Talk:Water fuel cell/Archive 1

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Questions?

Latest comment: 17 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion

I want to know where Stanley Meyer's body is right now, I want to know exactally what his cause of death was. I want to know what his brother Steve's reaction was, he's an inventor too and is interested in his brother's technology. Who was with Stanley Meyer when he died? What happened to the resturaunt? What resturaunt was it? Were the staff of the resturaunt interviewed? Were any suspects arrested? What did the police do? If the cause of death was poisoning, what type of poisoning was it? Who owns his inventions now? Where is the VW buggie of his located? Where is the engine of the VW buggie? Did he leave a will? Who inherited his money and posessions? If he was poisoned, was it accidental or was it intentional? If it was intentional, who is the murderer? Why is no one continuing the research of Stanley Meyer? Is it that people are too afraid?

Many people are afraid of what would happen if we no longer need to rely on oil/petroleum, the world's economies would collapse, that would have adverse reactions on many people, obviously, but why are people scared of that? Change must happen, and will happen, wether you like it or not, things will have to evolve. You either evolve too, or your left behind. BP is the only major petroleum company that does not import oil from the middle east, and they have expanded into solar technology. If I had money to invest, I'd invest it in BP, they are evolving as they need to, albeit a bit late. Other companies like ExxonMobil and Shell suffer from short-sightedness, oil is quick and easy money, aparently. It is bad business to be short-sighted!!! Even if you didn't care about your own home (Earth) and it's health, surely you are a good businessperson. By being short-sighted your money will forever remain unrenewable!! One day you will not have as much as you once had! Perhaps you should also care about things like corruption, bribary, murder, greed, extortion! Have a think about why these are crimes in the first place!! Your not meant to stick your hand into an open fire, it's common sense, just as your not meant to bribe someone, not meant to kill another person, the negative moral, legal and physical implications of this are obvious. If I could say anything to those who make the decisions in oil companies, I'd say this...

--If you do not cease your shot-sightedness, you, your families, your children's and they're children's power, money, health and ability to live will vanish. You will become the most inferior form of life to ever exist, as you do not evolve at the rate which you should. You will have partaken in the actual extinction of animal and plant species, which will one day include human beings. If you think you are smart or clever by making so much money so quickly, you are wrong, anyone can do that. All the money in the world will never buy you what you truly need, and if all your love and cares are devoted to money, you will forever be known as ignorant to your potential as a human being. If your thoughts after reading/hearing this have now turned to indifference and you do not care about the above, you need help. If you do care, what are you waiting for?--

Sorry to deviate for a few minutes there, but if someone could answer my questions I would greatly apreciate it. No one has anything to fear. People, not governments or corporations control the world, what we do determines what they do, they are at the whim of our actions, if people can rally together, you have nothing to fear. Nick carson 13:30, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Omegatron, I understand your position, but when we allow negativity and and denial to rule our thoughts, we cannot see the other side of the coin. Please try to flip your mind for at least half the time and just maybe, the unbelievable becomes believable.... yb

p.s. Do you actually think that everyone's chief motivation is money? --74.135.182.73 08:10, 2 August 2006 (UTC) Another thing that screams hoax with the 'water fuel cell' seems to be some of Stanley Meyer's behavior. He apperently turned down a billion dollars from an unknown arab, saying "no, this technology is for the people." but then he keeps the workings totally secret... why keep the workings a secret if you are not out to make money off of it, and its for the benefit of the people? And, what happend to all his research and 'working' models after his death? Did they just suddenly vanish? If you want to see a working application of water as some sort of energy source, look at Bruce Crower steam engine which he calls the "six-stroke engine".

This is how it works, it takes more energy to turn it into the HHO gas than what you get from it. The energy naturally comes from a carbon/nuclear source. The End.

Stanley Meyer's letter to New Energy News about the false claims of legal defeat can be found here (copyrighted)

This claim violates the first and second laws of thermodynamics. It is not physically possible to create energy, only to transfer it from one form to another. This water fuel cell is a hoax.

no, this is about over unity where energy is tapped from a near infinite source - Infowarrior 22:58, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I think you mean over unity, where energy is created from nothing, breaking the first and second laws of thermodynamics. — Omegatron 02:20, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

Over unity does not require that the energy source be created from nothing. It can also be described as extracting undiscovered energy from the environment. The difference is discussed in the perpetual motion wiki. Infowarrior 08:06, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Aww. Omegatron, I was just about to put a 'disputed' tag on it, when you read my thoughts. Doesn't keep me from commenting anyway. :)

>> It is more efficient than other electrolysis devices that do the same thing.

Doing what? Even I am more efficient at doing nothing than other electrolysis devices.

>> no gas bubbles

...okay, maybe I am not the best example.

>> Unlike conventional electrolysis, it doesn't use a large amount of electricity nor does it release a lot of waste heat.

This also applies to a brick.

>> In conventional electrolysis devices three times more energy is consumed than is produced.

Electrolysis devices do not produce energy.

>> The Water Fuel Cell appears to produce several times more energy than it consumes.

Not to me.

>> Scientists witnessed and confirmed that it worked.

That a combustion engine ran on hydrogen?

>> [...] it didn't always work [...] It failed to work [...] always works, but didn't always function [...]

You lost me there. So does it always work or not? (that's a rhetorical question)

>> Meyer's water car may simply need further development and fine tuning to function dependably.

I really don't think so. Femto 14:11, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I don't know what to do with the page. My opinion is to present it as a device that people claim works, and then show why it doesn't really work, rather than just deleting it or something. But I have no idea how to word it. - Omegatron 14:25, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)

Welcome to the club. Definitely, I don't think we need too much details about the alleged inner workings, but the whole thing happened and it needs an article. There won't be much left though.

cleaned up links:

"FREE ENERGY" AS SEEN ON BRITISH T.V. was about a 1995 TV show that "puts across the clear message that "free energy" is on the way". Well, we're still waiting for it, what does this tell us? Also removed it from free energy along with some pseudo-science.
Stanley Meyer Water Fuel Cell diagrams on a tinkerer's site who didn't get them to work yet-DEAD LINK
Energy Revolution, visited Nov. 1, 2001 dead link

Femto 18:12, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

my opinion is that the best way to fight pseudoscience on wikipedia (and the internet) is to keep the articles and show in the article why the idea is wrong. don't delete or censor. they view that as a confirmation that their idea is right and the conspiracy is suppressing it. :-) some people don't want wp to have lots of debunking articles, but i don't understand why. providing unbiased info that everyone can agree on is one of its strong points. - Omegatron 18:27, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)

Regarding free energy, that page is explicitly about free energy in thermodynamics, and there is already very similar content at free energy suppression. Regarding this article, I hope I showed due restraint on redacting it and kept an equal amount of factual content from both sides. Your sentence about conservation of energy is all the debunking that is needed so far. After all, unbiased-ness is two-sided. Femto 20:32, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Indeed there are articles in more urgent need of a cleanup tag. Good enough I'd say. Femto 21:47, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I bet this guy committed suicide by poisoning for a chance at (nutjob) history books 216.113.96.31 02:39, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

This is Patented

Latest comment: 18 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion

Obtaining a US patent from the patent office is not easy. Whoever said that a patent does nothing more than give exclusive rights to the assignee is wrong. Patents require that claims are made on what an invention accomplishes. If the claims cannot be verified then a patent cannot be issued. Since the water fuel cell passed US patent law it has been verified to accomplish what it claims. No hoax, no wacky professor, just sound, obsersvable, verfied science.

I call bullshit and I take objection to calling it "science". So the US patent law is your only defense and proof? You wouldn't happen to be able to provide a link to the published proceedings of the patent clerk's evaluation and its scientific reasonings? No? A review of positive experimental results from other independent scientists? If findings under US law are important, why was that little 'detail' removed regarding the court ruling against Meyer because he just could not demonstrate his device to work? If you call it science, apply scientific measure. The assertions and twisted half-truths in this article don't even come close to Wikipedia's credibility standards. Femto 11:25, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Phew. I'm glad someone else is watching this article besides me. This stuff ends up at hydrogen car, too. I plan to update the article with a description from the actual patents, though several patents are inter-related and it's some work to read through them. It looks like just a standard electrolysis setup with some weird magnetic dust pumping thing attached... — Omegatron 13:42, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

I call bullshit on your ignorance of patent law. Any devices that goes through the US patent process must have all of its components tested and the device demonstrated in front of official witnesses that are competent to evalutate the device. I do not believe that patent clerk evaluation process on the Meyer device exists freely on the internet and you will have to pay money to get the full file or request it from the US patent office. - Infowarrior 22:58, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Dear Mr. Infowarrior, welcome to the Real World. Patents are granted, especially in the US but not exclusively, to anyone filing for anything. Verification is all but nonexistent, and assigning a ludicrous patent is fairly common, as long as the "inventor" pays up. Patenting is not the same as peer reviewing. The very concept of a water fuel cell is so utterly laughable that I am surprised there are people actually discussing its feasibility. Perpetual motion has been discredited since the dawn of modern science, and it is quite sad that the general public has not yet catched up with that. --Orzetto 13:35, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Right, I'm not an expert about patent laws. Neither seem you. The assertion of the requirement of witnesses is simply untrue. Quote http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/dapp/utility.htm "Thus, in the usual case where the mode of operation alleged can be readily understood and conforms to the known laws of physics and chemistry, operativeness is not questioned, and no further evidence is required."

Also quote [2] "When a properly claimed invention meets at least one stated objective, utility under § 101 is clearly shown." and "To violate § 101 the claimed device must be totally incapable of achieving a useful result." (emphasis mine) It's claimed to be a new form of electrolysis device, and in accordance with one asserted utility it makes bubbles when current is applied. Thus the patent is granted.—This absolutely does not prove in any way, and especially not in any scientific way, the veracity of all the other patented claims. Femto 20:17, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

"Today, the utility requirement is the lowest bar and is easily met." - Utility (patent)

Not to mention that his patents don't talk about overunity or anything. He simply claims an electrolysis device or a "gas generator" or a "pulse generator". He doesn't claim that the electrolysis device uses less energy than a conventional electrolysis device (and the lawsuit found that it was nothing more than a conventional electrolysis device).

He does have some weird things, though, like sending magnetic dust through a coil of pipe to generate electricity (??) or using a hollow-cored electromagnet to propel gases infused with magnetic dust (which would just attract the dust, not propel it). So maybe he just got a patent on the electrolysis part? — Omegatron 21:12, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

My mistake, I mean examiners, not witnesses. Patent examiners are engineers, biotechnologists, etc and are competent to understand the material in the patent and evaluate the claims. If any of the claims in a patent cannot be verified then the patent is rejected. Meyer had to bring in his equipment for demonstration at the patent office for the examiners. He tells the story of how one the examiners was very skeptic until the invention was running and putting of huge volumes of hydrogen gas, to which the examiner began running and shouting frantically for everyone to put out their cigarettes or any fires. The information you are talking about Femto regards definition of 'specific utility' and 'usefulness' which means a patent much state that it has a 'use' or 'purpose'; "A statement of specific utility should fully and clearly explain why the applicant believes the invention is useful. Such statements will usually explain the purpose of or how the invention may be used (e.g., a compound is believed to be useful in the treatment of a particular disorder). Regardless of the form of statement of specific utility, it must enable one ordinarily skilled in the art to understand why the applicant believes the claimed invention is useful." [3] This has nothing to do with verifying the claims.Infowarrior 05:39, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

What now? If § 101/112 has nothing to do with verifying claims, pray tell what else are we talking about? The link says "However, as the Federal Circuit has stated, "[t]o violate § 101 the claimed device must be totally incapable of achieving a useful result." (8) If an invention is only partially successful in achieving a useful result, a rejection of the claimed invention as a whole based on a "lack of utility" is not appropriate. (9)" [ref.8 "Knapp v. Anderson, 477 F.2d 588, 590, 177 USPQ 688, 690 (CCPA 1973)" ; ref.9 "See, e.g., Brenner v. Manson, 383 U.S. At 534-35, 148 USPQ at 695-96"]

The specific utility is that it's some sort of electrolysis device. This is verified so far, and no further examination is necessary. People have successfully sued to get patents granted because of one credible claim, even though another was found incredible. If I invent a new broom with a twist, it will get patented simply because of the new shape of the handle, regardless of whether I also claim a utility that the bristles emit invisible pink healing rays with every sweep. It lies neither in the responsibility nor in the competence of patent offices to determine beyond all scientific doubt whether invisible pink healing rays do or cannot exist.

As for the 'scientific' quality of patents, quote http://www.forbes.com/global/2000/0529/0311090a.html "Given that patent examiners start with salaries as low as $28,000, we can scarcely expect a lot of Einsteins to apply for the job. Their workload has swelled in recent years, turnover is high and greenhorns end up deciding issues that would stump seasoned experts." — According to our patents, we already have perpetual motion, superluminal communication, infinite information density, you name it. "Must have all of its components tested" my foot. And that doesn't even say anything about claims based upon unproven (or principally unprovable) theories and twisted, pseudoscientific ramblings.

Any person ordinarily skilled in the art and competent to evaluate the device would determine that it violates the known fundamental scientific principles. Simply feed the burned exhaust back into it, and you have a perpetual motion machine with free energy out of nothing. It's impossible to disprove any existence of undiscovered principles. The burden of proof lies with the advocates to show that 1. first of all, it's not a fraud and really works, 2. what happens cannot be explained with conventional theories, 3. working models for free examination by other scientists exist, and their findings have been published and reviewed, for a start. Dubious patent examinations or testimonies from influenced witnesses are circumstantial evidence at most. All evidence together so far only amounts to plus minus zero at best, not enough to be presented as "science" under Wikipedia's policies.

Quote perpetual motion: "This sort of "invention" has become common enough that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has made an official policy of refusing to grant patents for perpetual motion machines without a working model. One reason for this concern is that a few "inventors" have waved a patent in front of potential investors, who may believe that said patent proves the machine works. The USPTO has granted a few patents for motors that are claimed to run without net energy input. These patents were issued because it was not obvious from the patent that a perpetual motion machine was being claimed." Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Femto 13:04, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

His claims don't involve overunity or perpetual motion, anyway. He just claims

"an apparatus for obtaining the release of a gas mixture including hydrogen and other dissolved gases entrapped in water"
"A method of obtaining the release of a gas mixture including hydrogen and oxygen and other dissolved gases formerly entrapped in water"
"A method of obtaining the release of energy from a gas mixture including hydrogen and oxygen"
"A hydrogen gas generator system for converting water into hydrogen and oxygen gasses, in combination with a magnetic particle accelerator for voltage/current electrical potential generation"
"A start-up/shut/down circuit for activating and deactivating a non-ionic hydrogen generator burner system on demand"
"A hydrogen gas burner for the mixture of hydrogen gas with ambient air and non-combustible gasses."
"System and apparatus for the controlled intermixing of a volatile hydrogen gas with oxygen and other non-combustible gasses in a combustion system."
"An electrical pulse generator comprising a series of electromagnets spatially positioned about the outer circumference of a disc-like base and a second series of complimentary electromagnets positioned about an inner position on said disc"

Just because he demonstrated electrolysis or the burning of hydrogen doesn't mean his claims of breaking the laws of physics have been validated by the patent office. — Omegatron 13:11, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

Patents

Here's some Stanley patents. Several of these are related to the electrolysis thing:

U.S. patent 5,149,407: Process and apparatus for the production of fuel gas and the enhanced release of thermal energy from such gas
U.S. patent 4,936,961: Method for the production of a fuel gas
U.S. patent 4,826,581: Controlled process for the production of thermal energy from gases and apparatus useful therefore
U.S. patent 4,798,661: Gas generator voltage control circuit
U.S. patent 4,613,779: Electrical pulse generator
U.S. patent 4,613,304: Gas electrical hydrogen generator
U.S. patent 4,465,455: Start-up/shut-down for a hydrogen gas burner
U.S. patent 4,421,474: Hydrogen gas burner
U.S. patent 4,389,981: Hydrogen gas injector system for internal combustion engine

U.S. patent 4,275,950: Light-guide lens
U.S. patent 4,265,224: Multi-stage solar storage system
U.S. patent 3,970,070: Solar heating system

Pictures

I uploaded some pictures from the patents.

File:Meyer-diagram-hypothesis.png

The latest patent has the best pictures. — Omegatron 03:35, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

possible copyvio

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Parts of this article look like they were taken (indirectly, no doubt) from this Keelynet file: [4] (The section starting with "Reprinted in part from an article in "ELECTRONICS WORLD + WIRELESS WORLD" January 1991"). Although it is copied all over the net already, and says "There are ABSOLUTELY NO RESTRICTIONS on duplicating, publishing or distributing the files on KeelyNet except where noted!", they don't demonstrate their permission to reprint the magazine article.

It doesn't look like a big deal but we should rewrite anything that appears to be copied directly from the magazine, just in case. — Omegatron 17:34, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

Meyer never claimed that the Water fuel cell was a perpetual motion machine. Even if it worked, the water in the tank would be used up, thereby stopping the car, like in any gas powered car. He did say that it would make fuel free as in $0, because water is free from a river. He did not say it created free energy from nothing, as this would break the laws of physics. His invention was very similar to a hydrogen fuel cell, perhaps a variation that didn't work properly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.136.49.228 (talk • contribs)

Then what happened to the water after it was used up? Where did it go? — Omegatron 23:50, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I assume the recombined water from the engine would be led back into the fuel tank, resulting in a small loss over time from gas line leaks, that is, into the atmosphere.

Laughably POV

Latest comment: 18 years ago6 comments5 people in discussion

I'm unsure how it would have been much more visibly biased for this article to come right out and call the man a crackpot. It is also true, as stated above, that this was never claimed as a "perpetual motion" machine. But then again, he goes against Wikipedia's hallowed, biased groupthink, so who cares about factual accuracy, right?

I also had to laugh at the reference to him not having submitted to journals. Given that he wasn't considered a scientist in the first place, it's unlikely that the in crowd would have been willing to accept anything submitted by him even if he'd tried.

