Michel Jullian wrote:
OK thanks Jones, Ron et al. I could have gone on and on like this, describing encouraging experimental results maybe, raising millions perhaps, but I'll put an end to my little joke, which was in reality a challenge to the group's thermodynamics skills, nothing against the two of you as I hope you will understand. My scheme simply can NOT work as I realized before I even posted it, because the absolute max efficiency of a heat pump, which depends only on the absolute temperatures of the hot and cold sources, is exactly equal to one over the absolute max efficiency of a heat engine working with the same temperature sources (the formulae derive from the W and Q formula Ron gave), so that if you increase one you decrease the other, and when you multiply the two the very best you can get is a global COP of... 1. ;-(
Since thermodynamics in general, and the second law in particular, are constructed using the behavior of heat pumps and heat engines, it should come as no surprise that heat pumps follow the second law exactly -- the second law is, in some sense, just a mathematical description of a heat pump.
If there are violations of the second law waiting to be employed, I think we can be reasonably sure they won't use either heat pumps or heat engines as their "prime movers".
