FLASH NEWS: Second Law of Thermodynamics Curtailed

© T. E. Bearden
29 July 2002

Introduction

Under the leadership of Dr. Denis J. Evans, Australian scientists at the Australian National University (ANU) have demonstrated that the second law of thermodynamics[1] is violated for larger-than-microscopic processes and systems {[1]}.  Demonstrating violations of the second law at micron level and for up to two seconds, the experiments have evoked significant comments {[2], [3], [4]}.

Violation of the second law for small collections of very small particles, or for a molecule or small group of molecules, has long been known.  However, the work of Evans et al. is a dramatic extension with profound implications in physics and chemistry.  Second law violations, previously thought to apply only to very small entities such as an atom or a small group of molecules, and only for very short times, do in fact apply to real systems of some larger size and for much longer times than previously suspected.  In short, these systems can "run backward" for significant time periods.

Dr. Evans and one of his colleagues, G. P. Morriss, are specialists in statistical mechanics of equilibrium liquids, having authored an important textbook on the subject {[5]}. His colleague E. Cohen is one of the most capable statistical mechanics scientists of today.

Their work voices an immediate concern for the emerging field of nanobots and nanotechnology {[6]}.  If the nanobots are made very small — micron-size or even smaller — they may not work correctly, due to erratically and frequently shifting into reversed operation as the applicability of the second -law fluctuates and the law is repeatedly violated.  So the smaller nanobots may not behave as simple scaled-down versions of their "big brother" counterparts at all {[7], [8]}.

The new finding also has important ramifications for living systems at the cellular level. Living systems are known to violate the second law of thermodynamics, e.g., at the cellular level and in the ion pumps that make our nervous systems function.  Even grains of sand — agitated in a two-chamber vessel where the two chambers are connected by a hole — act in the manner referred to as a "Maxwell's demon" {[9]}.  The agitated sand does separate {[10]} as if for Maxwell's famous demon, with the hotter and faster-moving grains migrating to one chamber and the cooler grains migrating to the other chamber.  But because of the exchange of energy between grains of sand, this separation is thought not to violate the second law, since individual grains absorb and radiate heat, and so energy is exchanged.  It is well known that disequilibrium exchange of energy allows violation of the second law {[11]}. In the agitated sand system, disequilibrium is provided by the steady input of mechanical energy from outside the system.

Positive benefits accrue from this new work by Evans and his colleagues, in very different macrosystems and processes, even though the scientific community has not yet grasped them. We will address proven but ignored violations of the second law in the macroscopic world resulting from correlations between the macroscopic world and microscopic negentropy.  We will discuss some of the unusual benefits and implications, including a research direction that may lead to control over negentropic electrodynamic operations to enable engineering on a macroscopic scale. We specifically address some implications for electrical power systems exhibiting coefficient of performance (COP) greater than unity, and for present cold fusion processes demonstrating nuclear reactions at low spatial energy.

Discussion

Background

For decades, quantum physicists have known that, for very short times and reactions, the second law of thermodynamics is violated at the very small level of the atom or a few molecules, and also is violated for fundamental charged particles such as electrons, protons, positrons, etc. The equations show that the reaction processes are reversible in these small-scale systems and fast reactions.

Entropy involves the idea of irreversibility {[12]} and is based on statistics.  There is a finite probability, e.g., that all the molecules in the air in a room will suddenly be going in nearly the same direction, and gather in the corner of the room.  But with such large numbers of molecules, that probability is so remote that no one has ever seen it happen. For a single molecule of that air in the room, it happens rather frequently.

When tiny collections of very small particles are involved, the balancing actions of large- scale statistics do not apply.  This means that a given process at that level can and will at least momentarily run backwards even with no further direct engineering to make it happen and sustain it, thereby consuming entropy in so doing.[2] 

Ignoring the Source- Charge Problem

Most scientists have continued to assume that reversibility and thus violation of the second law are possible only for very small regions: atoms and fundamental particles.  At the same time, they specifically ignore the magnificent and long-standing (and vexing) source charge problem — the problem of the source charge and its associated fields and potentials and their energy, reaching across the universe.

Specifically, there has been very little consideration of proven processes — such as the source charge's broken symmetry in the seething vacuum energy flux — already coordinating or correlating the microscopic with the macroscopic realm and thereby yielding macroscopic second law violations.  Indeed, if the second law applies rigorously at all macroscopic levels above a certain small size, then there is a grave problem in explaining how ordered larger macroscopic systems could ever arise from their microscopic constituents in the first place.  If an absolutely impassable "size barrier" exists, then how did the larger organized and energetic elements of the universe evolve, and how was their evolution continually sustained beyond that barrier?