Being a resource that "anyone can edit" in the case of an article about someone like Mr Meyer just means that it gets dictated by whichever establishment bigots are able to bleat the loudest. There are cases where Wikipedia truly is a sick joke, and this is one of them. Petrus4 18:51, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

As noted above, one point in successfully applying for a patent to wave around is not to claim perpetual motion. This does in no way affect the factual accuracy of it having to be an overunity device. Science is as science does, submitting something to a journal does not make it any more credible. And whining about the establishment is a sure sign of scientific crackpottery, as anybody of said establishment will tell you. Femto 19:46, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Maybe he never used the words "perpetual motion", but he did claim to create a device that converts water into water with a net surplus of energy, and uses the word "overunity". Close enough. — Omegatron 19:57, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, Overunity ≠ Perpetual Motion — 216.86.122.152 07:05, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

It has to be by general definition. Femto 11:56, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

They are called the "Laws of Thermodynamics" for a reason. God may get to violate them, but no human can or ever will. If the reaction product (exhaust) is the same as the initial reagent (fuel) and a net gain of engery is released by the reaction, then the system can be closed by running the exhaust back into the fuel tank and you would never run out of fuel eh? It would run perpetually, no? Now, about that bridge I have for sale in Brooklyn... Thomas52 02:59, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

You must be a fool if you cant believe what is displayed documented and proven repeatedly

Latest comment: 17 years ago5 comments5 people in discussion

Stanley was and forever will be a genius in a much higher class than the cookie cutter physicists that seem to be arguing his point. We as a species do not fully understand the greater workings of physics and thermo-dynamics, as both of these sciences are young. It is more likely that our generation would stand and utter anger at what it sees as improbable, rather than to attempt the experiment for themselves...reminds me of what they told Galileo. Here is the long and the short of it....The patents were granted, the plans can be reproduced with the same outcomes...the government paid for his services, and then he was murdered... failures and frauds do not experience these things... My suggestion is that unless you yourself have witnessed the capabilities as I have with my own eyes and tactile sense, or you attempt the experiments as Meyers has presented them that you keep your quasi intellectual unsubstantiation to yourself... If you dont know for sure dont act like you do. Also, it is the general innability to understand or to comment in lay-terms that makes most scientists(like my father) incappable of understanding simple obvious concepts, which is why it takes a man who did not graduate high school and who does not know that there might be a "law of physics" that might thwart his efforts, to carry out such a feat...ignorance can be bliss when the planned outcome can be achieved... Once again if you dont believe in it you must think the world is still flat...this is not the easter bunny, this is proven action carried out by someone who wanted to help the planet so prattle on all you like about what is and is not possible, it doesntmake you the end all be all of information and or correctness, as a matter of fact it makes you a naysayer to actual scientific findings... His legacy will live on, as myself and a group of investors and engineers are continuing his work using his prior patents....and hey guess what...they work imagine that.... once again just like to say, you can claim to be smart read a million books and still not get anything right.... so hah on you... and if you take the time to comment on my writing skills, that just means your as much of an idiot as I think you are....If you would like to see a better world, and believe in REALITY (wow what a concept) than you will see clear through my rant and support the ongoing work Mr.Meyers left us with... without us the world will not be free from tyranny. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.143.246.108 (talk • contribs) . (aka the irvnca.pacbell.net anon)

Bless you. Femto 11:03, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

So you've built one, I presume. May I see it? — Omegatron 18:39, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Have you built one Omegatron? You make alot of claims about it. Do you really, really know how it works and know for sure that it does not work? What if it does work but does something that you were never explained that it does and that something actually does fall under the laws of physics?Myronmhouse 08:59, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Wow, that was quite a rag, irvnca.pacbell.net :-/ "If you dont believe in it you must think the world is still flat"? My tactile sense fails me... ---CH 11:45, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

To speak quite honestly, I would love to see this machine you've built. I don't think you would find many people in the common public who wouldn't like to see it. Please, before harm comes to you, post some real plans on the Internet or tell someone outside of your ring how it works. Please. If you are truly serious, you hold the key to the future. However, if you're a fraud, well... good luck.

A little off-topic, but is anybody else tired of the whole "Galileo" thing? Sir John Sack-and-Sugar 05:58, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Straw man

Latest comment: 18 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion

It seems to me that this article comes up with a completely different explanation for why it would work than Stanly Meyer's and attacks that instead. At any rate sources for the explanation as given are not presented. Hackwrench 19:18, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

His patent — Omegatron 19:36, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

If you find any description of "why it would work" that is not according to Meyer's explanations, correct it or delete it. What the article does, with all due neutrality that is appropriate to a factual encyclopedia, is to give an explanation of "why it would not work".

You have no idea if this thing works or not.

The source that you request is the current scientific understanding that is documented in the linked articles such as first law of thermodynamics, perpetual motion, electrolysis, energy, chemical bond, etc. This scientific understanding has been, and still continually is, validated and tested on the abovementioned "REALITY" by millions of people, over and over again.

To invalidate it all, have some number of independent scientists examine a working model that simply feeds its exhaust back and thus must verifiably create more energy than it consumes. It should be easy and convincing enough. Anybody? No? Then these theories have no place as 'neutral' facts in this article. Femto 21:09, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

The thing is, it would appear that "it" has been cleverly redefined so that "it" is the perpetual motion machine. While the patent is listed, I can't find anything corresponding to the patent in the acutal article. Therefore, the entire description is not according to Meyer's explanations so deleting it would mean that someone else would just put it back. Hackwrench 22:21, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Meyer's device claims to perform a thermodynamic cycle with a net gain, no less. I repeat, this makes it a "first order perpetual motion device" by general definition (if it actually runs perpetually is irrelevant to this). Edit the description of the alleged inner workings as appropriate, as long as they're not presented as verified content. The perpetual motion note remains in the article, we must not deceive about this simple fact. Femto 12:35, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I haven't seen him use the phrase "thermodynamic cycle" anywhere. Mind pointing to where he makes the claim you suggest? To clarify, I do not see that the system is returned to its initial state. Hackwrench 15:26, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

See below. Femto

Bond weakening

Latest comment: 18 years ago10 comments3 people in discussion

As the bond is weakened, energy is released. What keeps that energy from further weakening the bond? Hackwrench 03:00, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

The chemical bond cannot be "weakened", it takes (takes!, not releases) always the same energy to separate one. The claim of some magical bond breakdown and subsequent (repeatable!) release of energy makes this device even more so a perpetual motion machine. Femto 12:35, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

What prevents it from being weakened? The article says that there is energy in the bond? Where does that energy go? Energy cannot be created or destroyed. The laws of thermodynamics only apply to closed systems, and only state that energy becomes unusable, not destroyed.Hackwrench 15:21, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

A bond doesn't result from something like a substance that can be 'weakened', 'broken', or somehow 'shaken loose', but from electromagnetic forces whose closed integral of entropy will always result in zero. That is, the path of change does not matter, the enthalpy of formation for any physical chemical reaction remains the same. Femto 17:23, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Except the enthalpy of formation changes when pressure changes, which is what the vibration would seem to change. Hackwrench 18:03, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

The intermediate steps and pressures are irrelevant. Reduce the enthalpies of the reaction products from before and after to an arbitrary standard state, and the fact remains that the energy which they contain is magically created out of nowhere. Femto 18:56, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

But wouldn't decreased pressure make it easier for energy to either enter or leave the system? Hackwrench 20:24, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Examining my thought processes, matter flows from areas of high to low pressure. The 42Khz pulse indicates a change in pressure, thus indicating that this is not a closed system

Sure, if you look only at arbitrary parts of the sum, something is bound to fall out of the equation. But this is useless for an energy analysis of the whole.

Consider the simplest case: Some hydrogen, oxygen, a combustion engine with a generator, the fuel cell — all in a sealed box, a closed system sure enough. Let the gases burn to power the generator, whose exhaust will be water. Only a fraction of this generated power will suffice to run the fuel cell (this is exactly what Meyer claims). The water is split into hydrogen and oxygen again. The box is right back where it started, but for a magically created surplus waste heat. It has the potential to bring the interior of the box to infinite temperatures. A clear cut first order perpetual motion machine, there is no way around, no matter how you look at the parts. Femto 10:58, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I should hope we all understand basic thermodynamics. I believe the implication here is that there is another source of energy in the system that is unknown or neglected in descriptions. For instance, there might be some nuclear reaction going on unnoticed, providing power, or the hydrogen is unknowingly being converted into hydrinos, or the engine is tapping into the ubiquitous zero point energy.

As Beaty says, 'A true "perpetual motion machine" is impossible, but a machine which taps an unknown energy source is not.'

But the simple fact of the matter is that Meyer didn't claim any of this. In his patents he claimed conventional electrolysis and an engine that uses hydrogen for fuel. Nothing new there. Then he claimed to be able to produce net energy from such a system to power a car, which violates our current understanding of physics, didn't provide an explanation of how it worked, couldn't reproduce it in controlled conditions, and was found guilty of fraud. It's our job to report on these facts neutrally and not insert our personal speculation about what may or may not have actually powered a device that may or may not have been a hoax.

The article does need some work, though. There's speculation from both sides, which needs to be removed, and it needs more quotes and references about what Meyer actually did or didn't say and do. — Omegatron 14:22, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

One can explain with verifiability why the device that is described cannot function, but not beyond wild speculations why it 'mightn't not malfunction'. The ironic thing is, if we grant the benefit of doubt that there may be an undiscovered and unexplainable free energy phenomenon, not only would it make the patents worthless, there'd be even less encyclopedic evidence than before that a working device like this could have ever existed. Femto 12:38, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Undocumented

Latest comment: 18 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion

If it's undocumented, how can you tell if it's in violation of the second law of thermodynamics? Hackwrench 15:20, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Simple arithmetic, there'd be more energy in what comes out than in what goes in. Since energy can't be created or destroyed, something must be not accounted for, anywhere in the process. The "cycle" does not refer to a cyclic process, but to any change in a system with a start point and an end point. It doesn't have to return to its initial state for something to go missing.

The fuel cell with all inputs and outputs would be a closed system whose energy balance does not add up, thus it's in violation of the laws of thermodynamics. The very mode of operation implies it. Femto 17:23, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Except the only way to tell if more energy is coming out that going in is if the inputs and outputs are documented. Are they? You say the very mode of operation implies it, but implications are unusual things. It seems to me that you are seeing implications where they do not exist. Hackwrench 18:00, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

It's Meyer's implication, not mine, that his device can put energy into a substance without putting energy into a substance. Femto 18:56, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Enumeration

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

More to the point, the article fails to enumerate the steps that the materials in question theoreticaly go through, no matter which theory is applied. Hackwrench 15:34, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Well It would be slightly hard to enumerate on something which does not exist anymore. He is dead and his devices were destroyed (I presume).

Why Perpetual Motion?

Latest comment: 17 years ago19 comments10 people in discussion

I don't understand why the water fuel cell is considered a perpetual motion machine. Isn't the water itself a fuel? Does't the water as it's electrical bonds are broken release and burn the hydrogen as a fuel? Is it physics and thermodynamic law that states that the electrical bond is greater than any potential energy released? Isn't it just possible that there are a few people that are born over the centuries that can discover forces and methods previously unknown or undiscovered that changes science as we understand it. I think it is very likely that this man was murdered for what he knew, and what he did or could have achieved. It's very sad and quite pathetic considering the state of the world we live in, the tremendous damage we have done and continue to do that there was no one in our government with enough courage and integrity to protect this man. Maybe many of the inventions he created did not and could not work, but his mind should not have been wasted. He could have at bare minimum impoved the efficiency of existing technologies and perhaps saved our world.

65.111.76.4 02:13, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what issue you're addressing here. Could you clear it up for me? Sir John Sack-and-Sugar 23:03, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm addressing the perpetual motion statement. If water is fuel and fuel is absorbed (burned) during the process and a new device is used to break the chemical bonds to release the fuel that takes less energy than the potential fuel released, that is not perpetual motion.

Example: It takes a great deal of energy to turn corn into ethanol, however, there is more potential energy in the ethanol than the initial energy to create it. The corn itself becomes the fuel and is consumed in the process.

In the process of the water hydrogen generator, it may be possible to release more hydrogen as potential energy than the original energy it took to precipitate it.

Josepepper 00:00, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

The difference between your corn/ethanol example and the water/hydrogen fueled car is that after the car uses up energy, the waste is the exact same as the fuel. When you use ethanol, the waste is not corn. As obsurd as I sounded with that last sentence, it's true. The waste of Stan Meyer's machine can be reused as its own fuel, thus creating a perpetual motion device. --Elheber 02:15, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

From what I gather, nowhere was it said by Meyers that this was a perpetual motion device. Somebody on this talk page did come up with a way to make it perpetual motion (assuming the thing worked in the first place). All you would have to do is pipe the exaust back into the fuel tank, since the exaust is water anyway. You would lose some, but that's the closest to "perpetual" I can think of.

The truth as we know it is that making water into hydrogen and oxygen takes more energy than it would produce, which is the case with some fuels we have now, I suppose. Maybe he found a way to do it better. It's doubtful, but I guess it isn't completely impossible. Sir John Sack-and-Sugar 00:36, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Dismissive response: No matter what Meyer said, this is a perpetual motion machine. He did not use the actual denomination because it would have freaked investors he wanted to swindle. Water is not a fuel. Two thirds of the Earth's surface are water and they never caught fire. Breaking bonds takes up energy, it never releases it. Water is one of the best studied compounds and its properties are very well understood. Meyer was just a quack and a bad one at that. The possibility of this thing working is equal to that of finding a closed path that only goes downhill. Also, spare the conspiracy theories please, and rather read a book on thermodynamics or chemistry.

That's it and I will not change my attitude until someone actually comes up with a prototype of this thing functioning as described in controlled conditions.

If you watch the Google Video link, I believe he claims to break water apart with less energy than electrolysis, though I don't remember exactly and can't watch it now. If that's what he says, then it's not a perpetual motion machine per se, but it is breaking one of the laws of thermodynamics. But of course, if it inputs water and outputs water, and produces net energy, then it really would be a perpetual motion device, though he never called it such. — Omegatron 12:49, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

It isn't perpetual motion... Meyer himself is on file quoting that the buggy required 22 Gallons of water to get from one coast of the US to the other. Sfacets 01:11, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

If it "breaks water" into oxygen and hydrogen and then burns them producing more energy that was needed it is perpetuum mobile fair and square. Just put the exaust pipe into the fuel tank abakharev 04:01, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

There would still be wastage through evaporation... the engine would eventually stop... Sfacets 10:39, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

And until it stops, it would turn water into water with a net energy gain. Thermodynamic efficiency over 100% is perpetual motion by general definition. Femto 15:15, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Perpetual motion implies that it wouldn't stop. (perpetual) - the amount of energy consumed would be equal or less than the energy emitted. This isn't the case here, with the inventor himself saying that "only a few bottles of water" would be needed for a journey. This implies that the water is a fuel source, and that the motor itself is not a perpetual motion machine.

If it were perpetual motion, only a fixed amount of water would be needed. Sfacets 17:47, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

It exhausts water vapor. Connect the exhaust back to the input and you won't even need to fill it up. — Omegatron 19:43, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, this is not perpetual motion. You still need an external energy source (in this case, a negative energy source or "sink") to condense the water into a liquid state. A machine doesn't qualify as perpetual motion if it requires a resource from its operating environment to function (in this case, a heat sink). So what if it recycles its fuel? If energy exchange with the environment is required to do so, it ain't perpetual motion.

Now, one could validly argue that condensation implies an energy loss, which would mean that the machine would be producing more energy than it consumes to be able to produce water vapor rather than liquid exhaust.

I would like to revert or modify the statement that was recently added, but not before some additional discussion. -Amatulic 20:12, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

You still need an external energy source (in this case, a negative energy source or "sink")

Think about what you just said for more than a few seconds, and you'll understand. — Omegatron 16:20, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

The gases that come out have more energy than the water plus the electricity that go in. Thermodynamic overunity is claimed. It's that simple. The fact cannot be obfuscated by arbitrarily dividing the system into subparts or by redefining your own concept of what science calls perpetual motion.

As for those 22 gallons. The produced hydrogen is burned in a combustion engine. Burned, as in conventional chemistry, no magic involved, right? There's 9.2 kg hydrogen in 83 L water. Meyer claims to get about 4800 km out of it? BMW's Hydrogen 7 car goes 24 km on 1 kg hydrogen. Future green cars are projected to be able to drive some 60 km per 1 kg hydrogen.

So he was able to tune an old dune buggy to perform eight times better than a modern, specifically designed fuel efficient hydrogen car. He could have marketed such an engine much more easily than the fuel cell, one wonders why he didn't. Or he just made up some numbers to bait investors. What's more likely? Femto 13:48, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I can affirm that the Water Fuel cell is a perpetual motion machine, since using it one can in principle build a machine which produces unlimited energy for free (and yes, I do have expertise in the area). But my opinion is not really needed, since the inventor's own claims speak for themself ^[1] :

"This, he claimed, opened the way for a car which would "run on water", powered simply by a car battery. The car would even run for ever since the energy needed to continue the "fracturing" was so low that the battery could be recharged: from the engine's dynamo."

^ "End of road for car that ran on Water", The Sunday Times, 1 December, 1996

which is a prototypical example of a perpetual motion machine. You will note that these claims were made in a court case (so presumably under oath) and are cited by a reliabe source The Sunday Times. So in my opinion we don't need the "expert-subject" template any more. Abecedare 22:03, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

The inventor's claim isn't enough to justify affirming that this is perpetual motion. Inclusion is based on verifiable facts, and what is in question here is both 1) wether the machine actually did what it was meant to and 2) Is in fact a Perpetual Motion machine in the strictest meaning of the term. If it is anything else then we cannot write here that it is. According to WP reliable sources media sources cannot be used to verify scientific claims. Therefore a specialist in the area is needed to acertain wether the machine is in fact perpetual motion or not. Sfacets 22:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh now I understand your question (hopefully!). Let me attempt an answer:

If "Water fuel cell" (WFC) did what it was claimed to, then it would be a perpetual motion machine (PMM).
No truly PMM is known to exist; and if one did the very well established and well tested laws of thermodynamics would have to be rewritten (which is not to say that that is absolutely impossible, but rather that such an extraordinary claim would require extraordinary proof) - so it is a priori unlikely that the WFC is a PMM
Furthermore Meyer's claims are dubious given the court findings.

Therefore we should not say that WFC is a PMM, but rather something like "WFC is an example of a claimed PMM" - we can look at pages of other claimed PMMs linked through History of perpetual motion machines or Category:Perpetual_motion_machines to pick an appropriate wording. Does that answer your query ? Abecedare 23:18, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Sfacets, see my edit on the main page. Is this what you were thinking of ? Abecedare 23:28, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

moving this one to Hoax ?

Similar Hoaxes

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

More recently, Denny Klein sold to FOX26 News in Clearwater, Florida, via their excited reporter Craig Patrick a similar technology. This also was exposed as a [[5]HOAX]. Maybe its better this one joints the endless list on Hoax. Mion 21:32, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Only appears over unity

Latest comment: 17 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

Wet stainless steel won't act as a galvanic cell under normal conditions, that's why it's "stainless." By pulsing it with high voltage, the array acts as a battery and some of it is converted to chemical energy. To verify that is what is happening, the array would be weighed dry before, and after running for a long time, drained and weighed again. The solution would be analyzed before and after, to see if some of the metal had been oxidized into the solution. 209.214.19.217 20:44, 22 July 2006 (UTC)David Nix

Interesting... — Omegatron 22:03, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

If this was the case, the fuel used in the system would be the steel, not the water. You would eventually have to replace the oxidised metal for the reation to continue. This would be fine, except that steel is so non-reactive, I seriously doubt any energy released by its oxidation makes up for the severe deficit in the water-to-hydrogen-to-water-again convertion. Also, we have to work in cost efficiancy for this to be worthwhile: steel is much more expensive, pound for pound, than gas. For it to be able to replace gas as a fuel, a pound of steel would have to produce much, much more energy (cleanly and efficiantly) than a pound of gas to make up for its higher price. This is all moot, however, since steel, and in particular stainless steel, is so inert that it is highly unlikely that any useful amount of energy could be created from it. You're basically saying the car runs on rusting metal. 65.169.36.168 19:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes. That is what he's saying. It would explainhow some people can claim to be drawing net energy when it's physically impossible to be drawing it from the water. Maybe they're mistaking one effect for another. — Omegatron 19:37, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Have you guys heared of Daniel Dingel?

