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I'm not a physicist but I ran across reports on the web of a so called over unity or free energy device that has been created that supposedly works.

It's called the QEG. Does this seem legit or is it yet another failed attempt to prove that free energy exists?

Of course this goes against the 1st law of thermodynamics. I suppose those who believe in such a device would say they aren't creating energy, they are pulling energy in from the ether?

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    $\begingroup$ HopeGirl kinda sounds like she's a professional con artist. These things always operate the same way: messages of positivity and future abundance, decrying the current infrastructure, and calls for crowdsourcing finance. Millions of dollars later, they still won't have a single operational unit running. Happens every time. It's actually probably a good business opportunity if you can manage to get in at the top levels of the organization, but it can sometimes be a risky game. $\endgroup$
    – DumpsterDoofus
    Commented Apr 8, 2014 at 0:28
  • $\begingroup$ There is a manual that genuinely contains this notice. NOTICE. IF YOU ARE TRAINED IN TRADITIONAL PHYSICS ..., YOU MUST FIRST DO YOUR RESEARCH ON QUANTUM ENERGY DEVICES AND HOW THEY WORK $\endgroup$
    – innisfree
    Commented Apr 9, 2014 at 17:08
  • $\begingroup$ The manual is about 30 pages, with pictures and diagrams, I didn't bother to read it though. $\endgroup$
    – innisfree
    Commented Apr 9, 2014 at 17:09
  • $\begingroup$ They put up schematics: fixtheworldproject.net/qeg-open-source-documents.html Someone should build one and show everyone if it works or not? Sounds a lot easier than conjecture. $\endgroup$
    – user44275
    Commented Apr 9, 2014 at 21:55
  • $\begingroup$ A free energy generator would cause as much stir in the physics community as a working time machine. Compare this report to the recent news about the discovery of primordial gravitational waves or the Higgs boson and you might think this "discovery" smells a bit fishy. $\endgroup$
    – ejrb
    Commented Apr 10, 2014 at 14:29

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See Anand's answer: I'm not sure whether this one is simply misguided or instead subtle fraud (as calls for money to fund research are involved).

Actually the claims made in the article are true in one sense, which gives the idea the whiff of sophisticated fraud. In the linked article, it is claimed that the device is powered by a 1kW source and then outputs 10kW powering itself.

Devices can and indeed are engineered to do this kind of thing: its simply that the time for which the device can output 10kW is less than or equal to a tenth of the time the device takes in 1kW for, so that the total energy in is the total energy out (together with losses in the system).

Q switched lasers are an example: of this kind of device: they make use of a low power pump to store energy in the gain medium, which is dumped over a very short time period, resulting in a very high power, but fleeting, pulse. The homopolar generator used to power particle accelerators in the 1950s and 1960s is another example: a lowish power source is used to spin up a huge flywheel which is also an electrical generator. The flywheel's kinetic energy is then extracted swiftly for a short burst powering the accelerator at very high power levels. The homopolar generator actually sounds rather like the linked article.

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According to the 1st law of thermodynamics, energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only change form and is thus conserved.

If it did work you would be going against 200 year of scientific consensus.

Good luck!

