We have touched upon this subject in the past and I agree with your assessment. But, another possible way to look at this apparent violation is to consider the system as being larger than just the local liquid that is cooled. A heat pump takes heat away from one region, leaving it cooler, while depositing that heat into another local. For the whole picture extra thermal energy is deposited into the system due to inefficiency.
In the case you mention could we not assume that the evaporated water vapor extracts heat from the surface of the water and sends it into the air in an analogous manner? Perhaps it is always possible to expand the system boundaries so that the law is preserved. The conservation of mass/energy seems to be the one that is most important. Dave -----Original Message----- From: mixent <mix...@bigpond.com> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com> Sent: Thu, Nov 19, 2015 9:22 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:Georgia Institute of Technology report on Hydrodynamics gadget In reply to David Roberson's message of Thu, 19 Nov 2015 20:36:53 -0500: Hi, [snip] >Does this not violate a thermodynamic law? Some of us are lawless. Since this can actually be done, if it does violate a thermodynamic law, then the law needs to be rewritten. ;) This is a case of kinetic energy being converted into potential energy, so the second law doesn't really apply (as it's actually based on the statistics of moving particles). It's analogous to wind chill. With wind chill, the "hot" molecules are removed by the wind after escaping from the surface, having spent most of their energy breaking free of the hydrogen bonds in the water. In the case of electrolysis, the hydrogen and oxygen end up at different electrodes, so don't have an opportunity to recombine. In a sense, they are both examples of Maxwell demons, in so far as a barrier exists which effectively only allows one way passage. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