This asian named Daniel Dingel claims he invented a water engine. http://www.fuelcellsworks.com/Supppage1247.html http://www.wasserauto.de/html/inquirer_article.html What do you guys think?

You guys don't seem to know a whole lot about this.

Latest comment: 17 years ago6 comments5 people in discussion

The water fuel cell has been attempted (with alleged success) by many people, not just this Stan Meyer fellow. The Joe Cell is an adequate example, though not if you have an EFI engine or value your car electronics. A small company called Magdrive seems to have achieved much more stable results, and their product is currently available for retail purchase (along with installation instructions that supposedly don't even void your car's engine warranty). The man who runs Magdrive actually has a car that runs on it and passed his state's safety and emissions inspection. Then there's Daniel Dingel who sold his technology to the Honda corporation. Your silly elementary-school knowledge of the laws of thermodynamics is a severe disservice to this allegedly NPOV project. There is an energy imput, as there is with any fuel system. The difference, however, lies in the fact that it takes more energy to burn gasoline than it does to split hydrogen from oxygen. Search your library or the internet for a simple child's experiment that does this. I'm sure you can find one that probably uses a 9-volt battery. Also, I believe a place called Byron New Energy is promoting a similar product, as well as open blueprints to anyone who wants to try. There should definitely be a lot more information on this topic before it can be considered even close to complete. Even if you don't agree with the results, there should at least be mention of this multitude of experiments, particularly those purchase by major companies and currently undergoing NASA observations. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.244.185.213 (talk • contribs) .

I agree that we should cover the other people who perpetuate this hoax, like Byron and Dingel. We can't let the others get away with ripping off gullible people like Stanley did. ;-) — Omegatron 12:11, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I'll bite. It takes energy to burn gasoline? Femto 12:16, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Activation energy, aka Spark. C-H bonds are like a spring loaded toy gun, and the activation energy is like pulling the trigger to release the spring.

Actually that's wrong. Chemical bond energy is energy needed to break a bond, it is not energy stored in a bond. When you burn fuel, you end up with products that have greater bond energy and the difference is the energy released by the reaction overall. Man with two legs 11:14, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

But the energy required to break a particular bond is never, ever, less than the energy you get back when you re-make that exact same bond. Since this device starts off with water, splits it up in some way then recombines the products to make water again, that's exactly what's happening here. If it were possible then free energy machines would be easy to make, perpetual motion machines would be easy to design and the first law of thermodynamics would be completely debunked. SteveBaker 16:07, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Also (first post ever, so forgive me if this is in the wrong spot), but i have a general criticism of the consistant use of "the laws of thermodynamics" as some pseudo-religious dogmatic debate stopper. such as "so and so is wrong because it violates the first law..." The universe has no King to decree how the universe will operate forever, always, everywhere; however people seem to treat "the laws" as such, "the king has declared and you shall obey, even if obedience is contrary to reality." (For the Theists, even if the universe did have a king offering divine decree, the king could change the "laws" to fulfill the king's wish as circumstance required.) Especially with concepts like "dark energy" and "dark matter" running around, necessary to fill the gaps left by the "laws."

The concept that the laws are eternally inviolable is dogma. The reality is, that in the limited sphere of our understanding, by our "single location" in the universe (generally on or near earth, including its motion), and the limitations of our physical senses and current technology, the laws have yet to be shown violated. generally the laws were derived from empiricism, and even failure to violate the laws should be applauded, though, of course, fraud should not. In fact, there seems to be much angst directed toward those that have brought into question those laws. that is the behavior of dogmatists reminiscent of the declarations of the infallibility of the clerics' particular deities. Even "the laws" are disprovable, and must be disprovable to remain consistent with "science", even if they have not been disproved...yet

As to this particular technology, I am not convinced of it efficacy, however, i don't support that it is or would function like a perpetual motion machine. Nor am I dissuaded simply because it "violates the law." --Fumbling around 05:38, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

You are correct in saying that it might be that some strange effect proves that the laws of thermodynamics are incorrect. However, this would be a totally earth-shaking thing. It would mean that pretty much all of science as we understand it now was wrong. A single example of a machine that broke any of the laws of thermodynamics would be more surprising to science than (say) a time machine or something that travelled faster than light. It would be more surprising by far than proof that UFO's are really little green aliens. The laws of thermodynamics have never been shown to have been violated in any experiment ever performed or any machine ever built. What are the odds that someone tinkering around with a very mundane and easily understood electrical circuit driving an electrolysis tank would happen to stumble on such a thing? A good rule to live by is that "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". The invention of a working engine that used water as its only fuel is just about the most unbelievable thing science could imagine. It's MUCH less likely than a working time machine or something that turns lead into gold. So proof of it's existance has to be unbelievably solid before any respectable scientist is going to bother giving this thing any consideration whatever. As described, it is a perpetual motion machine. If water is the only fuel - and what happens is that water is split up and then recombined - then the what comes out of the tailpipe is pure water that can be put straight back into the fuel tank. So you use it to build a totally enclosed system that produces energy out of nowhere forever (or at least until the machine wears out). That is exactly the definition of a perpetual motion machine "of the first kind". These machines - if they appear to run as described at all - end up running down a battery somewhere - or emptying a tank of hydrogen gas stored someplace within the machine at the outset. They are without exception completely bogus - and generally built with criminal intent to defraud investors.

"in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!" -- Homer Simpson. SteveBaker 15:01, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Cold fusion has been shown to violate the laws of thermodynamics..... after the hype and the shunning of conventional science, the united states has decided to reevaluate cold fusion. Appears that over 90 goverment and private labortories world wide have found the same excess heat generated in the original experiment including the United States Navel Laboratories. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Myronmhouse (talk • contribs)

Re: This edit

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Huh? Are you trying to say it's unknown whether its efficiency is worse than conventional electrolysis until properly measured (which is trivial), or that overunity isn't perpetual motion but only a form of good efficiency (which is rubbish)? Femto 12:12, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

No Legal Threats

Latest comment: 18 years ago5 comments5 people in discussion

Representatives on behalf of the company have sent a cease and desist letter to the Wikimedia Foundation office after unsuccessful attempts by its lawyer Kent Forbes to change the content of the article. Please do not comment on legal threats either in the article or talk space. Thanks.--Brad Patrick 16:53, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

"The company"? — Omegatron 17:15, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

May we know from what precise activity we are ceasing and desisting? Man with two legs 19:02, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Another user (not Brad Patrick) has cleared this up for me. The key points for our purposes seem to be:

BP is dealing with this specific matter and everyone else should leave him to it,
We shouldn't read anything much into the rather confusing message he left (I am working to avoid a repetition of such incidents in the future).
Anyone curious to learn more about general issues of this kind should contact some legally enlightened user by means other than WP.

Hope that's clear. Enough. ---CH 09:21, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

If this Kent Forbes lawyer of some unknown company wants the content of the article changed, let him get an account and make edits. I suspect "unsuccessful" in this case means that he failed to get off his ass and make some actual contribution to the article. And he certainly can't prevent public discourse about any legal issue unless the participants in the discussion are themselves somehow involved in a lawsuit. -Amatulic 21:13, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

This page is perfect

Latest comment: 17 years ago11 comments4 people in discussion

Specifically considering the new additions to the second paragraph, this page is clear and accurate. The Stan Meyers cell is a clear violator of the first law of thermodynamics. Contrary to popular belief this is a good thing.

Here the simple facts: 1) Violates the 1'st law of thermodynamics 2) consistent with the 2'nd law of thermodynamics 3) A perpetual motion machine 4) Entropically driven, not thermodynamically driven

These are basis people, so please disregard all other theories you may have. This is the science, and the second paragraph of the article now is consistent with physical law. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.193.218.207 (talk • contribs).

It's rather bold to insert a paragraph of complete bollocks and then praise yourself for writing the perfect page. Consistent with physical law? The breakdown of water requires energy and is not an entropic reaction. Neither is the reaction irreversible, that's the whole point of this exercise, isn't it. Femto 11:27, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Why is it not, because your little prick says so? Read the definition of an entropic reaction, and read the definition of the second law of thermodynamics. While your at it, read the definition of an irreversible reacton. Yes the breakdown of water requires energy, but the subsequent reaction is entropic. While your at it read the definition of "voltage breakdown".—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.193.218.207 (talk) 16:58, 24 December 2006 (UTC).

Sure, let's decide this by whose prick is bigger! I know it's only your jealousy speaking, so I don't take offense. Anyway, you will familiarize yourself with Wikipedia:No personal attacks and stop abusing maintenance tags.

Well, let's suppose a physicist explained it to me, as you suggested in your edit summaries. He'd say those definitions describe a scientific model in which every last bit of entropy change is accounted for, a model consistent within itself and with the real world as proven by countless experiments.

Whatever you're trying to say here, those definitions which you cite don't support your point, plain and simple. So, the breakdown of water is endothermic but that's irrelevant because if we only ignore that energy there's a magical overunity entropy reaction that invalidates Hess's law which follows from the first law that says exactly the opposite but if we only ignore that too that's fine with the second, and ...Hunh? Femto 13:04, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Lets compare to a well known other entropic reaction. A nuclear explosion (gun style. The energy input into the system is the explosive technology used to shoot one uranium piece into the other. The only energy into the system is the explosive material, whereas the energy out is much more as a result of the subsequently following entropic reaction. This reaction is especially irreversible. I am in no way suggesting that the water fuel cell is nuclear; not in any way, I am just using this as a analogy of energy in versus energy out in entropic reactions. 24.193.218.207 01:03, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

The difference between real physics and the fuel cell is that 'energy in' versus 'energy out' doesn't add up for the latter. This cannot be explained by any type of reactions inbetween. Femto 11:23, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

A terrible analogy, but it leads to a clearer explanation - in a nuclear reaction, you have to conserve mass-energy, not energy alone. The energy output in your nuclear blast exceeds the energy input, but the mass-energy out equals the mass-energy input - there is a mass defect in the output materials that, by good old e=mc^2, balances the apparent energy gain. However, if the water fuel cell were to successfully operate the way it is claimed to, it would violate conservation of mass-energy. The input is water, the exhaust is the same mass of water - mass is conserved, therefore energy must also be conserved - this means that any net energy output is physically impossible. Apparently a nuclear explosion or reaction appears to be an over-unity or perpetual motion device to you because you can measure a net energy output when you disregard mass, *but the mass defect constitutes an energy input that exactly balances this*. Considering mass as energy, which Einstein showed it effectively is, your nuclear reaction is not an example of a system with net energy output. You don't even need to drag entropy into the matter, but it is clear you have not fully understood it - an entropic, or irreversible, reaction is not synonymous with an energy output exceeding the energy input. Reversibility is the domain of the second law of thermodynamics; whereas overunity is covered (and, indeed, defined as impossible) by the first.--81.179.135.73 22:11, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

What I am suggesting is that the energy input into the water fuel cell is the energy required to charge a capacitor to voltage breakdown magnitude. At this voltage the resistance of the water drops according to voltage breakdown theory, and the voltage across the capacitor induced current flow through the water according to ohms law. This is an irreversible reaction because there is no such things as inverse-voltage breakdown, hence the reaction is entropic. 24.193.218.207 01:03, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Voltage breakdown means that just enough free charge carriers are created so that the electric potential difference can neutralize (as in, the flow of charge ceases). That's different from electrolysis. A water molecule doesn't just fall apart. It has to be forced, by expending energy on it, and this amount is fixed. New bonds of higher energy (as in creating stable diatomic gases) only form if you add the difference. What you claim is that you can make something keep rolling up the hill by giving it a slight kick. There is no activation energy for the electrolysis of water since it is an endergonic reaction as a whole. Femto 11:23, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

No one ever said that the water fuel cell is an electrolysis cell. It uses pure distilled water as a dielectric material. Also, voltage breakdown cannot be achieve in conductive water, voltage breakdown only occurs in insulators.

Take a look at the following journal article in the Physics Review Online. It deals with the voltage breakdown of water, and related Electric field intesity to temporal pulse width. Also, it seems that the Electric field intensity, required to induce voltage breakdown, is inversely proportional the the area of the capacitor.

http://prola.aps.org/searchabstract/PRSTAB/v9/i7/e070401?qid=6c2b69a56089f36a&qseq=1&show=25

Lets look at some physics equations. At the point of voltage breakdown the resistance of water, across the points of newly generated free charge, drops very low according to voltage breakdown theory. Across these two points, the voltage stored in the capacitor reacts with the water in accordance with ohms law inducing a current flow!!!. Ohms Law, Ohms Law, Ohms Law. If you have 200,000 volts stored in the capacitor and the resistance of water, which is usually extremely high, drops to 100 Ohms, all of a sudden there is 2000 amps of current flowing between the plates in the newly generated free charge. The total energy into the system is the amount required to charge the capacitor to voltage breakdown threshold, which is strictly in accorance with traditional physical law. The charging of a capacitor is as follows. First calcular the capacitance, C = epsilon * area/distance between the plates. The enrgy required to charge a capacitor to 200,000 volts is as follows: E = 1/2 C * V^2. Lets say when voltage breakdown occurs the resistance between two points drops to 100 ohms, the current flow will be 2000 amps given 200,000 volts across the capacitor. The total power delivered to the water is 4,000,000 watts, which is 4,000 kW. Lets say the capcitor is 100 micro farradays; the energy required to charge the capacitor is 1/2 (100*10^-6) * 200,000^2 = 2,000,000 joules, which is 2,000 kilojoules; to make power and energy relatable lets say that the power delivered to the capacitor is done in 1 second therefore the energy applied is 2,000/1 = 2,000 kilowatts. It seems to be the case that the power required to charge the capcitor in 1 second, is 1/2 the power delivered to the "newly charged water particles" resulting from breakdown. Lets get these equations checked out by the physics department of wikipedia! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 147.4.94.72 (talk • contribs).

Yes, a capacitor stores energy in form of an electric field, and when you hit the dielectric strength limit some energy from this field is transferred into potential and kinetic energy of electrons. Traditional physical law, that's nice. After this, your conclusions are getting strange.

Current and power are not conservative quantities. The time over which the energy flow is applied is completely arbitrary. Redo your equations with energy instead of power and you'll see what's wrong. Femto 19:02, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, lets see, the energy to charge a capacitor to a particular voltage is E = 1/2 C * V^2. The energy delivered to the water, at the point of voltage breakdown, is Voltage * Current * Time. Obviously the energy equation to charge the capapcitor is correct, is the energy delivered to the water calculation incorrect?

I check my equations and corrected some errors, and orders of magnitude. Same results, please re-read the equations. The 100 microfarraday capacitor will be charged to 200,000 volts, by storing 2,000 kJ over 1 second. In turn, the 200,000 volts reduces a path in the water, temporarily, to 100 ohms by means of voltage breakdown. The current flow through this path will be 2,000 amps, therefore the power delivered to the water will be 4,000 kW. The power is applied over the period of 1 second, therefore the total energy delivered by the 4,000 kW is 4,000 kJ. The reason the power is delivered over 1 second, is because the time it took the capacitor to charge is 1 second, given the way frequency signals behave, 1/2 the time is spent charging then the other half discharing, therefore the capacitor charges for 1 second, the discharges for the next second.

The relation between power and energy is simply time. Power delivered over a period of time is energy, therefore power is directly proportional to energy. My equations are right on, unless I used a wrong equation, and if so please show the exact correction that should be made.

Simply show me where the equations are wrong, and I will shut up. I wont say another word what so ever. I will leave this page in peace.

Here are a few of the errors in your analysis:

Where did you get the values R=100 $\Omega$ , discharge time $\tau =1$ second? Is water an ohmic conductor ?
The calculation of energy stored in capacitor is correct. However energy released through discharge should be calculated by the integral $\int _{0}^{\tau }V(t)I(t)dt\neq V(0)I(0)\tau$ since the voltage across the capacitor plates changes as it discharges.
Also check whether your analysis conserves charge: Charge stored by capacitor Q = C*V = 20 Coulombs. Charge "released" on discharge (following your incorrect analysis) = $I\;\tau$ = 2000 Coulombs !

So if what you said was indeed true, you have just shown that both the laws of conservation of energy and conservation of charge are violated simply by discharging a capacitor through water. This would be worthy of at least two Nobel Prize in Physics.
A few wikipedia related issues:

This (article or talk page) is not a place for original research and wikipedia is NOT a soapbox. Please get your analysis published in a peer-reviewed, reputable scientific journal (consider APS or IEEE journals for this topic) and then we would be happy to cite you.
If instead you have questions regarding the subject post them on Reference Desk
Please sign your posts by appending four tildas an the end of your messages on Talk pages.

Abecedare 05:52, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

The energy into the capacitor, and the energy released into the water is only part of the reaction. The rest is governed by the Gibbs equation, given a constant temperature, and an endothermic parameter to balance the increasingly enthalpy from the consumption of the energy in the capacitor. The result is all of the energy in the capacitor goes directly into increasing entropy, and zero is wated on increasing enthalpy. Now I've said my peace. Good luck tolerating the other people that don't actually use equations, I can feel your pain with regard to them. Also, good luck dealing with vandals. 24.193.218.207 07:19, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Potential Problems of the concept

First problem (which, in an environmental point of view, still is in all ways better that the traditional gasoline) is that it's releasing water vapor. The problem lies in the fact that instead of smog, the large cities will now be overwelmed by this water vapor and plugde in constant raining state. To that problem is a very easy and useful solution, and it's called: condensation. Instead of letting the water go out an exaust pipe, the water vapor could run, like in a still, in series of pipes to turn back the vapor to liquid water, and return it to the water tank, to be used again and again.

The second problem is, according to me, the largest problem this kind of engine have to face: water freezes. In colder parts of the world, we'd have to find to way, either by adding to the water some kind of anti-freeze that wouldn't ruin the electolysis process or find a way to heat/insulate the water tank without emptying the car's batteries.

Of course.. those are based on personnal observations... as I said throughout this short text.

I feel like I'm Dealing with Idiots

Latest comment: 17 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion

Electrolysis requires electrolyte (salt), as per the wikipedia page electrolysis. Read the 1'st and 2'nd laws of electrolysis. The water fuel cell uses distilled water, which is pure water without any electrolyte. It must be explicity stated that the water fuel cell is not an electrolyzer specifically because of this. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.193.218.207 (talk) 21:46, 29 December 2006 (UTC).

The feeling is mutual, anonymous coward. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sfacets (talk • contribs) 13:18, 31 December 2006 (UTC).

