Fla. Man Invents Machine To Turn Water Into Fire

[mb]

Originally posted by: Looney

Originally posted by: mb

Originally posted by: Looney

Originally posted by: mb

Originally posted by: Looney
Not trying to scam people?

Right, because this guy is. I think you need to adjust your tinfoil hat.

I think you should look at the provided youtube videos. He certainly is trying to profit from it.

So? You don't think people should be able to attempt to profit from ideas that they genuinely think are worthwhile? No one is forcing you to give him money. If others think the same way you do, they also won't give him money. Hell, no one will probably give him money. We'll probably never hear from this guy again. But again, I'm not going to crucify him for his experiments.

You're naive. This guy is far from the first one to make claims like this, and he won't be the last. You're right, nobody is forcing me to give him money... but exactly where do you think you are? And do you know what an interweb forum is for? Even one as l33t as this one?

Hah, that's rich. I'm naive, yup, I'm gonna give this guy millions of dollars today. Has everyone else that has made similar claims also been able to produce a result, even as small as this guys?

You: ooh great, this guy can use a months worth of electricity to create a little flame in a test tube of salt water. That'll solve all the worlds problems! :roll:
Me: cool experiment, good luck with that.

 

[Fingolfin269]

The guy comes across as someone who thinks he may have discovered something and is now considering future potential. What is so wrong with that? I don't see him out there trying to profit from this discovery. He is an old guy with cancer who thinks that something he did may mean something after he dies. That is all I read from this. Why are so many people basically calling him a scam artist?

 

[mb]

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269
The guy comes across as someone who thinks he may have discovered something and is now considering future potential. What is so wrong with that? I don't see him out there trying to profit from this discovery. He is an old guy with cancer who thinks that something he did may mean something after he dies. That is all I read from this. Why are so many people basically calling him a scam artist?

Probably because they didn't come up with it.

 

[slackwarelinux]

Too bad bottled water costs more than petrol..

 

[ballmode]

Crazy

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269
Why are so many people basically calling him a scam artist?

1) His claims for a cure for cancer and free energy are either unproven and/or physically impossible.
2) He gets this "invention" all over the world's media.
3) He wants to profit from it.
...
5) Others in this position have gone on to sell stock and/or did other investment raising for a product that doesn't actually help the world in any sort of way and the money disappears (into his pockets of course).

Basically, if he follows what every other guy in similar situations did from going from #3 to #5, he is a scam artist. If he stops at #3, he is just a mostly harmless quack. I say mostly harmless, because spreading false science information as fact does harm our children by making them that much less likely to understand real science.

Just to be certain that others understand the problem with him and his ilk, we are jumping to conclusions about him being a scam artist going right to #5. But, there is a tiny chance he is just the normal quack. I'll give you that. You win, he might just be a quack.

 

[RaiderJ]

Originally posted by: Analog

Originally posted by: SagaLore

Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski
See you're thinking conventionally. Very few people can see outside the box and those are the people that change the world. And sometimes those things that change the world are so simple that when it appears everyone says "why didn't I think of that"

The Law of Conservation of Energy has let to be broken.

The only way this machine can give us more energy output compared to energy input, is if any of the atoms in the saline mixture decayed into energy. In which case, we're destroying an nonrenewable resource. One of the reasons I'm not a big fan of fusion power. We'll never get that matter back in our lifetime.

Like you'll get back the fossil fuels you burn now in your lifetime...

Fusion doesn't give you hydrogen back, but you do get a lot for what you put in. I venture to say that the amount of energy that would be available to us would be mind boggling if fusion ever works, with little chance of running out of fuel. I'm sure there are some calculations on this somewhere.

If hydrogen is good enough for the sun, it's good enough for me!

 

[RaiderJ]

Originally posted by: StrangerGuy
I got a proposal to solve the energy crisis. It involves plugging people into an electrical grid and virtual reality.

It would never work. Trust me.

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: slackwarelinux
Too bad bottled water costs more than petrol..

Yeah, he can't just get an industrial water supply line like any other business and get charged at those rates; he'll have to fuel it with Dasani.