Entropy Assumes Negentropy Has Previously Happened

In other words, the production of entropy is totally dependent on an earlier production of negentropy having occurred, otherwise no macroscopic energy would be available to then be made "unavailable".  So the prevalent assumption that entropy applies ubiquitously to the macro world contains the corresponding inherent assumption of negentropy having occurred. Either that, or prevailing scientific attitudes assume the creation of energy from nothing. The falsity of this customary assumption is particularly salient in the field of electrodynamics, in the case of the source charge and its associated electromagnetic fields and potentials, as the author has pointed out previously.

Uncertainty, Statistics, and Lack of Foundations Definitions

To keep one's sense of humor, one poses to the ardent defenders of the faith — so confident that statistical uncertainty rules in the "Big World" — Augustine's famous remark in his confrontation with the Skeptics, who held that nothing can be known with certainty.  Augustine simply asked, "Are you certain of that?"

Statistics is in a somewhat similar position of stating the oxymoron that it is certain that everything is uncertain and therefore statistical.  Yet there really is no fully acceptable definition of probability itself, for example. This is further compounded by the uncertainty of physics concepts such as energy. Quoting Richard Feynman {[13]}:

"It is important to realize that in physics today, we have no knowledge of what energy is."  

He made a similar comment about force {[14]}:

"One of the most important characteristics of force is that it has a material origin, and this is not just a definition. … If you insist upon a precise definition of force, you will never get it!"

Nor are there fully satisfactory definitions of mass, time, charge, etc.

Physics’ difficulties with its foundations (particularly the terrible situation with respect to definitions) are so bad that many physicists excuse their sorry science’s inability to explain reality by taking the position that physics has nothing to say about what anything is, but only what it does.

Stephen Hawking, one of the great physicists of our time, said this about our state of knowledge {[15]}:

"All we ever know is our models, but never the reality that may or may not exist behind the models and casts its shadow upon us who are embedded inside it.  We imagine and intuit, then point the finger and wait to see which suspect for truth turns and runs.  Our models may get closer and closer, but we will never reach direct perception of reality's thing-in-itself."

Defense of Present Models

We are still caught up in a scientific problem that has dogged the scientific community since the very inception of science.  Once a model is found to be useful and is accepted, a substantial percentage of scientists become so wedded to the model that they refuse to change it, or even consider a change, regardless of what is shown by new experiments or further mathematical analysis.  They treat the model as if it is “Truth” rather than “the best hypothesis known so far, subject to invalidation by future experiments.”

A portion of these "defenders of the faith" convert science into dogma and a religion, and are notable for cur-dog pack-attacks, slander and libel upon any dissenting voice in the scientific community.  Any historian of science can easily give a hundred examples of this prevailing trait in science, and how it has devastatingly slowed scientific progress.  Max Planck, in his day one of the world’s leading scientists, said it very eloquently {[16]}:

"An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul.  What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning."

Micro-Level Randomness Would Integrate to Macro-Level Randomness

Let us return to the subject of statistical fluctuations at the small level.  Assuming those microscopic constituents underlying and comprising the macro world are governed by randomness, integration of their microscopic randomness would just yield macroscopic randomness (disorder), not the observed macroscopic order. In large-scale integration there emerges an "integrated similarity" of the lower statistics.  Indications of this are met in the statistical behavior of networks, e.g., where fractal behavior does not smooth or eliminate "bursting" when integrated {[17]}. Disorder simply does not integrate into order. Even if one argues that "statistical fluctuation" occasionally produces a momentarily-ordered macro system, that does not explain how a momentarily ordered macro system is then selected, stabilized, persists, replicates, grows, etc. 

Ultimately one cannot justify an ordered and energetic macroscopic world, continually scattering energy and increasing its entropy, unless some process is continuously funneling up (from the microlevel) the necessary order and energy to the macro world level for the macro world to then disperse and "lose the usage of".  Unless such a funneling process is happening, the macro world cannot be sustained, but would quickly decay due to its constant production of entropy.  Bluntly put, if huge ensembles at the microscopic level do not coherently and energetically organize themselves into higher levels in a sustained fashion, then there can be no organized macroscopic world. In that case, there can be no entropy at the macrolevel either, since there was no negentropy sufficient for the macrolevel to have arisen and stabilized.

Living Systems Violate the Second Law

As an example, the accepted negentropy of the ion pump operating our nervous system allows the nervous system to exercise control over the entire body.  Obviously such control must be correlated to the continuance of that "reversed operation", or else the control would become random instead of deterministic, and the ion pump would sporadically help and sporadically hinder, leading to total chaos.  Hence the many cellular operations of the body can be monitored and controlled, so that the body survives and continues, without rather immediately (as in four seconds!) dying from entropic deterioration of the nervous system.  Entropy is continuously created in the functioning body being controlled.  But also a continuous infusion of energy (e.g., from food and oxygen) from the environment, together with correlated negentropy of the ion pumping and other body processes, permits violations of the second law for durations ranging from short to longer periods.  Hence living macrosystems remain alive rather than perishing in seconds. Nonetheless, imperfections in the negentropy replacement result in body aging and the eventual death of the organism.  But even this seems to be violated in cases such as "immortal cells", such as HeLa cells {[18]} used in cancer research.

