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Re: Capacitor charge, were is it?

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> From hullr-at-whitlock-dot-comMon Nov 11 22:56:36 1996
> Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 12:11:32 -0800
> From: Richard Hull <hullr-at-whitlock-dot-com>
> To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
> Subject: Re: Capacitor charge, were is it?
> > Not so fast! Richard's experiment did not prove that energy was
conserved.
> > In fact
> > he showed that 50% of the energy was unaccounted for. The answer is
that it
> > was lost to generating sparks and heating resistors, but his experiment
did
> > not
> > account for the loss mechanism. You would have to put the discharge
> > resistor
> > in a calorimeter or the like to make sure that you really KNOW where
the
> > energy went. If you don't believe in conventional physics
explainations,
> > why should
> > you even believe in energy and energy conservation anyway?
> > 
> > -Ed Harris
> 
> 
> Ed,
> 
> I don't swallow text book physics in whole form either, but the energy 
> conservation laws are ones that I have yet to see really violated.  There

> is always a loop hole in peoples experiments where the energy trail can 
> be picked up.  
> 
> I am not aware of any disappearance of energy in the cap circuit what 
> with the resistive heating, and or, the vaporizing of metallic copper 
> plus the subtle ESR losses associated with the cap that is charging and 
> the work that must be done to polarize the second caps dielectric will, I

> am sure, account for the bulk of the energy seemingly lost.  I posted on 
> the HV list a consideration for nuclear goings on too. Not quite right 
> for this list.
> 
> Richard Hull,TCBOR

Hi Richard, (and Jack)

Of course I believe, based on my own experience and that of others, that
energy is conserved. But, Jack exclaimed that based on the results of your
experiment that energy is conserved. My contention is that your experiment
showed ONLY that charge was conserved NOT energy. Yes, we believe that it
is, but experimentally you didn't prove it. As I'm sure that you
appreciate, doing the "high-school (Jack's term)" calculation of I^2R
losses  does not constitute and experimental proof since you'd have to have
an experimental measure of I as a function of time. 

-Ed Harris