free energy claims of Entropy Systems Inc. -
Sanjay Amin
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Sanjay Amin of of Youngstown Ohio has gotten 1.6 million $ of investment money for a device he claims breaks the second law of thermodynamics. He claims to have a motor powered by nothing more than latent heat from the air. This page has been up for monthes, Amin knows about it, but has not made a response. A closer look is merited since extraordinary claims should need extraordinary evidence: |
related links:
history of most similar claims
I've studied.
Tom Napier's Free Energy
FAQ page - looks at heat based free energy claims
Report on Dennis's
fraud from PILOT ONLINE
my open $10000 prize offer for
proof of a free energy machine (ESI has
ignored this so far)
http://onelist.com/members/free_energy
- get on an email list for updates on information like this
see the Entropy Systems page -it's
only fair to consider their point of view as well
Skeptic's
Dictionary: review of Entropy Systems http://skepdic.com/essays/entropy.pdf
Entropy - The key
To Unlimited Resources - pro Amin info
Electronic
Design - takes a look at Amins claims
News articles about
Entropy Systems, the entropy engine
makes no sense - a private review
-------------------------
Review
by David Howe: dhowe17@hotmail.com - provided at:
http://www.phact.org/e/z/amin.htm
The Entropy Engine is a good one as perpetual motion machines go. The
blunder
is hard to find, but it's obvious once you see it.
The secret is the effect of the cylinder mean pressure and temperature on
the
radial mass distribution of the gas. As heat is added/extracted (with the
piston fixed), the polar moment of inertia of the gas (about the axis of
rotation) changes. As you heat the gas, the mass shifts inward and the
machine speeds up (like an ice skater pulling in her arms). As you cool
the
gas, the mass shifts outward and the machine slows down. There is
absolutely
no coupling between the heat and work flows in this process. In this
process,
heat energy and shaft energy are conserved independently -- there is no
interchange. It's the restrictions they place on the Amin cycle that the
compression and expansion processes are carried out at constant rotational
speed that appear to couple the heat and work and appear to convert heat
directly to shaft power. Bury this effect within some other processes,
and
it's awfully easy to miss.
Like all good perpetual motion machines, they can't demonstrate any net
energy production. All they can do is "demonstrate" a
"reduction" in the
input power through a contorted test procedure. A working model that
produces
net power will "just take a little more time". And
money.
BTW, I know one of the people quoted in one of the newspaper articles the
Entropy Systems people use to promote their machine. When I emailed him
for
a comment, his response was:
All I know about the engine is what I saw
on my brief excursion to
their web site. All I told the press is the
operating principles of
a heat engine, using a Carnot engine as an
example. I have not heard
of the Amin cycle, and with the diversion and
distraction brought on
by my recent attempt to educate those who
have contacted me, I am
going close off all communication with the
outside world.
So, one of the experts they quote as verifying the operation of the engine
hasn't ever seen one, nor has he ever heard of the "Amin
cycle". Beyond
the blatant violation of thermodynamic laws and their inability to demonstrate
net output power, this fact doesn't bode well for the credibility of Entropy
Systems.
Another point - it looks very suspicious when he only runs it for 20
minutes
and then stops it - "to prevent stress on his prototype's parts."
Watch your wallets, folks. If these Entropy Systems guys aren't
frauds,
they're merely misguided fools. Either way, they seem to be raking in the
bucks. Sad. Move over Lee,
Newman, Keeley, there's
a new kid in town.
Even with perfectly frictionless operation, Amin's machine wouldn't
work. The key is how the radial mass distribution of the gas (and
therefore its polar moment of inertia about the shaft) changes when
heat is added and extracted.
Amin correctly mentions that every bit of energy used to speed up the
piston and cylinder is recovered when slowing it down. However, this
simple conservation does not apply to the gas in the cylinder, so it
can't be neglected quite as simply.
Take the heat addition process: As heat is added to the air in the
cylinder, the radial mass distribution shifts inward, wanting to speed
the shaft up (conservation of angular momentum). To maintain constant
speed, shaft power must be removed. The same goes for the heat rejection
process at the other end of the cycle. As heat is rejected, power must
be supplied to the shaft to keep it from slowing down. I believe the
shaft energy/heat energy ratio at the two ends of the cycle are
different (but the First Law still holds if you count all the terms).
