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Karpen’s Pile: A Battery That Produces Energy Continuously Since 1950 Exists in Romanian Museum

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An old photo of Karpen’s pile

The “Dimitrie Leonida” National Technical Museum from Romania hosts a weird kind of battery. Built by Vasile Karpen, the pile has been working uninterrupted for 60 years.

“I admit it’s also hard for me to advance the idea of an overunity generator without sounding ridiculous, even if the object exists,” says Nicolae Diaconescu, engineer and director of the museum.

The invention cannot be exposed because the museum doesn’t have enough money to buy the security system necessary for such an exhibit. Half a century ago, the pile’s inventor had said it will work forever, and so far it looks like he was right. Karpen’s perpetual motion machine now sits secured right in the director’s office.

It has been called “the uniform-temperature thermoelectric pile,” and the first prototype has been built in the 1950s. Although it should have stopped working decades ago, it didn’t.

The scientists can’t explain how the contraption, patented in 1922, works. The fact that still puzzles them is how a man of such a scientific stature such as Vasile Karpen could have started building something “that crazy.”

The Karpen pile prototype has been assembled in 1950 and consists of two series-connected electric piles moving a small galvanometric motor. The motor moves a blade that is connected to a switch. With every half rotation, the blade opens the circuit and closes it at the the start of the second half. The blade’s rotation time had been calculated so that the piles have time to recharge and that they can rebuild their polarity during the time that the circuit is open.

The purpose of the motor and the blades was to show that the piles actually generate electricity, but they’re not needed anymore, since current technology allows us to measure all the parameters and outline all of them in a more proper way.

A Romanian newspaper, ZIUA (The Day), went to the museum for an interview with Nicolae Diaconescu. He took the Karpen pile out of its secured shelf and allowed the specialists to measure its output with a digital multimeter. This happened on Feb. 27, 2006, and the batteries had indicated the same 1 Volt as back in 1950.

They had mentioned that “unlike the lessons they teach you in the 7th grade physics class, the Karpen Pile has one of its electrodes made of gold, the other of platinum, and the electrolyte (the liquid that the two electrodes are immersed in), is high-purity sulfuric acid.” Karpen’s device could be scaled up to harvest more power, adds Diaconescu.

The Karpen pile had been exhibited in several scientific conferences in Paris, Bucharest and Bologna, Italy, where its construction had been explained widely. Researchers from the University of Brasov and the Polytechnic University of Bucharest in Romania have even performed special studies on the battery, but didn’t come to a clear conclusion.

Vasile Karpen, the inventor

“The French showed themselves very interested by this patrimonial object in the 70s, and wanted to take it. Our museum has been able to keep it, though. As time passed, the fact that the battery doesn’t stop producing energy is more and more clear, giving birth to the legend of a perpetual motion machine.”

Some scientists say the device works by transforming thermal energy into mechanical work, but Diaconescu doesn’t subscribe to this theory.

According to some who studied Karpen’s theoretical work, the pile he invented defies the second principle of thermodynamics (referring to the transformation of thermal energy into mechanical work), and this makes it a second-degree perpetual motion machine. Others say it doesn’t, being merely a generalization to the law, and an application of zero point energy.

If Karpen was right, and the principle is 100% correct, his pile would revolutionize all of the physics theories from the bottom up, with hard to imagine consequences. Though I guess this isn’t going to happen very soon, the museum still needs proper private funding to acquire the necessary security equipment required by the police to exhibit the device.

Update #1: A possible mathematical explanation of what’s going on in the Karpen pile can be found here.

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27 COMMENTS

  1. As Mr. Karpen said several times it is a an electrochemical battery WITHOUT chemical reaction.
    The build was working until a stupid drop it and broke the motor and one pile and they never restored.
    The cost for making one is relatively high due to pure Gold and Platinum and the output power is very very small. BUT it will last forever.
    I was trying to recreate the pile but the company who did the original work in gold (National Mint) 70 years ago is not able to do it anymore. The machines and people are gone together with the knowledge… So the dust is settling down…
    Nevermore, if this still break some principles in Physics then the whole thing need to be rebuilt, from bottom up because the principles can not be demonstrated it is just an assumption that everybody fell it is correct until someone proves that it isn’t.
    During the time Karpen make yearly communications to France Academy of Science for more the 20 years, wrote to Einstein and Bohr and so on. It was “just” an Chemist at the time when Physics dominate the Science so nobody cares too much about that discoveries.
    Furthermore he invented many other “piles” some of them looking ridiculous even for normal people. BUT all of them are working, just an example:
    U shaped tube glass with unequal heights, filled with pure water, sealed, with 2 electrodes of Platinum…

    So there it is something more subtle that escaped to common Physics…

  2. AndreScolinie I was just about to comment about that, then i saw yours. Its just a normal battery, there is nothing special about it.

