Being silly

[karohemd]

If one could construct a solar panel that's powerful enough to drive a UV bulb which in turn is powerful enough to charge the solar panel, one would have a perpetuum mobile, right?

This was inspired by the Japanese electric car running on two watch batteries (for 1km), suggesting that it would probably run forever on solar power.

Comments

[mattp.livejournal.com]

I have a piece of music called Perpetuum Mobile - it's by the Penguin Cafe Orchestra

[nina321.livejournal.com]

Yes. But only if no energy escaped, ie, no heat or noise was given off AT ALL...
And hence why perpetual motion becomes so dificult.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

I know, note subject line. ;o)

Ideally, you would take this module and integrate it into the above mentioned car so when the sun goes down, you switch on the UV light and continue driving. ;o)

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Likewise the current Einstürzende Neubauten album. ;o)

[astatine210.livejournal.com]

If you could somehow engineer it so that:

1. The solar panel is 100% efficient at turning the energy from photons falling onto it into electromotive force.
2. The wires between the solar panel and bulb are superconductors, ie. they have no electrical resistance.
3. The UV bulb is 100% efficient at producing the right wavelengths of photons for the solar panel to absorb, and sends them *all* towards the solar panel without absorbing some of them itself or producing heat as a sideproduct.
4. The medium between the solar panel and bulb allows all the uv light to travel through it without absorbption, ie. it is a perfect vacuum.

If you can manage all of those, I have a ball of light, inextensible string you might want to buy.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Trust this to come from a Nocker player... ;o)

[drpyrojames.livejournal.com]

Well solar panels can/do produce power under electric light....

Although I'd prefer to see the energy from the solar panel used to produce hydrogen, to burn in a turbine, to produce electricity to run the lights to power the solar panel.

It's a Pyro thing.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Of course you would. :o)

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Well, I refer you to fuel cell research, which is doing just that - but with Geothermal power, mainly, not solar.

[lsur.livejournal.com]

Surely you won't get out as much as you put in so the light would get dimmer till it goes out?

[drpyrojames.livejournal.com]

Wow! You've managed to beat the 2nd Law of Thermo, using Geothermal power! Excellent.

Although, F.C.s are the work of the evil doers. Who could possibly want to rid the world of combustion? Hydrogen is for burning, not for producing some weak mildly exothermic electro-chemical reaction. Pah!

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

I refer you to the subject line of this post.

It's like creating a perpetuum mobile by strapping a buttered slice of toast to the back of a cat and dropping the contraption from a dining room table. The toast will try to land on the buttered side, the cat on its feet so the whole thing will hover an inch or so off the ground, spinning like mad. All you need is to convert that kinetic energy into electricity. ;o)

[lsur.livejournal.com]

This post sounds like a perpetual time-wasting machine :¬)

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of the spam I used to get from a Chinese scientist, telling me in mind-numbing volume of broken English how he had defeated the second law of thermodynamics. But yours is shorter, and has punctuation.