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Posted 2004-06-05, 04:11 AM in reply to Tai's post starting "I don't know if you're just wanting a..."
D3v, we already have perpetual motion shit...the problem is that even if something goes forever, once you tap into that energy it will quickly go away.

Perpetual motion examples? A) the moon. B) NASA once had a shuttle orbiting the Earth and they extended a wire a few miles into space. The idea here was to generate an electric current from the wire going through the Earth's magnetic field at a high speed, much like a generator works. They generated so much electricity that the wire melted. Of course, if you actually put this electricity into use, the counter-magnetism that will be generated will eventually slow the shuttle down and bring it to a gentle crash into the Earth. So the shuttle would have to keep outputting the same amount of thrust energy as electrical energy being consumed, thus the Law of Conservation of Energy taking effect. In other words, energy is not free...ever. Something somewhere is using up its energy.

However, if we get more philosophical, you can get energy that's seemingly free. For example, the sun. Sure, the sun will eventually run out of energy, but you'll be long dead by then, so what does it matter to you? It's free energy from your perspective.

I win.
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TyrranicideDied is neither ape nor machine; has so far settled for the in-betweenTyrranicideDied is neither ape nor machine; has so far settled for the in-between
 
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