perpetual help?

[Ithaxa]

i had this idea...

sure the magnets will die

but other than that, is anyone willing to try to build this perpetual machine concept, or tell me why it wont work..or how to fix/improve it?

 

http://home.comcast.net/~bmccarty/perpetualmotion82403.html

[swansont]

Without looking I can tell you "no, it won't work." Perpetual motion requires that the laws of physics change with time. This time symmetry has been demonstrated - it's one of Noether's theorems. (conservation laws all have a corresponding symmetry in nature)

 

The ball is attracted to the magnet as it moves away, too. It will have no more energy than the first ball. It will have less, actually, because there is energy loss in the collisions and as the ball moves along the track.

[blike]

Indeed. A perpetual motion machine of any kind implies that energy is perfectly conserved in the system, which is impossible. The balls will lose energy to heat via friction, and there is some energy loss involved with the collisions. This will add up to the intial potential energy rather quickly, halting the system.

[Ithaxa]

 

[fafalone]

Why it specifically won't work is loss of energy involved with friction between objects, and objects and the air for starters.

[swansont]

Your animation shows this happening once. If the last ball leaves with more energy than you gave the first ball, that energy was stored in the system from the work you did in setting the demonstration up.

 

Try it in reverse from the ending configuration, and report back what happens.

[Ithaxa]

you people are not much help are you?

susprised you havent given me any qoutes like,

"There are two kinds of people in the world...those who understand the second law of thermodynamics, and those who don't"

 

this is the original quicky configuration i posted, which you obviously didnt look at.

 

 

Obviously it’s a bad drawing with no technical aspects...but I would love to see someone build it and test it, or something close to it

I am really bad at building and have not tried to the figure 8 track.

Or someone who isn’t a llama, will tell me why it really won’t work

From most of the posts above, they told me the steel balls would never accelerate and told me how physics works in their head and not in the real world.

[Sayonara]

someone who isn’t a llama' date=' will tell me why it really won’t work

From most of the posts above, they told me the steel balls would never accelerate and told me how physics works in their head and not in the real world.[/quote']

A perpetual motion machine of any[/i'] kind implies that energy is perfectly conserved in the system, which is impossible. The balls will lose energy to heat via friction, and there is some energy loss involved with the collisions. This will add up to the intial potential energy rather quickly, halting the system.

That covers it nicely, although nobody mentioned energy will also be lost as sound. Lots of it.

[YT2095]

it looks to me like a "fancy" version of a Newtons Cradle, employing magnets.

 

sadly, without an exteranl energy input at regular intervals, this device will fail (sad but true dude!)

[Ithaxa]

in my first post..

i said, i knew the magnets would eventualy die

stop telling me crap i already know....

[Sayonara]

We have already told you why it won't work.

 

It's your lack of appreciation of physics that is the problem, not ours.

[swansont]

That covers it nicely, although nobody mentioned energy will also be lost as sound. Lots of it.

 

That's included in "energy loss in collisions"

[Sayonara]

I'll let you off

[Ithaxa]

..

i already showed how the balls increased in velocity on the linear ruler model......

yes, they experienced air resistance, friction, heat and sound transfers of energy and etc...

but it still went faster and faster

 

then i showed the unbuilt-model which would renue the potential energy of the balls setup before the first ball is released...but no one seems to read...except the title, to tell me i am wrong....

[fafalone]

rofl

 

Let's see some equations.

[blike]

 

i already showed how the balls increased in velocity on the linear ruler model......

yes, they experienced air resistance, friction, heat and sound transfers of energy and etc...

but it still went faster and faster

 

 

You're thinking that magnets add energy to the system by increasing the velocity of the ball. A steel ball and a magnet is a form of potential energy, just like gravity. The potential energy is stored when you set up the system. When you release the ball, the potential energy is being converted to kinetic energy as it starts rolling. The speed of the steel ball leaving the other side is not new energy, it is potential energy stored in the system when you set it up. A small portion of this energy is lost to heat and collisions. Thus, while the system may run for awhile, the energy of the system gets lower and lower until the steel balls and magnets will reach a state where it no longer runs.

 

Remember, energy is neither created nor destroyed and in all energy exchanges, the final energy will be less than the initial energy.

 

Your system is definitely interesting. It may even run a bit (especially in a low-friction environment). But in actuality, it will not keep running without any sort of energy input from the outside.