I don't see your sources that says that you need pure water. In fact, I don't see your sources that says that Water fuel cell uses electronlysis (perhaps WP:OR). Youtube, the 2nd and 3rd reference in the article, has a video where you can use any type of water. If we state that "the water fuel cell is not an electrolyzer specifically because of this," with what you have just said that would be a violation of WP:OR. Please use more sources and verifiable sources. In fact, we only have 2 official references for this article. Finally please be civil --CyclePat 01:39, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
- Like youtube is a more exact source... BTW I've seen that exact video on youtube too because water car is a subject that interests me a lot, and that video WASNT about eletrolysis of water.. YES they used any normal sea water but put inside some kind of metal alloy that reacts with the salt and split the water in HHO (a gaz)... you have to put more and more metal for the process to continue... THIS IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FROM WATER ELECTROLYSIS, which IS a process where you need PURE DISTILLED WATER and an electrolyte which is a chemical that ease the electrolysis process (make it use less electricity for more HHO released)... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yvanddivans (talk • contribs) 2007-01-03 05:03:13

Stop. You are perpetuating stereotypes. There is no relation what so ever between the water fuel cell and HHO, Brown's Gas, Rhodes Gas, or Oxy-Hydrogen. The Water fuel cell uses distilled water, whereas the other gases are produced via electrolysis, and require electrolyte. Simply stop and don't make comments. I understand that people may have the urge to support the water fuel cell, but do not do so unless you have a scientific argument. If you make an opinionated statement it makes the technology continue to look bad. There are people working really hard to squash stereotypes and create thermodynamically sound theories, so please do not impeed this progress by giving the un-scintifically educated the amunition they need to attack the water fuel cell.24.193.218.207 03:54, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

The water fuel cell releases a type of Oxy-Hydrogen, plain and simple. The previous comment introduces HHO, and this causes unjustifiable ambiguity. 24.193.218.207 04:30, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

A Situation is as Follows

Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Femto's, Megatron, and other additions to this article are in violation of WP:CITE, WP:NPOV, and are potentially in conflict of interest. Their additions are obviously opinions, because without citation, statements can only be opinion. I would like to offically protest the information on this page as lacking WP:CITE, WP:V, WP:PR, and a variety of other infractions. I move that this article be suggested for WP:RFO because of the latter Wikipedia Policy infractions. This is a serious situation that this article is grossly perpetuating stereotypes that are based on information from un-scientific sources (ie. YouTube). The single other source is of a paraphrase from a news article, and is not the actual news article itself. News articles are not verifiable sources. There is not a single WP:V in this article, there are no Scienfic Journal Articles mentioned to support the violation of the 1'st law of thermodynamics. Wikipedia is not a place for opinions, it is a place for third party references. Unless scientific journal articles are cited in the references section, this article must be posted for WP:CSD.

This is a scientific/physics/engineering article that mentions no scienfic sources. This article is a discrade to Wikipedia Policies and its allowance to remain in its current state, without proper citation according to WP:CITE, should not be tolerated.

24.193.218.207 15:52, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I second that proposition. I am no expert on the subject. I am actually the editor that found that information on Youtube. To date, assided from the aleged patents (which I haven't checked), it is the best used reference in the article. All we need to do is add sources. Note however that News article can be used but we should have some more reliable sources. Could someone please add some more sources. I like to believe in including information in wikipedia but if it is not well cited it should be removed (as per wiki procedures and rules). For example, presently I have no clue of what the device really is? I know that there are other water fuel cells that exist for "home" power units in the basement. (I forget the source). I know that we are concentrating on a car, which doesn't appear to have a properly cited fact for the issue of thermal dynamics. Personally, I see what may be many assumptions, opinions, original research or maybe facts (which aren't cited). Conclusion: the problem here is citations. I don't major reasons to bring this further. Any information that is not properly cited should be removed. Nevertheless, let us not be to harsh on the implementation. Any information that is removed should be dully discussed and placed on this discusion. --CyclePat 22:56, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Death

Latest comment: 17 years ago14 comments7 people in discussion

I see no evidence that Stanley Meyer was poisoned, other than somebody else's claim that he ran out of a restraunt supposedly claiming to be poisoned, then collapsed and died. Apparently the only thing we know is that he had had a sudden death after eating. Common enough. Without autopsy, or some reference to same, this is not even poor evidence. It is no evidence. S B H arris 08:51, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

See the sections; 'Questions?' above. I don't see any evidence either. How do you obtain the answers to these questions I am asking?

By the way, sudden death after eating still has to be caused by something like a heart attack or choking, why we do not know exactally what the inventor of the water fuel cell died of is a mystery to me. It perpetuates the theory that one or more oil companies murdered him, because it makes sense that there'd be a shroud of mystery over his death to confuse and eliminate fact. Let's assume for a moment that he was killed by one or more oil companies, or a government agency acting on behalf of national interest/oilcompany interest or the like... They're not going to shoot him in broad daylight in front of 1,000 people, they're going to do it with as little fuss as possible, and a sudden death after eating sounds like a nice little way to wrap up the water fuel cell to me. Ask questions people!! What did he actually die of?? If he was murdered, who killed him?? See my questions above. Nick carson 14:07, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Here are threads about the autopsy. The autopsy report says he died of an aneurysm:

http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg14099.html

http://waterfuelcell.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=110

Of course this can't possibly be true because he was going to save the world with his water fuel cell before government officials poisoned him so the coroner must have been bribed or unprofessional because blah blah blah...

The autopsy report is apparently publicly accessible. Someone who really cares about this should write the Franklin County coroner and request a copy and post it on their website so everyone can see the document itself and we have something to reference besides hearsay. — Omegatron 18:06, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

That would be great, and perhaps suffient for me and you, but it still would not constitute a reliable source for wikipedia! It is easy enough for me to produce a pdf document showing that the coroner's verdict was that Meyer died at the hands of aliens. So what would be required is for someone to get the coroner's report and then get it published at a respected media, such as a mainstream newspaper. Barring such herculean efforts, we need to delete the discussion about his death without prejudice to either side.

Even the claim of "widespread rumour" is unsubstantiated - is there a reliable source which says that there is such a rumour, or is the claim based on a google search ? Many unreliable sources do not aggregate to a single reliable source ! Abecedare 18:45, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

No - citing the Coroner's report would be perfectly acceptable. Anyone who disbelieved our 'PDF' or whatever would be able to go to the Coroner's office and ask to see the original document. It's perfectly acceptable. If that were not the case then no book or journal article would be acceptable. The criteria is that someone else has to be able to independently verify the primary source. Now, if all there was was that PDF and the original had somehow been lost or destroyed - then the validity of our citation of that source might just maybe be called into question (probably not though). SteveBaker 23:17, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the links, I've been reading them for many hours. There is not enough evidence for anyone to come to any definative conclusions surrounding his death, for the time being it is equally possible that he either died of a brain aneurysm or was poisoned, or anything else for that matter. There is no sufficient evidence as to his cause of death, it will remain unknown until we can get the true explaination, it sounds so corny but yes, the truth.

His brother was with him when he died, he told his brother that he thought he had been poisoned. I propose that this would be because he was a very shy person, he was very careful at what information he released into the public domain, to protect his aparent invention from being discovered by others for whatever reason. For him to believe he had been poisoned as he died, he must have truly believed that what he had discovered was of great enough importance to warrant a threat to his own life. All of us could be suspects because if tomorrow we stopped buying petrol for our cars, the world's economy would fall instantly, job losses, unemployment, think about what happened in the american depressions of the 1920's/30's and the 1980', people committed suicide.

I honestly have lost imediate interest in his death, because he is dead, so where do you go from there? The massive majority of focus must be placed on his inventions themselves, they were obviously very important to him and he was able to obtain dozens of patents for them, so there must be truth in his inventions working. People continue to build these water fuel cells and run their cars off of them today, something must be working, or at the very least, he was onto something.

We just can't draw conclusions on this topic and article because it's impossible to do so. We have to search for truth within it, find out what the reality of the situation is. Nick carson 14:23, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

The idea that if we stopped buying car fuel then the economy would collapse is nonsense. Free energy would be a boon, and oil companies would have booming markets for lubricating oils and other petrochemicals. Man with two legs 15:42, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

How did you come to that conclusion? The oil industry is the largest industry in the world, followed by the transportation industry. Oil & petrochemical companies record the highest profits in the world. If we didn't need oil anymore, and could run internal combustion engines off water, a massive chunk of that industry would suffer. Think about the economic impact. For there to be little or no economic impact these companies would have to start evolving & adapting like BP has begun to. 124.191.233.161 04:59, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Of course we would still need oil - it's a major feed-stock for all sorts of chemical industries, plastics, lubricants - whatever. Plus it would take decades for water fuelled vehicles to be in everyone's driveway. The car industry is every bit of an important lobby as the oil industry - more so in fact because we're importing so much of our oil. But even if the US economy would be in big trouble - why wouldn't the Japanese be making water fuelled cars? They have no compunction about selling hybrids - which halve the amount of fuel the car needs. Truly the idea that there is some giant conspiracy is lunacy. If a company had the power to supress this why wouldn't all of the people running these conspiracy web sites be getting squashed? Why would this Wikipedia page still exist? How come the Meyers car ever made it onto Fox News? Nah - if they were really that able to supress stuff, we'd know nothing whatever about it. But even then - some other country with no oil interests and a thriving car industry (Japan comes to mind - but there are others) would be all over this. SteveBaker 23:17, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

As for cars running on these things, if one really works, all the owner has to do is take it to the nearest university and claim his or her Nobel Prize. Man with two legs 15:42, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Thats being a bit silly. The stuff thats being done at the moment is backyard, garage, shed type stuff, home made. Most don;t work, but a few people get it right, the technology has to be refined and perfected before it can properly be adapted to internal combustion engines, let alone warrant prizes. 124.191.233.161 04:59, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

If it really worked, it would be worth a Nobel Prize. It would not need to look nice or commercial. Just to demonstrate the car really worked would be enough to overturn known science and win the prize. Man with two legs 10:23, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

If you had even a half-assed proof that the First Law of Thermodynamics was incorrect, you wouldn't even have to put your fuel cell into a car...the detailed engineering and perfecting would be done by the car manufacturers anyway. Proof that you can extract energy from tapwater alone - even just a thousandth of a percent more energy than you put in to do it - would rock the scientific community. If you could achieve even that - the Nobel Prize would be as nothing compared to the licensing fees you could charge on the technology to practically every big business on the planey. No - perfecting stuff isn't the reason people aren't going public. It's a straight up scam to try to get money out of venture capitalists. SteveBaker 23:17, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

And anyone intending to buy one of those free-energy/water-fuel-cell powered cars, should know that Brooklyn Bridge is up for sale too. Lovely views, though can be smelly sometimes :-) Abecedare 16:00, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

A Major Blunder

Latest comment: 17 years ago25 comments8 people in discussion

A major scemantical blunder has been made by User:Femto. He specifically states that "In concept, the function of the fuel cell violates the first law of thermodynamics". It is impossible for a technology to violate the first law of thermodynamics, therefore it cannot be stated that something violates the first law of thermodynamics; Any mainstream scientist that reads such a statement will immediately notice the scemantical error. The statement should read, "In concept, the function of the fuel cell appears to be in conflict with the first law of thermodynamics".

In addition, it cannot be directly stated that a system violates, or is in contradition with the first law of thermodynamics because that entails that a thermodynamic analysis exists to prove the claim. No such thermodynamic analysis exists, therefore the statement is purely conjecture based on opinions. The statement specifically lacks WP:V, and WP:PR, therefore the statement must have the proper "tone" in accordance with something that is not certain. For something to be certain it must have WP:CITE to establish WP:V. By implying, by means of tone, that this statement is certain, the scientific crediblity of Wikipedia is in jeopardy, therefore to remedy this situation the latter schematical structure change should be immediately implemented.

Unless citations are added in a timely fashion, I strongly urder that this article be recommended for WP:CSD specifically in consideration of the following policy infractions: WP:CITE, and WP:V. This article especially lack WP:PR, or citations of WP:PR. If this article is not to be recommended for WP:CSD, all information that lacks specific citation, strictly in accordance with WP:CITE and WP:V, should be removed immediately. Discussion of such material is what the "discussion page is for", and by having such material within the actual article diminished the credibility of Wikipedia as a source of scientific information. To protect the image of Wikipedia as a source of WP:V, WP:CITE, and in general as a WP:PR source of 3'rd party information, all information not in compliance with said policy infractions should be immediately removed.

The following is my opinion: This article is a gross perpetuation of prevailing stereotypes. Individuals that claim violation of the first law are comitting a scemantical errror such as the one latter described. Individuals that attack this technology do not use citation, and do not provide thermodynamic analysis; they are mearly stating opinions. There is not one mainstream scientific source of information about this technology, therefore any conclusion, that is made, is unjustified. The justification of an opinion is done via verifiability by a third party source, and because there are no scientific third party sources, no opinions can be rationally made about this technology. For an opinion to be rational it must be justified, and unjustified opinions are therefore an inherent sign of irrationality. Science, being a rational practice, should only be dialogued rationally, without conjecture, without opinions, and most definitely without the biased tone. This article is a gross example of something that is unscientific, completely lacking justification, and blatently a piece of stereotypical perpetuation.

Typically I would not do such a personal statement, but this article has been strongly protected by the following administrators: User:Femto, and User:Omegatron. This needs to be said on behalf of the scientific community. This article is a stereotypical perpetuation specifically because it lacks WP:CITE, WP:V, WP:PR, and a host of other infractions. The bullshit attempts of User:Femto, and User:Omegatron to edit this article only highlight their lack of physical and thermodynamic understanding. They are the opitomy of individuals that perpetuate any stereotype that they hear. User:Femto specifically has commited the scematical error listed above, and User:Omegatron has not corrected the error. This article has no administration by scientifically proficient individuals, and even though this article may be appropriate for the "hoax category" it is still belongs in the "physics category" requiring oversign of persons having scientific aptitude. User:Femto, and User:omegatron have at least no thermodynamic aptitude, otherwise they would have caught their major scemantical blunder, and would have possibly prevented this very public rant.

24.193.218.207 04:10, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Any concept of a device that creates energy violates the laws of thermodynamics. Yes, obviously enough, there are no cites that any existing machine ever violated the first law. However the existence of Meyer's claim itself is verifiable and sourced. It is claimed that a net gain of usable energy

\Delta E\left(2\ {\mbox{H}}_{2}{\mbox{O}}\ {\underset {+E_{in}}{\rightarrow }}\ 2\ {\mbox{H}}_{2}+{\mbox{O}}_{2}\ {\underset {-E_{out}}{\rightarrow }}\ 2\ {\mbox{H}}_{2}{\mbox{O}}\right)

can be created with E_out > E_in. The analysis is trivial and unneeded, since even a layman can see that a fuel cell generator combination could create unlimited energy by running on its own exhaust. This is not a stereotype or an opinion, but common sense whose derivation from established scientific knowledge needs no citation specific to this device.

And yes, until someone comes up with reliable, reviewed, and established scientific evidence that this device actually does what it does the way it claims doing, this encyclopedia must treat it as conceptual, just like any other failed or unproven theory. On the contrary: given the complete lack of mainstream scientific sources (not to mention the dubious history as suspected fraud), the scientific credibility of Wikipedia is already in jeopardy when such devices were presented as being even possibly accurately described and real. Since for all we know the laws of thermodynamics cannot be violated in reality, until proven otherwise, anything that appears to be in conflict with those laws … must be wrong in concept.

A basic explanation is given of how the concept of a device that is presented in an article is in conflict with the existing physical laws as they are described in the rest of the encyclopedia. This is not bias or an attack on the technology by opinioned individuals, and perfectly in line with the policies and guidelines that you so generously cited. Femto 16:49, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I still recommend that this article be posted for WP:CSD. Nice change though, it makes the article, ever so slightly, more schemantically reasonable.24.193.218.207 19:46, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

User:Femto, your equation is wrong, and is not based on the research of Stanley Meyers. It is obviously based on your opinion. There is more to the equation as per the patent applications. There is a net ${+E_{k}}$ generated by the alignment of positively charge ions resulting from voltage breakdown. As you agree, at the point of voltage breakdown, free charge is created. This free charge is associated with the formation of positively charged ions, and these ions align in the presence of a negatively charged electric field. Typically ${+E_{k}}$ is small because the random motion of molecules cancel each other out, but upon ionization, and in the presence of an electric field, the alignment of the ions creates a path of extremely low entropy. An extremely low entropic state is associated with a large ${+E_{k}}$ . Now, specifically because this article lacks the latter described information, it is purely stereotypical. All this information can be deduced from the patent applications and investigating the research of Stan Meyers. $\Delta E\left(2\ {\mbox{H}}_{2}{\mbox{O}}\ {\underset {+E_{in}{+E_{k}}}{\rightarrow }}\ 2\ {\mbox{H}}_{2}+{\mbox{O}}_{2}\ {\underset {-E_{out}}{\rightarrow }}\ 2\ {\mbox{H}}_{2}{\mbox{O}}\right)$ . This article clearly lacks this information, and therefore is lacking the hard work and research doen by Stan Meyer. This article is not about the Water Fuel Cell, or Stan Meyer, it is about why the general public does not want the technology to work. The Very introduction, is why it dousnt work, rather than how is may potentially work. Based on the equations that I just illustrated, and the fact that they are from the work of Stanley Meyers, shows that this article is biased, and no substantial investigation has been conducted into the research of Stanley Meyers. This article should be posted for WP:CSD, unless an undepth investigation is done on the part of Wikipedia into the decades long research career of Stanley Meyers.24.193.218.207 20:03, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Great innovative analysis ! Even though it doesn't make an iota of sense to me, maybe that is just my scientific education's deficiency. So why don't you get it published in an IEEE or APS journal, and we will be happy to cite you ? Of course, this has been pointed out before and you promised to "leave this page in peace." Well, as Scarlett O' Hara said "Tomorrow is another day" :-)Abecedare 20:04, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

At least in my equation, unlike in yours, externally exchanged energy is not confounded with internal free energy. You can't add them like that. So, the reaction has the same component at both ends. Thus, any internal free energy that is inherent to this substance must be the same too. Thus, this energy cannot contribute to an external difference, as there is no change. Thus, no matter how hard you try explaining it away with your own befuddled pseudotheories about voltage breakdown and Gibbs free energy and entropically driven reactions, no usable energy can be released from water. Femto 12:30, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

24.193.218.207, tell me something: do you believe that a perpetual motion machine is possible? Man with two legs 20:34, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

The terminology "perpetual motion" is of no interest to me, what I care about is thermodynamic and physical theory. "Perpetual motion" is a term used stereotypically to discredit, and attack technologies. Based on the publics definition of perpetual motion, a nuclear reaction is one; it takes less energy to induce the reaction than is produced by the actual reaction (ie. a gun style bomb). The energy input into the system is the explosion required to shoot one piece of Uranimum into another; the quantity of explosive energy is obviously significantly less than the energy produced by the ensuing nuclear reaction.24.193.218.207 20:48, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I simply understand the theory, and in my mind it is completely conistent with the 1'st law of thermodynamics specifically in consideration of the equation posted above.24.193.218.207 20:56, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Good grief. This whole article and argument is embarrassing, but I suppose it should be allowed to stand so long as there's a very clear statement in the LEAD that it's a claim to a perpetual motion machine (of the first kind), and a source of "free energy." With the free meaning "for nothing", "out of nowhere," not the respectable Gibbs or Helmholz free energy of thermodynamics.