 

[Fritzo]

How about we sit back and see what happens with this. We don't know everything, and if radio waves are able to break molecular bonds in water, then that can be very useful. If it's a scam, it'll go away in a month.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: Fritzo
How about we sit back and see what happens with this. We don't know everything, and if radio waves are able to break molecular bonds in water, then that can be very useful. If it's a scam, it'll go away in a month.

They could put this ontop of a tank and use it as a weapon! Imagine being able to kill all the badguys in an area without damaging the infrastructure (and since it's using radio waves, it'll go through walls).

:roll:

 

[manowar821]

Originally posted by: Looney

Originally posted by: Fritzo
How about we sit back and see what happens with this. We don't know everything, and if radio waves are able to break molecular bonds in water, then that can be very useful. If it's a scam, it'll go away in a month.

They could put this ontop of a tank and use it as a weapon! Imagine being able to kill all the badguys in an area without damaging the infrastructure (and since it's using radio waves, it'll go through walls).

:roll:

Do you know what a neutron bomb is...?

Christ.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: manowar821

Originally posted by: Looney

Originally posted by: Fritzo
How about we sit back and see what happens with this. We don't know everything, and if radio waves are able to break molecular bonds in water, then that can be very useful. If it's a scam, it'll go away in a month.

They could put this ontop of a tank and use it as a weapon! Imagine being able to kill all the badguys in an area without damaging the infrastructure (and since it's using radio waves, it'll go through walls).

:roll:

Do you know what a neutron bomb is...?

Christ.

Do you? Obviously not, because you're going by what Hollywood has told you about it. Do yourself a favor and read up on it.

 

[Born2bwire]

Originally posted by: Fritzo
How about we sit back and see what happens with this. We don't know everything, and if radio waves are able to break molecular bonds in water, then that can be very useful. If it's a scam, it'll go away in a month.

The fact that he's using RF to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen isn't the point. The point is that this is just another losing attempt at generating energy. Combustion of hydrogen or using it in a fuel cell to generate electricity will produce at most the same amount of energy that would be needed to break the bond in the first place. At best he can only hope to break even (which won't happen). Other people have tried to pass off similar devices, take a look at Brown's Gas.

 

[Looney]

Here, i've done some of the homework for you:

A common idea is that a neutron bomb "leaves the infrastructure intact" however current designs have yields in the kiloton range,[9] the detonation of which could cause heavy destruction through blast and heat effects. A yield of one kiloton is not much for a nuclear weapon but it is nearly two orders of magnitude (100x) bigger than the most powerful conventional bombs. The blast from a neutron bomb may be enough to level almost any civilian structures inside the lethal radiation range.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb

 

[ed21x]

Originally posted by: dullard

Originally posted by: Looney
Did you see the other clip (3rd)? Where the female broadcaster begins with something like 'he has created the cure for cancer, and now he may have solved our energy crisis' LOL... and then at the end 'what will he come up with next?'

Yep.

Scam checklist:
1) Cures cancer? Check.
2) Creates energy? Check.
3) Solves major world problems? Check.
4) Not patented or discussed in a peer-reviewed journal? Check.
5) Not enough information given to properly evaluate claims? Check.
6) Invented by the regular Joe with no knowledge of the field? Check.
7) Discussed on ATOT? Check.
8) Email spam? Not yet determined.
9) Copious amounts of irrelevant buzzwards that have never proven useful (such as nanotechnology)? Check.

1) Using radiation to cure cancer has been done for years, it is called Radiation treatment, and usually follows chemotherapy. The treatment targets fastest growing cells in the body- like cancer.
2) Water Fission is already proven to be a viable source of energy- heck even toy companies are using water for Hydrogen fuel cell cars:
Link1
Link2 <~ this one is only $40
If you can use water to power toy cars, it might have potential.
3) refer to above
4) The article mentions that the guy is seeking a patent. Since when do inventions/patents require peer-reviewed scientific journal articles?
5) This one I agree with you- we're not getting much information from the article.
6) It seems like this 'regular joe' does have a background in what he's doing.
7) Of 100,000 people on this board, there is bound to be a few people with PHds and Masters in Physics, enginnering, etc. I am personally researching the use of plasma as a viable form of sterilization for medical devices (J&J). No, we don't have to write our work in Scientific Journals.
8) Email spam is retarded
9) Nanotechnology is being used everyday for pharmaceutical development, drug delivery, stents, surgery, etc. to call it a 'useless buzzword' shows your ignorance.