So, neglecting the shaft terms altogether while considering
the same amount of heat rejected as added, gives the appearance of a
magical direct conversion of heat into work in direct violation of the
Second Law.
The key is in restricting the heat addition and extraction processes
to occur at constant speed, without taking into account the shaft
input and output power to maintain the constant speed.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Amin's perpetual motion
machine is a good one. It actually takes some thought and pencil
pushing to find the "gotcha".
review
by James Kuipers
James Kuipers
Following my earlier comments on the entropy engine and those of D.Howe,
here is my breakdown of Amins contraption in terms of classical
dynamics, for those of you who haven"t completely forgotten their
freshman physics. While Howe provide an excellent qualitative skeleton,
my aim is to add some quantitative meat to the bones.
The physicist's preferred tool for cracking a nut like this is the use
of small variations in the variables. The variables in this case are the
rotational speed of the gas, w, and the position of the piston, h.
For
any particular combination of w and h, the air mass will have a uniquely
determined density distribution throughout the enclosure if we assume
adiabatic or isothermal conditions. (Amin conveniently includes both in
his closing remark.) For this distribution one can calculate the polar
moment of inertia I(w,h) and from that the angular momentum b(w,h)
which
is simply the product of I and w: b=I.w. Therefore
for each combination
of w and h there is one and only one value for b, described by
the
function b(w,h). Mathematical rigor places a few other restrictions on
the behavior of b(w,h) but they are irrelevant here.
Starting with the well-known equation M=db/dt where M is the
moment or
torque applied to the drive shaft of the vessel and db/dt is the
derivative of b with respect to time, we can step through the Amin cycle
and derive expressions for the amount of work dW put in during each
consecutive step. Adding up the expressions we end up with
dW=dw.dh.db/dh where dw=w2-w1, dh= h1-h2 and db/dh is the
partial
derivative of b(w,h) with respect to h. Obviously the expression
can be
integrated over large changes in the variables.
It is also possible to look at the work from the piston end and show
that the outcome is identical, but to to do this the force on the piston
must be mathematically linked to db/dh which - as far as I can see - is
only possible after the geometry has been defined. However the
derivation above is generally applicable and can easily be tested for a
simple mechanical analogue such as a swirling weight on the end of an
elastic string. Unfortunately it is impossible to reproduce the detailed
derivation in simple ASCII characters but I will make it available as a
.jpg or a .pdf file as soon as possible.
This elegantly simple equation puts it all in a nutshell. As pointed out
by Howe there is energy flowing in or out through the drive shaft at
every step. Conservation of angular momentum - the law that Amin
conveniently forgot to mention - requires that when the piston extracts
the gas and so reduces its moment of inertia, the vessel will want to
accelerate in order to maintain its angular momentum. Amin explicitly
chooses to maintain the angular speed so this accelerating torque is
transferred to the external system that stores the energy - whatever
that may be. During the compression stroke the converse takes place. The
net result is that for each cycle dW=dw.dh.db/dh is input through the
vessel drive shaft and (under ideal conditions) comes out at the piston
end.
In the next installment I propose to take a closer look at the mechanical
construction of this contraption.
Better start packing before it's too late, Sanjay! BTW, where's the
patent covering the entropy engine?
To be continued .........
================
Two weeks ago the dutch weekly "Technisch Weekblad" published a
short article on
the entropy engine, quoting the respectable professional monthly
"Energietechniek". Both have swallowed ESI's bait - hook, line and
sinker. This
is the first time I came across the entropy engine. I immediately sent
out
e-mails to both telling them to wake up. The first one printed my message last
thursday and the other one told me they are working on a follow-up. However
during the phone conversation I found that they are still not fully convinced
it's a cunning fraud. Next I sent an e-mail to ESI accusing them of fraud and
demanding public rectification or else I would notify federal and state
authorities. The response was swift and dispelled any remaining doubts about
their intentions:
"Thank you for your email. Please expose us to
the Federal and State
authorities. I believe they will come after you. We know what we have.
Please go
back and study some thermodynamics and then before you make any
comments."
