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5v stepped down to 200 millivolts / can it be done?

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water.... It's not absolutely free but 22oz of water from my tap in the house is like .0026 cents and that can generate enough HHO to mow my lawn 4 times witch is about 8 hours of run time.

It's actually very interesting and possibly the most simple thing in the world to accomplish. Pass electric current through water H2O, blow the molecules apart and presto changeo Hydrogen and Oxygen.

We know that - but where are you getting the free electricity to generate the HHO?.

It's NOT an efficient process, you would be better off using the electricity to charge a battery, and use a battery powered mower.
 
wow so defensive

So sell it, become a millionaire. What's stopping you?

I'm not going to argue or defend the idea, I tried to get everything pushed through a couple of years ago and found I couldn't patent the electrolsis process (duah) and the method I was supposedly using had already been patented. Hydrogen is also one of those things that raises sooooo many questions that it's virtually impossible to market it due to the fact it is too good to be true. It's so good in fact that people will deny the reality that water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen and you can easily seperate them and both are extremely flammable and an automobile will basically run on any flammable liquid or gas with proper air fuel tuning. BLA BLA BLA BLA BLA. This is all old news I'm not going to defend reality and what should be common knowledge. If you'd like to see it, watch it work, use it, just reserch it, try it and prove yourself wrong.
 
reserch

We know that - but where are you getting the free electricity to generate the HHO?.

It's NOT an efficient process, you would be better off using the electricity to charge a battery, and use a battery powered mower.

fourteen thousand different ways to make electrolsys more efficient. My mower has a high output lighting stator wich generates electriciy while running and a battery to start the production and the mower. Come on people this is not worth arguing about. It's a very simple process and can be made extremely efficient.
 
fourteen thousand different ways to make electrolsys more efficient. My mower has a high output lighting stator wich generates electriciy while running and a battery to start the production and the mower. Come on people this is not worth arguing about. It's a very simple process and can be made extremely efficient.

Well no one has managed to make it 'extremely efficient' yet - no arguments, it doesn't work, and has repeatedly been proved not to. Your claim of the mower generating enough electricity to run itself is even more ludicrous than most :p

As has been suggested, why aren't you a millionaire?, you're supposedly producing completely free energy - sell it!.
 
OK

FOR SALE

Completely Free Energy. Guaranteed or your money back

What are you willing to pay. My guess is nothing do to the fact that supposedly it's been proven impossible and inefficient and all that. So you have bought into many others oppinions who may or may not have tried or done it right or what ever. But needless to say you won't offer a good deal of money for this because you've been led like sheep to believe what others want you to believe.

My Hydrogen kit is not for sale, I don't want to fight the fight that is required to make this fly. HOw hard could it be you might ask.... Well lets freckin see . I didn't even suggest that i was working on an hho project and was told it wouldn't work, i didn't even offer my idea for sale and I was told it didn't work.... it goes on and on ok you have proven it right here right now. It's a big fight and prove the facts it has to be in your face hold it in you hands proof. And that my friend is a whole lot of explaining. You do realize that when the automobile was introduced it recieved less questions and arguements about how it ran and the reality of what was driving it, than hho has produced.

I never said I was selling I never ask you to buy it I didn't even suggest you to research what others have found. I suggest you believe it and if you couldn't do that go blow a 100 bucks and prove it to yourself. pvc, stainless, and a whole slew of ways to power...

I have my own personal proof, I can walk outside and touch it I can use it, start it, enjoy it without having to argue that it is in fact possible.
 
I have my own personal proof, I can walk outside and touch it I can use it, start it, enjoy it without having to argue that it is in fact possible.
Yea right, heard that before. Why ever would anyone who could feed the world ever want to sell or heaven forbid be a philanthropist and offer his invention to the world. Never seen it happen and never will.
Why not build a generator and power your home, neighborhood, town. After all water is not nearly as expensive as gasoline.
You do realize that when the automobile was introduced it recieved less questions and arguements about how it ran and the reality of what was driving it, than hho has produced.
Where is it now? These so called water cars pop up all the time, zero of them work it's just another scam.
 