In general, people who use wide sweeping generalizations like the laws of thermodynamics, f=ma, as their basis for specific cases are usually the ones who've graduated from HS physics and are trying to sound smart with what little they know. The truth is usually a lot more complicated.

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: ed21x
1) Using radiation to cure cancer has been done for years, it is called Radiation treatment, and usually follows chemotherapy. The treatment targets fastest growing cells in the body- like cancer.
2) Water Fission is already proven to be a viable source of energy- heck even toy companies are using water for Hydrogen fuel cell cars:
Link1
Link2 <~ this one is only $40
If you can use water to power toy cars, it might have potential.
3) refer to above
4) The article mentions that the guy is seeking a patent. Since when do inventions/patents require peer-reviewed scientific journal articles?
5) This one I agree with you- we're not getting much information from the article.
6) It seems like this 'regular joe' does have a background in what he's doing.
7) Of 100,000 people on this board, there is bound to be a few people with PHds and Masters in Physics, enginnering, etc. I am personally researching the use of plasma as a viable form of sterilization for medical devices (J&J). No, we don't have to write our work in Scientific Journals.
8) Email spam is retarded
9) Nanotechnology is being used everyday for pharmaceutical development, drug delivery, stents, surgery, etc. to call it a 'useless buzzword' shows your ignorance.

1) Radiation is a treatment, radio isn't yet shown to treat anything. It may be shown later, but don't put the cart before the horse. This article put the cart before the horse.
2) Water is NOT a source of energy, water is a storage mechanism for energy. Right from your second link: "using hydrogen created from the electrolysis". Do you know what electrolysis is? Basically, you pump in energy, it splits the water, and when you combine the parts you get the energy back. Water doesn't create the energy, it STORES the energy you put into it. Big massive enormous difference there. Hydrogen (usually from water) is basically used as a battery. It is not a power source (if obtained from water).
4) Inventions don't require peer reviewed articles. However, scams never have them because a scam won't get through a peer review. Thus, the lack of such an article is a sign of a scam. It isn't proof of a scam, but it is one requirement of a scam.
6) A broadcaster is trained in cancer treatment and the flow of energy? That is news to me (bad pun intended). Heck, he even gets the terminology incorrect. He may have a little experience/education in those fields, but he certainly doesn't have much.
7) Yes, there are PhDs in engineering. I'm a PhD in chemical engineering (basically the study of heat and fluid flow and storage). We sometimes do talk about non-scam items. But, most of the time something is an internet phnom, it is a scam. Again, these aren't proofs of a scam, they are telltale signs. I think you need to learn the difference. I can guarantee you there are peer-reviewed articles relating to plasma and others related to sterilization. You don't have to publish them, because they already are published and more will be done in the future. None will come out of this thread topic because there is nothing to his "machine".
9) Come up with one profitable nanotechnology product that isn't just a "nano" label slapped onto something that wasn't called nano before that buzzword became popular. Just one. For examples of my limitition: A thin coating isn't a nano-device, it is just a thin coating and thin coatings have been around for decades before they were called nanotechnology. One of my favorite articles that I've ever read. "Nanotechnology: Tiny hope or big hype? Commercial application for advancements yet to find foothold. BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Show us the profits, the skeptics shout. Nanotechnology will amount to nanoprofits, they worry as they tick off a list of technologies from artificial intelligence to virtual reality that looked cool in the lab but have foundered commercially..." Long term, maybe there is some hope for nanotechnology. So far though, it is just all hype. Hype and scams go hand in hand.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: dullard

The world uses ~5x10^20 J/year (all forms of energy combined). At your rate in your example, you'd produce 8.98x10^20 J/year. You are producing too much energy, we don't need it all.

Alright, well good. Then we'd use even less than the mass I mentioned.

Originally posted by: RaiderJ
If hydrogen is good enough for the sun, it's good enough for me!