24.193.218.207, pay attention to what Femto and Man with two legs are saying. A perpetual motion machine of the first kind goes through a cycle which generates energy, and returns itself to its initial state, so that it's free to do it all over again, and the energy created, comes from nothing. Out of nowhere. So you can keep doing this forever, with the same water. It's not a conversion from rest-mass, as in the atom bomb (or even in some claims about cold fusion.

Again, the water fuel cell claims to make useable energy from NOTHING. Obviously, a nuclear bomb does no such thing (it burns plutonium or uranium or hydrogen in nuclear reactions). It takes as much energy to take apart a water molecule as you get back from making it, for the same basic reason that you get the same energy from lowering a box on a rope, as it take to hoist it back up again to to its initial position. These are conservative force-fields. Energy is conserved. S B H arris 21:08, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

You metion Gibbs. The kinetic energy cannot come from nowhere, therfore it comes from a portion of the waters enthalpy value. As the enthalpy of the water decreases, and given that the surrounding environment has a greater degree of enthalpy and tempature than the water, energy flows from the environment into the water to re-balance the system. The kinetic energy produced by the alignment of the positively charged ions is essentially replaced by enthalpy contained within the surrounding atmosphere.24.193.218.207 21:26, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Sigh. Now you're just postulating a perpetual motion machine of the second kind, one that takes free environmental heat (fancy term "enthalpy") and turns it into free energy, without any cost in entropy production, or need for a heat sink at at a lower temperature. Such machines can also be used to run forever, by simply sucking heat out of the environment, without need for a heat source or cold sink (ie, they don't run off a temperature difference-- they CREATE a temperature difference while they run). This would be nice for keeping the universe from running down. Also, with such a device you could make a nifty refrigerator that you could put in a room and cool things off, while charging a battery with the heat absorbed. No more need for refrigeration radiators: just suck up the the heat and put it in a can. LOL. S B H arris 22:22, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

As per your requestion that I listen to User:Femto and others, I'd rather theorize than simply perpetuate a lack of thermodynamic investigation on the part of mainstream scientists. The theory I stated is coherent, and can be tested with standardard thermodynamic equipment. 24.193.218.207 21:29, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

The theory you have stated is coherent, but violates well-known laws of physics. Sorry. It's easy to state coherant theories which are wrong, or describe processes which won't work. S B H arris 22:22, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Please continue theorizing; it would be great if you were onto something. But regardless of whether you're right, it doesn't belong in this article. Wikipedia is for the mainstream scientists' point of view. — Omegatron 21:47, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I recommend that 24.193.218.207 read and understand the policy Wikipedia:No original research. -Amatulic 21:52, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Orignional research, you all must be ignorant. This stuff is in the patents. Now be a good boy and go do some reading before you make an unsubstantial comment again. 24.193.218.207 21:57, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

The patent office will take just about anybody's money. That doesn't imply anything about the workability of the device. And as for a reputable source, the patent office's grant is right up there with a mention in your flying saucer tabloid. It doesn't meet the standards of WP:V if that's all you've got. S B H arris 22:22, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Interesting fact: The US Patent Office allocates an average of 15 minutes of one of their officer's time to each patent review. That's an average. Remember that some major new drug patent might take years to verify. In the vast majority of cases the patent officer doesn't even have enough time to read the entire patent and still leave enough time to fill out the necessary paperwork. As I said (below), back in the 1980's I had two patents that I filed on the same day and our corporate patent laywer accidentally switched the diagrams in the two patents. So Patent 'A' refers to diagrams one through tweleve but in fact contains only two diagrams - which have no bearing whatever on the thing it was patenting. Patent 'B' refers to diagrams one and two (which also make no sense in that context) - and has ten other diagrams that are never mentioned. Not only were both patents accepted in the USA - but also throughout Europe and in whatever other countries they were filed in. What's more, the US patent office had more staff and less patents to wade through in those days. Nowadays it's even more likely the mistake would have gone unnoticed. Nope - a patent is worth literally nothing until someone tries to challenge it and it's successfully defended in a court of law. (Incidentally - the only reason I filed mine was because the company I worked for offered a $1000 cash bonuse for patents that passed our internal inspections and went on to get world-wide coverage.) I know crackpot inventors just love to reel off their long lists of patents - but truly you can just ignore them until they are defended in the courts. SteveBaker 23:32, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

In addition to understanding the policy Wikipedia:No original research, 24.193.218.207 should also study Wikipedia:No personal attacks. Saying "You must all be ignorant" isn't constructive. -Amatulic 23:29, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

No it isn't, but it allows me to vent my frusteration with individuals that make conclusions based on prevailing stereotypes. Everyone should come to conclusions based on their own personal research, otherwise they should stay out of any debate that they are not sufficiently proficient in.24.193.218.207 00:39, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

For sure. And as long as you're promoting faith-based initiatives, please post your address, and I'll make sure nice young missionaries contact you. S B H arris 00:48, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Unless citations are added in a timely fashion, I strongly urge that this article be recommended for WP:CSD specifically in consideration of the following policy infractions: WP:CITE, and WP:V. This article especially lack WP:PR, or citations of WP:PR. If this article is not to be recommended for WP:CSD, all information that lacks specific citation, strictly in accordance with WP:CITE and WP:V, should be removed immediately. Discussion of such material is what the "discussion page is for", and by having such material within the actual article diminished the credibility of Wikipedia as a source of scientific information. To protect the image of Wikipedia as a source of WP:V, WP:CITE, and in general as a WP:PR source of 3'rd party information, all information not in compliance with said policy infractions should be immediately removed.24.193.218.207 20:51, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

The following line seems to be WP:OR " It would be an electroliser, as it is claimed to produce hydrogen from water and not the opposite."24.193.218.207 21:10, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

If the locations where I have added citation requirements are indeed cited, this article will have reasonably achieved compliance with WP:CITE.

I agree that it is correct to say it is a perpetual motion machine, and if properly cited that the Meyers interpretion would violate the 1'st law of thermodynamics, but the following sentence is WP:OR. "In other words, a car running on a water fuel cell could achieve perpetual motion simply by venting the exhaust pipe (containing water vapour) into the fuel tank (containing water). As a result, the cell and its actual operation have met with much skepticism from established scientists." This is a paraphrase and an encyclopedia is a place for third party references, which in the case of a paraphrase must either have a citation or is WP:OR from a first person source.

No longer does this sentence appear to be WP:OR, I have changed the sentence structure to refer to the claimed method of operation which is inherently cited in the patents. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.193.218.207 (talk) 21:33, 9 January 2007 (UTC).

Hoax

Latest comment: 17 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion

a hoax entails that he was intent on defrauding and making a product that did not work. His intentions were honorable, with no intent to defraud. He believed in his technology.

That's your own personal opinion. He was found guilty of intentionally defrauding investors. — Omegatron 22:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I dont think its my opinion, in the various videos of him he is confident, well versed, and certain about his technology. There is no hint what so ever of mal intentions. Yes He was found guilty of defrauding investors, but no where does it explicity say "intentionally". I have stated fraud many times in my ammendments, but fraud does not necessarily entail a hoax; I think a distinction should be made because of the bad intentions associated with the term hoax. He had no bad intentions and swiftly repayed collected funds in accordance with the court verdict. He was a cool light minded individual as his videos clearly show.24.193.218.207 01:08, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

The real problem with stating something is a hoax is that it entails Meyers intended it to be one. It would require a sort of confession as means of verification WP:V. A fraud does not require any extraordinary verification because it was done in a court of law. A court of law does not declare something a hoax, they specifically use the terminology "fraud".24.193.218.207 01:16, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I have decided to put it back in because it is a notion circulating throughout society. Please take notice of the tone used and let me know it this is satisfactory. We can debate this further why a greater degree of certainty should be applied.24.193.218.207 01:23, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Please excuse any protocol mistakes I make in the talk page (and feel free to correct them). While Stanley Meyer may have appeared confident, sincere, etc, that's only proof that he appeared confident, sincere, etc. While Meyer's intentions may have been something other than monetary gains (a topic of another debate), his conviction for fraud (doesn't that entail intentional?), and his repeated refusal/avoidance to be tested, are a fairly clear indication of his knowledge that the product did not work as specified. 67.87.223.102 15:51, 11 March 2007 (UTC)Shvetz

Also Note

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

A court of law is not equivalent to peer review for the same reason the patent office is not equivalent to peer review. They are both not scientific bodies comprised of peers intent on providing scientific analysis and feedback. To this date no scientific peer review has been published in a mainstream academic journal article just as the APS or the IEEE about Stanley Meyers technology.24.193.218.207 02:09, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

WP:POV, WP:OR, WP:V, WP:CITE violations

Latest comment: 17 years ago15 comments7 people in discussion

THIS IS A POLL: Please vote yes or no!

Yes means you believe the article does not meet wikipedia standards. (ie.: from lack of proper referencing).
No means you believe the article is good.

Please add one short sentence with an explanation. Do you believe that this article requires more sourcing?

(Rules in violation may include WP:POV, WP:OR, WP:V, WP:CITE, WP:PR)

Nomination and For, Yes: All the above rules, the WP:CITE is violated and we are missing reference from the first sentence (There's not even a bibliography). --CyclePat 03:12, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Nomination and For, Yes: I am the only person editing this article, and without the help of other people this article is relatively helpless. It is highly likely that it will not be able to meet WP:POV, WP:OR, WP:V, WP:CITE to a sufficient degree that it should be allowed to remain. I totally agree with User:CyclePat and it is about time that an administrator/user take a stand and create an opinion poll. Thank you CyclePat. 24.193.218.207 10:05, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I acutally put a new citation to an academic journal article and it was just areas by User:Femto, this article is bullshit, this article violates WP:POV, WP:OR, WP:V, WP:CITE. This article needs to be erased for these wikipedia policy infractions, and since there is zero people that actually contribute to this article, there seems to be no hope of this article attaining compliance with WP:POV, WP:OR, WP:V, WP:CITE.24.193.218.207 14:51, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment: I came to this article in a roundabout way (a ping on Omegatron's page). I have to say that I consider it to be of poor quality. Not NPOV, just poor quality. It reeks of design by committee and seems to be unable to clearly state any of it's points. For instance, does anyone here believe that the device actually works as advertised? No, no whether or not it was a fraud, but whether or not it even worked. The article doesn't really say. Oh it talks a whole lot about the court case and fraud allegations, but who cares about that? A reader will want to know whether or not the thing is "real", and the article utterly fails on that point.This article needs editing, not a review committee. Maury 13:04, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

The question of whether "anyone here believe that the device actually works as advertised" would be WP:OR. There are no verifiable claims that it did work (AFAIK), but we cannot prove that it didn't produce energy for a short period of time.

I'm sorry, but that simply isn't true. In fact, it suggests you have not understood what OR and NPOV imply.

It's important to understand what NPOV implies. You seem to be suggesting that it translates as "present everyone's views equally", which is what a basic reading would suggest. Yet this is not the case. "Neutral" does not imply "everything", it implies "balanced across the average". When the general opinion on a topic is extremely skewed in one direction, as it appears to be in this case, then the NPOV would be balanced around that opinion.

Let me demonstrate what I'm saying here. Above you make the statement that "we cannot prove that it didn't produce energy for a short period of time". Of course not. Nor can you prove that I don't have an alien from Alpha Centauri that lives under my bed. I do intend to try to make you smile with this example, but I'm perfectly serious: lack of evidence is not evidence of absence.

An article describing the little blue alien from Alpha Centauri should be written in NPOV, as all articles should. Such an article would be neutral by presenting two points of view; that I am an absolute loon, and that I'm simply a harmless crank. I would not be neutral to suggest that there really is a little blue alien from Alpha Centauri that lives under my bed. THAT is a statement of fact, and requires facts to back it up.

Lets return to the article at hand. The device, as described, clearly violates well tested laws of physics. Its also important to remember that "law of physics" is not like "common", "law" in this context means "never observed to have been broken". When someone claims otherwise, this is a statement of fact, and would require evidence to back it up. In this case, to counter a law one would need extreme forms of evidence.

There is no need to prove that the device does not work, as you note, because it does not work by default. It is absolutely a requirement to "prove" that the device does work, something that you appear to admit has not happened (and even is not possible?)

The neutral point of view thus hovers around the "does not work" end of the spectrum. Minor variations on the theme are certainly valid, for instance, the claim that it "does not work and is a hoax" would be a variation to the "more extreme" end, whereas "does not work but he really believed it did" would be "less extreme". Presenting both of those views represents the NPOV. If you have a complaint about the balance of those points, by all means, feel free to point it out.

However, if you think that the article violates NPOV because it doesn't equally present the POV that the device does work, then I have to say again that I believe you seriously misunderstand what NPOV means. Maury 16:32, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

What specific changes are you suggesting Maury so that the article reflects the scientific consensus on the topic, without turning into OR ? I think the main problem is that Stan Meyer's Water Fuel Cell is not notable enough (except as an Internet phenomenon), for respected scientists and media to even care to refute it, especially after a court pronounced it an "egregious fraud". (Of course, the last sentence is OR and cannpt be included in the article :-)) Abecedare 16:44, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Uhhh, what? Sorry, I'm a little baffled by these questions.

I believe the article does accurately represent the scientific consensus on the topic; it doesn't work. Stating this does not violate OR (even without references), no more so than stating that I don't really have an alien under my bed, that the sky is green, that 1 + 1 = 3, or any other "obviously false" statement. In this case "obviously false" translates roughly to "any normal person would likely assume this to be untrue", which is certainly the case for 1 + 1 = 3, and only slightly less so for this device.

The scientific view here is not so much that it doesn't work as that it and anything remotely like it fundamentally cannot ever work. This is important. These fraudsters often claim that their machine just needs a little tweaking and it'll do the job or that something inside the machine does some clever thing (typically involving the near magical properties of catalysts, magnets, gyroscopes and resonance - which most laymen don't understand). The position of science is basically that we know it doesn't work - we don't even need to see it or examine it's inner mechanisms - it is sufficient to note that the inventor claims that room-temperature water (and perhaps air) goes into the machine as its only input and that it is claimed that an equal amount of water (possibly even steam and generally at higher than room temperature) plus kinetic energy plus heat are it's outputs. Right there, we know that this violates any number of fundamental conservation and thermodynamics laws - no need to look under the hood. If by some amazing chance, one of our fundamental laws is incorrect - then the inventors need to produce a simple experiment that demonstrates this - describe in detail how it is done - and (this is crucial) invite others to reproduce their experiment in the lab using the same setup. They are at liberty to patent the thing beforehand in order to protect their intellectual property rights - the patent office no longer require a working prototype - so we don't buy the argument "I can't tell you about that part because I need to make money off of this thing". SteveBaker 14:35, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

If the statement is not false, then that requires CITE and REF in order to avoid being OR. The opposite simply is not true. It is OR to suggest 1 + 1 = 3. It is not OR to say that is not the case.

Further, I believe the article is also fairly NPOV in that it also seems to present the legal consensus on the topic; it doesn't work, and might be a fraud. (I personally refuse to use the term "fraud" unless the evidence is overwhelming). In this case there are plenty of references provided.

So my confusion is why you ask me what I think should be changed? I think I stated my position fairly clearly above; nothing has to be changed. I will repeat: the article does not present OR, is NPOV, and certainly doesn't need additional CITEs or REFs to meet what appears to be a misunderstanding of what these terms mean in the first place. Maury 17:00, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the article violates OR , NPOV, etc either. I was responding to your statement "It reeks of design by committee and seems to be unable to clearly state any of it's points.", in asking what you would suggest to make the language in the article even clearer. Abecedare 17:06, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh geez, sorry. The problem there is that the article was RVed while I was writing my comment, it was only the pre-RVed version I had a problem with. Aside from some editing that I believe would make the intro clearer, I think the article is OK as it is. Maury 17:09, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh I get it ! The "upheavals" in the article over the last couple of days caused confusion all around. It is on a more even keel now. As for the needed "editing that I believe would make the intro clearer" - go for it ! :-) Abecedare 17:15, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I came form requests and have just read the article (and talk) and made a few chops to the artcile itself. I think that the article is not PoV. It does suffer from reading a little poorly and needs some more structure. A good concerted proof-reading and editing would cure many of its problems. Shame about the conspiracy theorists who have no scientific education in this debate. It appears like the evoltion talk pages. Sad! Candy 18:23, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes - the article does not meet Wikipedia standards. There is an almost complete lack of acceptable references. For the 'pro-water-cell' arguments, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is a Wikipedia rule - since these claims have to overturn pretty much all of science as we know it - the evidence has to be gold plated and encrusted with diamonds. For the 'anti-water-cell' arguments, we are unlikely to find a peer reviewed article that directly debunks these things because they are so utterly impossible given our current understanding of the universe that no mainstream scientist would bother to write about them. You can't find references to say that the sky isn't purple or that elephants aren't made of cheese - but that lack of references doesn't allow you to claim that those things are true. What the anti-water-cell side of the debate needs is references to things like the laws of thermodynamics, the energy required to split a water molecule into hydrogen and oxygen, the energy you get back when you burn them, the efficiency of internal combustion engines and the efficiency of automotive-type alternators and generators. The latter kind of evidence should be easy to find. Once evidence (or lack thereof) is assembled, we can rewrite the article in the light of the statements we can or cannot back up with references. However, we have to be very careful in writing the anti-fuel-cell part because we are assembling a set of facts relating to the general nature of thermodynamics to explain the reason this technology cannot possibly work - but we mustn't stray into areas of POV because that would be a very bad thing. The pro-water-cell lobby (unless they have masses of peer reviewed gold-plated and diamond-encrusted references) are going to have to limit themselves to saying only what can be backed up with cold, hard facts. Such-and-such was patented. Such-and-such was shown to journalists who wrote this as a result. SteveBaker 14:17, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

What the hell do you mean, "Elephants are not made of cheese"??? Mr Baker, it is a well known fact Indian Elephants are Edam with smaller ears! Candy 23:19, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

It would explain the 'scared of mice' cliché… There is scientific evidence from a reliable academic journal which suggests that the moon is made of cheese. ^[6], an abstract: [7]. — Why not elephants too? Granted, so far there is little rock-hard (rather, pecorino-hard?) evidence, it's a young field of research and more funding is needed. But the other side has provided no sources at all that would disprove this theory. (See also [8], interesting read). Without reliable sources under WP:CITE and WP:V, implying that cheese-elephants cannot exist is unencyclopedic, WP:OR, and WP:POV. Femto 16:22, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

^ Schreiber, E. (1970-06-26). "Properties and Composition of Lunar Materials: Earth Analogies". Science. 168: 1579–1580. doi:10.1126/science.168.3939.1579. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

Finding Verifiable Information

Latest comment: 17 years ago20 comments5 people in discussion

Here is my attempt to find some verifiable information... just this quote took me about 1 hour to do properly:

"Researchers at the Pennsylvania State University modified their microbial fuel cell devised to operate on municipal waste water. The new cell is made with a plastic tube an inch-and-a-half long and an inch in diameter with carbon paper placed over its ends. One of the pieces of carbon paper forms the anode and the other, which contains a small amount of platinum, forms the cathode. A platinum wire completes the circuit. Air passes through the carbon paper to provide oxygen to react directly at the cathode, thus eliminating the need for bubbling air through the liquid at the cathode in the original two-chamber cell. With the modification, the cell is not only cheaper but also produces nearly six times more electricity."^[1]
The European Patent Office calls Stanley Meyers device a "WATER FUEL INJECTION SYSTEM"^[2]
This one talks about "Liquid fuel cell" ^[3]
A little of topic, because it appears to be related to PEM hydrogen fuel cells and cars is Ballard.^[4]
Interest article on PEM fuel cell that talk about the treatment of water transportation in MEA.^[5]

References

^ Logan, Bruce E. "Penn State Cuts Cost of Waste Water Fuel Cell 2004." Industrial Bioprocessing: a Monthly Intelligence Service July 2004: 2-3. Frost & Sulivan, United States, Abstract publish by Scopus. Elsevier B.V.,. University of Ottawa, Ottawa., Database Url/link via Proxy Accessed 10 Jan. 2007. Keyword: "Water Fuel Cell".
^ [1] "Water Fuel Injection System."] Esp@Cenet Document View. 22 Dec. 1992. European Patent Office. Accessed 10 Jan. 2007.
^ TSUKUI TSUTOMU; YASUKAWA SABURO; SHIMIZU TOSHIO; DOI RYOTA; YAMAGUCHI MOTOO; IWAASA SHUZOU, "Liquid fuel cell." Esp@Cenet Document View. 1986-05-21, European Patent Office. Accessed 10 Jan. 2007.
^ Ballard sells electric drive division; Calgary Herald. Calgary, Alta.: Dec 21, 2006. pg. D.4, republished by Proquest, Accessed 10 Jan. 2007
^ Meng, Hua. A three-dimensional PEM fuel cell model with consistent treatment of water transport in MEA. Journal of Power Sources, Volume 162, Issue 1 , 8 November 2006, Pages 426-435, Republished by ScienceDirect (Database), Accessed 10 Jan. 2007.

