Theoretical Perpetual Motion Electrogenic Mechanism

I was recently doing a thought experiment and thought I came up with a perpetual motion device that could also be used to generate massive amounts of electrical energy. Now how ever impractical and unachievable I know this is, and thats why I labeled it theoretical, its a fun topic. Also I admit I am not a physicist and I admit some of my ideas may be flawed and I welcome any criticism of my idea and how it might be flawed. So here it is. We drill a hole all the way from the geographical north pole to the geographical south pole. First we line the tunnel with a magnetic shield. Or a substance that has a higher magnetic permeability than the material it is insulating. The lines of magnetic flux are gilded along that material instead of passing through it. I don't know if this step is absolutely necessary because I do not fully understand what the effects of earths magnetic field would be on the rest of the mechanism, but if it will effect it, there is the solution I came up with. Then you install copper, silver, gold or with ever material you choose for the coil all the way threw the tunnel and evacuate any gasses to create a total vacuum in the tube. Then you drop a powerful rare earth magnet i.e. neodymium, down the tube. Now do to earths gravity the magnet will continue to accelerate do to gravity creating current along the wire. That is until it reaches the center of the earth when all the gravity cancels itself out and the only force acting on it is its forward momentum which pushes it past the center. At which point it starts to decelerate until it reaches the anti-point of where it started. At which point it would start the whole process over again generating current the whole time. Sense the air was evacuated from the chamber air resistance has no effect to decrease the kinetic energy and eventually stop the entire mechanism. and neither does friction sense no moving parts are in contact. Some of my questions are what speed would the magnet achieve and what amount of electrical energy would be created. Would the magnetic field of the earth influence the mechanism? Any thoughts? Any fundamental flaws that people can think of? Any improvements on the design? Here is a very crude diagram of what my idea is. Also sorry for any grammatical errors in my post I have reread it many time but, english is not my strong point.

reply to post by BGTM90


Drawing any energy from it would damp out the motion and it would soon stop at the center. The end.

Can you explain how using energy from this will cause it to stop? Also whats with people animosity and rudeness on this site it seems like people have it out for each other in order to prove a superior intelligence. I just wanted to have a constructive and fun conversation in order to learn about an idea maybe this is not the place.

BGTM90
Can you explain how using energy from this will cause it to stop? Also whats with people animosity and rudeness on this site it seems like people have it out for each other in order to prove a superior intelligence. I just wanted to have a constructive and fun conversation in order to learn about an idea maybe this is not the place.

I don't see any animosity. You asked a question and you got a matter of fact answer, which is correct. It took me years to understand why this is so, so I'm not sure you're going to get a satisfactory answer in one ATS forum post, but it's conservation of energy.

The energy sources we know of that convert mass to energy are fission and fusion, in which case you have conservation of mass and energy. The sun uses the former, nuclear reactors use the latter. In your example, there is no energy source producing new energy (from mass conversion, or any other source), so you start with a finite amount of gravitational potential energy, and whatever you "withdraw" from that "reservoir" gets depleted. That's why it will stop as bedlam said. The more energy you draw from it, the faster it will stop.

Also it's not so easy to travel through the center of the Earth...I don't know the temperature of the moon's core but it's definitely cooler than Earth's, so it would be easier to go through the moon, though not easy.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


It was an answer with no explanation along with an unneeded snobby ending. And yes I did ask for peoples thoughts but I figured that it would come in for of a polite, constructive, conversation not just somebody saying no your wrong and Im not going to take the time to inform you of why. Also it is not just this post that made me say this I have had multiple experiences and read many threads on this forum of people rushing to prove people wrong just to make them selves sound smarter and to get these little starts and flags (what ever they my be for). But like I said maybe this place just isn't for me. Thank you for your explanation though it is much appreciated and I will do more research into it.

reply to post by BGTM90


The animosity
People are scared their sacred laws of physics might be broken and their reality will come crashing down. Lot of ego and careers have been put into it.
Op Keep it up, people who think outside the box are the winners most of the time.

reply to post by BGTM90


Hey don't give up! Text, as you probably already know, looks, cold. They may not have meant to be an ass, as you probably took it, but gave a short precise answer. Obviously they did not want to elaborate. But there are Plenty of Trolls here, so do beware.
But I can see why you thought your idea may work. However, I side with Arbitrageur for the technical answer. Do not stop thinking of Magnetics for energy. The Earth is loaded with it, and it's been around for a long long time. As stated above, Outside the Box thinking usually gets the prize! Go for it. Later, Syx.

BGTM90
reply to post by Arbitrageur

 

Thank you for your explanation though it is much appreciated and I will do more research into it.

You're welcome. Here's a way to have some fun with perpetual motion machines, and it's not a total waste of time to build some simple models if you learn something in the process:

The Basement Mechanic's Guide to Building Perpetual Motion Machines

One thing to keep in mind is that we have very advanced computer modeling software these days, and we can actually build devices in computer models before making the real thing, and we find the models work pretty well, so even if they aren't perfect they have proven to be very reliable.

ZeussusZ
reply to post by BGTM90

 

The animosity
People are scared their sacred laws of physics might be broken and their reality will come crashing down. Lot of ego and careers have been out into it.
Op Keep it up, people who think outside the box are the winners most of the time.

Not really scared, it's just that engineers and physicists who work in labs have seen many experiments verifying that what we know of science is not just formulas on paper, it's very real and very repeatable. But I'm not 100% sure of anything, so when I see a perpetual motion machine that defies what we know about physics, there's 99.9999% of me that knows it won't work, but there's 0.0001% of me that wonders if maybe someone has discovered something new, and this 0.0001% is actually excited about the idea, not scared. I had a little higher hopes than 0.0001% that Rossi's e-cat might not be a hoax, like maybe 0.01% since it was a black box and I didn't really know what was inside.

