Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Perpetual motion using magnets

coil gun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo2-Qb3fUYs
Recently i saw this video on youtube of some teens putting a magnet in bewteen many magnets all together in a line. The line of magnets on both sides accelerated the magnet that was in the middle continuously until it it gained lots of speed, reached the end and broke the ,magnetic field. it seemed that because the magnets were all on the angle that would repel the middle one it continued to accelerate, similar to perpetual motion. But that catch was that after 19 magnets were on each side the magnet in the middle started to slow down for some odd reason. However, arranging 2 sets of 19 magnets lined one after another did work. As the magnet exited the first field, it would lose some speed entering the second field but would then gain it back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOVcinQ-7TQ
The question i have is: if many sets of 19 magnets were arranged with gradual turns, until it met the other side in a full circle, could it continuously go around in a circle? If it could, well it is a magnet circling around at high speeds so arranging some coils around the path would generate electricity. Unfortunately, perpetual motion is impossible if you believe in the laws of physics. When analyzing the motion in the video, with one set of magnets the speed the magnet inside travels is significantly slower then when there are 2 sets of magnets. So we can assume that if more sets of magnetic rails were added, eventually there would not be enough speed to overcome the magnetic field that is present every time it enters a new set of magnets. However, it is still interesting that when the magnet is pushed into the magnetic field initially, its accelerates. Which would seem that it now has more energy from its motion then the energy that was put into it. The only explanation for this is that to get into that original magnetic field it required lots of force to overcome the initial repulsion. That action of pushing the magnet through the initial field requires a certain amount of force to be put into it. So in the end, the force put in by the human to move it past the repulsion is the same as the magnetic force that causes it to move.  I do understand that it eventually has to stop (at 19 magnets) because that force initially put into it has been exhausted , I just cant think of what causes it to stop. If you have any ideas please feel free to comment on why you think it stops

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