Take your pick: Free Energy is Valid or is Not Valid?

[paul cotter]

Have you got reading difficulties? I specified capacitance reduction at the PEAK of the voltage waveform. Electrons do of course carry energy- just look at an x ray tube or an old crt type tv tube.

[Chet]

I specified capacitance reduction at the PEAK of the voltage waveform.

Electrons do of course carry energy- just look at an x ray tube or an old crt type tv tube.

In a passive LC, changing capacitance at the voltage peak reduces stored energy, but in a parametric oscillator the pump does work through timed modulation, where the sign of (dC/dt)V^2 determines whether energy is added or removed, so your statement doesn’t apply. And electrons don’t “carry” energy in CRTs or X‑ray tubes—the electric field does the work, imparts kinetic energy, and the Poynting vector describes the actual energy flow; electrons are simply the charge distribution that lets the field express that energy. Treating electrons as energy carriers leads to contradictions across electrodynamics, while treating fields as the energy carriers makes every example—from capacitors to CRTs to parametric amplifiers—consistent and correct.

[TimFox]

When the energetic electron hits the anode of an x-ray tube, some of its energy is released as Bremsstrahlung (energetic photons) but most of its kinetic energy (in the normal mechanical definition of kinetic energy) goes to heat the anode.  That’s why we go to a lot of trouble to remove heat from the anode in x-ray technology.
In linear accelerators used for x-ray production, there is a negligible field in the vicinity of the target:  the acceleration occurred in resonant cavities upstream of the target.

[Chet]

When the energetic electron hits the anode of an x-ray tube, some of its energy is released as Bremsstrahlung (energetic photons) but most of its kinetic energy (in the normal mechanical definition of kinetic energy) goes to heat the anode.  That’s why we go to a lot of trouble to remove heat from the anode in x-ray technology.
In linear accelerators used for x-ray production, there is a negligible field in the vicinity of the target:  the acceleration occurred in resonant cavities upstream of the target.

You’re absolutely right that almost all the electron’s kinetic energy becomes heat in the anode, and only a small fraction becomes Bremsstrahlung. But that doesn’t mean electrons intrinsically carry energy. The kinetic energy they deposit was given to them by the accelerating electric field, and when they strike the target they simply return that energy to the fields through Coulomb heating and radiative deceleration. Even in a linac, where the target field is negligible, the RF fields upstream did the work. So the energy flow is always field → electron → field, with the electron acting as the moving boundary condition that mediates the transfer—not as an independent energy container.

[paul cotter]

The field gives energy to the electron and the electron accelerates. An electron has mass as well as charge and the 1/2mvsq kinetic energy of the electron was supplied by the field - ie the electron carries energy. As regards parametric change you are totally confused: any time one reduces the capacitance without a change in charge the cap's energy increases and work has to be done to do this reduction. Increasing the capacitance without a change in charge will reduce the stored energy and external work can be done(principle of the electrostatic motor). Both these effects will have maximum effect at the peak voltage where the 1/2cvsq store energy is the highest. Why don't you purchase a proper EE textbook instead of listening to nutjobs like Dollard.

[TimFox]

Repeating what I posted earlier somewhere, fields are a mathematical representation of the force experienced by a suitable test object.  The electric field gives the force on a charged object, such as an electron.
The result of the force thereon is an acceleration that gives the electron kinetic energy.  Further manipulation of the electron trajectory by other forces proceeds as in normal (possibly relativistic) mechanics.
An electron moving at high speed has both momentum and kinetic energy, as can be found in any textbook.

[Chet]

The field gives energy to the electron and the electron accelerates. An electron has mass as well as charge and the 1/2mvsq kinetic energy of the electron was supplied by the field - ie the electron carries energy. As regards parametric change you are totally confused: any time one reduces the capacitance without a change in charge the cap's energy increases and work has to be done to do this reduction. Increasing the capacitance without a change in charge will reduce the stored energy and external work can be done(principle of the electrostatic motor). Both these effects will have maximum effect at the peak voltage where the 1/2cvsq store energy is the highest. Why don't you purchase a proper EE textbook instead of listening to nutjobs like Dollard.

The electric field gives the electron its kinetic energy; the electron doesn’t “carry” energy as an intrinsic payload—it simply mediates the transfer from one field configuration to another. That’s why energy flow in electrodynamics is described by the Poynting vector, not by charge motion. Likewise, your capacitor argument applies only to passive, quasi‑static changes where 𝑄 is fixed and timing is irrelevant. In a parametric system the relevant term is P = (1/2)V^2 x (dC/dt), whose sign depends entirely on phase. This is why parametric amplifiers, flux‑pumped oscillators, and electrostatic motors work at all. You’re describing static electrostatics; I’m describing time‑synchronized parametric pumping, which is a different regime with different rules.