Yea right, heard that before. Why ever would anyone who could feed the world ever want to sell or heaven forbid be a philanthropist and offer his invention to the world. Never seen it happen and never will.
Why not build a generator and power your home, neighborhood, town. After all water is not nearly as expensive as gasoline.

Where is it now? These so called water cars pop up all the time, zero of them work it's just another scam.

well the only question I have for you is have you tried it for yourself? If not then you're nothing but a fool. Judging something based on nothing. YOU say you have facts but where are these facts, who is providing them, are they reliable or could their oppinions be purchased. Money is an amaizing thing, if I were to be making 11 billion dollars a quarter I bet I could figure out how to convince YOU that purple unicorns do exist and can fly. You are just too easily convinced. You judge on reference other than experience. If you'd like I'll provide you will all the resources I used to build my generator and you can give it a go. Once you have done that then you can get back in touch with me and thank me.

Just a little food for thought. In 1984 a good friend of my father came up with an invention, it was a water injection carbarator that claimed 200 miles per gallon. They sold for 250 dollars installed and were proven to provide no less than 150 mpg on a 350ci engine (That was on my fathers vehicle) But amaizingly no more than 9 months after he started selling these He came over to my father and said "I'm fu*^ing rich!!!! Some guy just wrote me a check for the rights to my patient and for me to agree to forget about it." Not three days later there were two moving trucks and he was out. My dad has talked to him off and on since then, he refuses to talk about what happened and says he is still VERY wealthy. I just wonder who bought the rights to that patient and why is it not still being sold today? But one thing I know NOBODY except those who bought that carbarator will believe that with water and a fancy carbarator you could achieve 150-200 mpg.
 
Medical ethics may be in a state of flux, but I didn't know it was legal to sell a patient.
 
Since a patent only lasts 25years max it's now in the public domain. What's the patent number so we can look it up?
The 200MPG carburetor is yet more snake oil.
**broken link removed**
 
you keep talking but all I hear is BLA BLA BLA

Since a patent only lasts 25years max it's now in the public domain. What's the patent number so we can look it up?
The 200MPG carburetor is yet more snake oil.
**broken link removed**

I'm done (yep your comment will be "of course, give up when asked for proof") but it just comes down to this. You are not educated enough to carry on this conversation. You read what you believe you can argue with and ommit the rest. Then you find a loose translation of efficiency in an uncontrolled setting on one particular vehicle.... the list goes on and on. You believe that only gas is flammible and it's the only thing that will run a car. You do not even prove to have a clue that there are other things in this world that burn, explode, react with and assist. The importance on this is when two people push half as much effort is required to accomplish the same goal, or twice as much can be accomplished if both work the same as if running solo. but hold on with your quick little reply of "well that's just double the efficiency" duah. There are chemicals, liquid, gasses..... that all react in different ways and produce different measures of power. Take for example Oxygen this element is extremely flammable and provides a longer burn than consumption, next Hydrogen also extremely flammable but ignites and consumes much more quickly than oxygen. Then of course there are man made liquids and gasses such as diesel, gasoline, propane, nitrous oxide..... All of these react differently, burn temps, ignition temps, reactivity, longevity. But yet amaizingly they can all be added together to provide more power, efficiency, or one or many substituted for another such as Hydrogen and Pure Oxygen added to Gasoline. WOW isn't that just awesome, oh and I forgot to tell you that there are many things in our world that are not flammable that can be broken into there bare elements and become extremely flammable> such as WATER H2O 2 parts flammable and one part Explosive = POWER. Don't climb up onto your little soap box and voice an oppinion that you cannot support. Instead bring your little know-it-all self down to my kneck of the woods and I'll give you a little learnin'. I've got all the chemicals, gasses, liquids, and I'll make an engine run off of any one of them. Quit blowin' your hole you outrageously ignorant fool.
 