Since we universally observe an organized macroscopic world, then we experimentally observe the ubiquitous negentropy resulting from the unobserved sustained organization and negentropy occurring in the microworld and further correlated or integrated coherently into the larger macroworld.  In short, we do not have to prove sustained microlevel organization and its correlated integration in the world at large; the very existence and persistence of the macro world itself and its entropy is already proof.  We just have to uncover a negentropy mechanism that can explain how it is done. 

Ironically, much scientific pontificating about the "absoluteness" of the second law of thermodynamics is based on arguments that, if rigorously true, exclude the readily-observed organized macroscopic world in which we live, including the pontificators themselves.  They counter their own argument by just being present and continuing to pontificate.

The Conventional View

Nevertheless, in the prevailing received scientific view, violation of the second law of thermodynamics simply does not and cannot apply to the size (macroscopic) and time (long) scales of the macroscopic systems and processes that we ourselves would normally build and operate. This view contains the implicit assumption that the macro world is not — and cannot be — self-ordering in the very large through the mechanism of controlled order welling up and integrating from the sustained negentropy exhibited by the ordered microworld.  Inexplicably, in the conventional view the second law is thought not to apply locally to the microworld, but only to larger ensembles.

It's rather like living in a world of adults and stating that babies can occur and exist, but cannot grow to adults: where then do all the adults come from and continue to come from?

Thesis: Sustained Negentropy In the Macro World

If our thesis of sustained negentropy in the micro world and its integration into the macro world is correct, then it follows that the received scientific position — that the second law is absolute in the macro world with the exception of small-scale phenomena — is false.  The traditional position can be maintained only by ignoring evidence to the contrary. Further, if we are right, that contravening evidence would be manifest in numerous easily-observed phenomena and should be easy to find. 

We shall show that the evidence is indeed decisive and ubiquitous — and also that it has been quite resoundingly ignored.

Our thesis uncovers a hidden assumption whereby the second law assumes a priori that no correlation and integration can be established and maintained in the macrolevel world above a certain size, welling up coherently from microlevel processes exhibiting negentropy. In short, it implicitly assumes that the micro level cannot further coherently organize on up into the large macro level.  There is no middle ground between our thesis and the received view.  Either the received view is incorrect, or our thesis is incorrect.  If our thesis can be experimentally demonstrated, then the received view is falsified.  If it cannot be experimentally demonstrated, then at worst our thesis is wrong, or at best it remains an unproven hypothesis and the conventional view must continue to be accepted.

Putting It to the Test

The received view is easily destroyed by exhibiting actual examples to the contrary. One such example is the source charge’s creation of organized fields and potentials reaching across the universe {[19]}.  As stated by Sen {[20]}, "The connection between the field and its source has always been and still is the most difficult problem in classical and quantum electrodynamics." Unknown to Sen, it may also be the most difficult problem in classical thermodynamics also, since it negates the second law. We proposed a solution {[21]} to the problem in 2000, based on the modern view that the "isolated" observable charge is a dipolarity consisting of the bare charge surrounded by a cluster of virtual charges of opposite sign (this view is referred to as the polarization of the vacuum).  With that view of the charge in mind, then the charge must exhibit the broken symmetry of opposite charges, as proved by Wu et al. {[22]} in 1957, a discovery for which a Nobel Prize was awarded to Lee and Yang that very same year. Later we found that our solution was also consistent with quantum field theory's finding that, while neither the scalar photon nor the longitudinal photon is observable, their combination is observable {[23]}, in the presence of charge, as the instantaneous scalar potential.

So the basis for our thesis on the source charge has already been proven in particle physics for 45 years. Further, in untold thousands of experiments for two hundred years, scientists have verified the huge macroscopic organization of the fields and potentials associated with, and produced by, the source charge. So the macroscopic evolution and coherent integration of order from the microscopic — i.e., the continuous production of giant negentropy by every charge in the universe — is already thoroughly proven experimentally.

Thus the new thesis of macroscopic evolution of order by coherent integration of microscopic ordering is resoundingly proven experimentally, and the received interpretation of the second law of thermodynamics for the larger macroscopic world is resoundingly falsified experimentally.

Inexplicable Mystery: Why Is the Source Charge Problem Ignored and Hidden?

One reason the scientific community has not solved the source charge problem could be that the problem involves a huge  (rather complete) violation of the second law of thermodynamics, as developed above.  From the source charge, there is a continuous outpouring of EM energy at the speed of light in all directions, establishing (at light speed) its associated and ordered output fields and potentials reaching across the universe. Furthermore, the energy in these fields and potentials is precisely correlated with the source charge, and ordered in both energy-density magnitude and direction, as a function of each point in space occupied by the speeding fields and potentials since the formation of the charge. 

