| Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2002 16:14:24 -0500
Dear Matthew, The magnets are indeed freely replenished, it seems, and do not run down. Any dipole -- including the dipole of a permanent magnet -- has a known broken symmetry in the vacuum virtual particle flux, proven in physics in 1957. That means that a dipole (its opposite charges) continuously absorbs virtual photons from the seething vacuum, transduces (coherently integrate) that energy into real observable EM energy, and pours out real observable photons in all direction. Again, this has been proven in particle physics since 1957, and one does not have to reprove it. Lee and Yang got a Nobel Prize for predicting such broken symmetry, and the prize was awarded in Dec. 1957 --- the same year in which Wu et al. proved it experimentally, earlier that year. That is a nearly unprecedented action by the Nobel Committee, and illustrates how profound a revolution broken symmetry was in physics. Sadly, the broken symmetry of a source dipole (and of a source charge) is still not even included in classical electrodynamics and electrical engineering. So eerily, there is not now and there never has been a single electrical engineering department, professor, or textbook who even knew and taught what really powers every electrical circuit ever built. Sad, but true. All have always been powered by EM energy extracted and transduced from the active vacuum by the source charges. Every charge is of course a Maxwellian system (THE fundamental Maxwellian system). A charge just sits there and steadily pours out real, observable EM energy in all directions at the speed of light (easily shown). Yet it has absolutely no real, observable EM energy input (again, easily shown). The experimenter/operator does not have to input anything, hence the charge is like a "free windmill in a wind", with a COP = infinity. The "problem of the source charge" has been considered (e.g., Sen) the "most difficult problem in classical electrodynamics and quantum electrodynamics". Either one surrenders the conservation of energy law itself, or one must explain a continuous NONOBSERVABLE electromagnetic energy input to the source charge. Such an input exists in particle physics, but has never been included in classical electrodynamics or electrical engineering. So those self-appointed experts who adamantly proclaim there can be no COP>1.0 systems, are simultaneously guilty of accepting every charge in the universe to be a perpetual motion machine of the worst kind, freely creating energy continuously out of nothing, and pouring it out continuously. They are in fact the ultimate hypocrites, and are not even aware of it. Most have not even heard of the source charge dilemma (few electrical engineers have). But Sen spoke of it in this fashion: "The connection between the field and its source has always been and still is the most difficult problem in classical and quantum electrodynamics." [D. K. Sen, Fields and/or Particles, Academic Press, London and New York, 1968, p. viii.]If one is to retain the conservation of energy law, then there must exist an appropriate continuous energy input to the source charge. That's because there really are no true "sources" of energy. Semiz said it nicely: "The very expression 'energy source' is actually a misnomer. As is known since the early days of thermodynamics, and formulated as the first law, energy is conserved in any physical process. Since energy cannot be created or destroyed, nothing can be an energy source, or sink. Devices we call energy sources do not create energy, they convert it from a form not suitable for our needs to a form that is suitable, a form we can do work with." [Ibrahim Semiz, "Black hole as the ultimate energy source," American Journal of Physics, 63(2), Feb. 1995, p. 151.]If one really believes that COP>1.0 systems are impossible, then one should purge from one's classical electrodynamics and electrical engineering models all their charges and dipoles, to be consistent with the position that such COP = infinity systems are impossible. But interestingly, the fields and potentials and their energy come from the "source" charges, and that is easy to establish experimentally. It is also easy to show experimentally that there is no observable EM energy input to the source charge. So purging the classical model of COP = infinity charges will also purge the model of all EM fields, potentials, waves, and their energy. Either there exist and are COP = infinity charges, or classical electrodynamics and electrical engineering both eat themselves by swallowing their own tail. Wouldn't it be nice if the adamant skeptics and self-appointed defenders of the faith would actually read a little physics and understand the problem of the source charge! (We published a solution to that problem in 2000. It wasn't a big deal; the basis for the solution was already proven in particle physics.). In the MEG, an early-on experiment in which replenishment of the magnetic energy to the dipole -- and possible dwindling of magnetization -- appeared to be a problem. However, with further work, those odd measurements were eventually shown to be due to a faulty instrument used in that particular set of measurements. Several subsequent replications of the experiment and measurements over a period of time with another certified good instrument answered the question definitively, we feel, and showed no discernible rundown of the magnets, at least in a long series of such measurements. No such rundown has since been detected in any of our other MEG experiments. For decent operating conditions, the replenishment of the magnetic dipole energy is also verified by materials science in a myriad experiments over decades and decades and in hundreds of laboratories. In a very wide variety of nonlinear experiments in the literature, good modern magnets do not "run down" unless mechanically shocked hard, elevated in temperature sufficiently, etc. So magnets do have magnetization failure mechanisms in their magnetic materials, but only under extreme conditions not encountered in operating ordinary systems in reasonable conditions. Exceeding the Curie temperature, e.g., is one such magnetization failure mechanism. Best wishes, Tom Bearden Subject: Magnet wear in the MEG |