To bad it has nothing to do with the water fuel cell by Stanley Meyers. What you just quotes is a traditional "fuel cell".24.193.218.207 15:42, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Ahhh User:CyclePat finds a reasonable citation. #2 still remains irrelevant24.193.218.207 16:05, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

The water fuel cell, which this article is supposed to be about, it not a fuel cell.24.193.218.207 16:31, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Pat, what do you believe these references support? The terminology? Or the workings of the device itself? Maury 17:00, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

To answer you question quickly... The first one support the terminology, but is not related to what we currently have as information. The second one shows that perhaps the terminology is not correct (but it supports the concept and design from Stanley Meyers). Finally, my long answer:

You will notice that the first refence has in the title waste Water Fuel Cell, which appears to support the idea of this article and appears to be something that could be included. For reference #2, as we may have infered, I agree, (after numerous hours of research and not finding really anything on water fuel cells, except for the odd sentences that would finish like ... "extra is pure water. Fuel Cell technology..."), information on "Water fuel cell" is not verifiable. I believe when you says #2 still remains irrelavant... that you mean it is irrelevant to this article in the sense that it doesn't have the same title or doesn't appear to be the same subject. However I would like to point out that I believe it is relevant to this article but in a negative way. It only helps destroy the idea the "Water fuel cell" is a title that was made up. I could not find any books, any peer-reviewed documents, Scopus returned only 4 documents which are not really related accept for the #1 reference. However Scopus did have 85 patents indirectly related to water fuel cell with half of them Mr. Meyers. Proquest returns no specific related articles unless you do a general search and then you get every article about fuel cells. Conclusion: "evidence" of independantly peer-reviewed information is "Rare" or "non-existant." All we really have is the Patents of Stanley Meyer and that doesn't even appear to be properly cited. This brings to question notability WP:N. I'm no expert here, but if this subject is Notable enough for inclusion, shouldn't it at least be in one peer-reviewed book, magazine or scientific journal. Where are we getting all this information on "laws of thermal dynamics." Even though I agree with the idea of placing the laws of dynamic violation, (it appears to be proven in pricincipal), I don't seen this taken anywhere else but from our own Original conclusion. As per WP:OR we shouldn't have this information. Perhaps we should get together on our personal wiki an write an independant review, have it published and then include it here. Until then I believe there is a lot of Original research here that should be removed. In fact I am debating on wether the article is notable enough and wheter it should be deleted. (I just spent the last 4 hours with one of Canada's best University Database's and search libraries, and hardly no information!) Whatever we call this article it should be well referenced and I think, unfortunately, if it went up for AfD may be deleted. But then again it might not because it has some bibliographical reference and appears to have some references in the text (Where just missing some very important ones in the text)--CyclePat 17:27, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Great job Pat ! I completely agree with you that the "Water Fuel Cell" is non-notable as a piece of scientific research; as your search for peer reviewed literature - which I too tried a few days back - demonstrates. "Water Fuell Cell" as an "internet phenomenon" is borderline notable and perhaps deserving of an article on wikipedia.
However I don't agree with your OR analysis. For instance, if someone came along and claimed that Earth is cubic and there is a worldwide conspiracy (led by NASA of course) to keep the people ignorant of this fact - clearly Science/Nature/ etc are not going to waste pages to publish articles refuting this claim. However if we wrote a wikipedia article on the phenomenon, we would *have* to mention that the claim violates all known scientific evidence. That would not be OR! Similarly Meyers claim "Meyer claimed in court that his invention opened the way for a car which would "run on water", powered simply by a car battery. The car would even run perpetually without fuel since the energy needed to continue the "fracturing" was low enough for the engine's dynamo to recharge the car's battery." (made in court, presumably under oath) is clearly a violation of the Law of Conservation of Energy/ First Law of Thermodynamics. So in my opinion the article, as it stands, does not make any unwarranted claims or violate any wikipedia policies. Abecedare 17:49, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

You write: However I don't agree with your OR analysis. For instance, if someone came along and claimed that Earth is cubic and there is a worldwide conspiracy (led by NASA of course) to keep the people ignorant of this fact - clearly Science/Nature/ etc are not going to waste pages to publish articles refuting this claim. However if we wrote a wikipedia article on the phenomenon, we would *have* to mention that the claim violates all known scientific evidence. That would not be OR!

Here I have to note that you have effectively shot your own argument in the foot, with your own nonworking counter-example. For stating that a cubical (or a trigonal prismatic Earth, or a docdecahedral Earth or whatever) violates scientific evidence IS OR, unless you have a published CITE for it. Not merely a cite that the Earth is a sphereoid, but also a CITE which refutes Dr. Doofus' claims that the Earth is actually some other specific unexpected shape (like cubical) and that NASA has been producing fake round-Earth images for all these years, in much the same manner as they do for all those false moonwalks (I think the lab also did the Oswald backyard photos and fake Zapruder film). And you know what? If the claim is weird and outrageous anough, you won't find ANY published refutations, simply BECAUSE it's too weird and outrageous and self-evidently barking-mad. So, then, by strict application of WP rules, you are then stuck. Sorry. It's always easier to find CITES for people who've say they've been gang-probed by gray aliens, than it is to find material published in the International Journal of Gastroenterology that their butts have been examined by science, and are actually in fine shape. S B H arris 18:26, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Abecedare, let me try and explain in detail with references. WP:OR doesn't have the sort of exception you are talking about. In fact if the problem is because "Science/Nature/ etc. are not going to waste pages to publish article refuting claims", then surelly there is a problem. But we a jumping an important step. You have said that if there are no peer-reviews "we would *have* to mention that the claim violates all known scientific evidence." In fact, this is wrong and violates WP:OR. This is because acording to WP:OR "It introduces an analysis or synthesis of established facts, ideas, opinions, or arguments in a way that builds a particular case favored by the editor, without attributing that analysis or synthesis to a reputable source". Specifically, Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources, rules] states that "...Any interpretation of primary source material requires a secondary source." What you are talking about is a synthesis of ideas. For example, I believe this article does this because: If A (Meyers says that it runs on water (which I haven't found properly sourced)) and B (Meyers says that it can run for ideffinate periode of time) then A and B can be joined for C(violation of physics law). Just because 1 + 1 = 2 doesn't mean we can put it in this article. (of course this is such a common knowlege thing that it can!) However again this synthesis is a violation of wiki rules. Though you synthesis is logical it is not verifiable as per WP:V. We could get around part of this by saying, Proquest has no peer-reviewed journals, Such and such a database has no peer-review, but we can't go right out and do a synthesis like what you are suggesting. If you have a reference to the court trial, date, judge, or better yet the transcript that would be very interesting... and a reliable source! (The information within the trial may be questionable). You don't happen to have a link to the court trial or at least something that appears (or that you can include) to be "well" referenced from it? --CyclePat 18:57, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

The conflict with this above request, yes you said it, is that how do you find this information if it is not published. Well, unfortunatelly, if it's not there, the it's not there and it shouldn't be included. However the same goes for the original information we have gathered from the "patents", etc. If the information is not there... than we shouldn't be making a synthesis." --CyclePat 19:08, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I see your point, though I'll have to ruminate more (and perhaps research similar articles on wikipedia) to see if I agree. Just to be clear: the issue is not whether Stanley Meyer's claims are considered fraudulent (since this is verified by the court case), but rather whether they are fraudulent because of the violation of the 1st law of thermodynamics. Right ? Abecedare 20:29, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I think this may be an interesting POV to consider in this debate about what constitutes OR. Note: I am not claiming that this supports (or refutes) my position, just entering something that I think others may find of interest. Abecedare 20:42, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Kind of, yes! But think a little more general. The issues, are wheter we have the sources, the reliable information, etc. Wikipedia works in combination of many rules that work together, including WP:OR. One key point of WP:OR is that we should easilly be able to verify the information. If you tell me the court says "it violates A B and C." Then that's good... We put it in... I'll believe you... and for those who don't they'll go order the trial transcript if they really, really want to. (that would be expensive)(or maybe some time it might be available for free such as website like http://www.canlii.ca do for some trials). If you say the expert witness came up with this during the trial, well again, heck I might order the transcript or his research of the trial. Everyone can have their POV, we just need to make sure it's properly sourced, reliable, of majority or minority (but not an obscure) view, etc... and then we add it to the article! POV in this instance is not really, I think, that important. Even if it was Judge Judy that said it, I think we could put it there!(I'm just trying to make you laugh). Heck I'm surprised we don't quote the news channel that broadcast that video on youtube? So, yes... it is the 1st law of thermodynamics. But, it is the verifiability and the possible WP:OR violation of this information. Essentially... who said it! (fraudulent in the eyes of the law vs. fradulent in the eye of science?) --CyclePat 21:05, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with this entire line of reasoning. It seems to be based on a real misunderstading of the spirit of the rules, some annoying wikilawyering, and even a basic abuse of the terminology.

Stating that a machine is a "perpetual motion device" does not imply that it moves, is a "device", or runs forever. I know that sounds confusing, but it's true. A modern definition is "anything that violates the law of conservation of energy and produces a net energy output".

The "water fuel cell" being discussed definitely fits into this category. The definition of the device as stated clearly mentions all of this. You put in a small amount of power, out comes lots of hydrogen and oxygen, if you let them re-combine you get more power out than you put in. That violates the law of conservation of energy. Period. I don't need a CITE for that, and it isn't OR.

We do not need a cite for obvious material. Don't take my word for it, take Jimbo's, "The reason we can do all of that is that, usually, those statements are not controversial to any of the parties in the debate." That certainly seems to apply here. Maury 21:10, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

NO… NO… NO…! Do not try and tell me this is POV… this issue is that it is purely non-verifiable information. Even if we do agree to disagree and we come to a solution where we assume that "we do not need to cite obvious material," there is still a big problem. The material is not obvious. The sky is blue… The snow is cold… etc… is obvious. What you are trying to pull is a mathematical equation that requires primary fact which are hardly even proved. The reason for this: ‘’’your primary facts are not properly cited’’’. Your primary premises A and B are not verified (I can’t verify them because there are not properly cited). Within, as wiki calls it, your synthesis you may inadvertently be creating a sophism. While A (not properly sourced, unproven, not properly referenced and hence not obvious) + B (whatever information, perhaps sourced or not sourced) = C .(You can not philosophically/logically come up with an answer that will be acceptable for wikipedia standards because within the chain you have unreferenced premises. I fail to see evidence that says that A, in this case the "device"(as you so elegantly said... which we don’t even know for sure if it is a water fuel cell, or etc… because its not properly cited per WP:CITE) claims it can run forever then obviously, as my example above demonstrates, + B = C will not be acceptable for wikipedia.

Because A is not properly sourced and referenced and is sythesised with B to = C, the entire equation is erroneous (or I should say non-conform to wiki rules and policy for primarily WP:V (because the lack of verifiability) then WP:OR (because of the synthesis. Any such information should be removed. The problem is that there are many synthesis in this article and from the moment we question one element, the rest appears to fall apart. Try it yourself by going to the article Water fuel cell. Start with one question: Ask yourself: Who said this? And see where it brings you. (That is called a synthesis what you may be experiencing). And worse, it appears to be one to promote a POV. (There is nothing wrong with a POV but if it is not properly source, and then on top of that comes from a synthesis, then I don’t thing it belong here.) Obvious material would include things like the sky is blue… the water is wet… I don't believe ¾ of this article because from the start there is a lack of referencing and a "title name" that is so non-notable we can’t even find it in the “Patent information” let alone proper chanels (I just spent all day looking for information on this!) of research (New papers, Proquest, Online Databases, etc.).(‘’’This is not obvious material to everyone’’’... if it was I would be on to another article… which is why I am asking if someone could please provide some "further readings" or "sources.") (Or, eventually, I will need to read through each patent, trying to find the information, the page, the reference. And to make things worse now there will be synthesised information in the article). No! No! That’s not the way it happens here… The information is, ‘’’unfortunatelly’’’, removed. ‘’’Summary’’’: Again, the problem is that within a synthesis the material is not obvious because it is not verifiable. Hence any synthesis, even if it was permitted would be invalid. I haven't found a reference that indicates that this "machine" is a perpetual motion. --CyclePat 03:47, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Excuse my embafflement, but I really cannot make heads nor tails of your argument. Let me spell out my argument, and then you can respond by stating what you think is wrong with it.

"Because A is not properly sourced and referenced and is sythesised with B to = C"

1) My "A" is "the cell runs on water".

2) My "B" is that it claims to produce more power than it uses.

3) My "C" is that any device that produces more energy than it uses (in a closed cycle) is breaking the law of conservation of energy, and is therefore, using modern terminology, a perpetual motion device.

4) Above you state "Because A is not properly sourced and referenced...". In fact, all of these claims are properly sourced and referenced. We're talking about what Meyer claims, and Meyer's claims are supported, obviously, by his own words in the referenced patents. So I'll cover each of those points again:

4.1) Does Meyer claim the device runs on water? Yes: from the abstract for patent #5,149,407, "Water molecules are broken down into hydrogen and oxygen gas atoms in a capacitive cell by a polarization and resonance process dependent upon the dielectric properties of water and water molecules.

4.2) Does Meyer claim that the device produces more energy than it uses? Yes: [9], "I refer to the tested overunity effect of your (WFC) technology" (Meyer is quoting an external test in support of his claim).

4.3) Does that make it perpetual motion? Yes. That is what is "obvious" and doesn't need a specific reference. The statement is, as Jimbo put it, non-controversial.

In conclusion, I claim that I have properly supported A + B -> C.

5) Related claim: one possible reading of your complaint is that you object to the term "water fuel cell", and that alone. So assuming for the moment that this is your complaint, I provide Meyer's address as he presented it, "Water Fuel Cell, 3792 Broadway, Grove City, Ohio 43123"

So if you still disagree with something here, please use the numbers 1 through 5, and explain what you specifically disagree with. Thanks! Maury 19:42, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Also note that the Sunday Time paraphrases Meyer's claim in court as "The car would even run for ever since the energy needed to continue the "fracturing" was so low that the battery could be recharged: from the engine's dynamo." Abecedare 20:09, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

So Pat, are you cool with the logic above? If so, I'd like to jump in and starting cleaning up the language. If not, I'd like to wait for your comments first. Maury 18:59, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Hello fellow colleagues, I'm actually quite excited about the way this is going. I guess it is safe to say we can summarize one point. Given the nature of the subject, even if it violates WP:OR, we agree that a synthesis should be permitted for this article. (I believe it's dangerous grounds, I hope we're not doing a diservice to future readers, and, if we do so we better have a dam good reason/explanation which we should also have a warning if we do that. It should be properly synthesised within a proper citation/endnote as per WP:CITE). (ex sentence: "…violation of law.[1]" <--(exemple reference)--> A[referenced] + B[referenced]). The potential for making a mistake is enormous. Take for example:

(On an argumentative tone or maybe just a question: 4.1) So and so claims that hydro dams work on water. 4.2) A hydro power plant produces more energy than it consumes (ie.: lights inside the plant, power required to lift up the dam, etc..) 4.3) Does that make a hydro power plant a perpetual motion?)

The potential for pejudicial information is high! In your example 4.1) for example, you summarize that it runs on water... when in fact, what you quote appear to only says that the machine broke down water and hydrogen. (After I add a couple citations to help us out I'll read into this to patent first to see if I can find something else to help our case)

Nevertheless, a bonus for our synthesis, and one reason I conditionally accept it is because the courts (or common perceptions of the public appear to be that of this being a fraud (that I think we could say)) appear to support the idea. It would be better to simply quote the courts (secondary information). The synthesis appears to be a bonus to the secondary information. I can now understand all of this; however, I haven't yet verified all the information. For point #5 examples, we are calling this article “Water fuel cell” based on Meyer’s address, that of which needs to be sourced. I think we have a bit to do. For point #6, do you have the city, author?, date, page? (Reference) of the Sunday Times. All I’m really asking is that we can work on getting the correct references and then I believe we should talk about the synthesis. Now that we have had this discussion I feel comfortable enough to be "verifying" the information (which is better than where we (or I) where a while ago)(meaning that it will be easier to find). Everyone here has done a lot of work on the article. However the article is not perfect and there are a couple places where I would place a direct reference. I'm still going to have to probably read through a couple pages of the patents before finding the exact location of the information. A good program to use is http://www.easybib.com... I'll help out by making the bibliography for the patents section. (I know we can come to a fair solution!) --CyclePat 00:03, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Your objections are striking me as increasingly specious. I asked for some specific comments on my points, but again you simply ramble on before introducing a new complaint. That's called "shifting the goalposts" and is typically a sign that the argument is ill-founded. If this continues we will never reach consensus.

That said, I'm not convinced we have to. I'm of the opinion that you don't understand the topics you are talking about here. Your concept of what REF requires and what OR means seems dramatically at odds with anyone else's. Your "thought experiment" about what a perpetual motion machine is suggests that you either haven't read that article, or alternately didn't understand it. You then question (again) whether or not we can even say "it" runs on water, stating that my reference says "appear to only says that the machine broke down water and hydrogen". Well what do you think the term "runs on" means?

