Direct Energy Conversion

According to the First Law of Thermodynamics—the energy principle—one can neither destroy nor produce energy in a closed system, but only convert it from one form to another. The First Law is also sometimes called the Law of the Impossibility of Perpetual Motion. The First Law is exactly valid down to particles of the smallest known dimensions, and so universal that patent authorities always reject inventions if they claim to concern the production (rather than the conversion) of energy. Radioactive energy is not a contradiction of the First Law, because when it seems that a certain amount of radioactive energy is produced, there is in fact a small amount of mass destroyed, and the two are related by the well-known Hasenöhrl-Einstein equation: E = mc2.