  3. Creating a voltage is not the same as providing sustained current.  The potential is there, however, can it sustain constant current drain.  This device is not using providing a current load.  Eventually, under constant load, the electrons of the metallic plates would be depleted.  It needs to be studied more under load conditions.

  4. Great now just electroplate the metals of the cells on a sheet of something cheap and seal it in pure sulfuric acid for a cheaper version and let’s crack on.

  5. @Miranda This is not funded because our MONEY MASTERS make the most profit from water shortage, food shortage, gas shortage, oil shortage. power shortage & they are working on air.

  6. @keith gundersen Hello Keith. I would like to kknow what the newbie knows because I’m newer than that, although, I have seen drawings  for your antenna and I’m glad to know someone has validated Tesla’s work. Of course, Westinghouse robbed Tesla of his profit for the generator @ Niagara Falls but his true legacy has been revealed only in notes, so far. I would like to get in touch with you so I don’t duplicate any mis- steps. One story I read said Tesla used an Amplifier. contact me at [email protected]

  7. @LX what’s wrong with non-English speaking countries? Do you somehow think that if you were born speaking English you’re superior to those who weren’t? That’s the best proof of stupidity ever… Romania has had an education system far better than that of most English-speaking countries and people there have been struggling to reach the top! What have you, as an English-speaking person, accomplished so special? I’m wondering why I didn’t see this comment earlier…

    • OvidiuSandru  
      I think you mis-read LX.  With the comment you refered to, LX was CRITICIZING anyone who discredits Karpen or Romanians because they are not English speaking.

  8. Right. Let’s talk. About something else. I mean, there’s the thing: the pile works. From 1950. It’s completely explained. The researcher puts down the theory, behind the working sample. And what are you gonna do? Talk Bearden? Zero point? What else, other than the subject? I mean how much more ignorant can somebody be? This is not the next big thing, it is the only thing. It’s bigger than Roswell, so to speak. What’s wrong now? France wants it, Italy knows about it, Romania… well, is just what, so incredible to be true? Pull yourselves together: a non-English speaking researcher from a country less populated than than many cities today, found a way for mankind. I mean, where was Tesla when Edison was goofing around? In the shade of consumer advertising. So who do we own the alternate current? Not the guy who went rich, famous and well-known as genuine, or “proudly made” if I read the stickers pesting today’s landscape. Tesla died broke, without family, alone in misery.
    Let’s try it this way:
    Guys, Djokovic beat Murray because he is that good. Wouldn’t have beaten Federer one game before, if he wasn’t good. So give the winner the credit of admiration, for what you see is at first genuine and at second, second to none. This guy came out of the rubble of bombardments of his country, not to teach hatred or revenge, but to amaze with his talent. His family suffered, but he speaks English. Better than many natives. And if you can’t see the beauty of it in tennis, why would you see it exhibited in art, or engineering?
    It’s ok, pizza is always a phone call away. Russian spaceships will continue doing their work with or without consumer advertising. Man kind goes forward, and this is just another glitch, like Djokovic in tennis, Tesla in humanity and many others waiting to die in the shade created by big lights of media.

  9. #5 by Toodleooass “So the Romanian museum had enough money to send it on tour, but not enough money to build a display case with an alarm?”
    The tours were probabily in the past, when the museum had some funding. Now the funds are smaller… I live in the same city with the museum.

    To skeptics: It functions on the same principle as Bedini’s radiant energy charger. The motor is not only the load. The key is in interrupting the circuit periodically with this motor. Tesla observed the same phenomenon when a worker at one of the Edison’s power plant used a big swith to close a circuit (with high DC voltage). A “spark” crossed through the insulation of the switch and passed through the worker’s body (who died). The engineers tried to avoid this kind of incident in the future, but Tesla thougth that it was a new phenomena that needs to be further investigated. So he discovered what he called the “radiant” or “negative” energy, which is not the same thing like common electrical energy. It is extracted from the infinite vacuum or Ether. Watch the series “Energy from the Vacuum” at least episode 1 & 2, and you’ll find a similar thing. It’s too much to explain in a few words here.

    Of course it can’t bee a perpetual machine. The motor will crash, some exterior mechanical forces will break some component, etc. The ideea is that it extracts ZPE by not killing the dipole (by means of switching on/off in a specific way ).

  10. @chrill #8: Nice quote; doesn’t change the fact that this battery (“overunity generator”, according to the supposed museum guy) is a load of crap. And we know that from *gasp* previous investigation and established laws of physics.

    @Dan #7: Umm, there is wind energy being input into a windmill to make it work. Without that input, the windmill doesn’t work. You saying “the user doesn’t have to input any energy” is very misleading.