The energy of the source charges comprising the original matter in the universe have been pouring out EM energy for some 14 billion years, and this energy now spans the entire universe.  This is certainly an enormous number of cases of giant negentropy and a giant correlation between those source charges and their fields and potential energy throughout space.  It is also an enormous number of experimental demonstrations of integration of order from the microscopic to the large macroscopic scale, without limit.  It is also a concrete demonstration that the giant negentropy — and welling up of integrated order from the microworld — is continuously and massively ongoing in the universe. For the original matter, the correlation and thus the violation of the second law of thermodynamics extends essentially across the entire universe for a duration of some 14 billion years. That is as large macroscopically as one can get, and about as long a time duration as one can get in the observed universe.

The scientific community already accepts that all EM fields and potentials, and their energy, do arise from their source charges.  This is easily validated experimentally; one simply produces some charge on the bench, and the potentials and fields from it appear at the speed of light radially outward, eventually reaching to any radial distance if one waits long enough.  With that simple action, from a very small amount of input energy to form the charge, suppose one waits for one year.  Simply producing that charge a year ago and then leaving it alone has altered the energy density of a surrounding region of space one light-year in radius — reaching out beyond the solar system.  So in one year we have demonstrated giant negentropy and reorganization of energy across a very large macro volume of space. A similar experiment on a lesser scale is easily performed in the laboratory.

Every dipolarity also must exhibit the same giant negentropy and continuous and free outpouring of energy, because of its proven asymmetry (the asymmetry of opposite charges) in its fierce energetic exchange with the virtual particle flux of the seething vacuum.

This leads to a simple way of readily falsifying the received scientific position on the inviolability of the second law, as we showed above. 

Another Simple Demonstration of Giant Negentropy

Just lay a simple charged capacitor on a permanent magnet so that the E-field of the capacitor is at right angles to the H-field of the magnet. Even by the ordinary Poynting theory in every electrical engineering textbook, that silly contraption will simply sit there and pour out EM energy in all directions at the speed of light — as does every charge in the universe. More rigorously, it must also continuously and freely pour out EM energy extracted from the vacuum — since two dipoles are involved and each represents a broken symmetry of opposite charges.  Quoting  Buchwald {[24]}:

"[Poynting's result] implies that a charged capacitor in a constant magnetic field which is not parallel to the electric field is the seat of energy flows even though all macroscopic phenomena are static." 

From all such devices, the freely and continuously emitted observable EM energy is organized by direction and intensity and 3-spatial location.  Hence it constitutes "giant negentropy" continually being furnished from the crossed fields of the two dipolarities, with the ordering spreading out into 3-space at the speed of light.  The received view can stand only by rather blithely ignoring the source charge problem and the problem of "crossed static fields" as a known source of freely flowing EM energy extracted from the vacuum.

Even simpler to demonstrate, any permanent magnet, electret, charged capacitor, or other dipolarity is also a broken symmetry in the virtual particle flux of vacuum.  Hence it freely extracts virtual photon EM energy from the vacuum, integrates it into observable photon energy, and pours it out into 3-space.  Such simple devices are well-known but unappreciated in classical electrodynamics, yet they freely extract usable energy from the vacuum. That this topic is not adequately addressed by the classical EM model is of no consequence, since it has been well known and experimentally proven in particle physics now for nearly half a century.  The discrepancy with the model shows that something is wrong with the model, not with the experiment.

Sufficiency of Proof

It only takes a single white crow to prove that not all crows are black.  The example of the source charge and its associated fields and potentials, and the example of the crossed fields as a known source of continuous dynamic EM energy flow, are quite sufficient to experimentally demonstrate that correlation of negentropy from the microscopic to the macroscopic level not only is possible but is widespread in nature. 

The same giant negentropy in fact is exhibited by choosing any two points in the entire universe whose potential (charge) differs from the ambient vacuum potential.  The potential difference between the two points may be considered a dipolarity, and necessarily exhibits quantum physics’ broken symmetry of opposite charges.  Hence it continuously extracts and pours out real observable EM energy from the vacuum.  This broken symmetry of any dipolarity appears to be the basis of the “open path” discovered by Gabriel Kron {[25]}, one of the most outstanding electrical scientists ever, and recognized by him as a true negative resistor.

Other Pertinent Points

With the new ANU results by Evans et al., physicists have realized that the new highly miniaturized nanobots may face miniaturization restrictions and difficulties due to the sporadic appearance of uncontrolled reversibility of their functions and processes.  Predictably, the scientific community has rushed its usual assurances that the second law is still comfortably inviolate above this small additional threshold shown by Evans and his colleagues. None of the scientific comments has mentioned the source charge problem and the fact that every EM field and potential is already a colossal violation of the second law at whatever scale one wishes to consider.

In short, the scientific community continues to ignore how EM energy and order are continuously funneled up from the microlevel to the macrolevel in the first place, to continuously sustain the observed ordered EM fields and potentials in the macroworld that is continuously scattering energy and generating entropy. 

