Simple Test of the Second Law of Thermodynamics

[Pentcho Valev]

Here is water placed in an electric field - the vigorous cyclic motion is obviously able to produce work, e.g. by rotating a waterwheel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17UD1goTFhQ
"The Formation of the Floating Water Bridge including electric breakdowns"

https://www.wetsus.nl/home/wetsus-news/more-than-just-a-party-trick-the-floating-water-bridge-holds-insight-into-nature-and-human-innovation/1
"The water movement is bidirectional, i.e., it simultaneously flows in both directions..."

What energy will be converted into work? Two hypotheses are conceivable:

1. Electric energy - the system is, essentially, an electric motor.

2. Ambient heat - the system is a perpetual-motion machine of the second kind.

This thermodynamic aspect is not discussed in the literature but, clearly, the small conductivity and, respectively, small electric current that passes through the system are regarded as a nuisance that has to be maximally eliminated (authors use triply distilled water, note that any increase in conductivity reduces the effects, etc.). There is not even a hint that the current might be responsible for the observed effects.

This suggests that the system is NOT an electric motor. The work will be produced at the expense of heat absorbed from the surroundings, in violation of the second law of thermodynamics.

Pentcho Valev

[Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog]

Small conductivity is not the same as zero conductivity. The authors use
tens of thousands of volts. Care to stick your fingers into the two beakers?

[Pentcho Valev]

Again water in an electric field (note that in this particular experiment the capacitor is disconnected from the battery):

"A plane capacitor with rectangular plates is fixed in a vertical position. [...] The capacitor is charged and disconnected from the battery. [...] The lower part of the capacitor is now brought into contact with a dielectric liquid:

http://electron6.phys.utk.edu/PhysicsProblems/E&M/2-Dielectrics/Images/Image4.gif

When the plates contact the liquid's surface, a force in the upward direction is exerted on the dielectric liquid. The total charge on each plate remains constant and there is no energy transferred to the system from outside." http://electron6.phys.utk.edu/PhysicsProblems/E&M/2-Dielectrics/capacitors_with_dielectrics.html

The energy for the work done by the rising liquid (e.g. some floating object can be lifted) can only come from the ambient heat - there is no other "energy transferred to the system from outside".

The "floating water bridge" is essentially the same phenomenon - water absorbs heat from the surroundings and uses it to "climb out of the beakers":

"When exposed to a high-voltage electric field, water in two beakers climbs out of the beakers and crosses empty space to meet, forming the water bridge." https://phys.org/news/2007-09-bridge-exposed-high-voltage.html

The non-conservative force (pressure) that emerges in water in an electric field is perhaps fundamental for life on Earth so it makes sense to try to explain it in more detail.

When two opposite charges (or capacitor plates) are immersed in a dielectric liquid, e.g. water, some additional force (pressure) emerges between them, pushes them apart and so counteracts their electrostatic attraction:

http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/jk1/lectures/node46.html
"However, in experiments in which a capacitor is submerged in a dielectric liquid the force per unit area exerted by one plate on another is observed to decrease... [...] This apparent paradox can be explained by taking into account the difference in liquid pressure in the field filled space between the plates and the field free region outside the capacitor."

http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Electricity-Magnetism-Second-Physics/dp/0486439240?tag=viglink21401-20
Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky, Melba Phillips, Classical Electricity and Magnetism, pp.115-116: "Thus the decrease in force that is experienced between two charges when they are immersed in a dielectric liquid can be understood only by considering the effect of the PRESSURE OF THE LIQUID ON THE CHARGES themselves."

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-To-Electromagnetic-Theory-Perspective/dp/0763738271
Tai Chow, Introduction to Electromagnetic Theory: A Modern Perspective, p. 267: "The strictly electric forces between charges on the conductors are not influenced by the presence of the dielectric medium. The medium is polarized, however, and the interaction of the electric field with the polarized medium results in an INCREASED FLUID PRESSURE ON THE CONDUCTORS that reduces the net forces acting on them."

There is a high pressure between the plates and a lower pressure outside the capacitor so if we punch a small hole in one of the plates, there will be ETERNAL FLOW through the hole, from inside (between the plates) to outside. In other words, we will have a SYSTEM IN DYNAMIC EQUILIBRIUM. The eternal flow can be harnessed to do work, at the expense of heat absorbed from the surroundings (no electric energy is used) and therefore in violation of the second law of thermodynamics. The flows in the floating-water-bridge system are essentially analogous.

