Oscillations about the Zero Point
by David M. Boie
Recently, a community in the northeastern United
States had been host to the meetings of an independent Zero-Point
Energy Group. As they were gathered one evening, I ‘happened by’ with
the intention of getting a sense of what was going on, without
intruding too heavily on the proceedings. It seems members of the group
were considering the possibility of renting space for a Zero-Point
Research Lab, intended (tentatively) to serve both as a research and
demonstration facility.
For relative lay-people like
myself, ‘Zero-Point Energy’ (stripped of all the esoteric mathematics)
basically alludes to the potential for generating near limitless
electrical power with no fuel, no greenhouse gas by products, and no
discernable pollution of any sort that science currently recognizes.
Zero-point research seems to imply the possibility of getting
“something for nothing.” Not surprisingly, skeptics abound, as a major
paradigm shift is implied by the prospects of zero-point phenomena
being ‘for real.’
Confessions of a “Personal” Nature
…All
this stuff seems quite fascinating, especially to a drop-out from a
chosen career-path leading toward Electrical Engineering. The drama is
intense for those attracted to it. Government suppression. Jail
sentences for inventors. National Security issues. Conspiracies…
Cover-ups. Why does this stuff seem to get my wheels turning backwards
and forwards at the same time? Perhaps some personal background would
help clarify the impetus behind this article. What
could be said about an individual who embraced conservative politics as
a youth, experimented with a consciousness shattering drug his third
year of college, and subsequently came to reject his parents, America’s
government, its current form of capitalism as well as the psychiatric
establishment (upon all of which his chaotic state of mind had left him
pathologically dependant)? It depends on one’s perspective… the
political fringes (right and left) might view such a person as either a
traitor or an emboldened revolutionary. But perhaps the most becoming
(and potentially hopeful) view was that shared by my parents and
certain more enlightened members of the governmental and psychiatric
worlds: that of a prodigal son who has left to wander in the wilderness
- indulging alternately in prideful scorn of others... and then guilty
self-recrimination. Over the
years, intermittent encounters with spiritual teachers and a bit of
spiritual discipline have led to significant healing in terms of Peace
of Mind, along with some budding realizations. Most recently, studies
on the feasibility of implementing zero-point technology for energy
generation – as well as personally pondering the notion of using
“guerilla free-energy tactics” to liberate the masses from the tyranny
of the Authority Structure - have prompted reconsideration of my
problems with authority. The push to use free-energy technology to
‘liberate the masses’ has subsided, facilitating a turning back towards
a slightly different kind of conservatism, one which embraces the
larger context in which people grow through experimenting with the
suffering that attends narcissistic willfulness. After
this slight expansion of perspective, the economy that once seemed so
oppressive now appeared to be the result of much collective spiritual
evolution. Capitalism, though by no means perfect, does provide a
context ripe for spiritual transformation. For those still burdened
with desire (like myself), the economic authority structure provides
limited satisfaction of our raw animal and human desires, but in a
context where spiritual growth and learning are fostered – that moment
can always occur where our work becomes effortless, and a grudging
acceptance of the rewards of deferred gratification suddenly transforms
into true Karma Yoga, the joy-filled yoga of service to our fellows. In
the transformative crucible of work, the fundamental question of the
victim: “What doesn’t the world owe me for my suffering?” occasionally
dissolves into a profound sense of gratitude. Throughout
my extended adolescence, I have persistently doubted the ‘fairness’ of
life. It seems that the procurement of social power in this world
generally demands high levels of responsibility, commitment, and
deference to authority (not to mention psychological stability). My
inability to be OK with this led to the brink of a revolutionary
struggle aimed at toppling the authority structure. Before I went the
way of serious guerilla warfare, a turn inward came and an intuitive
reflection appeared of myself as a young toddler, throwing a tantrum
because the world was ‘just not fair!’ - …not to minimize the pain of
opening to this vision. It involved the most difficult kind of honest
introspection I had ever endured. Although, since it felt motivated by
a humble willingness to receive correction from a larger Reality, once
the opening came, the warmth of catharsis poured through. Within
the unfolding zero-point drama, there appear stories of free-energy
pioneers being issued gag orders after demonstrating heavy personal
attachment to “turning the World of energy upside-down.” National
Security issues are presented as being the rationale for these gag
orders. Many seem to think that this amounts to mere pretense for
keeping the masses oppressed and down-trodden… I have considered this
true myself, and continue to wonder about it being somewhat accurate. But
now I am not so certain about my ability to accurately judge the
universe...I recently came across some research concerning what happens
with many ‘normal folks’ who win the lottery. The far-reaching
implications of “liberating economic discontinuities” (such as a
big-lottery win) can be studied nowhere better than here – in the
soaring rates of suicide, divorce, and bankruptcy among lotto winners.
