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Internet "research." Calling it research is a bit of a stretch. It's called looking things up. We used to do it with books, and now we do it with the internet. Research is when you do experiments, at least when you're talking about science. Researchers have shown us, over the last 300 years or so, enough about thermodynamics for us to know much of what's possible and what's not. Anything that claims to get more energy out of a system than is possible is either a frudster or hasn't been learning plain old science. The bond dissociation energy of the hydrogen-oxygen bond in water is the same whether you're making the bond or breaking it. And it's the same for all water, everywhere. The bond is broken by electrolysis and created by combustion. So as Ari pointed out, the best you can hope for is to break even, except that no system has 100% efficiency. The result is that an additional energy source is required to keep the system running. Perhaps it could be solar panels, but you need something. The "water as fuel without any additional energy input" concept will never come to fruition - never. It's like hoping one day your dog will be able to do calculus. No, it's like hoping one day your sofa will be able to do calculus. Oh, and by the way, breathing pure oxygen doesn't make you more alert. Look up a hemoglobin dissociation curve. Your hemoglobin is already fully saturated on 21% oxygen.
So yes, in the 1800's they said that you could never exceed a certain speed on a bicycle. Keep in mind that this claim had nothing to do with any understanding of thermodynamics or, for that matter, any scientific principle known at the time or discovered since. They were just saying it's too hard, that humans lacked the power output. Had they measured peak power output, and the efficiency of the bicycle, the conclusion would have been that the efficiency of the machine needed to be improved to make a higher speed possible, which is in fact what happened. So giving these electrolysis guys the benefit of the doubt, saying that there have been naysayers in the past who were proven wrong, displays a misunderstanding of what the issues are.
So my approach is that when a source is so obviously misguided, either through ignorance or intent, nothing they say is worth listening to. The problem is, so many people want to be experts without doing any learning. It's like some kind of epidemic or something. An epidemic of laziness.
posted by 70.226.17...
, Fri, 27 Jun 2008 18:00:13
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