You've offered zero proof it works. They love this stuff on overunity.com nobody needs any proof whatsoever on those forums.

I asked you for the patent number, even the inventors name should be enough. But since it's all a fairy tale well I won't hold my breath.

There are many proofs that HHO doesn't work, but only the delusional hold dear to their homebrew stories...
http://www.aardvark.co.nz/hho_scam.shtml
If you haven't already read the intro to this proof, please do.
The first thing you'll note about these "run your car on water" schemes is the size of the electrolysis cell and the wires that lead to it.
Typically they're about jam-jar size and the wires are about 16 gauge, a thickness that can comfortably carry about 30A which, at 12V, represents about 360W of power.
So the first question obviously has to be...

How much gas is needed to reduce fuel consumption by 40%?
Well the first thing is to work out how much energy it requires to keep an average vehicle cruising at(say) 65mph. According to **broken link removed** it takes around 20HP to cruse at that speed.
Let's convert that to electrical energy by multiplying by 746 (the number of watts in a horsepower). We get 14,920, or roughly 15KW.
Now, if we want to replace 40% of that power with energy from HHO gas, we'll need to use at least 15KW x 0.4 which comes to 6,000 watts (6KW).
If we assume that the electrolysis cell which converts electricity into HHO gas is 100% efficient (which it certainly isn't) then that means we'll need a massive 6000W/12V or 500 amps of current to make that much gas.
Suddenly those 30A wires are looking rather inadequate aren't they?
What's more, since the average car's alternator can only deliver about 80A of current, this means the battery would have to deliver the other 520A and (in the case of even a good 80AH unit) would be flat in under 10 minutes.
Of course these simple calculations ignore the fact that electrolysis cells are not 100% efficient and the even more important fact that the average internal combustion engine is only around 30% efficient -- so even if we delivered 6KW of HHO gas to the engine it would only produce under 2KW of actual power.
With these inefficiencies taken into account we'd actually need a staggering 1,500A of electrical current to generate the necessary HHO gas to reduce our fuel input by 40%.
So clearly the math doesn't add up. There's just no way you can extract enough electrical energy from your car's automotive system to create the gas volumes needed to create any meaningful amount of energy.
How efficient are those electrolysis cells
Well in the above calculations, we've assumed 100% efficiency but the sad truth is that even the best electrolysis cells offer far less than that.
In the case of these "run your car on water" scams, the tiny containers of water usually pictured are grossly inadequate, not only in their efficiency but also in their actual size.
Take a look at the YouTube video above and note the following:

  • the amount of power the small single-cylinder is producing
  • the amount of gas being used to produce that small amount of power
  • the size of the electrolysis cells needed to generate that amount of gas
  • the amount of electrical power (1.7KW) needed to generate that gas.
Obviously, given that it's taking 1.7KW (or around 2.3HP) of electrical energy and a huge electrolysis cell to create *just* enough gas to keep a lawnmower engine barely idling, the jam-jar sized cells promoted for vehicles are a joke.
And the sad thing is that, even if you used a huge cell like this, the amount of gas created would still be too small to have any discernable effect and the amount of electrical energy required would be beyond any vehicles electrical system.
So there you have it folks.
The laws of thermodynamics remain safe. The only thing at risk is the hard-earned cash of those who are gullible enough to be duped by these scammers.
No, you can't run your car on water by installing a useless electrolysis cell under the bonnet.
But wait... I've recently had a lot of email from HHO scammers who claim that I've got it all wrong and that HHO doesn't violate the laws of thermodynamics.
Here is how they claim it works and why I still say it doesn't.
Quick navigation of this feature:

Please spread the word to save people from wasting their cash and help put these scammers out of business. Link to the first page of this feature and tell your friends about it.
 