Bedlam
reply to post by BGTM90

 

Drawing any energy from it would damp out the motion and it would soon stop at the center. The end.

As he said above.

What he meant to tell, When the magnet dropped, it will fall through the hole, while falling its magnetic field is being cut by the coils (or versa?), yes, electric is produced, however it also slow down the falling, and it keep getting slower until its nearly/almost 0 movement - tiny electric produced. Gravity (if applicable) will make it move a faster, but also make it stop at the center, if no gravity, the magnet already lose its momentum because flux cutting, thus - stop at the center or floating somewhere in the way.

To help you tapping energy from the gravity, heres something.
A tube containing alternate polarity magnets. S N | N S | S N ----- alternate polarity. Fill the tube 3/4 full or a bit more, on the precipe magnet added, it should push the magnets rail up to the highest most, which will fall, hitting the magnet at 3 oclock position, or you may introduce "kickstart" - hit the magnet so it push.
It will presumably will create a continuous reaction. Position to tap energy is the entire tube by coil winding. For greater effect, the falling magnet should move the a long distance for the momentum to take effect (hitting lower magnets.), so an oval or letter D like tube.
So there, "almost" perpetual. Enjoy your new toy!

If you looking for earth derived energy, have a look at Earth Battery for starter, not perpetual, miniscule but its free.
You cannot get perpetual energy , however free energy is a possibility.

reply to post by BGTM90


Try not to take offense if a post seems a little terse. Tone is a little hard to express when your using just text. Imagine the same post with the poster smiling and holding up a glass of beer.

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While your idea is interesting, Bedlam is right. Drawing energy out of your device would increase the resistance of your falling magnet. I recall a science teacher hooking up a 100 watt bulb and a knife switch to a hand crank generator. With the bulb switched off, you could turn the crank fairly easily. But when you were turning the crank and flipped the switch, the light would come on and it felt like someone hit the brakes on the hand crank. It was a lot harder to turn. Drawing energy from your device would be like adding friction to your magnet.

BGTM90
Can you explain how using energy from this will cause it to stop? Also whats with people animosity and rudeness on this site it seems like people have it out for each other in order to prove a superior intelligence. I just wanted to have a constructive and fun conversation in order to learn about an idea maybe this is not the place.

The same way the Moon has caused the Earth from having 6 hour days to 24 hour days.

BGTM90
Any fundamental flaws that people can think of?

Well, due to eddy currents it would soon stop in the centre.

reply to post by BGTM90

Here is a vid you might want to look at.


Even if the magnet wasn't slowed down because of Lorentz Law it would still act like a swing eventually settling at the center. Whatever energy you could have gotten out of it, and more, would be spent getting it back to the surface.

Then you have the problem of the heat but that can be left out, in the spirit of brainstorming.

reply to post by BGTM90


Because the only energy it has is gravitational potential energy. As you extract that, it will reach a lower and lower height each pass until it stops. It's a sort of pendulum.

eta: I'm at work posting from a cell phone. The answer was complete in one sentence but that's frowned on, thus the second one.

Bedlam
reply to post by BGTM90

 

Drawing any energy from it would damp out the motion and it would soon stop at the center. The end.

I met this kid one day, must have been 12 or 13, he had a set of drawings for his Drafting class and he had a unique design for a self perpetual motor that could generate electricity for one home.

If I can remember how he explained to me. His idea was to create two sets of magnetic wheels interlaced POS and NEG polarity placing one wheel above the other, then on the upper one has a bearing so only the upper one rotates. Then using electrical stimulation alternate the polarities on segments of both magnetics. The upper magnetic wheel will constantly rotate. using the upper one to generate electricity by spinning a generator motor. The motor uses some of it electrical output to help alternate the current to the wheels thereby making it self perpetuating.

If I was his teacher just for the detailed drawings alone he would have gotten an A+ Not sure if it would work but it sounded as if he knew what he was talking about.

reply to post by daskakik


All that is happening is that the magnetic waves are reflected around inside the copper tube causing the magnet to react as if there is another magnet present and slows down its gravitational constant.

reply to post by BGTM90


As other posters observed, energy would be lost and the thing would stop at one point.

But nice thinking, though, keep it up! S&F for thinking outside the box. Or the Earth, in your case.

Heard of geothermal power production?

No need to try to drill a hole right through the planet. Below the crust is molten magma which is hot! Drilling a hole through a liquid is problematic.

Geothermal power uses the heat below the Earth's crust to generate power. Much better than big magnets and holes etc. And it works!

JimTSpock
Heard of geothermal power production?

No need to try to drill a hole right through the planet. Below the crust is molten magma which is hot! Drilling a hole through a liquid is problematic.

Geothermal power uses the heat below the Earth's crust to generate power. Much better than big magnets and holes etc. And it works!

Do you think there is a way to harness the magnetic field of the earth to generate electricity?

JimTSpock
Heard of geothermal power production?

No need to try to drill a hole right through the planet. Below the crust is molten magma which is hot! Drilling a hole through a liquid is problematic.

Yes it's problematic for a hot liquid, but remember that oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? They drilled though a lot of liquid so that by itself isn't a problem. The problem is, any material they could make the casing out of would melt once you get deep enough.

Geothermal power uses the heat below the Earth's crust to generate power. Much better than big magnets and holes etc. And it works!

Great point. It's very effective in places where it's easy to access, like Iceland:

Geothermal power in Iceland

Due to the special geological location of Iceland (over a volcano), the high concentration of volcanoes in the area is often an advantage in the generation of geothermal energy, the heating and production of electricity.

In other places though it's hard to drill deep enough to get much useful heat for power generation.