The capacitor-in-water system can violate the second law in a more traditional way. If the plates of the capacitor are vertical and only partially immersed, the pressure forces the liquid between the plates to rise above the surface of the pool:

http://www.academia.edu/25650739/Fluids_in_electric_and_magnetic_fields_Pressure_variation_and_stability
I. Brevik, Fluids in electric and magnetic fields: Pressure variation and stability, Can. J . Phys. (1982): "Fig. 1. Two charged condenser plates partly immersed in a dielectric liquid. [...] Fig. 2. The hydrostatic pressure variation from point 1 to point 5 in Fig. 1."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHNwvfXUYb4
Rise in Liquid Level Between Plates of a Capacitor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6KAH1JpdPg
Liquid Dielectric Capacitor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACDxurDAmyg
Chapter 11.6.2: Force on a liquid dielectric

The rising dielectric liquid can do useful work, e.g. by lifting some floating weight. Since, by switching the field on and off, we do no work on the system, the energy supplier can only be the ambient heat. That is, the system can cyclically lift floating weights at the expense of heat absorbed from the surroundings, in violation of the second law of thermodynamics.

What is the molecular mechanism behind the effect? Here is a schematic presentation of water dipoles in the electrical field:

http://www.gsjournal.net/old/valev/val2.gif

If it were not for the indicated (with an arrow) dipole, other dipoles in the picture are perfectly polarized as if there were no thermal motion. Of course, this is an oversimplification – thermal motion is a factor which constantly disturbs the polarization order. However the crucial point is that, as can be inferred from the picture, any thermal disturbance contributes to the creation of a pressure between the plates. Consider the indicated dipole. It has just received a strong thermal stroke and undergone rotation. As a result, it pushes adjacent dipoles electrostatically, towards the plates. Macroscopically, the sum of all such disturbances is expressed as a pressure exerted on the plates. One can also say, somewhat roughly, that the indicated dipole has absorbed heat and now, by pushing adjacent dipoles, is trying to convert it into work.

Pentcho Valev

[Pentcho Valev]

Heat engines capable of violating the second law of thermodynamics are COMMONPLACE. This would be an obvious fact if misleading education had not diverted the attention from relevant examples:

"A necessary component of a heat engine, then, is that two temperatures are involved. At one stage the system is heated, at another it is cooled." http://physics.bu.edu/~duffy/py105/Heatengines.html

Not true. There are heat engines functioning in ISOTHERMAL conditions - e.g. the work-producing force is activated by some chemical agent, not by heating.

All isothermal heat engines, except for analogs of ideal gas systems, can violate the second law of thermodynamics.

Just an example. By regularly changing the pH of the system, the experimentalist is able to extract unlimited amount of work from pH-sensitive polymers:

http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Paul_Topham2/publication/47426820/figure/fig1/AS:307404580376582@1450302371395/Figure-1-Illustration-of-a-volume-transition-in-a-cross-linked-polybase-network.png

http://www.gsjournal.net/old/valev/val3.gif

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1367611/pdf/biophysj00645-0017.pdf
A. KATCHALSKY, POLYELECTROLYTES AND THEIR BIOLOGICAL INTERACTIONS, p. 15, Figure 4: "Polyacid gel in sodium hydroxide solution: expanded. Polyacid gel in acid solution: contracted; weight is lifted."

http://www.google.com/patents/US5520672
"When the pH is lowered (that is, on raising the chemical potential, μ, of the protons present) at the isothermal condition of 37°C, these matrices can exert forces, f, sufficient to lift weights that are a thousand times their dry weight."

The second law of thermodynamics is violated unless the following is the case:

The experimentalist, as he decreases and then increases the pH of the system, does (loses; wastes) more work than the work he gains from weight-lifting.

However electrochemists know that, if both adding hydrogen ions to the system and then removing them are performed quasi-statically, the net work involved is virtually zero (the experimentalist gains work if the hydrogen ions are transported from a high to a low concentration and then loses the same amount of work in the backward transport).

Pentcho Valev

[Pentcho Valev]

The false restrictive principle called "Second law of thermodynamics", apart from preventing humankind from understanding fundamental energy conversions in Nature, has produced collateral damages as well. One of its idiotic implications is that, if a catalyst increases the rate of the forward reaction by a factor of, say, 745492, it obligatorily increases the rate of the reverse reaction by the same factor, 745492, despite the fact that the two reactions - forward and reverse - may be entirely different (e.g. the diffusion factor is crucial for one but not important for the other) and accordingly require entirely different catalytic strategies. The idiotic implication is usually referred to as "Catalysts do not shift chemical equilibrium":

"A catalyst reduces the time taken to reach equilibrium, but does not change the position of the equilibrium. This is because the catalyst increases the rates of the forward and reverse reactions BY THE SAME AMOUNT."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/higher/chemistry/reactions/equilibrium/revision/2/

"In the presence of a catalyst, both the forward and reverse reaction rates will speed up EQUALLY... [...] If the addition of catalysts could possibly alter the equilibrium state of the reaction, this would violate the second rule of thermodynamics..."
https://www.boundless.com/chemistry/textbooks/boundless-chemistry-textbook/chemical-equilibrium-14/factors-that-affect-chemical-equilibrium-106/the-effect-of-a-catalyst-447-3459/

