What happens to a 100 mile long

1 foot diametre iron cable that is sometimes used for bridges; and when in a day environment and one side of it is black; it is stretched and is geared with a spring that keeps that tension that is also 100 miles long and you now flip that cable to a white side and it suddenly dicides to shrink and that spring is not affected by it any more that that amount that was initially intended for; thus any other force is now accumilative for free and in my terms is not perpetual motion because it relies on change of temperature and Good Night and I do leave you with more than you think.

That sounds like your talking about coefficient of expansion and in particular to a steel cable. Gibberish.

In a similar vein to the above posts, I'd suggest work on the English and give up the science, it's just not funny anymore.

Cheers and best of luck with the englishi lessons.

reply to post by MichelJCardin


ok i think i get the jest of what he is saying, it's just he doesn't know how to correctly put it into a sentence so its understandable. I'm guessing the cable is painted black on one side white on the other, this idea leads me to believe hes taking about heat expanding the metal due to black absorbing more heat and white absorbing less heat from the sun.

reply to post by MichelJCardin


Force is accumulated from the wide end of the angle of the cable unless the cable is Tungsten steel in which case the modifying factor of the cable is the limiting factor of another cable that is not made of tungsten because we all know that bismith is good for the stomach but it doesn't do much for the construction of suspension bridges even though it is strong enough to be used as buck shot of course all you have to do is ask any deer that ended up on a dinner table for christmas and it could tell you but back to the cable talk and the platnium prospects which are better than tungsten but not really because it is more expensive.

I think you need a 10" cable.

Come on folks, there is some science there worth considering. He is talking about using the sun's heat, and the properties of a steel cable to produce a mechanical force. It will work, but it will likely be less force than is required to flip the cable over. If the cable is elastic enough to expand and contract with the heat, then it is also too elastic to turn over easily. Therefore, it would take multiple motorized units along the length to roll the cable from the dark side to the light side. Any mechanical energy gained from the expansion and contraction on the spring would be offset by the energy used to flip it over.

As with all things, there is no such thing as "overunity." There is always a trade off.

His language wasn't as bad as you guys made out.

reply to post by getreadyalready


It actually was imho. We aren't all savvy on some of this stuff and when it is thrown at us at the speed of light with little or incorrect punctuation its like a collage of letters that make little sense. And the fact that the posters have contributed more to his idea and had to lay it out shows little to no thought in getting his point across in a way that people would readily understand. Could you imagine what kind of forums we would have if everyone followed this mantra of idea diarrhea?

Might I add thank you for doing his post for him and explaining it for the rest of us.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
Come on folks, there is some science there worth considering. He is talking about using the sun's heat, and the properties of a steel cable to produce a mechanical force. It will work, but it will likely be less force than is required to flip the cable over. If the cable is elastic enough to expand and contract with the heat, then it is also too elastic to turn over easily. Therefore, it would take multiple motorized units along the length to roll the cable from the dark side to the light side. Any mechanical energy gained from the expansion and contraction on the spring would be offset by the energy used to flip it over.

As with all things, there is no such thing as "overunity." There is always a trade off.

His language wasn't as bad as you guys made out.

Would it work if it was suspended in the air, balanced on a rotiseri, or a gyroscope type of thing, so that it could be rotated with little effort? Or perhaps some kind of lubricated system?

reply to post by ZackMorris


I was discussing this last night with my brother. His degree is in Physics. He suggested making the piston system on either end of the cable in such a manner where it would turn itself as it lengthened and shortened. He also suggested that there is no reason for a 100 mile cable, there is no benefit to it, but instead a series of smaller lighter cables could work, and would be much easier to manipulate.

Think of it like an 8-cylnder internal combustion engine with 8 pistons travelling in and out. No need for combustion, just have 8 cables expanding and contracting at varying degrees to turn a crankshaft and produce energy. It seems we would have slow motion, but strong power, so it would need a gear system to turn the brute power into speed on the gears to run a generator.

There is actually a decent chance it would work, even if the overall generation was minimal, the concept is pretty good. It is also an easy thing to build on a small scale and get proof of concept. If the concept worked, then there would be a field of science to see what materials provide the most expansion, contraction, and durability, and there are existing fields of science to engineer the gearing system and generator, etc.

In engineering school, there are a lot of small-scale projects that work off light and dark or hot and cold. This could be a neat project for a high school or college kid. They could make a small scale mock-up and then run it off a heatlamp.

reply to post by getreadyalready
Ok; to answer your questions about the problem of overturning; there are many ways to do that; one would be to have a sudden shift and swing when reaching a designitated expantion or reduction and another would be to have it floating in saltwater and I'm sure you can think of other ones. Floating in water; it would need to be encased to be non cunductive and it all is not a good idea in terms of global warming; just like black shingals.