Stephen It's clear that you are trying to re-characterize a mistaken understanding on your part, in order to try to win an argument that can only be won if you get to rephrase it your own terms.
For instance: "CoE has *nothing* to do with the issues here. CoE is first law. We're talking about second law." Wrong. We're talking about super-radiance, Stephen. I never mentioned the second law, and I started the thread. Why do you think that this has relevance to super-radiance? Do you understand what super-radiance is about? Let me give you a hint or what it is not: it is not about an ongoing thermodynamic system or process. > and therefore greater emission on the nano-structured surface (superradiance) will be compensated elsewhere. In particular, you snipped this question: > SL: How do you propose to "compensate" the alleged violation by subradiance "elsewhere" if an object is uniformly coated with nanoparticles? Where is "elsewhere"? ... Do you know the answer? Yes and I mentioned it clearly. The answer is subradiance, but one cannot be permitted to define a hypothetical situation in a way that will only allow one factor to be operational, without the other and then expect that it will represent reality in any relevant way. Again you seem to be trying to convert a "feature of a system" into the "whole system". Do you see the logical error? > SL: You also snipped the observation that nanoparticles won't radiate long wavelengths, but also won't absorb them, so a surface consisting of nanoparticles will be transparent to long wavelengths. Did you overlook that, or dismiss it? I dismissed it ! at least to the extent that "long" is defined as something outside the range of blackbody radiation (terahertz to far microwave). Nanoparticles will absorb and emit radiation at wavelengths that are many times their diameter - well up into the microwave range. But if you want to define "long" as something else unrelated to heat, then that is symptomatic of exactly the problem we are having. You seem to be trying to tailor a partially flawed understanding, post hoc, for the only apparent purpose of trying to win an argument based on a straw-man invention that was never proposed. SL: You also snipped the bit where I questioned your apparent attribution of my argument (very slightly paraphrased) to someone else. Did you overlook that? I have no idea what you are talking about. > SL: The conclusion is that if you can make a surface which radiates a different spectrum from a normal blackbody, but is none the less not transparent or reflective at the "missing" wavelengths, then you can build a perpetual motion machine of the second kind using that surface. That is the false straw-man argument. You must know that, so why do you persist? It is false, for one thing, because of the assumption that heat can only be transferred by radiation. It is false for a second reason in that it "tries" to extend a short term or instantaneous effect into an ongoing process. Do you understand that this is not about an ongoing process, per se? It is about a type of radiation effect that was relatively unknown until Robert Dicke got involved. Yes, it might eventually lead to a way to accelerate LENR and yes, that could connote a type of "perpetual motion machine of the second kind" to some observers, even though you and I know that if a nuclear reaction is taking place - there could be a limited type of perpetual motion without a violation of any thermodynamic law or interpretation. I understand "how" you are trying to warp the very relevant finding into something that it was never intended to be. The "why" is what I do not understand. Jones
