The Newman's Energy Machine

A Cooling Effect Explanation ? - by Tim Vaughan

created on 08/23/98 - JLN Labs - last update on 08/23/98

Transient Electron Coherence
by Tim Vaughan

The following is prompted by a recent experimental observation by Jean-Louis Naudin of an anomalous cooling effect in a large coil of wire.

I would like throw out an idea to the members of this open forum to consider and comment on.

It came to me in an attempt to explain the cooling effect in a large coil of wire observed by the physicist Leon Dragone in an experiment he called the electroentropic device in 1989, as well as in his investigations of a Joseph Newman type electric motor. Sadly, his experiments were cut short by a heart condition that caused him to die at an early age.

Leon measured a temperature drop of up to 2 degrees F. (0.8 C) in a large coil of wire connected to his special cold cathode arc switch.

I met Leon Dragone at a conference hosted by the Planetary Association for Clean Energy in Canada. Leon and I immediately became friends as I stayed up all night talking to him about energy ideas at the conference.
We had very similar ideas about the possibility of organizing (or cohering) fluctuation energy such as thermal and quantum zero point fluctuation energy. Sadly, he died a few months later he died of a heart attack. He did not publish much information but I had many phone conversations with him in which he described his ideas and experiments.

At the conference Leon showed me and others, his "electroentropic device" which seemed to show an excess energy gain. It consisted of a Neon sign transformer secondary coil connected in series with a micrometer adjustable spark gap also in series with a light bulb and a 575 volt battery pack. The battery pack also had a 3.5 uFD 4000 volt capacitor connected in parallel across it. The spark gap device was a small black box with a micrometer adjustment knob and two wires sticking out. The wires were connected with alligator clips and small gauge wire.

When the spark gap was shorted, the bulb would not glow at all as only 25 milliamperes was flowing through it due to the 18000 ohms of resistance in the neon sign transformer. When Leon would carefully adjust the spark gap device the light would glow quite brightly and the current would increase to over 1000 milliamperes.

Leon told me that he would get the same effect with a Newman type coil connect instead of the Neon sign transformer. Leon told me and this was later confirmed by Dr. P.T. Pappas ( a physicist from Athens, Greece ) that when the spark gap was operating in "excess energy mode" they were able to measure a drop in temperature of the coil of about 2 degrees Fahrenheit or (0.8 Celsius). The spark gap was what they called cold cathode glow discharge spark.

Leon Dragone also told me that he had measured a similar temperature drop in the coil of the Newman motor he had constructed. As far as I know he never attempted to thermally insulate the coil from its surroundings.

Leon thought maybe he was cyclically robbing the magnet inside the coil of some of its thermal energy in someway. However, Leon told me that he was puzzled by the his observation of a temperature drop in large coil of wire with no core at all. Also the temperature drop was measured on the coil itself and not the rotating permanent magnet armature when the
magnet was present.

Since I had not heard of anyone else observing these effects, I considered that Dragone and Pappas had made an error in the temperature measurements or there was some other kind phenomena at work like the Peltier Effect.

Most recently, Jean-Louis Naudin made a very exciting discovery of a temperature drop in a large coil when running experiments with a Joseph Newman type motors. Great work Jean-Louis !
( see: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jlnaudin/html/NMac0709.htm )

This is indeed an exciting discovery. Your work has encouraged me that this area of investigation needs more attention. Leon faxed me some ideas he had about the Newman motor effect with I posted on the Web at:
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/4810/dragone1.html

I am sorry about the quality of this as it was scanned from a fax.

This paper proposes the idea that that the excess energy comes from magnet in the coil. However, Leon told me that he also measured the temperature drop from a Newman type coil with no magnet or ferromagnetic core !

I believe these temperature drops are very significant.

I wish to throw out this idea I call TRANSIENT ELECTRON COHERENCE.

First here are some known facts about the free electrons in metals:

THE FREE ELECTRON MODEL

Some of the electrons in a metal conductor called FREE ELECTRONS are constantly moving about within the crystal structure of a metal, not just in the atomic orbits but also between the atoms.

The motion of the free electrons through the metal is statistically random with as many going in one direction as another. Therefore there is no net current.

Some of the motion of the electrons is due to thermal energy, however the electrons move around in the metal crystal even at absolute zero temperature. This is called the zero point energy of the free electrons.

For this reason, a metal can be thought of as a "solid state plasma" consisting of positive metal ion cores held in a crystal matrix surrounded by an electron gas.

Electrons act as both particles and waves.

The wavelength of an electron depends on its energy (speed)

The wave nature of electrons causes them to interact with the atoms in a metal conductor or semiconductor differently depending on their speed.

At certain energies (speeds) the electrons resonate with the periodically spaced atoms in a metal crystal lattice and will be reflected or scattered.

Due to the Pauli exclusion principle of quantum mechanics. Two electrons with same speed (wavelength) and direction (and spin) cannot occupy the same space. Therefore the energies (speeds) of the free
electrons are distributed over a range of values.

Electrons can have any energy (speed) within a range of allowed values. This range of values is called a band.