Interesting point there. Concerning turning matter into energy, the sun loses about 4.2 billion kilograms per second. In the 100 years I mentioned, the sun "will have lost 1.3*10^19 kilograms due to the fusion reactions."
Source
Guess how much the sun cares. Not much.
Sun's total mass = 2*10^30 kilograms.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Born2bwire

Originally posted by: Fritzo
How about we sit back and see what happens with this. We don't know everything, and if radio waves are able to break molecular bonds in water, then that can be very useful. If it's a scam, it'll go away in a month.

The fact that he's using RF to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen isn't the point. The point is that this is just another losing attempt at generating energy.

Combustion of hydrogen or using it in a fuel cell to generate electricity will produce at most the same amount of energy that would be needed to break the bond in the first place. At best he can only hope to break even (which won't happen). Other people have tried to pass off similar devices, take a look at Brown's Gas.

No, it's not generating energy directly.

It's generating heat which can then be used to convert to energy.

The heat "generated" is enough for nearly a 2 to 1 ratio of energy in Vs energy out.

We won't see it because it threatens oil.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Born2bwire

Originally posted by: Fritzo
How about we sit back and see what happens with this. We don't know everything, and if radio waves are able to break molecular bonds in water, then that can be very useful. If it's a scam, it'll go away in a month.

The fact that he's using RF to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen isn't the point. The point is that this is just another losing attempt at generating energy.

Combustion of hydrogen or using it in a fuel cell to generate electricity will produce at most the same amount of energy that would be needed to break the bond in the first place. At best he can only hope to break even (which won't happen). Other people have tried to pass off similar devices, take a look at Brown's Gas.

No, it's not generating energy directly.

It's generating heat which can then be used to convert to energy.

The heat "generated" is enough for nearly a 2 to 1 ratio of energy in Vs energy out.

We won't see it because it threatens oil.

I highly doubt even big oil could prevent something like this. If it's cheap enough for some retired guy to build using pots and pans in his kitchen, if this really did work, it would sweep over the world.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: SagaLore

Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski
See you're thinking conventionally. Very few people can see outside the box and those are the people that change the world. And sometimes those things that change the world are so simple that when it appears everyone says "why didn't I think of that"

The Law of Conservation of Energy has let to be broken.

The only way this machine can give us more energy output compared to energy input, is if any of the atoms in the saline mixture decayed into energy. In which case, we're destroying an nonrenewable resource. One of the reasons I'm not a big fan of fusion power. We'll never get that matter back in our lifetime.

Might as well kill yourself now because the sun and all stars operate via fusion...we'll have to become gods in order to figure out how to keep the universe from dying...

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: dullard
2) Water is NOT a source of energy, water is a storage mechanism for energy. Right from your second link: "using hydrogen created from the electrolysis". Do you know what electrolysis is? Basically, you pump in energy, it splits the water, and when you combine the parts you get the energy back. Water doesn't create the energy, it STORES the energy you put into it. Big massive enormous difference there. Hydrogen (usually from water) is basically used as a battery. It is not a power source (if obtained from water).

here's the thing about water. It can be considered an energy source, because relatively little energy is needed to to get energy out of hydrogen. But it can also be classified as a storage medium, because you cannot directly access the hydrogen in it. Here's the kicker though: what if we discover a more convenient way to extract hydrogen from water? What if we use only a little energy in extracting the hydrogen, and then a little more in igniting the hydrogen, and end up gaining a large amount of energy?
what if we make it sustainable? as in, once you ignite the hydrogen, you keep a steady line of hydrogen being fed into the fire that is created and contained.

with low energy extraction of hydrogen, it could easily turn into a nuclear-style energy system, where you heat water by igniting hydrogen to burn, have that fire heat water and use boiling water to power turbines? technically that is what I see as being feasible because for large scale power plants, we can't seem to capture energy from explosions, the typical result of hydrogen ignition.
if that all can be done, we could just keep feeding water into a plant, and using a low energy system extract hydrogen from the water as it comes into the plant. from there, feed the hydrogen fire (if possible to have a maintainable fire without explosive reactions).

to apply his idea, you could skip the removal of hydrogen from the line and merely 'burn water'. if it can be developed to be low energy, you could burn water, and use that burning water to heat water to drive a turbine. Not sure if steam or anything usable is created from the burning water, because if there is steam one more step can be removed from the turbine power system.

and what if scientists merely overlook things and never discovered this until now? It's quite possible that happened, scientists don't think of everything sometimes. It's the collective minds of many scientists that help create new ideas.
and maybe they always used pure water, and not salt water. could that have an impact on the radio waves?