The macro world cannot be self-sustaining unless it is also continuously receiving energy and generating order from its constituent microworld.  It was the mistaken belief in the absence of upward funneling of giant negentropy that led to the original harsh verdict of thermodynamics that the universe would inevitably succumb to a "heat death" as it decayed deeper into disorder {[26]}.  No such decay is presently seen; in fact it seems, tentatively, that the energy of the universe is increasing, because the observed expansion of the universe is accelerating {[27]}.  This appears to show an increase in the kinetic energy of the universe {[28]}.

In general relativity, which certainly applies to the universe at large, there is also a very special problem.  The energy conservation equations commonly assumed by electrodynamics etc. do not exist in general relativity (unless inserted as extra requirements).  Hilbert pointed this out {[29]} just two years after the advent of general relativity in 1915.  Hilbert stated:

 "I assert... that for the general theory of relativity, i.e., in the case of general invariance of the Hamiltonian function, energy equations... corresponding to the energy equations in orthogonally invariant theories do not exist at all.  I could even take this circumstance as the characteristic feature of the general theory of relativity."

Russian physicists such as Logunov and Loskutov have long recognized this intriguing fact originally pointed out by Hilbert.  Quoting Logunov and Loskutov {[30]}:

In formulating the equivalence principle, Einstein actually abandoned the idea of the gravitational field as a Faraday-Maxwell field, and this is reflected in the pseudotensorial characterization of the gravitational field that he introduced.  Hilbert was the first to draw attention to the consequences …Unfortunately, this remark of Hilbert was evidently not understood by his contemporaries, since neither Einstein himself nor other physicists recognized the fact that in general relativity conservation laws for energy, momentum, and angular momentum are in principle impossible."

So, for the universe in its entirety, we really do not know whether energy is conserved overall or not.  At best we are able to assume energy conservation locally, so long as the local spacetime is not too curved.  This follows because local curved spacetime interacts energetically back upon the physical mass system whose energy created the local curvature in the first place. Significant energy input by the local curved spacetime can place the system far from equilibrium in its energy exchange with its local environment (the active vacuum and the local curved spacetime).  Wheeler puts it this way {[31]}:

"Space acts on matter, telling it how to move.  In turn, matter reacts back on space, telling it how to curve."

Considering dynamics and the limitation to light-speed of the speed of energy transfer, regenerative positive feedback is conceivable and is at least theoretically possible.  In such a situation, giant negentropy would emerge and continuously increase, at least theoretically.

Nonetheless, the violation of the second law has long been justified and recognized by the scientific community as occurring for small dimensions over short time intervals.  Quoting Schewe et al. {[32]}:

"In systems of only a few particles, the statistics are grainer, and circumstances may arise that would be highly improbable in large systems.  Therefore, the second law of thermodynamics is not generally applied to small collections of particles."

And there the community has been satisfied to leave it at present.  They have just recognized the results of Evans et al. as merely slightly extending the size level and time-scale over which the second law can be violated.  Continuing to be ignored is the problem of how the negentropy and thus the available energy is first achieved at much larger macro levels, so that at the macrolevel continuous production of entropy can ever occur as observed.  Simply attributing the furnishing of initial energy to the external environment is a tautology and is insufficient, since it leaves unanswered the question of where and how the external environment received the energy. And so on.

This is important, since every EM field and potential, and its energy, is already assumed by the scientific community to freely arise from the source charges.  In short, all of electrodynamics is in fact based on violation of the second law of thermodynamics, anywhere in the universe, at any time, and in any level of size and time-level as well. Even when we add the solution to the source-charge problem, to explain how the energy is extracted and reduced from the vacuum, it still represents giant negentropy on a continuous scale and thus a complete violation of the second law.  It can then, however, be justified as an open system far from equilibrium, and freely receiving excess energy from its environment — the active vacuum.  As is well known, the second law of thermodynamics applies only to systems in equilibrium; however, the source charge’s energy flow is observably not in equilibrium.

Gauge Freedom Also Violates the Second Law

Other parts of physics also affect this problem of violation of the second law in the large.  E.g., one of the standard axioms of quantum field theory is gauge freedom. Gauge freedom assumes the ability to change the potential energy of an EM system at will, whenever one wishes — and electrodynamicists do this routinely by arbitrarily regauging their equations for convenience.  The point is, all of electrodynamics is based on violation of the second law!  Recognition of this has only been possible by ignoring the source-charge problem.  However, to ignore it is to assume that the source charge freely creates all that energy it continuously pours out to establish its associated fields and potentials.  Since that violates the first law of thermodynamics (conservation of energy), it also violates the second law (which is a provision for how the first law applies).

Recap: The Fluctuation Theorem

To deal with the transition of the statistical predictions between the macrolevel and the microlevel, in 1993 Professor Denis J. Evans and his colleagues in the Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University, formulated the fluctuation theorem {[33]}, based on a statistical view of reversibility at the extreme small level gradually transducing to irreversibility at much higher (macroscopic) level. The theorem predicts that in the intermediate zone — e.g., at the micron level — the reversibility effect and violation of the second law are still statistically present, though not all-pervading as at extreme small level.