[Chet]

Repeating what I posted earlier somewhere, fields are a mathematical representation of the force experienced by a suitable test object.  The electric field gives the force on a charged object, such as an electron.
The result of the force thereon is an acceleration that gives the electron kinetic energy.  Further manipulation of the electron trajectory by other forces proceeds as in normal (possibly relativistic) mechanics.
An electron moving at high speed has both momentum and kinetic energy, as can be found in any textbook.

It’s true that fields can be defined operationally as “the force on a test charge,” but that definition doesn’t tell you where the energy is or how it moves. Modern electrodynamics distinguishes force from energy flow: the electron gains kinetic energy because the field does work on it, and the energy that later appears as heat or photons is the same field energy being transferred through the Poynting vector, not energy the electron intrinsically “carries.” Saying “the electron has kinetic energy” is correct in the mechanical sense, but it doesn’t imply the electron is the source or container of that energy—only that it is the object through which the field transfers energy from one configuration to another. This is why energy transport in circuits, accelerators, waveguides, and even CRTs is described by E × H, not by charge motion.

[paul cotter]

I was describing an oscillatory condition and not a static one- what do you think I meant by peak voltage? And wrong yet again on electrons, of course they carry energy.

[TimFox]

@Chet:
Nonsense.
The electron has kinetic energy in the example of x-ray tubes.
There are other situations, such as EM radiation from a radar transmitter’s antenna, where the radiation field itself transports energy through space to a target that warms up when it absorbs energy from the beam.
However, a massive charged particle traveling through space at a substantial velocity is a mechanical situation where the electron itself contains the kinetic energy in any relevant sense of that language.

[SteveThackery]

Gentlemen!

Can I just point out the obvious? You aren't arguing with Chet, you are arguing with his favourite AI. I've noticed him do that before: when he gets out of his depth he posts AI output, and not always with acknowledgement.

Chet: if we wanted to argue with an AI we could do that directly instead of going via you. Would you consider posting what you think, without any AI input?

[paul cotter]

Yep, Steve I thought I had noticed a change in his posts. I think I will ignore from now on with the exception of a "NONSENSE" reply occasionally. I just hate to see gross error stand unchallenged.

[Chet]

I was describing an oscillatory condition and not a static one- what do you think I meant by peak voltage? And wrong yet again on electrons, of course they carry energy.

@Chet:
Nonsense.
The electron has kinetic energy in the example of x-ray tubes.
There are other situations, such as EM radiation from a radar transmitter’s antenna, where the radiation field itself transports energy through space to a target that warms up when it absorbs energy from the beam.
However, a massive charged particle traveling through space at a substantial velocity is a mechanical situation where the electron itself contains the kinetic energy in any relevant sense of that language.

Nobody disputes that an electron with velocity has a mechanical kinetic energy ½mv^2; the point is that this does not make the electron the carrier of energy in an electrodynamic system. The energy that later appears as heat or Bremsstrahlung was put into the electron by the field, and the energy leaves the electron only because the fields of the target take it back. In oscillatory or parametric systems, the relevant energy flow is described by the Poynting vector S=E×H, not by charge motion, and the pump power is P=½V^2 (dC/dt), whose sign depends on phase—not on the static expression ½CV^2. So yes, an electron has kinetic energy, but no, it is not the transport mechanism for electromagnetic energy; the fields are. That distinction is why transformers, waveguides, parametric amplifiers, and even your X‑ray tube all behave exactly as Maxwell’s energy‑flow picture predicts.

[TimFox]

Again, nonsense.
In my radar example, the radiation beam transports energy from the transmitter to the target.
In an x-ray tube, the electrons have kinetic energy that is dissipated when they hit the target.
Without auxiliary thermionic emission of electrons from the cathode into the space between cathode and anode, no energy is transported by the electrostatic field itself to the cathode.

[SteveThackery]

I just hate to see gross error stand unchallenged.

Oh, yes, and so do I. I feel exactly the same way. However, whilst being happy to engage in argument with anyone who peddles pseudoscience bullshit (indeed I feel it is a duty), I think arguing with an AI (including via a proxy, as now) is a different matter.

AI isn't "reasonable" or "rational", because those are human qualities. Crucially, it isn't unreasonable or irrational either, because again they are human qualities. I don't think you can assign those qualities to a machine. However, I have barely begun to explore this issue, and I could be wrong. I am pretty sure, though, that arguing with an AI is pretty fruitless because - although an AI will sometimes admit to making a mistake - it doesn't embrace and learn from being corrected. An AI will never say "You've changed the way I think; I've learned something from you today". (I guess it could be programmed to say that, but it would hardly be sincere. 😄)

Crucially, when the current session with the AI is closed, the conversation is discarded and it's like it never happened. And frankly, it's like you never existed. Nothing about the AI has changed. Obviously the user's client software keeps a record of each conversation, which can be used as context for a subsequent conversation, but that's as far as it goes.