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Would you like another?
**broken link removed**
**broken link removed**

Published by **broken link removed** at 8:08 am under **broken link removed**, **broken link removed**, **broken link removed**

Table of Contents for HHO Scam


  1. The HHO Scam: Run Your Car on Water, Part I
  2. **broken link removed**
  3. **broken link removed**
  4. **broken link removed**
  5. **broken link removed**

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With gasoline prices through the roof (nearly tripling in 18 months), everybody’s looking for a salve to reduce their pain at the pump. As always in the Land of the Free, this brings out the kooks and charlatans, offering novel ways to help you. Any excuse to sell you some Snake Oil.
The “**broken link removed**” scam is a classic example. The Internet is filling up with click-by-night websites detailing how you can get up to 40% better gas mileage Right Now, using a **broken link removed** of mysterious means and water. (Oh, and don’t forget to send along some money.)
Okay, what are the claims, really? They are simple, and go something like this: An experimenter somewhere, untrained and unskilled in science (apparently), has found a magical principle that has been overlooked through all the decades by an intensely inquisitive scientific-industrial complex. That principle allows you to attach a small, black-box mechanism, using light-weight electrical leads, to your engine and Voila! You will convert ordinary water into “HHO Gas,” which gas is then injected directly into your fuel system. Said gas is burned with your precious gasoline, adding tremendous performance improvements in fuel economy. Claims of up to 40% mileage gains are rampant on the Web.
(I recently got “spammed” through Twitter. **broken link removed** signed up for my microblog!)
This series of posts will examine this “breakthrough technology” in detail. First, though, a quick disclaimer. I have not laid my hands on one of these remarkable contraptions yet. I’ve asked for “test examples,” as I have a doctorate in physical chemistry and do thermodynamics research at a university. I’ve offered to provide validated claims, and a detailed physical and chemical rationale, if someone would simply supply a working example. So far, nada. You think one of these groups would want somebody like me to back their play!
I absolutely refuse to send my hard-earned bucks to someone I believe is scamming the public, just so I can see what’s going on inside the box. This means I can’t refute the claims in direct, validated-research ways. Yet.
That said, let’s take a look at this scam, er, technical revolution by examining the following areas:
**broken link removed**
The “Sniff Tests”
My dad used to tell me, “Son, if it smells too good to be true, then it is. Trust your nose.” That advice works here, and it’s the simplest, non-technical way to get at the heart of this matter. Let’s look at some of the assertions.

  • An automotive-energy technology, overlooked by science and engineering research for decades, is found by a lone inventor, working in his garage.
Look at that carefully. Read it slowly a few times. Anybody want to take the over-under on that bet? If so, then I have some real estate we should discuss. I mean, really; there may have been a time in America when such a discovery could be made that way. I would even cede that small innovations are made by “loners” still today. But not something this big, this powerful. It’s like claiming a college kid solved the cold fusion principles. (Any such kid would already be out beyond Mars.)

  • You can get up to 40% improvement in fuel economy from common water.
You have to squint one eye, close the other, and look this one over forwards and backwards. We’ll get to the thermodynamics and kinetics of this later on, but for now, I ask you: That much energy available from our faucets? Stand back when you wash the dishes!
If this innovation is real, why doesn’t everybody have one, on every gas-powered engine in their arsenal? It’s better than a license to print money, if true.
To close this portion of the refutation, uhh, investigation, I will note that a prize of $1 million (U.S.) has been offered for a proven demonstration. So far, no takers. If HHO worked as advertised, you can bet there would be a line of candidates slobbering to get at those bucks. Maybe the **broken link removed**; a million of them still approaches **broken link removed**.
I don’t mind crackpots and their mechanisms. After all, anyone with an idea is a nutcase until they’re proven right. The “water for gasoline” mountebanks should be shot on sight, however; they’re more dangerous than a crooked Senator…
Seeya Around the Ol’ (Overpriced) Gas Station!
Powered by **broken link removed**
Technorati : HHO, fuel economy, gasoline prices, scams
 
The amazing thing is there are ZERO of these HHO folks willing to give the world their secret for free.
Must be a greedy lot those water fuel types.
**broken link removed**
Gollums pimpin HHO ride, but he won't share the secret.
 