Recently Professor Evans and his colleagues have experimentally demonstrated precisely those violations of the second law at the micron (intermediate) level, and for up to two seconds, that their fluctuation theory predicts.  This is an experimental result of great importance in physics and thermodynamics.  We point out that at this level and for these times, selective switching (deterministic ordering) should now be available for chemical and electromagnetic processes of interest, whether that "Maxwell's demon" switching {[34]} is applied by us or by nature.

At any rate, general relativity involves permissible violation of both the first and second laws of thermodynamics.

Other Implications of Violating the Second Law

The arrow of time (i.e., "time flowing forward") is said to result from the second law of thermodynamics {[35]}.  This begs the question of whether a macroscopic-level time-reversal, which a priori would involve violation of the second law, can be produced deliberately. 

One example that answers with a resounding “yes” is the pumped phase conjugate mirror system.  In such a system an input signal wave of EM energy can be precisely time-reversed and amplified, and returned to a distant source even thousands of miles away (as in phase conjugate shooting for laser ABM weapons mounted on space platforms). Further, the mirror material does not recoil in accordance with Newton's third law, regardless of how powerfully pumped or how powerful the emitted phase conjugate replica wave. 

Since again it only takes one white crow to prove that not all crows are black, one may conclude that the ability to controllably accomplish macroscopic time-reversal is already experimentally proven.

Thermodynamically, the pumped phase conjugate mirror is an open system freely receiving energy from its external environment (the pump waves of the multi-wave mixing).  Such a macro system is indeed permitted to exhibit five "magic" functions: (i) self-ordering, (ii) self-oscillation or self-rotation, (iii) output of more energy than is input by the operator (the excess is freely received from the environment), (iv) power itself and its load (all the energy is freely received from the environment), and (v) exhibit negentropy. 

Any such macro system exhibits the very local negentropy proposed here, if the environment itself freely furnishes the pumping energy.  In that case, self-oscillating systems emerge with amplified output energy in response to a smaller "triggering" or "switching" input energy.

Further evidence is contained in some of the exact nuclear reactions at low spatial energy that emerge in cold fusion experiments and produce transmutations {[36], [37]}.

Understanding the Broken Symmetry of the Source Charge

One may visualize (to first order) how the lowly source charge is able to continuously amplify virtual photon energy absorbed from the active vacuum into observable photons, and re-emit these observable photons in all directions in 3-space, through the following imagery.

Phase conjugate "pumping" of a mirror mass is a special form of "squeezing" that mass rhythmically.  For a charge, its continuous absorption of incredible numbers of virtual photons is a process for continuously integrating and amplifying the "pumping" or "squeezing" compression upon the mass of the charge.  The number of virtual photons absorbed from all directions is so great that the compressive force from all directions is equal, and steadily increasing as regarded in a small time frame.  This forms a stress potential, steadily increasing.  Thus the energy in the virtual (subquantal) state is steadily amplifying toward the observable state (observable photon) energy level threshold.  When the integrating virtual energy reaches that threshold, the virtual energy has just integrated into sufficient energy for an observable photon, but in compressive (pumping) form.  The situation is so linear that the mass of the charge may be considered a perfect pumped phase conjugate mirror.  The next virtual photon absorbed then initiates the pumped phase conjugate emission of an observable photon, "back-tracking" the direction of that last absorbed virtual photon.  An observable photon is thus emitted radially outward antiparallel to the direction of the absorbed virtual photon.  Due to the very large number and the statistics, the source charge will very rapidly perform this "virtual energy integration and emission of an observable photon" at a very high rate.  The statistics of the triggering virtual photons result in balanced emission of real EM photons in all directions from the source charge.  The process continues at essentially all frequencies.

This is a useful visualization aid so long as it is not interpreted too literally.

Toward COP>1.0 Power Systems

The second law of thermodynamics assumes equilibrium between the system and its external environment. Open disequilibrium macro systems need not obey the second law of thermodynamics, as is well-known in the thermodynamics for such systems. Since every electrical system is inherently a conglomerate of energetically open systems (charges) far from equilibrium with their active vacuum environment, and since the fields and potentials are macroscopically organized in perfect correlation to the negentropy of the source charges, it follows that COP>1.0 and COP = ¥  electrodynamic systems are in theory possible.  That these systems have not been developed must thus be a result of some physical characteristic of the system. We have previously given examples of such COP>1.0 systems {[38], [39], [40], [41]}, and the theory and candidate example areas for COP>1.0 EM systems ([42], [43]}. In conventional physics, spontaneous symmetry breaking is recognized and is a violation of the second law of thermodynamics.  It can also be involved in extracting EM energy from the vacuum {[44]}.