 

[Mark R]

Originally posted by: destrekor
here's the thing about water. It can be considered an energy source, because relatively little energy is needed to to get energy out of hydrogen. But it can also be classified as a storage medium, because you cannot directly access the hydrogen in it. Here's the kicker though: what if we discover a more convenient way to extract hydrogen from water? What if we use only a little energy in extracting the hydrogen, and then a little more in igniting the hydrogen, and end up gaining a large amount of energy?
what if we make it sustainable? as in, once you ignite the hydrogen, you keep a steady line of hydrogen being fed into the fire that is created and contained.

But here's the kicker. You cannot get more energy out of the hydrogen than you put in to separate it; you will always lose. There is no way around it. At least, that is what is stated in the fundamental laws of physics.

If you split the water into hydrogen, with perfect efficiency (not actually achievable), and then recombine it perfectly (again, not actually achievable) the best you can do is break even. In practice, you have to accept losses.

In fact, current techniques for seperating hydrogen and then using it, are horribly inefficient - you'd be lucky to get 50% of your energy back. This is one of the fundamental problems of building a 'hydrogen economy' for cars - by the time you've generated the hydrogen, transported it, packaged it in a form suitable for cars, and then converted it back to energy, you've barely got 25% of your energy left.

While it is very convenient and relatively efficient to convert electricity into hydrogen, generating electricity is a massive loser. It comes down to the fact that most electricity is generated by burning a fuel to produce heat and then somehow using the heat from the fire to turn a generator. Converting heat to mechanical energy is inefficient, and there is no way round this (again, it's a law of physics - specifically it's due to entropy); that said, current technology is still a fair way from the limit, so there is room for improvement - but even with impossibly perfect technology you're still onto a serious loser with this approach.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Mark R

Originally posted by: destrekor
here's the thing about water. It can be considered an energy source, because relatively little energy is needed to to get energy out of hydrogen. But it can also be classified as a storage medium, because you cannot directly access the hydrogen in it. Here's the kicker though: what if we discover a more convenient way to extract hydrogen from water? What if we use only a little energy in extracting the hydrogen, and then a little more in igniting the hydrogen, and end up gaining a large amount of energy?
what if we make it sustainable? as in, once you ignite the hydrogen, you keep a steady line of hydrogen being fed into the fire that is created and contained.

But here's the kicker. You cannot get more energy out of the hydrogen than you put in to separate it; you will always lose. There is no way around it. At least, that is what is stated in the fundamental laws of physics.

If you split the water into hydrogen, with perfect efficiency (not actually achievable), and then recombine it perfectly (again, not actually achievable) the best you can do is break even. In practice, you have to accept losses.

In fact, current techniques for seperating hydrogen and then using it, are horribly inefficient - you'd be lucky to get 50% of your energy back. This is one of the fundamental problems of building a 'hydrogen economy' for cars - by the time you've generated the hydrogen, transported it, packaged it in a form suitable for cars, and then converted it back to energy, you've barely got 25% of your energy left.

While it is very convenient and relatively efficient to convert electricity into hydrogen, generating electricity is a massive loser. It comes down to the fact that most electricity is generated by burning a fuel to produce heat and then somehow using the heat from the fire to turn a generator. Converting heat to mechanical energy is inefficient, and there is no way round this (again, it's a law of physics - specifically it's due to entropy); that said, current technology is still a fair way from the limit, so there is room for improvement - but even with impossibly perfect technology you're still onto a serious loser with this approach.

You're missing the point.

The hydrogen extraction is not to directly make electricty, it is to make heat.

This process nets an enormous amount of heat that can be used many ways for conversion where you have some loss but you are still talking about a nearly 2 to 1 net gain.

 

[Q]

Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski
He will die of "cancer" in a few months.

What..? I mean I know what you mean but why did you type that?