From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Mon Oct 07 2002 - 07:36:26 MDT
On Mon, Oct 07, 2002 at 07:34:55PM +1000, Avatar Polymorph wrote:
>
> However, on a RELATED issue Anders Sandberg mentions in response to my
> quote from a symposium article/stuff held at the University of Sussex (on
> quantum fluctuation as a power source) that they are talking about breaking
> the laws of thermodynamics. I don't think the article or synopsis claims
> this. I think they fully believe in it (the laws of thermodynamics). They
> do include references. These are not amateur anti=gravity people, these are
> from the IASA.
Puthoff is likely no crackpot, but he is doing fringe science - it could
be right, but is largely being done outside the normal academic
channels, published to a great extent in special journals devoted to this
particular brand of field theory and so on. The important thing is: does
the proposed hypothesis produce any testable outcomes, and does these
outcomes occur? The paper mentioned just one experiment, which so far has
failed.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Or at least that they
follow from well-tested theories.
As for thermodynamics, if you can use ZPE to do useful work then it
would have to be adjusted. You could start with an isothermal box,
activate a small ZPE-powered spaceship to fly around at the end of a
string, and in the end get a warmer box. This could be used to build a
lot of thermodynamics-breaking devices, like super-Carnot heat engines
etc. Of course, one might argue that some kind of resource is used up
and the real boundary of the system has to include the vaccum fields
too. But if thermodynamics is extended to vacuum field fluctuations one
has to explain why they haven't reached thermal equilibrium with the
rest of the universe by now - it seems very unlikely that there would
remain a convenient heat reservoir if any interaction with matter
existed.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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