And yes, there is a symmetry-restoring, disequilibrium-destroying characteristic of present electrical power systems. The ubiquitous use of the closed current loop circuit is what self-enforces COP<1.0 functioning in electrical power systems, as is easily shown and has been shown elsewhere {[45]}.  It follows that developing a significant violation of the functioning of the closed current loop circuit is the first requirement for COP>1.0 EM systems.

Other Known Violations of the Second Law

Several other types of macro systems are also well known and proven to violate the second law of thermodynamics.  Examples {[46]} are:

(i)                 "…rarified media, where the idea of local equilibrium fails.  The average energy at each point depends on the temperature at the boundaries.  Important astrophysical situations belong to this category" {[47]};

(ii)                "…strong gradients, where we expect the failure of linear laws such as the Fourier law for heat conduction.  Not much is known either experimentally or theoretically.  Attempts to introduce such nonlinear outcomes into the thermodynamics description have led to 'extended thermodynamics' … {[48], [49]}.

(iii)              "…memory effects which appear for long times … nonequilibrium processes may have 'long-time tails.'  … Nature has a much longer memory of irreversible processes than it was thought before.  Again this shows that local equilibrium is an approximation…" {[50]}. 

(iv)              Living systems.  Living systems exhibit amplification of "order through fluctuations" at a much higher level {[51]}

 The Evans Experiments at ANU Showing Larger-Scale Second-Law Violations

Evans and his ANU colleagues used latex beads suspended in water, with each bead being a few micrometers in diameter. A very precise laser beam was used to trap the beads, and their movement was precisely measured.  So the team could repeatedly calculate the entropy of the system at very short time intervals.  They showed that the change in entropy was consistently negative for a few tenths of a second, showing nature's usual entropic processes running in reverse for the beads.  After two seconds, the negentropic process was overcome and entropic functioning was restored, e.g. at four seconds or longer.

The team made the following statement: "This result has profound consequences for any chemical or physical process that occurs over short times and in small regions."

For macroscopic energy systems, it remains only to find the correct applications of coordination (order integration and amplification) from the microscopic through the mesoscopic and out into the macroscopic level.  We already know that such giant negentropy is possible in open dissipative systems.  As discussed above, every charge in the universe already violates the second law, as does the presence of every EM field and potential.  So every EM circuit and system is filled with numerous violations of that second law, and always has been.

Implications for COP>1.0 Electrical Power Systems

One serious implication is for thermodynamics itself: In thermodynamics, a "closed system" is defined as a system closed to any transfer of matter across its boundary, but open to transfer of energy {[52]}.  Incredible as it may sound to the casual reader confronting that anachronism for the first time, that is the accepted thermodynamic definition of a "closed system".  So a "closed" system is "defined" illogically as a completely open system with respect to energy transfer across the system boundary!  With such a weird definition, a "closed thermodynamic system" can in theory be very far from equilibrium in its energy exchange with its external environment.  According to this weird definition, one should visualize the part of the system responsible for energy conversion and input separately from part involving the system’s load and losses. Oddly, when one considers the continual outpouring of energy throughout the universe from any dipole, every power source — from a single charge on up to generators and batteries — outputs far more energy than the operator arranges to be input to it, and always has.  So as an energy converter, every EM system already exhibits COP>>1.0 or even COP = ¥ in the case of the source charge.

In its energy conversion function, a standard electrical power generator system can (and does) output far more EM energy flow from its terminals than the mechanical energy that is input to its shaft.  This was discovered by Oliver Heaviside in the 1880s and was considered simply astounding.  In addition to the presently accounted Poynting energy flow component, and accompanying it, there is a long-neglected but huge Heaviside nondiverged energy flow component that remains in space outside the external circuit conductors. This is covered in detail in our forthcoming book {[53]}.  To see it firsthand, one may refer to the original 19th-century papers of this phenomenon’s two independent but simultaneous codiscoverers — Heaviside {[54]} and Poynting {[55]} — of "energy propagation through space", which appeared after Maxwell’s death. In every generator, battery, or other power source, EM energy extracted from the vacuum by the source dipolarity between the terminals pours freely from the terminals and out along the direction of the external conductors, filling the space surrounding the external conductors.   

There is often quite some difficulty in getting across to beginning engineers that the EM energy in a circuit flows outside the circuit!  Quoting Heald {[56]}:

"Intuitively one might prefer the notion that electromagnetic energy is transported by the current, inside the wires.  It takes some effort to convince oneself (and one's students) that this is not the case and that in fact the energy flows in the space outside the wire."

Sadly, by limiting his consideration to only the Poynting component of that external energy flow — the component that actually enters the wire and powers the circuit — Heald appears to overlook the remaining nondiverged energy flow component detailed by Heaviside, and its giant magnitude.

