Haha, I love how you argue! You and boobaa both prove to me that you don’t know the FIRST thing in hell about electrolysis, but you can call me stupid for proving his little theory wrong. What a substantial argument

Indi, do you even know what electrolysis IS? Come on, you majored in biochemistry. Didn’t you have to take at least 2 semesters worth of physical chemistry? You should know all about this stuff, but it’s obvious that you don’t

So like I said, tell me where I went wrong. I showed boobaa why the method of combusting the products of an electrolysis reaction could, at absolute theoretical best, only yield the same amount of work that was put into it as energy. You told me not to get hung up on details. Let’s say I didn’t, you and boobaa would still be talking out of your ass

So for a lecturer, you pretty much know jack-shit about some basic chemistry principles. I hope you don't lecture in chemistry, for the good of your students

And NOW boobaa comes back and says, “oops, guess I didn’t really know what was meant by electrolysis. It was actually something else”. That is more reasonable, and without my PROVING to him that electrolysis would not generate those results, he came around to that. Good, we made some progress and we aren’t violating the 2nd law of Thermodynamics anymore. Maybe some other force is at play, and it only APPEARS as though the 2nd law of Thermodynamics is being broken. Now the physical chemists can focus their attention elsewhere instead of barking up the wrong tree forever because they didn’t want to look deeper into the problem

I haven’t even taken physical chemistry or inorganic chemistry yet, once I do I’ll actually be able to give these problems a worthy look. But the most basic understanding of chemistry was so severely lacking in this discussion, you and boobaa didn’t have a clue


Stupid argument. The reaction in question with the water car was A --> B --> A with, as you claimed, a net release of energy. ONE of these processes can proceed with a net release of energy, just like in a nuclear reaction in which A --> B can proceed with a net release of energy equal to mc^2, ye olde famous equation

__________________
"I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul"

I taught it to med students, DM. Yes, I know what it is, lol.

I never said your posts about electrolysis was wrong (in fact, I never said anything about them), just that it was misdirected as far as discussing the main idea. To me, we were discussing alternate power sources. I haven't had time to look over boobaa's links, but the fact that ppl are looking into these things are interesting to me.

You are getting caught up in the details b/c that's what you happen to be studying atm. Its on your brain. I think you are missing the point of what he & Ted are trying to say, tho. You are judging prior to investigation. The only question of interest, to me, is the engineering question: does it work, or not? The details of what *kind* of chemistry is being used needs working out, yes, but that's a detail.

I'll try to look at the links this weekend & see if the science is junk or not, but from what I've been reading in New Sci & the Economist about this stuff, there's a lot of interest.

Nope. I'm studying organic chemistry at the moment, the class has absolutely nothing to do with electrochemistry or thermochemistry. Next year I'm taking 8 credits worth of physical chemistry though, and THAT will be relevant

__________________
"I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul"

Update on this. I have started doing some reading on the use of these HHO electrolysis devices that are supposed to increase fuel efficiency. Right now, I'm confused to say the least. And, since DM is correct in that electrolysis is a very simple chemical process, this makes my alarm bells go off. Something so simple shouldn't need to be described as so complex.

DM, you are completely right some of these guys are trying to claim energy outputs that are higher than energies that are going in. Something that is obviously impossible.

The problem I'm having with these water fueled cars is that it seems the currents required to produce any significant amounts of energy would need to be a lot higher than what these devices look like they can accomplish. Its a bit unfair to be comparing their output to fuels like gasoline, tho. What seems to be neglected is the fact that there was an incredible amount of energy (from sun & biologic sources) that went in to producing fossil fuels in the first place. Its comparing apples to oranges, really.

I suppose the experiment to do would be to simply drive one's car w/such a device at constant speed, with & without the device working. Observe a change in engine power. Basically, do the engineering equivalent of Koch's postulates for causality. I did a quick search for this & couldn't find anything. Maybe Ted or Boobaa could produce this if they know of such?

Overall, tho, the consensus on the science boards I visited seems to be that the claims for these electrolysis-based cars, either stand alones or to 'enhance' fuel efficiency, seems to be pseduoscience.

Fuel cells (which I mentioned) are, on the other hand, getting quite a lot of interest. Toyota & other automakers are producing these vehicles already. Boeing is apparently even experimenting with a fuel cell aircraft.

http://www.boeing.com/phantom/news/2...70327e_nr.html