done but not useful because we are simply capturing some of the energy we put there in creating the Lyman-alpha radiation. However this clearly shows that there is no correlation between the electron energy levels and any kind of potential energy relevant to motion into and out of the pipe. The excitation and de-excitation do not produce any forces pulling the hydrogen into or out of the pipe. They are independent processes.
Substitute zero-point radiation for Lyman-alpha and a Casimir cavity for the pipe and assume that because of the Casimir suppression of zero-point radiation there is a temporary reduction in the ground state of the atomic electron (as shown by Puthoff and by Cole) while in the cavity and you have the proposed patent. (Note that this does not produce any so-called stable hydrinos.)"
Bernard Haisch
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