Has college dropout done the impossible and created a perpetual motion machine?

[J-Roc]

Thane Heins is nervous and hopeful. It's Jan. 24, a Thursday afternoon, and in four days the Ottawa-area native will travel to Boston where he'll demonstrate an invention that appears – though he doesn't dare say it – to operate as a perpetual motion machine.




Such an unbelievable invention would challenge the laws of physics, a no-no in the rigid world of serious science. Imagine a battery system in an all-electric car that can be recharged almost exclusively by braking and accelerating, or what Heins calls "regenerative acceleration."

No charging from the grid. No assistance from gasoline. No cost of fuelling up. No way, say the skeptics.



Full Article Here (http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/article/300042)

You Tube Video's:

Part 1 & 2:
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Part 3:
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You can get the remaining parts from links within youtube.

[Luke122]

Loads of technical stuff that is way over my head, but I'm going to watch part 3 now, because THAT is cool stuff.

[xRyokenx]

That looks sweet... didn't understand some of it but it'll be sweet if we get cars like that.

[Quakken]

Looks promising. I didn't watch it all, but hopefully it works. I would love to see this happen (even though it clearly violates the laws of physics, if it is working then there is some potential energy somewhere in there that is being harvested).

[crenn]

I'm understanding bits and pieces, but either way, this is both exciting and very interesting.

[Quakken]

I can't wait to see if this pans out. Would be very beneficial if it does break all of the laws.

[crenn]

I can't wait to see if this pans out. Would be very beneficial if it does break all of the laws.

Well the thing is, no law is perfect ;)

[Eclecticos]

Does it generate energy? How much?

[J-Roc]

I am unsure if it generates any useable electricity. It seems to only be powering itself. 100% effecient where as 101% or more would give a surplus of useable energy.

The scientists are still working on it to see if its true perpetual motion machine. However, so far it looks to be true.

In the article it states that at the very least it can make induction motors more effecient. Which leads me to believe that an enhanced motor with technology in the same setup might actually produce useable energy. Only time will tell.

[Quakken]

Quieter fans.

[Tavarin]

I also wish to see how this pans out, but I guarantee it is no perpetual motion machine. If it makes even a single sound, or if there is the slightest bit of frictional interruption, energy would be lost and the machine would slow down, or even stop.
It does seem to be very efficient though which is great, and something this world desperately needs.

[vastonecat]

This looks Awesome!
In the 3rd part he used 4 coils, which leads me to wonder if introducing a few more coils that don't feed back to the prime mover would allow it to produce energy that could be used for other items?

[mtekk]

:think: I'd like to see a schematic of the actual circuit before I'll seriously consider the validity of this. He flips a switch to start it, which the flywheel begins to rotate, he helps the flywheel out a bit to get it up to speed. However there is no evidence that he removes the external source that initially starts the motor. The distinct 60Hz sound is a dead give away that a coil is probably connected to the electric grid somewhere. His capacitor is correcting his power factor (we have inductors here so we have imaginary components of power (if you like Laplace transforms analysis of this circuit will be fun for you ;))), which is more or less what the people at the company that he had consult for him told him.

The fact that the current through the motor lowers when the coils are shorted out doesn't make much sense, unless you consider that the coils were providing EM fields that provided resistance to the flywheel's movement. That would explain the acceleration, remove the resistance and the motor will approach it's natural running speed for the applied power. But short circuiting the coils shouldn't remove the resistance as shorting them out will still provide a current loop in them that can be excited to produce an EM field (kinda like dropping an neodymium magnet down a copper pipe, it will actually accelerate at a rate slower than 9.81m/s^2 without actually touching the pipe. This is caused by eddy currents.).

[crenn]

Not an eddy current, but the induced current in the pipe.

As for the circuit, I'll wait for the uni's verdict.

[mtekk]

The induced current in the pipe is an eddy current for the example I was talking about, see wikipedia's article on eddy currents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddy_current).

[Durrthock]

Yeah I don't think it generates any surplus energy because it deify basic laws but I do see where it is very efficient and it could lead to less fuel consumption.

[crenn]

Point, basic laws aren't always 100% correct, newtons laws for example.