From: xeno@iastate.edu (Gary L Snethen)
Subject: Re: anti-gravity device
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1992 21:09:23 GMT

In <FRANL.92Nov15131945@draco.centerline.com> franl@centerline.com (Fran Litterio) writes:

>xeno@iastate.edu (Gary L Snethen) writes:

>> 'Perpetual motion' is a misnomer...  Perpetual motion exists everywhere...
>> If it didn't, then this whole 'entropy' thing would need to be redefined.

>"Perpetual motion" is a phrase in the English language.  It's meaning
>is defined more by convention and common usage than by the dictionary
>definitions of the individual words, "perpetual" and "motion".  This
>effect is even more pronounced when you string together more than two
>words at a time.

When popular usage contradicts definition in a potentially confusing manner,
such phrases are often referred to as 'misnomers.'

>> A single atom exhibits perpetual motion...

>Not by your definition of PM (which is basically the Newtonian
>description of inertial motion [don't deny this -- in another posting
>you answered "Exactly" when I confronted you with this comparison]).
>What happens in an atom is best described by Quantum Mechanics.  It is
>not inertia that keeps the bound electrons perpetually bound -- it is
>the discreteness of their quantum states (and if protons really do
>decay, then even atoms are not truly perpetual).

Incorrect...  If I say that a car is a vehicle, I am *not* saying that
a truck is not a vehicle.  Your statement of an inertial body being
categorized as perpetual motion was correct, under the definition of
perpetual motion I was using, thus my use of the word 'exactly' to
affirm that what you said was true in its entirety.

I never said that motion could not apply to subatomic particles or
waves, or fields under any particular theory.

>> two objects in stable orbits about
>> a pivot exhibit perpetual motion.

>Sorry, but even by your definition of PM, this may not be true.  It is
>postulated that co-oribiting bodies lose energy by radiating gravity
>waves, and the bodies will ultimately lose orbital momentum and fall
>into each other.

My original point was that perpetual motion should not be criticized as
impossible because it does not, in itself, violate the laws of thermo-
dynamics.  It *may* be possible to create a device exhibiting the properties
of perpetual motion that neither increases nor decreases the entropy of
the universe.  I am not saying that it can DEFINITELY be done, only that it
is a possibility.

You were saying that my definition of perpetual motion was not the popular one.
But there are uses for my brand of perpetual motion.  Perhaps it is possible
to construct a computer such that it loses no energy whatsoever, yet still
performs 'work' in the form of logical processing of data.  This defintion
of 'work' is obviously not the Newtonian concept of energy expended over
time, which I believe is the requirement of the perpetual motion device you
are speaking of.

>> Perpetual motion is everywhere...

>Thanks for reminding me (with two lousy examples) of what Sir Isaac
>Newton codified hundreds of years ago.

You are quite welcome...  It is sad that people like you forget them, and
criticize new theories on the basis that they contradict the old.  If
this weren't the case, I would not need to propose weak Newtonian examples,
I could merely state:  Perhaps Newton was wrong.

>--
>franl@centerline.com   || Fran Litterio, CenterLine Software R&D
>617-498-3255           || 10 Fawcett St, Cambridge, MA, USA 02138-1110
>"It's not the thing you fling, it's the fling itself."  -- Chris Stevens
Newsgroups: alt.sci.physics.new-theories