Scientists should have exposed the absurdity of this implication of the second law of thermodynamics long ago. How can the catalyst increase the rates of the forward and reverse reactions BY THE SAME AMOUNT (EQUALLY) if these two reactions are entirely different? Consider the dissociation-association reaction

A <-> B + C

which is in equilibrium. We add a catalyst, e.g. a macroscopic catalytic surface, and it starts splitting A so efficiently that the rate of the forward (dissociation) reaction increases by a factor of, say, 745492. If the second law of thermodynamics is obeyed, the catalyst must increase the rate of the reverse (association) reaction by exactly the same factor, 745492. But this is obviously absurd! In the reverse reaction the catalyst's function is entirely different - the catalyst must first get together B and C and then join them to form A. It is nonsense to expect the process involving

getting-together-B-and-C

to have exactly the same rate increase, by a factor of 745492, as the process involving just

splitting-A.

The catalyst may be able to increase the rates of both - forward and reverse - reactions, this is realistic, but not BY THE SAME AMOUNT (EQUALLY). The second law of thermodynamics is obviously false.

Actually scientists have always known that catalysts can shift chemical equilibrium, in violation of the second law of thermodynamics:

"For 50 years scientists have seen in experiments that some monomers and dimers split apart and rejoin at different rates on different surfaces. The eureka moment came when we recognized that by placing two different surfaces close together in a way that effectively eliminates the gas cloud, the energy balance would be different on each of the two surfaces. One surface would have more molecules breaking apart, cooling it, while the other surface would have more molecules joining back together, warming it." https://www.facebook.com/ParadigmEnergy/posts/249600938581128

Here is a publication in Nature describing a catalyst catalyzing the forward and suppressing the reverse reaction:

http://images.nature.com/m685/nature-assets/ncomms/2013/130917/ncomms3500/images_hires/ncomms3500-f1.jpg

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3500
Yu Hang Li et al. Unidirectional suppression of hydrogen oxidation on oxidized platinum clusters

That catalysts can violate the second law of thermodynamics (by shifting chemical equilibrium) is presented by Wikipedia as a fact:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicatalysis
"Epicatalysis is a newly identified class of gas-surface heterogeneous catalysis in which specific gas-surface reactions shift gas phase species concentrations away from those normally associated with gas-phase equilibrium. [...] A traditional catalyst adheres to three general principles, namely: 1) it speeds up a chemical reaction; 2) it participates in, but is not consumed by, the reaction; and 3) it does not change the chemical equilibrium of the reaction. Epicatalysts overcome the third principle..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan%27s_Paradox
"Consider a dimeric gas (A2) that is susceptible to endothermic dissociation or exothermic recombination (A2 <-> 2A). The gas is housed between two surfaces (S1 and S2), whose chemical reactivities are distinct with respect to the gas. Specifically, let S1 preferentially dissociate dimer A2 and desorb monomer A, while S2 preferentially recombines monomers A and desorbs dimer A2. [...]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/NatureSLTD-Fig1c.jpg

In 2014 Duncan's temperature paradox was experimentally realized, utilizing hydrogen dissociation on high-temperature transition metals (tungsten and rhenium). Ironically, these experiments support the predictions of the paradox and provide laboratory evidence for second law breakdown." [end of quotation]

Pentcho Valev

[Pentcho Valev]

Jos Uffink, Bluff your way in the Second Law of Thermodynamics: "I therefore argue for the view that the second law has nothing to do with the arrow of time. [...] Before one can claim that acquaintance with the Second Law is as indispensable to a cultural education as Macbeth or Hamlet, it should obviously be clear what this law states. This question is surprisingly difficult. The Second Law made its appearance in physics around 1850, but a half century later it was already surrounded by so much confusion that the British Association for the Advancement of Science decided to appoint a special committee with the task of providing clarity about the meaning of this law. However, its final report (Bryan 1891) did not settle the issue. Half a century later, the physicist/philosopher Bridgman still complained that there are almost as many formulations of the second law as there have been discussions of it. And even today, the Second Law remains so obscure that it continues to attract new efforts at clarification." http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/313/1/engtot.pdf

Jos Uffink is arguably the best expert on the foundations of thermodynamics, but even if he wasn't, we can take his statements as hypotheses and try to draw a conclusion. So our premises are:

1. It is not clear what the second law of thermodynamics states, 167 years after its appearance.

2. The second law has nothing to do with the arrow of time.

The only reasonable conclusion is:

The second law of thermodynamics is a bluff, the result of the strange inclination of mankind to blind itself by imposing false restrictive principles (Einstein's constancy of the speed of light is another example).

Pentcho Valev