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wow you are amaizing

well I'd spend hours hyperlinking and pasting everyone elses thoughts and ideas and so on and so forth. But I don't give a rats what anyone else has to say about the whole thing I was prompted to research design and build my generator from this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a74uarqap2E
Again there is a person who not only said it could happen but made it happen and proved it across the nation. Oh but wait you didn't see that in person or maybe it's because you didn't watch the news or maybe you don't trust the news like you trust the random nobodys on the web. Whatever the reason you will bach at that video.

It's just for referance, you do make many wonderful points though. Yes there are a LOT of scammers online, there are people in my city that are selling the same crap and people are buying. I didn't and I don't. I would love to provide you with all the information and plans for my generator but quite honestly I spent over 200 hours..... UNDERSTAND THIS TWO HUNDRED HOURS of my personal time over $600 in parts throughout the trial and error process. I have a SERIOUS ammount of time energy and effort invested in this project and I love to show it off and brag to everyone who comes by my shop. But there is no way in HELL that I'm going to just GIVE that away, NO F U buddy do you even know what it is to invest that much time, blood, sweat, and tears HOLD ON RETARD YES BLOOD FROM BUSTED KNUCKLES, SWEAT AND TEARS FROM FRUSTRATION AND PUSHING SEVERAL PROJECTS BACK TO THE SHOP DUE TO DEAD BATTERIES BLOWN ALTERNATORS, BELTS..... This is who I am this is how I feel. Quite honestly as I stated before I don't like to PROVE myself on this matter and that is what is required to sell this. It's even required to give it away. The ammount of work needed to install my device on your car would take extensive modifications and would be fairly costly even if you were to do it yourself. So answer this. I have a product that can increase your fuel economy my at LEAST 50 Percent and the product would only cost the price of parts (you could provide them to me if you like), but this product if you choose to install it on your personal vehicle would require stainless lines from fuel tank to engine, braded lines were flex is needed, a new programmable fuel management unit (FMU) to replace your current ecm (if your car is obd2 though it more than likely has a body control module wich requires you to retain your stock ecm so you would have to bypass the engine controlls of your current ecm to acomplish the fore stated), you will need a high pressure fuel pump, larger injectors with a higher peek pressure it would be wise to convert to a coil on plug set up so that timming can be more readily adjusted by the standalone FMU and Finally if you really want to reep the full benifits of this you would need to install hardened valve seats to ensure valvetrane can withstand the ammount of timing and heat to produce power. There you have it. Thats why I won't sell it. It can be done I have done it. Is it reliable NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO is it plug and play NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. is it cheep NO NO NO NO NO NO NO Thats why it's on my Lawn Mower. The reason noone is taking this and perfecting it for market is because it takes sooooo much money and sooooo much time and there are no kickbacks. A person cannot deny that there are kickbacks Oil companys will pay corporations to produce an inefficient product. It's not a theory it is a reality. Just like big medicine will pay doctors to perscribe their drugs. If you have a vehicle that has been perfected to run on water then what???? Honestly do you think big oil is just gonna say "good deal we're gonna go broke" and yes they would. If big oil took just a 30% hit on sales this quarter they would go broke the following quarter. They make big money but they are only making on average a 7% profit.

