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Unread 31-08-2006, 12:24
Queen_of_Mascot Queen_of_Mascot is offline
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Re: Irish company challenges scientists to test 'free energy' technology

BoingBoing remarked on this--

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/08/18...ims_to_ha.html

The reader comment is the best part, though, because it details someone else coming up with the idea, and then proving that it won't work.

Quote:
Reader comment: Scott says:

When I was a teen, I thought I had come up with a perpetual motion machine which relied on magnetic fields like this one does. The ring that moves around is a magnet on a wheel with the outside all of one polarity. It is attracted to one pole of a horseshoe magnet, as magnets of opposite polarity are, then repelled by the other pole as it moves past. The idea is that the attraction and repulsion of the magnets allow it to spin forever, and could allow a little energy to be drawn off to use for something else. The problem is the magnet on the wheel will instead come to rest caught between magnetic fields. It doesn't work unless the horseshoe magnets are electric so they can be turned on and off, and that takes more energy than can be extracted. My Dad, a physicist, let me build my machine and see the problem for myself. Nice to see I wasn't the only one fooled by the idea.
From what it sounds like, if this rig /does/ work, the rig is rigged, and a computer can be easily programmed to give false output...
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