So, obviously there’s a mistake in my reasoning somewhere. Maybe I’ve pointed it out already I’m not sure.

You have a vat with some liquid. The ambient temperature X (which is low and not useful) keeps it at X temperature, a certain base level of energy. Through random collisions as temperature works some will get more energy than the average and get enough energy to evaporate. You separate those passively since it’s literally a phase change it could be done passively? (Leaving you with slightly less energy in the environment but which is in our case infinite since eventually you’d give the energy back before changing it a lot when doing useful things) with the now higher energy particles you have in a separate place?

It automatically turns high entropy useless environment thermal energy into higher more useful energy? (Cascade the same system many times for really high useful energy?)

This only works if the separation step can be done passively (or uses less energy than you gain from it) I guess but that seems maybe plausible considering the phase change?

  • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    7·
    17 days ago

    Yeah, it’s a Maxwell’s demon with an extra phase change involved. Nobody’s figured out that “passive separation” step in detail, and the second law basically states it’s not just our lack of imagination. You seem to know that, though.

    Think about it, you have your vapour in the top of the vessel at equilibrium with the liquid, and you close a valve to cordon it off. Then what? You pull it out and leave a vacuum in it’s place? That change in pressure is going to involve quite a bit of work. There’s also conduction that’s working against you, so I’m not even certain the vapour is hotter to start with.

    It’s worth mentioning that unlike the other laws of physics, the laws of thermodynamics are emergent, and nobody’s rigorously proven they actually work as described without some kind of handwave. The thing is, nobody doubts thermodynamics - the empirical evidence is mountainous and the almost-proofs are convincing. The missing part probably has to do with P and NP and pseudorandomness, which is one of the millennium problems.

    • Successful_Try543@feddit.orgEnglish
      2·
      17 days ago

      The thing is, nobody doubts thermodynamics

      The law that entropy always increases, holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature.
      If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations.
      If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes.
      But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

      Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1927)