You blueroomelectronics have nothing to stand on except that the world is flat. You are the kind of person that believes we have come as far as we will ever go. Nothing new will ever be invented no amaizing anythinig will ever happen again. I am honestly sorry I just realized that you have no hope, no drive, there is no light at the end of your tunnel. That is something I can't argue with. I assure you though the world is not flat (although you probably don't believe me) "heard that one before" And yes those people inside that little box are real people. "just more snake oil"

Don't be so quick to judge. If I had met you during my R&D of my generator you might have broken my spirit (doubt it, but could have at times) You must understand that ANYONE i repeat ANYONE could be the person that changes the world with whatever it is they have descovered or developed and it is everyones responsibilty to encourage and provide knowledge, not oppinion. I would hate to one day find out that I was the reason that a world changing invention was delayed because of my oppinion.

Don't hate me because I'm extremely educated in what I know. I came to this sight for further education in an area I'm not so experienced in. I didn't jump your posts or thoughs or ideas and tell you that you were wrong. Why because I'd be running on oppinion not fact.

And in the future choose more scientific and unfoulable resources because everyone one of your links had faults, large and small. Comparisions that are not equal, fabricated reality that is pulled from someone elses guess or personal experience. There are places you go for facts and it's not the web and it's certainly not to someone's forum post or blog.

I live in the world wide world where if I light a gallon of gas it goes whoof and is a good show, but if I were to light a gallons worth of liquid Hydrogen I'd go by by
I know this because one of my favorate party gigs when I have friends over it so fill up a 55 gallon trash bag with the HHO from my generator put a remote detinator on it and blow it up. I've been told that I rattle the windows in my friends house that is 2 miles from mine.

I sure wouldn't call that an equal reaction.

don't be such a down-er... oh and if you would like I'll make you a HHO generator according to my wife I only have $473.53 invested in parts. And that's a FACT.
 
patent #

I asked my Father if he knew the patent number and he just laughed stating "why would I even have a clue?" He later called me back stating that this seemed to be exactly what he had **broken link removed** The problem with this is the timeline doesn't fit. Having been too young to remember what it even looked like all I can go off of is what I'm told So in no way am I saying that this is the exact carb. This is an educated guess on my fathers part based on his recolection. He did tell me that he should still have the carb. stored somewhere and that he would look for it. He knows he removed it before he sold the car. So if he can find it I'll draw up a blueprint and provide that information for free 'cause I didn't make the thing and I think it's been covered up by whoever to either push fuel injection or promote poor fuel economy
 
That's a water injector, they've used them in engines to prevent knock. This has nothing in common with HHO. It's also common knowledge and has been used for many years. The fuel gain is negligible and it introduces it's own set of problems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_injection_(engines)

As for your $600 investment (peanuts compared to the dopes that spent their life saving chasing the HHO fantasy). And 200 Hrs is nothing. It takes three times the energy to split the Hydrogen & Oxygen then what you get from burning the result.

You also claim your lawn mower runs on ONLY water, so what's stopping you from connecting a generator and powering your house?

Do they even put carburetors in modern cars?

been covered up by whoever to either push fuel injection or promote poor fuel economy
Ah yes the mandatory cover up.

The overunity crowd also tend to believe in government conspiracies and UFOs.

I think the world is very round and man did land on the moon.

Here's another site with a article on water cars, Browns Gas and the like.
http://skeptoid.com/

Quit now, find another hobby.

LOL I just watched your ancient Channel 5 report on Stan Meyer. It's a SCAM he bilked investors till taken to court and could never prove anything worked.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Meyer

And a crackpot site too!
http://waterpoweredcar.com/stanmeyer.html
In Australia there is intense opposition to anyone using the Nitro Cell on any engine. In New Zealand, to the magnetic motor of Robert Adams which is 700% efficient. In the UK, to devices for water-splitting and permanent magnet motors. In Japan to Teruo Kawai’s patented magnetic motor which is 160% efficient.
Right...

And this nutter site
http://www.need2know.eu/?p=410

As for my guess what killed Stan Meyers (assuming he was murdered) was most likely one of the several pissed off invested he stole from.
 