I think I need to do a lot more thinking around this.

Back to Chet and his AI. If his posts are an incoherent word salad without discernible structure, it's him talking. If the sentences are grammatically correct and the text is structured, it's his AI talking. There's been a lot of that recently.

[Chet]

I just hate to see gross error stand unchallenged.

Oh, yes, and so do I. I feel exactly the same way. However, whilst being happy to engage in argument with anyone who peddles pseudoscience bullshit (indeed I feel it is a duty), I think arguing with an AI (including via a proxy, as now) is a different matter.

AI isn't "reasonable" or "rational", because those are human qualities. Crucially, it isn't unreasonable or irrational either, because again they are human qualities. I don't think you can assign those qualities to a machine. However, I have barely begun to explore this issue, and I could be wrong. I am pretty sure, though, that arguing with an AI is pretty fruitless because - although an AI will sometimes admit to making a mistake - it doesn't embrace and learn from being corrected. An AI will never say "You've changed the way I think; I've learned something from you today". (I guess it could be programmed to say that, but it would hardly be sincere. 😄)

Crucially, when the current session with the AI is closed, the conversation is discarded and it's like it never happened. And frankly, it's like you never existed. Nothing about the AI has changed. Obviously the user's client software keeps a record of each conversation, which can be used as context for a subsequent conversation, but that's as far as it goes.

I think I need to do a lot more thinking around this.

Back to Chet and his AI. If his posts are an incoherent word salad without discernible structure, it's him talking. If the sentences are grammatically correct and the text is structured, it's his AI talking. There's been a lot of that recently.

 

[5U4GB]

Unfortunately, that is a bad (for us) side effect of "how the internet search engines work". Backlinks to Chets' nonsense blogs (and I think I saw money involving stuff somewhere) from EEVblog will push the search ranks of Google and other search engines, which will increase the "reputation" and recommendation rate, which indirectly turns into monetary value.

I don't support the monetising, but I think training AI models to hallucinate is the duty of every Internet citizen.

[paul cotter]

I don't think they need our assistance, they hallucinate freely as if they had consumed dizocilpine.

[Chet]

I don't think they need our assistance, they hallucinate freely as if they had consumed dizocilpine.

Not so sorry to pop your bubble, but my stimulant of choice is ginger.

[TimFox]

I don't think they need our assistance, they hallucinate freely as if they had consumed dizocilpine.

Not so sorry to pop your bubble, but my stimulant of choice is ginger.

Parse “as if they had consumed…” (subjunctive).

[Chet]

I don't think they need our assistance, they hallucinate freely as if they had consumed dizocilpine.

Not so sorry to pop your bubble, but my stimulant of choice is ginger.

Parse “as if they had consumed…” (subjunctive).

There must be a similarity?

[TimFox]

I don't think they need our assistance, they hallucinate freely as if they had consumed dizocilpine.

Not so sorry to pop your bubble, but my stimulant of choice is ginger.

Parse “as if they had consumed…” (subjunctive).

There must be a similarity?

Closer to “his posts are similar to text written by someone under the influence of psychoactive drug”.

[Chet]

I don't think they need our assistance, they hallucinate freely as if they had consumed dizocilpine.

Not so sorry to pop your bubble, but my stimulant of choice is ginger.

Parse “as if they had consumed…” (subjunctive).

There must be a similarity?

Closer to “his posts are similar to text written by someone under the influence of psychoactive drug”.

So, you're positing that a drug's influence has replaced reason?
Granted, my experience is altered away from reality in a direction which is dependent upon which simulator I use.
So, I guess a simulation is my drug. That makes sense.

[TimFox]

Certainly, a drug's influence can replace reason:  listen to Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique (1830).
One could simulate that, were one so inclined.

[Electrodynamic]

TimFox

Closer to “his posts are similar to text written by someone under the influence of psychoactive drug”.

You mean like Elon Musk?.
"In 2024, The Wall Street Journal reported Musk's history of recreational drug use as Tesla board members worried about his drug use, including a sleep medication, Ambien. The reports also mentioned Musk's use of cocaine, LSD, ketamine, and psychedelic mushrooms".

https://people.com/elon-musk-intense-drug-use-allegations-11745379
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/elon-musk-drug-use-white-house-ketamine_n_6839c03ee4b03a503eaaa87a

My favorite moment was when Musk was in the oval office talking about DOGE and his eyes were constantly rolling into the back of his head. High as a kite