With respect to Zero-Point Energy, this research got me to wondering –
beyond the admitted short-sightedness of the oil-cartels – does the
potential for unwise use of ‘free-energy’ threaten the moral, ethical,
and spiritual fabric of society, as well as the economic-base? What if
everyone “won the lottery” at the same time? What would the impact of
that be? As much as I, in
some respects, continue to feel a ne’er-do-well for not making good on
the career path which I thought I had chosen, and as much as I continue
to harbor resentment toward those who seem to have access to greater
opportunity… when I ponder the possibility of a major economic
discontinuity on a global scale, I begin to really question things. Zero-Point Ethics
For
those who are open minded about Zero-point phenomena and the immense
responsibility and karma associated with their wise (or unwise)
application to our global energy situation, a quandary presents
itself... does a wise society 1) extract energy from the zero-point in
the interests of amassing wealth and creating more “stuff” for people
to toy with, or does it 2) dedicate itself to the principle of reducing
the net disorder in the universe by sending energy/entropy back into
the zero-point? When
our current environmental situation on earth is taken into account, it
seems wise to consider the second possibility earnestly. Sending
energy/entropy into the zero-point need not deprive us of those things
we perceive ourselves as needing... using a sort of “paddle wheel”
approach, we can potentially harvest available energy from the flow of
entropy into the zero-point... which can potentially drive an entire
economy’s energy needs until such time as we gain clarity into three
questions: who are we, why are we here, and where are we going... In
a world of great disorder, an infinite energy/entropy sink seems of
much greater value than an infinite energy/entropy source. Zero-point
technology, as documented extensively in a broad array of writings,
seems thus far to have been limited to the manufacture/prototyping of
entropy sources. The Adams Motor, Floyd Sweet’s work, the Moray device,
some of Tesla’s reported inventions, etc., all function as entropy
sources. Regardless of whose hands are best fit to wield zero-point
technology in the interests of the public good, perhaps the time is
ripe to consider the issue of Universal Zero-Point Ethics: does mankind
ultimately wish to dedicate itself to the exponential amassing of
physical wealth and temporal power (and experiencing the attendant
entropic and social disorder), or do we “choose differently” this time
around? An Interesting Phenomenon:This
discussion might seem overly theoretical to the point of irrelevance,
had the ideas not come into mind while conducting physical experiments
utilizing thermocouples... the results of which seemed potentially
quite startling, at least when viewed from a mindset closed to what the
observations suggested about the zero-point, entropy, and the physical
world in general. Utilizing
available materials... (a euphemism for copper speaker-wire and
aluminum foil)... a simple thermocouple may be built which has a large
distance between the ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ junctions. With the ‘cold’
junction starting at room temperature, and the ‘hot’ junction immersed
in near-boiling water, a small voltage appeared across the open
terminals of the thermocouple circuit... no surprises here. Power
generating thermocouple arrays (also called thermopiles) often utilize
this thermo-electric voltage to provide power for satellites, oil and
natural gas wells, and other remote locations with readily available
heat sources. In this experiment, however, instead of extracting power
from this thermo-electric voltage, an external DC voltage source and
resistor were utilized to pump electrical current “the other way.”
Energy was ‘force-fed’ into the thermocouple circuit, and here is where
things became interesting... A
conventional physical perspective might assume that this electrical
energy would: provide significant heat to the ‘hot’ junction alone,
with the remaining energy ‘burning up’ throughout the circuit as
resistive heat (I²R) losses. These combined heating aspects would
maintain the prevailing sense that overall energy would be conserved...
all whilst honoring the suspected principles of thermocouple operation
and the second law of thermodynamics. What actually appeared to happen
was that the ‘cold’ junction... which had been maintained at room
temperature and with significant thermal exposure to the ambient air...
began to cool down as electrical current was pumped
“backwards” through the thermocouple circuit. Eventually, this
junction’s temperature registered over 7°Centigrade below the
temperature of the surrounding room. Implications and Possibilities
Personally,
I have had great difficulty holding this phenomenon in consciousness
while attempting to maintain both the Principle of absolute
Conservation of Energy and Matter and the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
I have also seemingly had to let go of the notion that the zero-point
is incapable of absorbing entropy. And although it may yet seem unclear
as to how a flow of entropy into the zero-point could facilitate a
“paddle-wheel phenomenon” capable of manifesting useful energy,
investigation into the behavior of superconductors and their potential
capacity for ‘sinking’ vast amounts of thermal radiation (provided
their superconductivity is not swamped by excessively large
instantaneous thermal power-flows or magnetic-fields) seems intuitively
promising in this regard. David M. Boie / e-mail: davidboie@yahoo.com May 11, 2006
Published on: 2006-05-29 (8505 reads) [ Go Back ] |