 

I also want to point out that none of us enjoy being called llamas for attempting to explain why your system will not work. You should be thankful that we are willing to take the time to help you understand why it won't work, when in actuality it deserves a .

 

I'll work out some equations for you here shortly to help you understand.

[blike]

I'm trying to think of an easier though experiment to help illustrate why it won't work.

 

1) The tricky thing about magnetism is that it appears to add energy to the system by accelerating an object towards it. Remember, however, that this energy did not come from nowhere. Much like a rock at the top of a hill, the potential energy was stored with the action of putting it there. In this sense, magnetism is analogous to gravity.

 

2) Another aspect to consider is that the final velocity of a (single) ball-magnet system equals the initial velocity. Imagine a single ball magnet system, where a ball drops down a slope, hits the magnet, and pushes a ball on the opposite side up another slope, where the process repeats. If a ball is moving 1 mm/s towards the magnet when it is 5 cm away from the magnet, the ball which is knocked loose on the other side will be travelling 1 mm/s when it is 5 cm away from the other side [in a frictionless system]. You are not gaining velocity. In this sense, the ball-magnet system can be compared to anything with periodic motion (a spring, sin wave, gravity, pendulum). This, of course, is assuming a frictionless surface and perfect transfer of energy during collisions. Note that in your setup, it appears to gain velocity. However, the final kinetic of the moving steel ball is not greater than the sum of the potential energies of the other steel balls. In other words, you've gained kinetic, but lost potential (energy is conserved).

 

There is a system that uses gravity to perform a very analogous motion.

 

 

In this system, you add potential energy to the initial steel ball by raising it up. As you release, this potential energy is converted to kinetic, transferred through the balls, and pushes the steel ball on the other side upwards. It falls back down and repeats the process. If there were no friction or energy loss from the collisions, this system would carry on indefinitely. However, the tiny amount of friction between the strings and the point where they are attached causes this system to halt in less than 20 seconds. Imagine the friction of a steel ball on a track. If your system were to be built, it would probably run down very simliar to the above picture. At first, it would work fine, but with each cycle the balls will leave with less velocity than before, and finally there won't be enough energy to push the balls lose from the magnet. At this point, the system stops.

[blike]

It looks like you have all the components to build it yourself. Instead of having loops at the end, just use cardboard ramps that are high enough that the ball will not go over the top. Build two ramps (with guided tracks), set one at each side and let your system run. Use the ruler as the track, or construct one out of cardboard.

 

If you get your setup working, go here and claim your prize: http://www.phact.org/e/freetest.html

 

(wow, I just posted three times in a row )

[aommaster]

Just a thought.... what would happen if u put it in a vacuum, wont that become near to perpetual motion?

[YT2095]

it would certainly carry on operating a LITTLE longer sure

 

 

"sure the magnets will die" doesn`t mean a thing!? how may a magnet "die"?

and so I suggest to you, that unless you clarify your terms a little beter, missunderstands are bound to occur!

[aommaster]

There's GOT to be a machine that is near to 100% efficient. Maybe we haven't discovered it yet! What if you combine a near to frictionless surface (like teflon) and a vacuum. Won't that keep something running for a very long time?

[YT2095]

magnetic bearings are best (it literaly floats) and then of course that put into a vacuum will reduce energy loss even further, the French use such a system underground in the cities in case of power failure, the flywheel gets clamped in that instance and the rotational energy stored is them passed onto the shaft of a generator

[aommaster]

so there we have it!

What about this:

You know in school, they have a wooden stick, and through is are ring magnets, all repelling each other so that they seem to float. Won't that be perpetual motion, as they shake a little bit? Or do they not shake?

[greg1917]

You can do lots of things to make it NEARER perpetual motion.

 

Evacuating the surrounding air will decrease the amount of energy escaping from the system, but not eliminate it. It might continue going for a long time but will eventually stop. And anyway the whole point of a perpetual motion machine is being able to extract energy from the system to power something - the minute you extract any energy from this system, it slows down/stops.

 

Despite Ithaxa's best efforts he's never going to build a perpetual motion machine. He can add more magnets, conveyor belts and more string than you can shake a stick at, but energy will be lost as friction and the magnets will simply not be able to keep the balls travelling as fast as is needed.

[aommaster]

So, basically, perpetual motion is impossible How sad. It would be nice to have something in ur house that would run forever