2-Stage Oscillators and the Quest for “Free Energy”
It may not look like much, but Serbian scientist and inventor Veljko Milkovic will tell you that under ideal conditions his two-stage mechanical oscillator will produce twelve times more energy at the business end of the machine than what is required at the input side of it.
[After spending several days reading the documents and opinions, watching the videos, and making myself comfortable with the material I link to below, I was sufficiently convinced that the 2-stage oscillator was—at the very least—something CleanTechnica's readers would find interesting. I welcome your comments and critique, because that is how science progresses -TBH]
Simply put, the two-stage oscillator consists of a lever and a pendulum: two machines that perform work individually. Milkovic and others claim that when these two machines are combined, assembled with the proper weight distribution, and properly synchronized, Centrifugal and Gravitational forces operate in concert to produce energy gains bordering on the astonishing.
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“This certainly ranks as one of the most important discoveries in science in the last 300 years,” said Peter Lindemann, who suggests the twelve-fold increase in power at the output end (pdf) appears to violate Newton’s Third Law of Motion: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Once the optimal speed has been reached by the swinging pendulum, Milkovic postulates that very little energy is required to maintain it.
Greatest impact could be in developing world
There have been several iterations of the Milkovic design and it is argued that the mechanism could be used in automatic hammers, transmissions, motors, pumps and more. In theory, the design could be scaled up to handle much larger amounts of energy — even utility scale.
But one of the most viable and “shovel-ready” applications of the mechanism is in manual water pumps. Widespread diffusion of appropriate technologies like Milkovic’s two-stage oscillating pump could have important implications in parts of the world where manually pumping water is a fact of daily life. (Watch a video of a water pump with two-stage oscillator).
The search for perpetual motion machines and “free energy” has occupied the minds of mechanical engineers for as long as there have been mechanical engineers. And while there have been the standard methodological challenges to the accuracy of certain measurement tools and protocols used to study the two-stage mechanical oscillator, Milkovic’s design has yet-to-be understood implications for a world with constantly-growing energy needs.
Images: VeljkoMilkovic.com
Let’s also note that the video is from 2004… no more breakthroughs since then!?…
I’m an entrepreneur-in-residence at a technology incubator, and working on my PhD in physics at the same time. My job is to help inventors turn their ideas into companies.
I see a two or three of these types of devices a year. The last one was remarkably similar to this diagram here; slightly different orientation but identical physics.
When the inventors for these things come in, I pull a $1000 cheque out of my desk, which I keep there for just this purpose. I propose a simple falsification test, and offer to endorse it if the inventor can pass this simple test (the test will vary depending on the specific mechanical characteristics of the device). I place no time limit on the offer, and ask for nothing in return except for a demonstration in which I control the energy inputs and outputs.
Once you remove all the batteries and little “boosts” from external inputs (little pushes here and shoves there), the machines all stop: they are unable to overcome even the internal friction of their bearings. Usually, a simple flywheel will outperform them.
After four years and about a dozen similar inventions, I still have my money.
Without exception, the inventors are well-meaning, earnest men (no women so far!) who have overlooked a small thing or two quite by accident, usually out of excitement over the potential of their idea.
The real output of devices like this isn’t energy: it’s quite often a disastrous trail of friends and relatives who have been convinced to put their money into the scheme. I count my day as a success if I can convince the inventor not to mortgage the family home or spend his wife’s pension. Sometimes, I’m too late, and that’s a real tragedy.
Occasionally, one of these devices is good enough to draw funds from outside the family-and-friends circle. So far, I haven’t had a client who attempts to do this, but I’ve been to more than one splashy gravity/eccentric/pendulum/magnet/ZPE presentation where the sole goal is simply to raise money…evidently perpetually…from small groups ill-prepared to spot the problem with the idea. The inventors are to a man still quite sincere, quite convinced that they are “almost there” in their development path.
But I have yet to see anything remotely like this that produces anything but human sorrow.
The US Patent Office agrees. They will no longer entertain any application from a device that multiplies energy.
I’m on the fence here. Not about the perpetual motion machine, that’s bunk. I’m on the fence about deleting my bookmark to this site. I can find random junk lots of places. I read this site because you select *good* stories to show me. After this I’m not sure that’s the case.
I agree with most of the posters. My first reaction was “aw shucks, now I am going to need to unsubscribe to the RSS feed”.
It is interesting how seductive this stuff is to some people. I understand the even Leonardo da Vinci made a number of drawings of things he hoped would make energy for free. But I think he got over it.
Tulliq- Great comment! Tell me more about this US Patent Office ban on such devices. Being a policy guy, you’ve piqued my interest.
Thanks for this post. I have tried to see what kind of technology this is and how it works.
Later I see the most of the comments are stating that free energy or perpetuum mobile isn’t possible, but there are few comments considering the technology itself and how it really works.
I guess Timothy B. Hurst wanted to pay attention on this exactly and to present this new mechanical assembly.
I have understood this as very small input was needed to keep the pendulum swinging and much bigger output was performed on the business end of this machine.
I have watched this demonstration where guy was lifting heavy weight with small input provided by a hand push: * note: he is using short end of the lever to lift the weight up not longer like in leverage!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gC6Qlj1Mbo8
Wow, I’m surprised how angry/insulted some of the readers are here. I wonder why that is??? Hmm.
Didn’t Yogi Berra say something like, “It ain’t so until it’s so.” Let me know when it is.
If it works every handyman on the planet will have one working in less than 6 months. Otherwise it is just so much junk.
@timothy b hurst:
Pasted directly from the USPTO Web site:
What cannot be patented:
* Laws of nature
* Physical phenomena
* Abstract ideas
* Literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works (these can be Copyright protected). Go to the Copyright Office.
* Inventions which are:
* Not useful (such as perpetual motion machines); or
* Offensive to public morality
———————-
see http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/iip/patents.htm
My comment:
… any device where energy out is > 1x energy in is perpetual motion. You’d only need a daisy chain of them, each machine supplying more than its predecessor but sourcing back to a mouse in a treadwheel, to power the entire world.
It just can’t work: the energy has to come from somewhere. You can’t get out more than you put in. You just can’t.
Some interesting devices behave as though they are running on no energy, but they take advantage of some sort of disequilibrium: a heat gradient, a light gradient, a chemical-energy gradient, a gravity gradient … something like that. The device here just has weights flopping around in a symmetrical gravitational field: no gradient. So unless some parts are hidden, friction will cause it to run down, and it can’t do useful work.