    • not to me it isn’t, he made it perfectly clear in my opinion, the wind=not me, therefor it is beneficial to me (the user)
      What is misleading in that? Well sir, you are, there has to be some sort of input to get any output but would you do away with everything that needs an “investment”? No sir, it is all about input versus output and let me make it clear that I don’t just buy into this pile battery to be a genuine generator of any kind, but your reply to Dan is a bit childish and absolutely unreasonable, stop weighing people’s words on a scale only to be able to pick on them.
      It doesn’t become you (or any one else for that matter)
      .
      here’s what you did very conveniently not quote because it would have made your remark look quite silly

      “What we care about is the system’s COP (Coefficient of Performance). Rather than considering the total energy input into the system, we only consider the energy the user has to directly (DIRECTLY as in MANUALLY or NOT WIND it is after all a WIND MILL Dan is referring to, it is therefor reasonable to not take the wind input as USER input) input into the system. Using this definition, we can easily achieve a COP greater than 1, and for that matter, a COP of infinity.”

      Unless of-course your reply to that would be the wear and tear on the parts that make up the wind mill is limiting the life expectancy of the device so it can never be “a COP of infinity.” or the fact that the Earth won’t be here for ever, which would be an equally childish reply.

      Have a nice day sir.

  11. It’s an electrochemical battery – nothing special there. 60 years? Howabout one that’s run for nearly 200: Look up Oxford Electric Bell in Wikipedia.

    Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The latter is lacking…

  12. This is the credibility gap. Who can have faith in a system that doesn’t allow scientists to think for themselves. “I admit it’s also hard for me to advance the idea of an overunity generator without sounding ridiculous, even if the object exists,” – Just goes to show the power of corruption and evil of JP Morgan. Well, the truth is going to hurt them just by existing. Then there are people like Max Keiser who want “JP Morgan to die buy silver”. JP Morgan is the one guy that prevented Teslas stuff to come out! They need exposure. Independence is their nemesis. When they are grovelling on the ground don’t just laugh at them! Fight for your freedom!

  13. There is no such thing as a perpetual motion machine. No matter what you do, parts will eventual wear out. However, to deny perpetual motion itself is to deny Newton’s first law of motion. If you took a can to deep space and threw it, it would continue moving forever (assuming you threw it in a direction away from other matter).

    When talking about over-unity devices, efficiency is not the relevant measurement. An efficiency greater than 1 is physically impossible because it takes into account all of the energy put into the system. However, we really don’t care about that. What we care about is the system’s COP (Coefficient of Performance). Rather than considering the total energy input into the system, we only consider the energy the user has to directly input into the system. Using this definition, we can easily achieve a COP greater than 1, and for that matter, a COP of infinity.

    For instance, take the humble windmill. The efficiency of the system is fairly poor, but its COP is infinity because the user doesn’t have to input any energy to make it work.

  14. This is no big surprise if one has been reading material from Tom Bearden lt. colonel formerly of NASA.with PhD in physics.HE and friend has machine but need money finance to go into production but there is none forthcoming.Tesla had similiar problem with his devices except his ac electric idea caught on as did many others but his car which ran on an antenna was no doubt bought up by oil companies and demolished.Many other inventors of great success have been murdered openly or secretly.One was named Moray but he defended himself with pistol.It appears if one invents a better mouse trap a big mouse will try to kill you.many succeed.Today the evidence is easy to see in Iran where scientist are being killed off by Mossad.

  15. So the Romanian museum had enough money to send it on tour, but not enough money to build a display case with an alarm? Bogus. This is a battery and someone’s charging it

  16. It’s a pile alright, and I’m glad I didn’t step in it.
    And you may want to correct: “He took the system our of ” to spell ‘out’ right.

  17. Urgent.
    Hello Bill,
    I have found a missing piece of vital information through your brilliant work.
    I have been trying to get energy via Earth Energy extraction principles. I implanted a north south antenna with a south facing steel rod and a north facing copper rod in the ground, connected by a 60ft 3wire insulated cord. I haven’t got much further than that. It seems to register 20 volts on the digital ammeter, same type as yours, but this could be an anomolous reading. I am very new to the science of electricity in this field. Your device reads about 2volts? What could you get from a ground antenna like mine, Bill? I have expectations and I deduce that the principle should also work with my setup. However, I don’t know what type or size of capacitors and other components would be needed to harness the resultant energy produced. Perhaps you could work it out for yourself? The results could be staggering for you!!! cross fingers! This is all supposition and a hope that you haven’t already expolred this particular area of antennas. like I said, I’m the newbe here, and I’m not trying to presume anything. Your knowldge in this area is way beyond mine. I just hope you can use this udea. Here’s to your continued success. I wish you and ours a very successful new year Bill.
    Yours sincerely,
    Keith

  18. Why is this not funded?! This seems like an amazing advance in energy and physics, yet there is no money for it? It’s astounding that after 60 years there is still so little known about how this machine works when it was created before a majority of our ‘advanced’ technologies. I’ll donate my life’s savings to see this get the attention it deserves.

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