Thank you for visiting Keefengine.com.  

    My name is Peter D. Keefe.  By profession, I'm a patent attorney who holds a master's degree in physics; indeed, I've taught physics at the University of Detroit and currently hold an appointment as Senior Lecturer.  A life-long interest of mine has been superconductivity, and my master's thesis concerned the thermodynamics of a superconductive motor.

    No scientist (or reasonable member of the educated public) disputes the inviolability of the Laws of Nature.  There are two of these Laws which we confront continuously day-in and day-out, and never once do we see even a hint of violation: The First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics.  Philosophically stated, the First Law states that the sum of the contents of the universe is a fixed commodity, and the Second Law states a particular way in which those contents can mutually interact.  Let me be clear at the outset: this website does not advocate that any Law of Nature can be violated.  Accordingly, this website respects science as the grand enterprise that it is, disposed to open discussion and careful investigation, aimed at finding truth, and repugnant of dogma and unsupported claim.  This website firmly supports science and out-right rejects "New Age" and "pseudo-scientific" theories and postulations which fall outside the realm of science and scientific methodology.   

    I can say with certainty that no engine will ever be devised which will violate the First Law, for this is the realm of God.  As for the Second Law, can it be possible that its violation is within the realm of Man?  If collective systems alone are at our disposal, then the answer is another "certain no."  On the other hand, if somehow we could create an isolated macro-quantum state of matter that is not part of a collective system and process that macro-quantum state so that it does useful work for us, then the answer becomes an "I don't know," because the Second Law is formulated, necessarily, on a collective system basis: it cannot guide us to say a "certain yes" or a "certain no" to this purely academic question.  This website is dedicated to exploring the ramifications which would result if this question should turn out to be more than purely academic. 

    Superconductivity is a macroscopically observable quantum mechanical phenomenon.  Thermodynamics is applicable to superconductive systems because even though such systems have a quantum mechanical aspect, such systems are necessarily collective in a macroscopic sense.  Now, what if somehow a process cycle could be devised which imposed on a superconductor a uniform macro-quantum state totally isolated from a collective system?  Such a process cycle would, of course, obey the First Law.  Such a process cycle would also obey the Second Law under a reinterpretation of its traditional formulations, in that it would be capable of continuously producing useful work from the ambient heat of the surrounding air, water or land.

    At the time I wrote my master's thesis in 1974, I was of the view that superconductivity, while interesting, was a phenomenon always exhibiting itself in collective systems upon which traditional thermodynamics is necessarily applicable.  Sometime later, in a law school class I experienced an epiphany that burst electrifyingly into my mind's-eye: clear as a bell to me was how a process cycle could be made applicable to an isolated superconductor in a uniform macro-quantum state.  I endeavored tirelessly thereafter for a number of years on this process cycle, and now have a U.S. patent on that process cycle.

    The heart of my proposed process cycle is a Coherent Magneto-Caloric Effect.  "Coherent Magneto-Caloric Effect" is a term referring to a superconductive phase transition wherein a magneto-caloric effect is applied to a particle of Type I superconductor having a cross-section less than the range of coherence.  Heat movers, motors and generators utilizing a process cycle based upon the Coherent Magneto-Caloric Effect, are referred to as a "Keefengine."  Finally, the process by which heat is converted into work via a Coherent Magneto-Caloric Effect process cycle is referred to as "Thermosynthesis."

     Imagine for a moment a future world energized by Keefengines. A car is driven from New York to Los Angeles, there's no fuel gauge, no fuel tank, just a heat intake plate under the car that is cold to the touch as heat is absorbed from the air to run its electric motor. An attack submarine cruises beneath the arctic ice pack, there are no batteries, no nuclear piles, just a section of its hull is a little cooler than the icy water from which its power is drawn. A spacecraft on Mars radios data to controllers while a planar member cools below the frigid temperature of the Martian atmosphere from which heat is being absorbed. A flashlight provides a brilliant beam of light, yet there's no battery; a portion of the handle feels cool as heat from the air powers its miniature internal generator (which has no moving parts). On a hot July day, a thermostat signals a heat mover to move heat from a room to the outside; and on a cold December day the thermostat signals the heat mover to move heat from the outside into the room; the heat mover has no moving parts and the source of power to move the heat comes from the heat being moved!

    As a patent attorney, I was repulsed by the Joseph Newman "energy machine" scam.  As a physicist, I carefully watched as science stumbled through the "cold fusion" frenzy of the Ponds/Fleishmann farce.  A proper fidelity to the Scientific Method will always avoid such errors.  In accord with that view, over the years I've consulted with renowned scientists, such as Marlan Scully and Nobel Laureates John Bardeen and Tony Leggett, presented at numerous international conferences and published my expanding research regularly.

    Seeking an answer to the operability of the Keefengine has not been easy. It took a second epiphany in the summer of 2020 for me to see the light: the very experiment that I had pinned all my hopes on, the Lutes-Maxwell experiment, actually showed the exact opposite. The result is my most recently published paper in the European Physical Journal (2021): Magnetic hysteresis in the first order adiabatic phase transition of Type I superconductors.       

    I invite you to peruse this website as my welcome guest, to learn about my endeavors to circumvent the Second Law of Thermodynamics and my conclusion: The First and Second Laws are exclusively the realm of God.  

   Sincerely,

    October 9, 2000 (rev. 6/6/2021)

 

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