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Oh and here's yet another silly university professors outlook on the "free lunch"
**broken link removed**
The Chemical Free Lunch

by Brynn Hibbert
Once in existence force cannot be annihilated; it can only change its form. (Mayer, 1842)
The energy of an isolated system is constant. (First year university chemistry textbook)
There is no such thing as a free lunch. (Brynn Hibbert)
The stars twirl apparently endlessly in their orbits and if God happens to ask a chap in Utah to solve the World's energy problems he should see no great problem in obliging the deity. Mind you, this was Utah in pre Fleischmann and Pons (cold fusion) days, but one of the Middle East wars was in progress and the price of oil had just taken a hike, so the prospect of running your motor car on cheap water rather than expensive oil was too good to miss. Thus was the story unfolded unto me by a producer of the television program Beyond 2000 some years later.
A salutary tale

The producer had been sufficiently enthused to send a reporter over to Utah to view the device, a perspex cylinder about 50 cm tall by 20 cm in diameter containing metal tubes running vertically. From the top it looked like a latter day gatling gun. The video that they brought back showed the putative inventor pouring "pure" water into the cylinder, then switching on a generator upon which bubbles swirled up from the metal tubes. Evidently the electricity from the generator was used to produce hydrogen and oxygen. If a lid was bolted on then a rapid rise in pressure could be seen on a gauge. The gases escaping from an orifice could be ignited and lo! they burned with a clear flame.
Stop me if I'm wrong but was not electrolysis discovered by Volta in 1800 and communicated to the Royal Society in London (whose President was Joseph Banks the Australian explorer), and would not any student of science explain that bubbles of hydrogen and oxygen are exactly what would be expected. The difference (according to the inventor) was that the generator was there merely to provide an oscillating electric field and that the process was not electrolysis but resonance. Springs resonate, atoms in molecules resonate, so it was argued that by hitting just the right frequency the hydrogen atoms and oxygen atom in water will fly apart. The analogy with soldiers walking over a bridge in step causing it to collapse, or the note on the church organ that brings the roof in, was perfect. Why could not a suitably directed electric field do the same with a molecule? To add to the credibility there was a interview with a gent with donnish half-glasses purporting to be the Dean of Engineering at London University who, while clearly trying to hedge his bets, said that there was something in this resonance theory and perhaps it should be taken seriously. The brochure that came from the inventor invited investors to set up their own resonators, while counselling that this opportunity was for the 'financially sophisticated' only. I shall leave you to ponder on the problems of resonance. ( **broken link removed**).
Two hours later a sadder, and I hope wiser, TV man left my office. I knew I had got the message across when he inquired whether the First Law of Thermodynamics did work everywhere. "Yes", I assured him, "it would be a very strange God who suspended the Laws of Physics only in Utah".
Much to my surprise the man and his device reappeared in a New Scientist article in September of that year [1]. Resonance had fallen out of favour, now it was zero point energy. I could not help but write to that magazine pointing out that zero point energy like resonance was a chimera as far as useful work goes.[2]
More woe for science

What astounds me is the sheer gullibility of people, not the least journalists. A few years earlier I had been involved with an Australian invention that claimed to make a new form of hydrogen and oxygen. The front page article in the Sydney Morning Herald [3] blasted Fire from Water .. an inventor's triumph, and started "A cramped workshop at the back of a suburban house in Sydney's west seems an unlikely place to trigger a global energy revolution.". There clearly has been no global energy revolution emanating from a Sydney back yard, but there is a race memory that major problems are being solved, so that when Professor Hibbert turns up offering a more tame discovery, he hears that all this has been done, and why are the taxpayers wasting their money on pompous academics who bag independent seekers of truth.
Some history