If there is some substance to your argument, I can't find it. Your comments about the "pejudicial" "synthesis" is so far unsupported to my satisfaction. Maury 15:25, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I almost consider your comments to be uncivil, nevertheless, it's funny you say that because that's exactly what I was thinking. And if you look carefully my specific comments address all you comments, and are even referenced to them with the same numbers. I find it funny that you state ""shifting the goalposts" and is typically a sign that the argument is ill-founded." because the arguments are based on the same psychological analysis that you used. If my logic is ill-founded then that would mean your logic is also ill-founded. If my concept of REF and OR are dramatically, as you say, "at odds with anyone else's" I would suggest we have an RFC on my conduct to determine this, Then perhaps your comment can be properly referenced. (Unlike our article) But even then we would need to have a poll to determine what the common view is on OR and REF... oh yes! It's the rules themself (as you may notice within the large template above those important guidelines and wiki rules. I can't even form a though experiment on this perpetual motion machine because ... No where have I seen a reference that says this machine is a perpetual machine. Furthermore you may wish to look at finding another reference than a wikipedia article because this is called self-reference and so should not be part of the encyclopedic content. I have recently read through the first patent and nowhere does it say it "runs" on water. That is considered another synthesis and "general concensus" according to wikipedia's rules stipulates that this is generally used to advance a position.WP:OR#SYNTHESIS. Again, I would like to stipulate that my arguments where a type of straw man caricature of logical discourse and is according to the sophism article,(I can do this wikipedia reference because we are on the talk page) in fact, a self-justifying act of sophistry. I hope this hasn't offended you, and in fact if it has I do appologize. As you have demonstrated, you are a fairly inteligent man. You have synthesised the patents, you have done a lot of work based, what is based, according to WP:OR, on original research. Wikipedia has rules regarding this and it shouldn't be included. How about I go over the things in the article and place them on this talk page? Now I'm going to go watch my Doctor Who for an hour... at least there they're can make perfectly acceptable grosselly exagerated comments about someones conduct and not focus on the main issue... oh wait that's Seinfield.... Anyway, at lest they can monumentally get away without necessarilly worrying about the next episode because they just jump into their telephone booth and go off to another world. If you feel that this is trully going to go nowhere perhaps before this issues becomes anymore uncivil we should opt for mediation. I would suggest opting for going over the article, dumping the argumentative part here before we do this. --CyclePat 01:06, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Other people

Latest comment: 17 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

There are other people hawking the same "water-powered car" hoax, in a variety of forms. Should we cover them in this article, too?

http://waterpoweredcar.com/
Carnahan Orders St. Louis Company to Repay $100,000 to Investors (William P. Alexander and his company, Emerging Technologies Development Company)
Plans
Hydrogen Technology Applications, Inc. ("HHO" guy Denny Klein) (HHO is simply oxy-hydrogen)
- Prototype car runs 100 miles on four ounces of water as fuel
- Car Powered By Water A Reality
Earth 2012 Aims to Develop Water-Fuelled Car by 2005 (Stef Kling)
- Coming soon: a water-fuelled car
The "Water Car" put to the test (Aquatune Water Injection System - McDonald Davis)
A number of youtube videos with even more proponents

Actually, we should probably create a separate article Water-powered car to cover all of these?

Oh, if only the damn oil company conspiracy would stop preventing us from breaking the laws of physics! *Shakes angry fist* — Omegatron 17:06, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

There already is the Water fuelled car article, which incidentally is still in need of specific examples like these. Femto 19:14, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

See Talk:Water-fuelled_car#Specific_people — Omegatron 16:32, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Water fuel cells or Meyers?

Latest comment: 17 years ago10 comments4 people in discussion

The last person said "to bad it's not about Meyers' Car". And Now, I'm looking into the history, and I noticed the removal of information not pertaining to Meyers' car.Removal of YouTube videao Another example Omegatron said in his edit summar "moving non-Meyers stuff..."[10]. I'm confused. Is this article about Meyers or about Water fuel cells? (p.s.: It should be about water fuell cell, because I believe I've heard of water fuel cells being used in water treatment plants, on cruise ships, etc... but don't quote me on that one).--CyclePat 19:35, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I was just going to suggest that the article be moved to Stanley Meyer, since the article is solely about his claimed device.

And I have no idea what you mean by water fuel cells being used on ships. — Omegatron 20:13, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps not the same concept or design, my appologies, but I've heard of ships using devices to make pure water from the atmosphere. I've alos heard of ships (cruise liners) using their engines to warm the sea water to purify it. But that's why I said don't quote me on that... off topic. I think it's a good idea to move the article to Stanley Meyer... at least his if someone wants to find information on him they can do it! --CyclePat 20:34, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, if there's a different concept called "water fuel cell" it belongs in a different article. — Omegatron 21:47, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

~~The is~~ It appears to be an umbrella term because it lacks referencing. Is it a trademark like rollerblades? --CyclePat 22:02, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

FYI, I removed the "Other patent" because, (a) it had noting to do with Stan Meyer's fuel cell and (b) it did not even mention the word fuel, let alone fuel cell ! Abecedare 22:16, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

"The is it appear to be"? I don't know what you're saying. Wikipedia articles cover a single topic or concept, even if there are multiple unrelated concepts with the same name. See Wikipedia:Disambiguation. — Omegatron 22:23, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok! Thank you Meg! b.t.w.: LOL, I was in a hurry! ... I needed to go to choir practice. La La La! Sorry! I'm glad you understood what I meant about the umbrella idea! --CyclePat 03:55, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm totally in support of a move, BTW. We'd want to add a para on Meyer himself, but that's probably a good idea given the conspiracy theories about the device. Maury 22:02, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

In principal I support a move to an article/biography on Meyers (which is probably more notable...)(or maybe not...) (taugh calls here since I had so much trouble finding information!) Then a redirect (not delete). It's complicated... Prior to proceeding I feel we should wait and see what the results of our poll discusion will give. (I might change my mind) In particular fact #5, discusses the term "water fuel cell" being in Meyers address. I'm generally open minded for both sides and I might change my mind on moving. --CyclePat 00:38, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Review and RFC

Latest comment: 17 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.

The lead of this article may be too long, or may contain too many paragraphs. Please follow guidelines at WP:LEAD; be aware that the lead should adequately summarize the article.^[?]
See if possible if there is a free use image that can go on the top right corner of this article.^[?]
There may be an applicable infobox for this article. For example, see Template:Infobox Biography, Template:Infobox School, or Template:Infobox City.^[?] (Note that there might not be an applicable infobox; remember that these suggestions are not generated manually)
Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), there should be a non-breaking space -   between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 83 liters, use 83 liters, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 83 liters.^[?]
Please provide citations for all of the {{fact}}s.
Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.^[?]

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, CyclePat 06:27, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

In RFC-reviewing the article, the only sentence that stuck out, that I'd remove, is in the introduction. Not only it doesn't add much, it actually detracts from the article as an unhelpful and unnecessary example. Also, the intro isn't a place for such examples really, which are usually expansions of the main theme. The remaining text is quite adequate to make the point. The intro would be better to simply read:

"The operation of the fuel cell, as described by Meyer, would violate the first law of thermodynamics. Energy would not be conserved, making the device a type of perpetual motion machine. As a result, the cell and its actual operation have met with much skepticism from established scientists."

Other than that, was there any other problem? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 18:00, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

The article is fair. The arguments of the advocates of the device are stated, and full references are given to their outside documentation, including the patents. Everything said in the article is verifiable in the sense used in WP. The material in quotes does not have to be verified here, just that it was said. The fact that the device violates the laws of theremodyamics is correct and verifiable. It can be claimed that other physical principles prevail in this system, but not that the 2nd law isn't violated. If anything, the POV of the article is favorable to the device, not unfavorable. Additional protests of the proponents of this device are POV pushing in the most classic sense. Their claims are stated more fully than is often done for such material. The references are sufficient that those interested in further discussion can find it. Contrary to the peer-review bot, only reasonable "fact" qys need be answered, and in stating an accepted physical law it is a sufficient answer to refer to the WP presentation of physical principles, which are theselves verified.

The only thing I would change is

(Patents should not be seen as implying a peer review has taken place, and do not imply the findings have been confirmed and reproduced by independent parties.) This should not be in the article itself. Although it is desirable to inform readers about the less-than-perfect validity of patents as evidence, it should be a footnote. Iwould furthermore exclude the part about peer review and say only patents do not imply the findings have been confirmed and reproduced by independent parties. Patents are examined, although the standards are different and intended to be different than those used for journal articles. DGG 04:47, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

(A court of law should not be seen as implying a peer review has taken place, and do not imply the findings have been un-confirmed and not-reproduced by independent parties.)24.193.218.207 13:35, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Vote canvassing spam

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Just thought I'd point out that I was brought here by this diff. [ælfæks] 23:21, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

hmm

Latest comment: 17 years ago5 comments5 people in discussion

So, there was this big monsterous debate, and yet the article has not changed one bit. More references, yet zero citations.

Does anyone know what this person is talking about? I see lots of refs and cites. Sounds like another wikilawer to me. Maury 20:37, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

This is bordering on disruption. So you posted this exact same piece for the third time now. If you're no longer interested in continuing a sensible discussion just say so. Femto 20:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

To 24.193.218.207: Read up on Wikipedia:WikiLawyering, and then stop it. You clearly don't know how articles develop in this project. An article on a notable topic, with most of it adequately cited, will not be removed just because you perceive some unspecific infractions that go against your personal POV. -Amatulic 21:15, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Is the poll/debate finished? --CyclePat 00:21, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Question by user:Cmp44

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Regarding Stanely Meyer's death-- According to the corner's report he died of a triple cerebal aneursym. He was not poisoned. There was a brief investigation into his death as a result of his statement of thinking he had been poisoned. He did not have a will. His family inherited his posessions and inventions, including the water fuel car. The car never worked! I know this knowledge from reading the autopsy report and being a family member.

The previous message was unsigned by user:Cmp44, Please sign your posts in the future and place comments at the bottom. Your observations are great. If you feal this way, please publish them in a peer reviewable way. Such information doesn't belong here at wikipedia and can be deleted on cite per general concensus of wikipedian elaborated in wikipedia's policy WP:OR. You best aquaint yourself with these procedures, including WP:CITE prior to contributing to wikipedia. The autopsy report must have a reference. If so, please give us the name of the coroner, the dates, the proper reference so a guy from Canada can pick up the phone and make a phone call to order the document or know where to go to read it. That is called verifiabilty and another rules per WP:V. Thank you for you feedback. --CyclePat 01:19, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm just amazed that there are still people defending water as a fuel...it's laugable.

Latest comment: 17 years ago8 comments3 people in discussion

If what goes into the tank is water - and what comes out of the exhaust is water - then you can take what comes out of the exhaust and stuff it back into the tank and you have a perpetual motion machine. That's clearly ruled out by the laws of thermodynamics. So if we're going to believe in this concept then we have to assume that one of the longest standing, least successfully challenged, most reliable law in all of physics is being broken somehow. It seems to me that if this were even remotely possible, there would be one heck of a lot of scientists lining up to prove it to the world. The heck with free energy - this would totally overturn everything we know about science.

It's as Carl Sagan was fond of saying "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". The idea of extracting energy from water requires overturning the very bedrock of everything that science has done for us. The evidence to make us believe it must be just as extraordinary. Why are these mysterious inventors who claim to have working water fuelled cars not driving them everywhere where people can see them? Why would we be messing around with hybrid cars at all? They clearly aren't being supressed by mysterious government agencies because we're able to see their web sites - read about them on Wikipedia.

Truly, even if the oil companies wanted to surpress the technology - surely one car company somewhere in the world would think to license the technology and make an utter killing by selling a car that runs on water. Even if the oft-stated claim that the US economy would collapse if we had free energy were true (seems unlikely since the US is a net energy importer) - why wouldn't some acutely energy-starved country leap on these discoveries? The Japanese have no native energy sources whatever - why wouldn't they be licensing all of this supposedly clever technology?

It just makes no sense at all.

Sadly, the science behind this is really well known and understood. The fact is that there is almost no chemical energy left in a water molecule - that's why water is so common here on earth. If there was a way to extract energy from it, we'd find it sitting around in that yet lower energy state. Sure, there are any number of ways to put energy into water to boost it to a higher energy state (eg by heating it up - boiling it - splitting it into hydrogen and oxygen with electricity or by chemical means) - but the first law of Thermodynamics tells us that when we extract energy back out again, at the very best, we only get back whatever we put in. But since no machine is ever 100% efficient, you'll actually get less out than you put in. So you can't get energy out of water - it's just not possible. It's not necessary to carefully examine every new crackpot device that comes along - just by knowing the energy state of its inputs and outputs we can determine whether it's claimed to be a complicated kind of perpetual motion machine (which we know can't work) - or whether it's working by some other means than it claims (in which case it's a fraud).

Why do people persist in believing it's possible? Well, a combination of woefully inadequate science training and wishful thinking makes for a very large group of people who wish this could happen. Add to that a small number of con-artists see a way to take advantage of that by sucking money out of investors. Many of them get caught and dragged through the courts on fraud charges - sadly, many others do not.

SteveBaker 22:07, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Most of us understand the physics, Steve. But the physics isn't the point. Perhaps the physics is wrong. So somebody claims to have a time machine, an anti-grav device, a warp drive, a genuine self-cleaning cat litterbox-- whatever. Should we just blank all articles regarding them, including news accounts, patents, court cases, etc, etc?

Or perhaps the physics is misunderstood and somebody found a way to get a little power out of water using deuterium fusion ala the cold fusion devices, and just misunderstood their own invention. I doubt it, but at least this wouldn't violate any laws of thermo.

The real question is what do we do about articles written about questionable claims or other stuff on wikipedia. We have articles on Mormonism, Scientology, the miracles at Lourdes, and so on. I'd just as soon believe in water-powered cars, and would give you equal odds. We also have articles on famous frauds that are known to be, and acknowledged by all, to be frauds. What do you suggest we do with THEM? S B H arris 22:26, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Sure we should have articles about them - but they need to be based on properly peer-reviewed scientific literature - not just the inventor's own claims or some sensationalised news story. In the absence of such evidence for these claims, Wikipedia has a duty explain what well-known, peer-reviewed science has to say about these claims (which is clearly that they violate the laws of thermodynamics and are therefore bogus). We can present a bazillion references showing the laws of thermodynamics...but where is the science showing that these laws can be circumvented or are wrong? Instead we have a long list of US patents - some crackpot conspiracy theory web sites and a couple of news items. None of those come close to being credible sources by Wikipedia standards.

The fact that they were able to obtain patents proves nothing - I have half a dozen patents to my name - I know how easy they are to obtain. Two totally unrelated patents that I submitted on the same day accidentally had their diagrams swapped in the patent attorneys office - both passed without question in the US and throughout Europe!
Web sites that simultaneously claim that the water powered car works and that one of the World Trade center towers was blown up by the government in order to cover up the existance of that car...yeah...right.
A YouTube 'Fox News' video 'proving' that the car works. (Check out the other video that comes up with those search criteria - it clearly shows the 110v compressor that they guy evidently used to pre-charge the hydrogen tank before the demo).
An article in Wireless World...OK...not the greatest source in the world - and it's not Peer Reviewed - but maybe it might lend some credence were it not for the last three paragraphs that makes it very clear that they are not convinced that the demo showed anything.

No - we need more proof than that. Where is the article in "Nature" saying "First law of Thermodynamics has to be repealed because the Water Fuel Cell works!"...there isn't one - and there won't be one because these so-called inventors generally refuse to allow people to reproduce their findings. The way to get scientific credibility is to have other people to whom you have no connection reproduce your findings. Note what happens when they are forced to allow close inspection by scientists appointed by the courts...a $25,000 fine for Meyers, Franch (proven to have used nothing more than green food colouring in his 'gasoline pill'), Enrich - went to jail for fraud...there are many others. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Right now I don't see any evidence whatever showing that some new physical principle has been invented - and lots and lots of solid science that shows that they can't possibly work. SteveBaker 22:58, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, yes, but (playing devil's advocate here) everything you rightly say about patents also applies to courts and magazine journalism. Yet these are all citable wikipedia sources. However, your own (perfectly correct) reasoning that this car violates the laws of thermodynamics, is NOT. It is rather POV and (worse) OR, as in violation of WP:NOR. That's a flaw in Wikipedia, and one I've been pointing out for years. Sensationalism sells, and there are lots of published references for crackpot ideas, IF they tickle the public's fancy. By contrast, good old fashioned grumpy scientific skepticism (extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence), does NOT sell, and therefore often DOES NOT GENERATE citable published references. So no, you won't get any tests on the water-powered car in NATURE. Or even on TV's MythBusters (unless you're lucky). So for Wikipedia purposes, you're SOL. That means Sure Out of Luck.
Now, you may object to this Wikipedia policy. Whenever I run across somebody who does, I suggest they go to Jimbo Wales' talk page, and bug him. If you do that enough, you may find yourself banned as being disruptive of this perfect place. You see, on Wikipedia, there is no TRUTH; there is only citability. Did nobody tell you that? There is also no Carl Sagan--- just Jimbo and his lawyers. Who do not do a good imitation of Carl. S B H arris 23:12, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Not quite. You can cite a patent as proof that the guy has the patent. It's a verifyable source in that sense. But you can't cite the patent as proof that what's in the patent actually works...that would be ludicrous. Similarly, you can't cite magazine articles unless they are authoritative. Peer reviewed magazines are OK - Nature is OK - Practical Wireless isn't. Similarly with books - you can't cite self-published books. As for my claims over the Laws of Thermodynamics - I see what you are saying - but this is a hard line to determine. I can say that an airplane crash followed after it's engines failed and gravity pulled it to the ground. If you insist on a citation saying that gravity can do that, I'd have to go back and quote something Newton wrote about gravitation. You wouldn't demand that I find a source saying specifically that airplanes are pulled to earth because of gravity. Similarly in this case, we have the first law of thermodynamics that clearly states that you can't have free energy. Sure it doesn't make a long, long list of ways that free energy cannot be obtained - but does that justify me in writing an article that says "energy can be created by the power of human thought" or "energy can be created out of thin air by tap-dancing purple leopards when the moon is full and there is an 'R' in the month"? I don't have to find a specific document diaproving any of those things because the first law has the full generality of those things nicely covered by saying (in effect) "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch". It should suffice to give a link to article on the first law (with references of course) and leave it at that. The contrary position is to demand that the proponents of these technologies come up with acceptable proof of their own - but what do we then do if (as in this case) they fail to do so? We could take the article to WP:AfD and get it deleted by virtue of lack of adequate references - but that's not going to help our readers when they come to Wikipedia to find out about this "Water fuel cell" thingy they've read about. We must do better for our readers - and I think we can...but if you expect us to find properly peer-reviewed articles debunking each and every crackpot idea that comes up - you are deluding yourself - those things don't exist because serious scientists can just point to the laws of Thermodynamics - chisled in granite letters 50 feet high - and say "Look!". If these things worked then there would be amble evidence that they do - and there just isn't. (And actually, there was a water fuelled car on Mythbusters...I'll leave you to guess what the conclusion was!) SteveBaker 23:51, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

