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The technology of magnetic
levitation, or "Maglev," has useful application in
the development of high-speed trains. This industry has
become more promising in the last two to three decades with developments
in the area of superconductors. The Shanghai
Transrapid, the world's
first commercial maglev train, began operation in Shanghai, China
in 2004 over a 30 km long track. It operates daily
carrying several hundred passengers on each of its trips. Liquid
helium-cooled, low-temperature superconductor plates mounted
beneath the train cars expel from their interior all environmental
magnetic fields, a phenomenon termed the Meissner
effect. As a
result, the magnetic field generated by a series of underlying
superconducting solenoids, exerts a repulsive pressure on the
superconductor which levitates the train.
The maglev phenomenon is also
observed in high-temperature superconductors such as Yttrium-Barium-Copper-Oxide
(YBCO) which becomes superconducting at liquid nitrogen temperatures.
In this case, a magnetic repulsion phenomenon occurs because
the superconductor plate expels from its interior the underlying
magnetic field lines and develops mirror fields, or pinned
magnetic fields, having
a polarity opposed to these underlying field lines causing the
plate to repel upward. This Meissner effect levitation phenomenon
is demonstrated in the video below in which an YBCO high-temperature
superconductor is initially at room temperature with a cube magnet
placed over it. It is then precooled below its critical temperature
by immersing it in liquid nitrogen. This causes the magnet to
rise up and hover over the YBCO in seeming violation of the First
Law. That is, work is done with the magnet rising up, but where
does the energy come from?
It may come as a surprise
that this well accepted maglev phenomenon which is currently
transporting people in Shanghai routinely violates the First
Law of Thermodynamics as well as Newton's Third Law. To
see why consider the following example for the case of a train
utilizing an YBCO superconductor.
Consider the ideal case of
a maglev train car weighing 30 tons that has attached to its
bottom 30 horizontally disposed YBCO superconductor plates and
that these initially rest on a bed of permanent magnets each
of whose field axes points upward towards these plates. Imagine
that initially the plates are above their critical temperature
and hence not in their superconducting state. As a result,
the train rests firmly on its underlying magnets, the magnetic
field from each magnet penetrating through its overlying YBCO
slab. Now, suppose that liquid nitrogen is added to the
insulated containers that surround the YBCO plates, cooling each
below its critical temperature. As the plates become superconducting,
they develop supercurrents which produce pinned magnetic fields
having a polarity opposed to the magnetic fields produced by
the underlying magnets. As a result, the external magnetic
fields are repulsively expelled from the YBCO slabs and the mutual
repulsion of these opposing fields levitates the train 2 centimeters.
This levitation process involves
an increase of gravitational potential energy. The energy required
for levitating the train car amounts to the car's weight (30
tons), multiplied by the acceleration of gravity, multiplied
by the 2 cm levitated distance which would be approximately 600
billion ergs, or 1.4 kilocalories. Or, divided among the
30 superconducting plates, this involves an energy increase per
levitating plate of 47 calories. The conventional physicist will
want to know where did this energy come from. Moreover,
if this levitation is accomplished in the space of 1 second,
which seems to be a reasonable amount of time, then this levitation
involved a power expenditure of 60 kilowatts, or 2 kilowatts
per superconducting plate.
Related to this, there is
the question of how the pinned fields in the superconductor plates
are able to sustain their repulsive lifting force as they keep
the train levitated. These pinned fields are generated by Cooper
pair electrons indefinitely circling in the superconductor forming
supercurrent loops. So, one might ask: what centripetal
force acts on these circling Cooper pairs to keep them circulating
while the pinned fields they are generating are being forcefully
opposed by the external magnetic field?
The train levitates because
the pinned magnetic fields in the superconductor plates oppose
the external field of the permanent magnets. The energy
or power that sustains these supercurrents and their pinned fields
and consequently levitates the train could not be drawn from
the external magnetic fields because the pinned fields continuously
oppose these fields and for the most part expel this external
magnetic field from the superconducting plate. Hence it
must come from some other source.
It is also unlikely that in
creating their pinned fields that the supercurrents draw energy
from the superconductor's environment, that is, from its surrounding
liquid nitrogen cooling bath. This would go against the
conventional understanding that heat flows out of the superconductor
into its cooling bath as it cools below its critical temperature,
and not vice versa. Thus heat energy is in fact escaping
from the superconductor.