Certain energy values are not allowed in a given crystal because they resonate with periodically spaced atoms. These missing energy values are called "forbidden energy bands".

A band of allowed energy levels (speeds) will then have an upper and lower limit bounded by the forbidden regions.

Because of the Pauli exclusion principle the bands fill up with electrons from the lowest to the highest allowed values.

An insulator has electrons that are confined to stay within individual atoms or molecules and are not free to move throughout the material.

These bound electrons can be said to exist inside energy bands which are filled so they do not allow more electrons to move in one directions than in another. So there can be no current flow. These filled energy bands are called VALENCE BANDS.

Conductors also have electrons in valence bands some of which are in atomic orbits and some that are free.

When an electric field is applied to a conductor such as a wire, the electrons in the valence bands can accelerate or gain energy as long as there is an allowed energy level to fill which would be the next higher
level that has been vacated by another electron that has also been accelerated.

Electrons with the highest allowed energy level in a given valence band will be reflected (in a perfect crystal) or at least scattered when they reach a forbidden energy level. If they are reflected they may occupy an energy level that has been vacated by an electron that was traveling in the opposite direction and has been slowed by the electric field.

In this way electrons in valence bands simply exchange energy levels such that there is not net gain in energy (speed) in a single direction and therefore no net current flow due to the electrons in the valence bands. Therefore, because of this "energy musical chairs", electrons in valence bands do not contribute to current flow.

In a conductor, the highest energy band is not filled by electrons. In other words, all of the available energy states in this highest energy band are not occupied. This energy band is called the CONDUCTION BAND.

Electrons in the conduction band can contribute to a net current flow because of the available energy levels.

Now here is where a possible way to cohere the free energy of electrons comes in................

Actual energy bands contain enormous numbers of allowed energy levels. However, imagine for purposes of understanding, that a certain conductor has a conduction band that has only the first two energy levels occupied. Therefore, there would be two electrons going in the forward direction with energy level 1 and 2 and two electrons going in the reverse
direction with energy level 1 and 2. ( I am disregarding spins here)

Now suppose an electric field is applied to the conductor so that the electrons will be accelerated in the forward direction. Some time later the electrons moving in the forward direction will gain an amount of energy such that they then occupy energy levels 2 and 3 in the forward direction. At the same time the two electrons traveling in the reverse direction will be decelerated so that the fastest electron moves from energy level 2 to 1 as soon as level 1 is available. The electron at level 1 however is not allowed to go to a lower level in the reverse direction and is reflected so that it would now occupy level 1 of the forward direction.

As a net result, the originally forward moving electrons simply gain energy as expected by the accelerating electric field. At same time though, an additional electron is added to the forward moving group because the slowest (least energetic) conduction band electron that was moving in the reverse direction has been reflected so that it moves in
the forward direction as well.

As a result of this selective reflection of the slowest (lowest energy) electrons in the conduction band we would now have 3 electrons moving in the forward with only one moving in the reverse direction.

A short time later the single electron moving in the reverse direction would try to occupy the forbidden level below level 1 and would also be reflected joining the others in the forward direction.

At this point all 4 of the electrons in the conduction band will be moving in the forward direction. Part of the added energy of the electrons moving in the forward direction will have been contributed by the applied electric field with an additional amount added by the selective reflection of the slowest conduction band electrons originally moving in the reverse direction. This results in an amplification of the net forward current by energy contributed by the zero-point energy of the originally reverse moving electrons.

This amplification effect would be short lived because the population of eligible reverse moving conduction bands electrons would be quickly depleted.

In short an abruptly applied high voltage potential applied to a conductor should cause the selective reflection of the lower energy conduction band electrons traveling in opposition to the applied electric field which will contribute their kinetic energy to the forward moving current.

Now if my hypothesis is correct, when a strong electric field is abruptly applied to a conductor, a transient current surge will occur that consists of a quantity of energy that has been cohered from the energy of the free electrons in the metal. If this energy can be captured somehow before it degenerates into heat or radiation, it can be utilized. This captured energy would then be replenished by the ambient energy inside and surrounding the conductor. Therefore, the entropy and temperature of the conductor would be reduced (a cooling effect).

A device capturing such free energy of the electrons would constitute a macroscopic violation of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. However, it would really be a coherence of many microscopic heat engines (electron-ion interactions).

If this hypothesis is correct, it should be possible to cohere and extract some of the fluctuation energy of the free electrons of a conductor (or semiconductor). In order to enhance this effect it would be best to use a long conductor. The effect might be best seen in a large coil of wire at lower frequencies or in a transmission line (or antenna) at higher frequencies. Abrupt switching might be accomplished with, among other things, a commutator or an appropriate spark gap. The surge might be captured by some form of diode, electronic switching device, or commutator.

Please, I welcome your comments and criticisms about this hypothesis.

Sincerely,

Tim Vaughan
(Email : [email protected] )

If you need more informations or if you have any suggestions send me your Feedback

Email : [email protected]

Return to the Newman's Machine Main page