These modern day perpetual-motion vendors have a long pedigree that was only mildly disrupted by the statement of the **broken link removed** by Mayer in 1842. Water features large in these efforts.
The energy crisis in 17c England was caused by the lack of mill streams to turn water wheels. Robert Fludd (1574-1637) left a number of illustrations of a device to recirculate the water in an overshot water wheel. In this device the falling water that turned the water wheel provided enough energy to both grind the corn and return the water to the mill race via an Archimedean screw.
Fludd was not a charlatan and neither was the Bishop of Chester who in Mathematical Magick (published in 1648) discussed the use of a magnet to attract a steel ball up an inclined ramp, "which steel as it ascends near to the lodestone may be contrived to fall through some hole in the plane, and so return to the place from whence at first it began to move; and being there the lodestone will again attract it upwards till coming to the hole it will fall down again; and so the motion will be perpetual...". The good Bishop seems to have invented the first executive desk toy, as he proposed no way of exploiting the work done by this recirculating ball.
Whatever the current energy fad, a perpetual motion machine was made to exploit it water, wind, electricity, steam, magnetism [4]. I have always particularly liked the Zimara (1460- ca 1523) self-blowing windmill, in which the rotation of the sails of a windmill work enormous bellows to provide the wind to turn the sails to work the bellows...
**broken link removed** The Bishop of Chester, Bishop Wilkins' demonstration of Magnetic virtues, 1648
The lodestone sits atop the pedestal and the small shot is supposed to race up the inclined plane, then drop through the hole at the top and reappear at the bottom to be carried up again ...
The USA joins the party

The American Patent Office tried to cope with the steady stream of putative perpetual motion devices by issuing the following notice:
"The views of the Patent Office are in accord with those scientists who have investigated the subject and are to the effect that such devices are physical impossibilities. The position of the Office can only be rebutted by a working model. ... The Office hesitates to accept fees from applicants who believe they have discovered Perpetual Motion, and deems it only fair to give such applicants a word of warning that fees cannot be recovered after the case has been considered by the Examiner."
One of the great perpetual motion frauds was John Worrel Keely who claimed to invent a generator that turned tap water into high pressure etheric vapour when vibratory energy was applied. The Keely Motor Company raised $5 million from spurious inventions based on a hydro-pneumatic-pulsating-vacu-engine, sympathetic equilibrium, etheric disintegration and even quadrupole negative harmonics. Even when Keely was dropped by his eponymous company he found a rich widow to support him. On his death in 1898 his house in Philadelphia was searched to reveal a labyrinth of pipes that conducted compressed air to power his perpetual motion machines. The New York Journal ran a banner headline in January 1899: Keely the Monumental Fraud of the Century.
Advice ...

My advice to skeptics when faced with fanatical inventors is to remember the First Law is always right and to cut through the circuitous explanations. Draw a box round the device with one arrow in and one arrow out and invite the inventor to say whether he claims that there is more energy coming out than going in. If he says there is invoke the First Law, if he prevaricates thank him kindly and take your leave. Do not get drawn into arguments about "High Temperature Confined Carbon Plasma Magnetic Mirrors And Electronic Fields In Our Ioffe Bar Carbon Maser X-Ray Chromatic Turnable Particle Accelerator Laser" [5].
The answer

Finally the resonance argument fails because it is upside down. Think of resonance as helping a structure to go where it wants to go -- the bridge into the river or the church roof into the nave. Water is already where hydrogen and oxygen are heading (that is why hydrogen burns in oxygen, the heat is the excess energy after they are turned into water). Just as no amount of organ playing will re-roof the church, resonance, without all that energy, will not disassemble water.
**broken link removed**
The most stable states of bridges, and hydrogen and oxygen.
The collapsed bridge and the water molecules are both at a minimum energy.
References

[1] New Scientist, Just Turn on the Tap to Fill up the Tank? 18th September 1993, p20.
[2] New Scientist, 30th October,1993, p49
[3] Sydney Morning Herald, 13th September, 1988
[4] A.W.J.G. Ord-Hume, Perpetual Motion : The History of an Obsession, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1979.
[5] Noel Henry Wilson, Sydney, 1992
**broken link removed**
 
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