The magnitude of the Poynting energy intercepted by the external circuit conductors is only a small fraction of the magnitude of the remaining huge available Heaviside energy flow component that is not intercepted, not caught and collected, and is just wasted.  Poynting never considered anything but the small component that is captured and diverged into the circuit to power it (see his original paper, cited).  Heaviside also discovered the huge extra component that is not caught or diverged, but just wasted.  He also corrected Poynting’s 90-degree error as to the direction of the main energy flow component.

So from the terminals of a simple generator or battery may actually flow a trillion times as much EM energy as the energy that was input mechanically to the shaft of the generator or dissipated as chemical energy in the battery. 

This startlingly huge remaining flow of nondiverged energy was totally inexplicable to electrical scientists in Heaviside’s day (and has remained so).  Unless scientists update the classical electrodynamics model with quantum-mechanical concepts of higher group symmetry to model the active vacuum and its energetic exchange with the Maxwellian system, the astoundingly large nondiverged energy flow will remain a puzzle and a profound mystery to them.  And they will continue to use Lorentz's trick to exclude the nonconforming component that glaringly falsifies their models and simply sweep the problem under the rug for somebody else to clean up later, rather than seeking a solution.

Circa the 1890s, Lorentz invented a computational stratagem to disregard the larger portion of the energy, implied by Maxwell’s equations, that flows outside the conductors.  He did this {[57]} by integrating the energy flow vector itself around a closed surface assumed to surround any volume element of interest.  In this manner the energy inside the wire was counted and the energy outside the wire did not count.   That trick — still used by all textbooks {[58]} and electrical engineers — neatly disposes of the need to account for the huge and troublesome Heaviside energy flow component, while retaining and accounting for the accepted Poynting component that actually is diverged, enters the external circuit, and powers its electrons {[59]}. 

The modern version of Lorentz’s "disposal statement" recognizes that any amount of nondiverged EM energy could in fact be present in addition to the Poynting component. E.g., see Jones {[60]} who states:

"It is possible to introduce the Poynting vector S, defined by S = E´H, and regard it as the intensity of energy flow at a point.  This procedure is open to criticism since we could add to S any vector whose divergence is zero without affecting [the basic integration procedure's result]."

Jackson merely reiterates what is effectively Lorentz's original excuse for discarding the divergence-free component.  Quoting {[61]}:

 "...the Poynting vector is arbitrary to the extent that the curl of any vector field can be added to it.  Such an added term can, however, have no physical consequences."

The point is that it can have no physical consequences unless (i) it is actually present (this is easily proven, e.g., by the Bohren experiment {40}), and (ii) one takes measures to intercept and collect some of it for use in powering loads. 

Conclusion

Here we rest our case.  Every generator and battery and electrical system already exhibits giant negentropy as an energy converter, and this has been completely discarded and ignored by the scientific community — including the scientific advocates of the second law of thermodynamics — for more than a century.

This discovery by Heaviside in the 1880s is actually the proof of our thesis that the entropy of present EM systems must be preceded by a giant negentropy.

Every electrical system ever built, and every one of them built today, massively violates the second law of equilibrium thermodynamics — totally contradicting the prevailing interpretation. It can do this because the system is literately filled with numerous source charges and dipolarities that freely extract EM energy from the vacuum, transduce it into observable EM field energy and potential energy, and pour it out in all directions in a large-scale macroscopically organized form.  All of these charges massively violate the second law.  So every EM system is filled with innumerable open systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium with their active vacuum environment, and continuously receiving energy from that active environment.  The EM system is quite happy to include an incredible number of "gross" violations of the second law of thermodynamics.

Again: Because of (1) the giant negentropy and COP = ¥ performance of the source charge, and (2) the giant macroscopic violation of the second law of thermodynamics represented by every EM field and potential in space and in every EM system, all electrodynamics involves and always has involved primary, massive, and extreme violations of the second “law” of thermodynamics.  Indeed, all 3-spatial EM energy in the universe exists in total violation of the second “law” of thermodynamics.

To repeat, entropy is based on the assumption that negentropy has first occurred.  In short, as traditionally formulated, the definition of entropy contains its own contradiction.  The second law as presently interpreted is therefore a giant oxymoron, but one to which most of the scientific community is very firmly committed and which it ardently defends.

The work of Evans and colleagues is only the beginning of a long and arduous journey for the conventional scientific community to recognize that giant negentropy is the easiest thing in all the world to engineer electrodynamically in the macroscopic world.  Researchers, scientists, and engineers have been doing such for more than a century, and have just been ignoring and wasting the vast amounts of EM energy freely available from their resulting giant negentropy operations without even recognizing it.

In the second law of thermodynamics, we simply have a classic case of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Emperor's New Suit" {[62]}, where the Emperor actually has no clothes and is strutting down the street naked, while most of the scientific community continues to admire the magnificence of the cloth and the beauty of its cut. Meanwhile, species are destroyed, the biosphere is polluted, the wealth of nations is plundered, wars over energy are engendered, and the standard of living for most of humankind is depressed — all to keep alive the myth of the Second Law Emperor's magnificent clothes.

References and Notes