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  • $\begingroup$ I'm very skeptical myself. Just wondered what people who are in "the know" have to say. $\endgroup$
    – Chimera
    Commented Apr 8, 2014 at 0:06
  • $\begingroup$ @Chimera It's fake. $\endgroup$
    – Danu
    Commented Apr 8, 2014 at 0:26
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    $\begingroup$ I'm afraid this kind of short "it's against the laws" argument is really counterproductive for fighting the "gratis energy" craze. The laws of thermodynamics are themselves only a theory. A theory that's extremely well-backed by experiment, that's the point. Talking about violated laws OTOH is bound to sound to the layman like scientists have just invented them for fun, or indeed to make money from electricity business. $\endgroup$
    – leftaroundabout
    Commented Apr 9, 2014 at 13:27
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    $\begingroup$ Just a theory. A theory is proved. When one makes speculation that's called hypothesis. So the law of thermodynamics is a theory therefore one can't doubt it. It's proved to be true and can't be overruled. $\endgroup$
    – Robert Koritnik
    Commented May 27, 2014 at 7:42
  • $\begingroup$ @RobertKoritnik wouldn't you say Newtonian Mechanics is a theory? I'm not a pro physicist but I think it is, or at least was. For centuries experiments proved its validity. Yet it fails in some edge cases. I'm not saying that this QEG is real or not. I'm just saying that it's problematic to prove a theory in physics in the same way you prove a mathematical theorem. There's always a chance one day that a law of thermodynamics will prove to be only partially correct, with a more general theory to complement it. Just like the special theory of relativity is to Newton's laws. $\endgroup$
    – yby
    Commented Jan 1, 2015 at 19:58
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This is an interview that starts at a more technical overview of the QEG machine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=RJKE5DJRMFQ#t=715

The technical guy James Robitaille is obviously not a sales person, so when he speaks with his pauses, he seems a bit more of a technical geek than a "con artist". I submit he probably isn't a con artist at all, but more of a technical geek that worked for Honda.

Here is a list of Patents where is listed as an inventor for voltage control and small motor products: http://goo.gl/CsLKWx

Soo... again, I don't think he is a con artist because of his experience.

Listen to the interview, and if you are an electrical engineer you may understand this more than most. Let us know what you think.

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Something must be proven or understood.

So would beware from such answers like @Anand did. As example Nuclear reactor could be accepted like Perpetuum Mobile device, would it be invented some time ago.

But definitely chances, that someone just invents something from future, without proper knowledge's , equipment, theory etc, are low (as my opinion I suggest - below 10e-8)

Provided information (your link and pdf there) looks not sufficient, not solid - just words wrapped around few numbers. There is not enough information about device to work with, to decide something.

Actually I have no more to say as @Anand did, but feel myself concerned, about how he argued)

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    $\begingroup$ The premise it's based on is fundamentally flawed, which is more than enough information. Nuclear reactors would have never been seen as an infinite-energy machine, since they were never understood to give infinite energy. This isn't about current technological limitations, but how the fundamental laws of physics work. $\endgroup$
    – Robert Mastragostino
    Commented Apr 8, 2014 at 13:39
  • $\begingroup$ False or True this sentence?: If X than B, where B known, X not. I have to point Galileo affair. I do not wish loose my time to investigate that device, and pointing what is true what if false, but if you did that I suggest to share your research, that could be interesting. In some circumstances I think it could me mixed: Atomic battery, thermocouples or Stirling engine $\endgroup$
    – MolbOrg
    Commented Apr 8, 2014 at 14:21
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    $\begingroup$ 1. Not sure what that sentence is supposed to say, the English doesn't come through. 2. A lack of conservation of energy would have been noticed by now. It has consequences, and big ones. Apparently every single natural configuration satisfies conservation of energy but some peculiar collection of pulleys and magnets will violate it? The world doesn't work that way. This isn't one isolated piece of evidence: basically every single physics experiment done in the last hundred years relies on energy conservation. If it there were a discrepancy that this device could use we would know by now. $\endgroup$
    – Robert Mastragostino
    Commented Apr 8, 2014 at 15:18
  • $\begingroup$ I do not talk about breaking law of conservation of energy. If we would have black box with 1W input and 10W output - this no reason immediately to conclude that law is broken. ... peculiar collection of pulleys and magnets will violate it? - I do not believe that it will violate or do something useful. But I understand(or think so), why you misunderstood my answer - just because it from another question. As you can comment ping better @Anand ) $\endgroup$
    – MolbOrg
    Commented Apr 8, 2014 at 16:09
  • $\begingroup$ @RobertMastragostino, to paraphrase Niels Bohr, "don't tell the world how its supposed to behave" :) I'm not saying the idea has merit because I didn't study it and it sounds fishy, it's just that yours is a bad way to approach a problem $\endgroup$
    – bbozo
    Commented May 2, 2014 at 15:07

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