This response and the contents of their website made me decide not to waste any
effort on a technical discussion with them. One of their references points to a
recent newspaper article in the "Tribune Chronicle". It mentions that
Youngstown
State University Foundation is one of the 50 shareholders. My message to YSUF
asking them how they perceive the entropy engine has not been answered to date.
At this point I started scouring the web for persons or groups trying to
expose
ESI and and found your site. I agree that ESI should be combated with their own
weapons, i.e. publicity on the internet and elsewhere. In my view the most
important ammunition would be a thorough analysis of this Amin Cycle, to be
made
available on the web, that can be referred to by anyone looking for expert
backing in discussions with others.
I have started work on such a theoretical analysis and have nearly completed
calculations on a rigid body analogue that should demonstrate how part of the
work done on the flywheel is stored as potential energy of the mass in the
gravitational field of the rotation, to be passed straight on to the piston
without showing up as kinetic energy. This is the essential step that Amin
fluffs over when he blurbs "For all steps (the kinetic energy) is constant
and
cancels out". I have also started the full analysis for a compressible
medium but the calculation looks like becoming a horrendous mass of exponents -
nevertheless I am sure it can be done.
Ideally such an analysis should (also) be published in a respected
scientific
journal (preferably co-authored by a Nobel prizewinner - by sheer coincidence,
as
I draft this letter, this year's laureate dutchman Gerard 't Hooft is actually
giving a lecture in the same building I am now in!). If you know of any other
person working along these lines please point him or her out to me.
I must confess grudgingly that the closer I examine Amins work, the more I
look
on it as an almost elegant work of criminal art, like a well-made forgery. He
even has the cheek to invent a new law (the Ideal gas law) and mention offhand
that "Test data give us enough evidence to expand the domain of the Second
Law
of thermodynamics into the realm of acceleration (gravity).". Now this is
a
challenge I for one cannot resist.
It is so much more instructive and fun than any game and victory is so much
more
rewarding.
Feel free to post this on the email list; I haven't got round to delving
into
that yet. And keep up the good work!
James Kuipers more thorough review of Amin's claims
From: Tim Nye <nyet@mcmaster.ca>
Hi,
I came across another page discussing the Amin Cycle,
http://skepdic.com/refuge/entropysystems.html, and this one has a complete
theoretical analysis of the Amin Cycle by Prof. Dr. Gerhard W. Bruhn, a
mathematics professor in Germany. The analysis, in
http://skepdic.com/essays/entropy.pdf,
points out some fatal flaws in the
Amin Cycle, and shows why it can never work.
Bruhn's paper also lists a test data page,
http://www.entropysystems.com/Testing.htm,
on Entropy System's site that
doesn't appear to be accessible from the homepage.
It's quite a creative interpretation of experimental results.
Interestingly, in the "Measurement of temperature" section, Amin
claims
"ESI22 does not have a heat sink." However, if you look at the
provided
drawings of the machine,
http://www.entropysystems.com/downloads/schema~1.pdf,
it very obviously
does have cooling fins on the cylinder.
And, it looks like Amin has been more successful than the intro on your
page suggests -- he appears to have gotten $3.4 million over seven years,
including money from the Youngstown State University Foundation. (See
http://www.entropysystems.com/downloads/TribuneChronicle91299.pdf
)
The Amin Cycle also turns up at
http://www.oilcity.org/research/amin/amincyc.htm
This page has links to
the patents that were mentioned in the Amin press releases, which,
incidentally, show a device that looks nothing like the entropy engine.
Keep up the good work,
Tim Nye
Note James Kuipers has a more thorough review of Amin's claims
Note: as of 5/1/00, I have not heard back from Amin's company after repeated
efforts to get their point of view to post. I've also tried to ask them
to take part in reviewing evidence from their claims.
I recommend the following group for examing paranormal claims:
back to Eric's main Dennis Lee page and information on Joe Newman's Free Energy Promises
Creator
of this page- get
on an email list which includes discussion of topics like this
How you too can get
rich as the next free energy messiah ;)
pages exposing Joe Newman
and Dennis Lee who some people suspect of leading a nationwide
scam. Also, Tilley, Bearden, Greer Mills (who may be legit?) and Tewari more info on Bearden
Comments can be sent to eric@voicenet.com I'm
happy to publish critical responses to my claims.
This page can be found at: http://www.phact.org/e/z/amin.htm
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