🚀 go-pugleaf

Am I the first one to notice that the post claims to violate the second law but
really violates the first law instead or have I just forgotten most of what I 
learned in thermo. If I remember correctly, it is the first law that states 
that you need a hot and a cold pole to convert heat to work and which lays
down the relationship for the ideal Carnot efficicency. The second law on the
other hand deals with entropy and implies (among other things) that as bad as
the first law was, you will almost certainly do worse. Generating work from
heat without a cold resevoir does not primarily concern the second law. 

Another thing I noticed is that the author later claims to be getting
efficiencies greater than the Carnot efficiency but if they are simply pulling
work out of the thin air without a cold resevoir, then the efficiency is 
esentially 100%. Additionally, there is no Carnot efficiency in such a process
since the carnot efficiency is calculated using the temperature of the both
the hot and cold resevoirs. 

You'd think that if these guys are going to ask for money on a sci. newsgroup
that they would at least get their thermodynamic laws straight and not 
contradict themselves in their post. 

Bill Smythe
smythw@rpi.edu