As for my claims over the Laws of Thermodynamics - I see what you are saying - but this is a hard line to determine. I can say that an airplane crash followed after it's engines failed and gravity pulled it to the ground. If you insist on a citation saying that gravity can do that, I'd have to go back and quote something Newton wrote about gravitation. You wouldn't demand that I find a source saying specifically that airplanes are pulled to earth because of gravity.
Answer: Wrongo! If I wanted to wikilawyer it, that's exactly what I'd demand of you, and you wouldn't be able to provide it, and THEN you'd be stuck. Just as you are with this article. Don't sit there and argue with me on this point, when the evidence that this kind of thing happens is right in front of your face, as regards this very piece. I'm trying to EXPLAIN in terms of Wikipedia policy why you're having trouble here, and the problem is that you refuse to believe me, because it's so *&&%ing outrageous. Well, not my problem. Feel free not to believe me. But stop bitching and moaning that you're making no progress in getting this article to say what you want it to say. Okay? Just fix it yourself (WP:SOFIXIT) and see what happens. S B H arris 00:11, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

To quote Wikipedia:Citing sources: "Gaming the cite system, that is, demanding blatantly excessive citations or accepting citations only from an unreasonably narrow source, for the apparent purpose of making a point or gaming the system is not an appropriate use of this policy." - I don't deny that it's happening - only that it shouldn't be happening. As to the issue of extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence, that too is well-established Wikipedia policy. To quote Wikipedia:Reliable sources: "Exceptional claims require exceptional sources"...pretty much my precise point here. Right now this article doesn't have any credible references on either side of the debate...none, zip, nada. To quote Wikipedia:Reliable sources again: "(1) The material has been thoroughly vetted by the scholarly community. This means published in peer-reviewed sources, and reviewed and judged acceptable scholarship by the academic journals. (2) Items that are recommended in scholarly bibliographies are preferred. (3) Items that are signed are more reliable than unsigned articles because it tells whether an expert wrote it and took responsibility for it.". It's going to be tough for the Water fuel cell 'believers' to come up with credible references - but there is a reason for that. For the disbelievers, evidence is going to be of a rather general nature - although it can be exceedingly credible (It's hard to argue with the likes of Carnot and Gibbs). The disbelievers are not trying to prove an extraordinary claim though - so standards of evidence are correspondingly lower. As for "Just Fix It" - that's not a bad idea when there is widespread agreement - but there is little point in doing that before some sort of consensus is reached - it'll just start a painful round of revert warring. But it's possible to write Wikipedia articles where two sides of the debate are irreconcilable - we just have to state both sides of the argument and present the evidence in the form of references. I'll think about what can be written. SteveBaker 05:02, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I have had experiences on Wikipedia with this kind of behavior, and I later found out that the person perpetuating it was a paid PR professional. There are people who are experts in doctoring consent on Wikipedia, and it may be possible that they are contributing to this very forum. In my case, someone was making it appear as if the majority of contributors were demanding a source more reputable than the USPTO. You will also notice a number of replies that are verging on ridiculous, this is a tactic that is used to help discredit the discussion as a whole, if someone were to run into comments like "this car will cause water vapor pollution and constant rainy weather" they are highly likely to just turn the page. So the 'idiots' you may be dealing with are most likely very smart people with very sophisticated means. All in all, Wikipedia is not a credible source of information. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.110.72.49 (talk) 12:14, 21 February 2007 (UTC).

How About that Poll

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

That poll is still active.24.193.218.207 05:46, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Portion of Patent Disclaimed

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

"The portion of the term of this patent subsequent to June 26, 2007 has been disclaimed." what does this mean? from patent #5,149,407( 1st on list in article ) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.110.72.49 (talk) 09:41, 20 February 2007 (UTC).

Bad energy tracking

Latest comment: 17 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion

From the videos I have seen of Meyer's water energy, he claims to be using some sort of high frequency electrical source. The vagueness of this aside, there is energy in the wattage of the converter, but there is also energy content in the electromagnetic waves he is using. If he is honest about his electricity bill, he will find that the cannot have what he claims. Furthermore, his device as shown produces a dangerous mix of hydrogen and oxygen gases which would blow away a building and also be useless in a hydrogen/oxygen fuel cell. He seems to claim to have formed H-H-O, an impossible chemical for a variety of reasons. He shows himself using this as a blow torch as the H-H-O rearranges to HOH. As a self-contained reactant with a zero-order kinetic function, this stuff would explode and not be dependent on the presence of air. His seemingly surprising observation that the blowtorch tip is cool shows his ignorance. Many other torches show the same effect as the expanding gases leaving the torch tip cool the tip through expansioin cooling. Meyer's "idea" is so rank with problems and bad science, not to mention violating the laws of thermodynamics in impossible ways, I do not it is wonderful - I say it is a hoax. Does anyone really think a scientific ignoramous is going to produce something which employs a quantum effect that cannot even be detected even if it did exist? Not likely and not happening here. This is just another example of how gullible people can be. Military officers, even science educated, are not trained to debunk these pie-in-the-sky wishes. It is nice to keep an open mind, but do not be so open that your brain falls out. If water was this kind of an energy source, we would have begun exploiting it many years ago. His device is just too simple to be so subtly sophisticated. The water hammer heat source is another example of a scientifically ignorant person re-discovering an obvious effect and pretending to have a novel item because it is so differently, novelly or stupidly designed. Then they pat themselves on the back about what great inventors they are, but, sniff, no one wants to listen to them - it's a conspiracy, sob.......

There's no free lunch.

Capt. Higley —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.118.91.100 (talk) 21:34, 23 February 2007 (UTC).

Well said. It is abundantly clear that water simply doesn't have significant amounts of energy to give - so the idea of extracting energy from it is doomed from the outset. We simply don't need to look 'inside the black box' of these inventions. If they take water in, split it into something else (Hydrogen and Oxygen or this mythical HHO stuff) - then burn the results to obtain water again - then any net energy gain would result in a perpetual motion machine - and those are completely debunked. So it's not that it doesn't work - or that it needs perfecting, it (and anything like it) simply cannot work. The laws of physics don't permit it - no matter how clever you are with oscillators, magnets, quantum effects or any other weirdness like that. SteveBaker 04:41, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

They have been using water torches for years using almost the same circuitry. They send in a low voltage and a relativly low amperage to plates submerged in water. Oxyhydrogen gas is produced and used to perform welding, smoothing of glass, etc etc. This gas is not a myth and resulting water vaper from the flame is also not a myth. I don't know where you are getting your ideas but they are wrong. As far as the WFC is concerned it may or may not produce enough oxyhydrogen gas to run a car, that i do not know but it certainly produces gas. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.104.204.212 (talk)

And the energy released as heat from the torch is much less than what went into the plates to make the gas. To put this in perspective, look at the image here. That's a really big power supply driving a really tiny torch. The question is whether or not you can make heat from electrolyzed water, which is all you're talking about here, the question is whether or not that heat has greater energy than what was put into it. It does not.

Nor do you want it to. Conservation of energy is not some sort of arbitrary "law" that exists "just because". It's a fundamental statement about the way the universe looks. If this law didn't exist, and it doesn't have to, the universe would look very different. Very different, like "will not support life". Maury 16:09, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I think your (unsigned) definition of oxyhydrogen gas is different than ours. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 16:26, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Nobody (I hope) is arguing that you cannot connect up a suitably large power source, use it to electrolyse water - then burn the resulting hydrogen to make a gas torch. Clearly that's possible - and it's done routinely in a variety of industrial settings.

I don't even mind if you try to feed the resulting gas into an internal combustion engine (although why you'd want to is something of a mystery). The problem is the amount of energy you put into the electrolysis cell versus what you get back when you burn the resulting gas. The non-believers (of which I am one) claim that the energy you get out MUST be less than you put in because if it's not less then you have a perpetual motion machine and a violation of the first law of thermodynamics. Proponents have to either claim that it DOES produce more energy (which puts them 180 degrees away from all modern scientific understanding by denying one of the most well established physical laws) - or they have to agree that it does not (in which case, this whole debate is kinda pointless because if you get less out than you put in, you might just as well use an electric motor and cut out all of the messing around with water). I don't particularly care what you call the gas you get - Browns gas, oxyhydrogen, a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen - I don't even particularly care what weird combination of H's and O's you claim to have in the resulting gas (although I strongly suspect it's nothing more exotic than H2's and O2's). Whatever, I really don't care. My concern is to make it completely, crystal clear that whatever weird shit you do to get the gas out of the water is not winning you anything. Great for welding no doubt...hopeless as a source of clean energy (or any energy whatever for that matter). SteveBaker 19:04, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Please tell me why I am wrong.

Latest comment: 17 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

I am an undergraduate scientist in the Honors College and the College of Engineering at the University of South Florida. I try to remain as unbiased as possible in my search for truth.

Quantum Mechanics requires that there be an energetic oscillation between atoms in polyatomic molecules; otherwise, the equations fail. If one were to resonate with this oscillation energy, it could be harnessed and become useful energy. In the case of water, it is theoretically possible to apply a dielectric force in resonance with the oscillatory frequency until the oscillation becomes great enough to break the covalent bond. Thus, under optimal conditions, you would get more energy out in the form of the potential energy of Hydrogen/Oxygen gas than you put in as electricity. The equation would look something like this: (Initial Oscillation Energy) + (Input Electrical Energy) = (Potential energy in the form of Hydrogen/Oxygen gas).

Since my edit was reverted, I assume someone found something wrong with this theory. This interests me greatly since the multiple PhDs that looked at it said that, as far as they could tell, it should work. Please tell me what it is that you found. I would surely like to know so that I don't use information that is known to be incorrect.

Please don't take this as being hostile in any way. I am open-minded to any information that anyone wants to present; although, I always approach it with some level of skepticism.

Well, all that's necessary for removal is that there isn't a WP:RS, but I'll explain why it's wrong, anyway.

"Conventional" QM would have your equation being:

2(Excited H2O) + (Input Electrical Energy (A)) → 2 H2 + O2 + (output energy (B))

(normal combustion) 2 H2 + O2 → 2 H2O + energy (C)

(H2O) + energy (D) → (Excited H2O)

The second law of thermodynamics leads to

A+2D\leq B+C

, so that we don't have a perpetual motion machine. There is no objection to

A>B+C

Zero-point energy theory leads to similar equations, with the RHS of the first equation being 2(sub-zero-point H2) + (sub-zero-point) O2, which leads to the same sort of analysis. It might be possible to derive energy from the zero-point energy of substances, but that requires producing substances with that zero-point energy reduced. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 20:48, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about the lack of sources. I'll try to put some in next time I contribute. I don't think I made my idea clear enough. What I'm trying to say is this:

2 H2O(Natural Excitation Energy(A)) + (Input Electrical Energy (B)) → 2 H2 + O2

(normal combustion) 2 H2 + O2 → 2 H2O (No Excitation) + (Energy (A + B))

The excitation may return only if the H2O is acted upon by some external force (which will probably occur nearly instantly). A better way to look at it would be that of energy potential. Water molecules naturally have this oscillation energy. As the atoms in a molecule are bouncing closer to each other and further apart from each other, the potential reaches its' maximum at the closest and farthest distances between the atoms and the kinetic energy reaches a maximum at the median. As the electrical force is applied in resonance with the oscillation, the potential is raised in a step function format. Eventually, the potential exceeds the strength of the covalent bond which means that the covalent bond has been broken. The potential is now at its' maximum state. Since higher potential tends to move toward lower potential, when combustion occurs, the atoms will exert a force until they reach a level of zero potential. Since it started with some level of potential and it has eventually reached a level of zero potential, there is a net loss of energy from the water molecule and a net gain to the system.

That I can accept, but there's little indication that the "Natural Excitation Energy" can be other than thermal, which cannot be removed. (In other words, the "No Excitation" state requires a change in the laws of physics.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 00:22, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether I had gotten to the part that involved recombination of the gases through combustion when I had the PhDs look at it. I know at least that it will separate the H2O with higher efficiency than previously possible with conventional electrolysis. A lot of the theories on the Water Fuel Cell are very rough at the moment. Hopefully that will change as I am investing thousands of dollars in researching it in an attempt to replicate it and study it meticulously.

I think you will find that if you try to shake a water molecule apart by resonance, then the device that is creating the exciting electric field will have to emit a photon which is absorbed by the molecule. In other words, the thing exciting the resonance will consume energy equal to that which is apparently created by the water. But having said that, I feel that you are mixing up classical and quantum ideas; you can't gradually feed energy into a chemical bond in the same way you can a pendulum. Man with two legs 11:54, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Water fuel cell into Water-fuelled car

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Please discuss this over at Talk:Water-fuelled car#Proposed merge of Water fuel cell into Water-fuelled car. SteveBaker 03:33, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Inconsistent claims about Professor Michael Laughton

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The "construction" section cites an article from Wireless World in 1991 reporting that Laughton and two others were impressed by the invention. However the "Lawsuit" section cites a 1996 Sunday Times article which to my mind implies that Laughton had not seen a working machine. There seems, at least, to be an inconsistency here. Any ideas how to resolve it? LeContexte 09:28, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Stanley Meyer redirect??

WTF.. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.78.179.26 (talk • contribs) 12:59, April 21, 2007 (UTC)

The Sunday Times (UK) article

Latest comment: 17 years ago7 comments4 people in discussion

The article itself does not appear to be available from the newspaper's own online archive, which only appears to go back to around 2000. What we have here is a newsgroup posting that claims to be a copy of the actual news article. The New Energy News summary-article listed in "External links" supports that the article exists. The symmary, and Meyer's own rebuttal of it (also listed in "External links"), align well with the newsgroup copy of the article. DMacks 07:31, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

That's what I was wondering! Perhaps a POV? --CyclePat2 04:22, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I have verified that the reference "End of road for car that ran on Water", The Sunday Times, 1 December, 1996 exists, and is correctly and completely quoted at the Google Groups link. The article appeared on page 12 of the Features section of The Sunday Times (London, England), and I accessed it through Access World News. By the way, this source specifically refers to Meyer's invention as "Water Fell Cell", so there is no synthesis violation in the naming of this article either. Abecedare 04:55, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

(comment refactored) Could you please provide a direct link to the source and place this in the citation at the end? (Easybib will help you format your citation. Pick the database section.) Could you also please provide the name of the author, when you accessed the document, what section, what edition, what city you accessed it from, what database subscrition service, who's database you accessed from (ei.:Library), what keywords where used, etc. Take the following citation as an example of what our citation would look like: "Last, First M. "End of Road for Car That Ran on Water." The Sunday Times 1 Dec. 1996, (Please add Edition ed., sec. (please add Section): 12-13. Access World News. News Bank Inc. (please add Library with Subscription), (please add City Accessed From). 16 May 2007. Keyword: water fuel cell. (url from database)" --CyclePat 18:36, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I have reformatted the citation using {{cite news}} and filled in all the fields, including author (Tony Edwards), publisher and page number (page 12 of the Features section).

There is no direct link available to the article, since Access World News is a subscription service. However I have verified that the google posting quotes the article accurately. With the complete citation information in the article, anyone is now free to verify for themselves that the Sunday Times article says what is claimed - just as WP:V requires. Abecedare 20:00, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for citation. I was hopping to subscribe to the database service you are talking about and I would like to verify the source for myself. I would probably require 1 of 3 things to find the article 1) either the keywords use for the search, the pathway or the url which was used. Could you please provide one of the above and place it in the citation? Thank you. --CyclePat2 04:36, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

The citation provides all the information you, or anyone else, needs for finding the article. But in any case, here is the detailed can't-miss recipe for locating it using "Access World News": once you subscribe to the database just browse down to "The World" -> "Europe/UK" -> "UK and Ireland" -> "England" -> "Sunday Times, The (London,England)" and look up the "1996/12/01" issue. You'll find this article listed under "Features" (122 out of 237). Abecedare 04:53, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

What Would Tesla Do?

Latest comment: 17 years ago7 comments3 people in discussion

FYI, a system such as this would not need to violate any laws of thermodynamics... Please study Tesla before making such an unintentionally narrow sighted remark. I personally believe that Tesla was a lot more intelligent than anyone here regarding dipoles and AC power, and he was thoroughly convinced that under certain conditions of dipole / AC interaction power could be channeled directly from the potential of the "active medium" (aka the space/time continuum). When you consider that each of the trillions of water molecules in these cells are dipoles, and that it involves high voltage pulsed AC for maximum efficiency, I do not see why the possibility of a moderately large number of randomly spaced Tesla "Active Medium" energy inductions into the cell would be "laughable". This is especially true when you consider the brute force probabilities given the insanely large number of dipoles in a very controlled cross section of space/time. If you want some idea of how much potential energy is in the space/time continuum itself just consider this fact: the mere act of warping it is enough to move stars and galaxies. That said, I am not saying that this is necessarily the case here (I really do not know if the thing "works"), and I also would say that you should never be gulled into giving someone money based on the claim that they have accomplished this. All I ask is that you please gain a better understanding of the multitude of possible sources for energy in the universe before claiming that a set of observable results would automatically break the law of conservation. --Electrostatic1 12:25, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

er... but it does violate the first law. If it worked, you could use it to make a perpetual motion machine. Man with two legs 17:36, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Entropy times temperature is a unit of energy other than enthalpy; what if the extra energy comes from the entropy of the water? Noah Seidman 18:49, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

My brain is starting to hurt, but that sounds to me like a perpetual motion machine of the second kind. Man with two legs 08:05, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

No, it would not be perpetual... It would hasten the eventual "heat death" of the universe.. Which would be more than adequate to stop it.... It's not electrolysis, it's a trillion tiny catalysts inside a Rapidly Fluctuating Magnetic Field, the effect of which is to prevent perfect symmetry in the oscillations... The lack of perfect symmetry Demands an energy outlet, or it Would break the laws of thermodynamics. Please keep in mind, I am not the one who came up with this theory.. He was a much smarter man than I. And as for the second law, Heaviside curled EM energy flow components are Much more concentrated and well organized than mere chemical potential... p.s. There is also a guy using much the same technology where the energy is manifesting directly as heat and not as chemical potential. (suposedly) --Electrostatic1 08:06, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Anything that attempts to suck energy for useful work from its surroundings without exploiting a temperature difference is a perpetual motion machine of the second kind and is against the second law of thermodynamics. The laws of thermodynamics are as general as that. There are no loopholes. It is possible that the laws of thermodynamics are wrong, but that begs the very big question of why nobody has noticed before during some of the thousands of relevant experiments that have been carried out over the last one or two centuries. Man with two legs 10:27, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

"Anything that attempts to suck energy for useful work from its surroundings without exploiting a temperature difference is a perpetual motion". Not quite true. It's not drawing it from it's "surroundings" but from the fabric of space/time... Just as nuclear energy doesn't draw energy from it's surroundings, but from the fabric of matter. --Electrostatic1 06:49, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Original Research

I do not think the following sentence is original research.

"Theoretically, as per claimed operation, a car running on a water fuel cell could achieve perpetual motion by venting the exhaust pipe (containing water vapor) into the fuel tank (containing water)."

~~I propose that we remove the original research tag.~~

I merged this sentence into the first paragraph. I still believe the original research tag can be removed.

The combination of the merger, and the sentence restructuring, makes the removal of the original research tag reasonable. Therefore I have removed the original research tag.