Alphax wrote: ↑Tue Feb 15, 2022 1:30 am
Tom,
...
The second question is simple to ask, very difficult to answer: what do the results mean? This is the area you got into trouble with because you invoked explanations that the experimental results simply do not support.
The intent of an experiment, based on standard "scientific methodology", is to observe the outcome predicted by some theory or other.
If X is the cause, then A will be the result.
If Y is the cause, then B will be the result.
I think the question, the tentative theoretical explaination, and the predicted outcome are certainly all significant. Not that there couldn't be unexpected results, or other causes not previously considered.
In trying to figure out how heat engines actually work, I encountered conflicting explanations.
The experiment was devised to sort out which of the causative principles historically postulated were at work.
The conflicting views go all the way back to the 1800's I was just looking at the situation objectively, as someone just wanting to get at the actual truth, so I might build my own heat engine, not caring one way or the other about the outcome,
The conflicting explanations go back more than 100 years, and were a part of the formative development of heat engine theory and thermodynamics and emerged from the various theories about the very nature of heat itself.
Now, as I saw it, there were two options. The Caloric theory or the Kinetic theory. (Are there more?)
The Caloric theory dominated the formative years in the development of the science of Thermodynamics. It had a tremendous, overreaching influence, and, as stated in the Wikipedia article on Caloric theory:
Sadi Carnot developed his principle of the Carnot cycle, which still forms the basis of heat engine theory, solely from the caloric viewpoint.
In contrast, in the late 1800's Tesla had already relegated Caloric theory to the dustbin, and realized that heat,.being simply another form of energy and not a fluid, had no "directionality", as you put it earlier. No necessity to "flow" like water, from a heat source to sink, or hot "reservoir" to a cold "reservoir". He postulated that in fact heat, in effect, or in a sense, evaporated or disappeared after passing into a heat engine, and so, was not "rejected" into the sink, once converted to mechanical work output.
Now I've been told repeatedly to discount Nicola Tesla, as he was crazy. He was in love with a pigeon, he didn't understand thermodynamics etc. etc.
Me, not having any previous knowledge or indoctrination into either viewpoint decided to settle the matter by experiment.
Logically, if a heat engine were running on ice, which means, of course, the energy is actually being supplied by ambient heat, then.
1. If heat is a fluid or Caloric, or acts as such, then after entering a heat engine it will have to ALL be let out or "rejected" to the sink.
2. If heat is simply kinetic energy, then as it is converted to mechanical work, at least some of the heat will be used up; converted to work, so will not reach the sink.
An inoperative engine will not convert any of the heat entering the engine, regardless of the actual nature of heat. But if heat is kinetic energy, then a running heat engine is actively converting the heat into a different form of energy, so less of it should pass through to the sink.
Ergo, if heat is kinetic energy, the ice used to power a Stirling engine should melt measurably slower than ice just sitting there, if all other conditions are held the same.
I think such an experiment should be repeated various ways, like with the idle machine with the displacer up, another with displacer down, in the center etc Maybe remove the displacer and replace it with something to mechanically agitate the air but without actually CONVERTING any heat, eliminate as many variables as possible.
Personally, I simply don't have time for all that.
I am a long long way from "invoking" any explanations or drawing any hard conclusions, just based on a few amateur kitchen table top experiments.
The results, that the ice took longer to melt under the running engine, are really quite unremarkable IMO. So, big deal, maybe it helps confirm what everybody already knows. Heat is kinetic energy. probably.
And maybe some kudos to Tesla for early recognition of the fact, relatively speaking.
For me, it puts just a tiny bit of weight on the scale that Tesla's additional views regarding heat and heat engines may warrant more consideration than they have heretofore been given, but I'm not a follower or "true believer" in all things Tesla. I'm highly skeptical of his "Self Acting" heat engine proposal, but, thus far, my various experiments have failed to prove Tesla flat out wrong. He seems to have been MORE right that the rest of the world at the time, regarding the fundamental nature of heat and the theory of heat engine operation.
Who deserves greater consideration? Carnot, who was flat out wrong about nearly everything, or Tesla who gave us the modern world, and without who's inventions, we would likely not have the means to be having this conversation through this largely ac powered medium of communication?
But that is besides the point - the results look interesting because there will be a solid explanation and it is difficult at the moment to see exactly what that might be.
Please briefly summarise (on this thread) what you think the results of your experiment are (not what they mean - confine yourself to observational data only). That way anyone wanting to repeat your experiment will have a record of what results you obtained to compare with they results that they (and me) obtain.
Then I'll get to work. As may others who find this interesting.....
The ice under a running engine remained in a solid condition for a greater length of time. The ice under the idle engine melted sooner.
Those were the objective measurable results.
If you want exact numbers, it's all in the thread and/or in the video descriptions on YouTube, as well as, I think, on this forum.
Personally, I'm not as interested in my outcomes as I am in seeing what results others get.
I've been begging for anyone willing to do so to repeat the experiments, even offering to supply the engines, but no takers. Instead I get banned from the forums (various other Science and Physics forums, not this one).
My crime or violation seems to be that I take an objective scientific approach rather than just adhering to the standard curriculum. I don't rule out the possibility that I might not already know everything, or that everything that can be known, might not already be known. There might actually be something new, or something old and rejected to discover or rediscover.
Sorry for the long diatribe, the opposite of what you wanted, but I reject that the theory, intent, and expected outcomes of an experiment are insignificant
Why do an experiment in the first place other than to satisfy a curiosity or to answer a question or resolve an issue?
What other "solid explaination" might there be, over and beyond the conflicting views that lead up to the experiment in the first place?
That is a rhetorical question.
Perhaps heat has a quantum mechanical "particle wave" type duel nature?
Well, I guess that is true. Heat as infrared light at least, as part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Instantaneous quantum heat transfer at a distance through phonon coupling, maybe?