Could this energy come from
the zero-point energy continuum which many believe to be an immense
reservoir of energy that extends throughout space? Conventional
physics also calls this the "zero-point quantum field"
or "quantum vacuum" and theorizes that it is made up
of hypothetical virtual particles and virtual antiparticle pairs
that spring into and out of existence so quickly that their presence
cannot be measured. Quantum field theory holds that the
field making up any subatomic particle is nonlocalized and hence
intertwined with this surrounding energy field. This interlinkage
applies equally to the Cooper pair electrons that generate the
supercurrents in the superconductor plates. So, in the framework
of standard physics, one could theorize that these Cooper pair
electrons somehow draw the needed energy from this spatially
extended ominipresent reservoir.
But this idea is highly speculative.
First of all, conventional physics does not consider zero-point
virtual fluctuations as being real energy. Moreover even
if the fluctuations are theorized to be real for a brief moment,
they are so evanescent as to be immeasurable, so how can we expect
them to remain long enough to transfer any of their energy to
a superconductor? Anyway, this zero-point energy concept
has been grossly over-used in attempts to offer explanations
for the source of energy powering over-unity energy technologies.
In my opinion, this conventional
zero-point energy concept is not properly formulated. Namely,
I do not believe that these energy fluctuations emerge as correlated
particle-antiparticle pairs. I view this phenomenon in
the framework of subquantum kinetics which predicts the spontaneous
emergence of random electric and gravity field potential impulses,
most of which have individual energy contents that are orders
of magnitude smaller than the electron rest mass energy. Hence
I believe 1) that these fluctuations are subquantum, and
2) that they do not arise in polarity couples. They
are simply random noise present in the underlying ether substrate,
an idea that comes close to that of Bohm and Vigier. Subquantum
kinetics predicts that this incessant random activity arises
because the ether is composed of myriads of etherons that are
randomly diffusing and interacting with one another. So
ultimately, the energy of these pulses may be traced back to
the ether reactions themselves that sustain our physical universe.
In subquantum kinetics, these energy impulses are real
rather than virtual. But most are too small in magnitude
to produce useful energy even if rectified. So, I do not
believe they offer a viable explanation of where maglev acquires
its energy. Nevertheless zero-point energy fluctuations
are very important in accounting for the continuous creation
of matter (neutrons) throughout the universe (indeed an over-unity
process).
So, where then does the energy
come from to lift the train car? One possibility to consider
is the process of Cooper pair formation. When the temperature
of the YBCO plate falls below its critical temperature, its electrons
create Cooper pairs, a new quantum state where the paired electrons
have a net spin of either 0 or 1. By comparison, in their
unpaired state they have a spin of 1/2. Once the electrons
have formed Cooper pairs, they enter the superconducting state
and can form current loops called fluxons which generate the
pinned magnetic fields that oppose the external magnetic field
from the permanent magnets. So, ultimately we may trace
the increase of the train's potential energy during magnetic
levitation to the creation of Cooper pairs in the superconductor.
Cooper pair formation involves a binding force of the order
of 10-3 electron volts per pair. Hence in going
to the Cooper pair quantum state, the electrons within the YBCO
loses energy. We may estimate roughly the amount of energy loss
as follows. Suppose that a single YBCO plate weighs about
1000 grams and has a volume of about 160 cm3. The
density of conduction electrons is figured at 5 X 1028
m-3. So the YBCO plate should contain 8 X 1024
conduction electrons and one thousandth of these are expected
to form Cooper pairs (see
following link). Hence
the plate should contain about 8 X 1021 Cooper pairs,
and the creation of this many Cooper pairs would release about
1019 electron volts, which is equivalent to 0.3 calories
per superconductor plate. This falls short by two orders
of magnitude to provide the 47 calories needed by each YBCO plate
to lift the train car, as estimated above.
So, standard physics is only
left with the zero-point continuum as a possible energy source,
and as noted above this is a highly speculative option. The
answer is to adopt the subquantum kinetics open-system paradigm
and not to be so concerned where the energy comes from. In
subquantum kinetics, an immense activity is expended every second
just to keep the physical universe sustained in existence. Whether
a body sits motionless on the floor or accelerates to a high
velocity, in either case a continual reaction-diffusion activity
must be expended. The pinned fields that self-organize
in the superconductor, repel the magnetic fields of the external
permanent magnets, and lift the train are an example of field-ordering
that creates work. The Cooper pair supercurrents mutually
coordinate to create this lifting force. But this is very
small in comprison to the etheric activity that must be expended
every instant to keep the electrons and their YBCO matrix in
existence. Contemporary physics takes completely for granted
that something in existence should remain in existence. But
this is a naive view. When one adopts the perspective of
subquantum kinetics, seeking a source of energy to explain over-unity
behavior no longer is such a major issue.
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