Another attempt at making buoyancy work ...

[greendoor]

To solve Bessler, we have to find a way to lift masses with far less effort than normally required. If we can do that, then making practically any type of gravity wheel work is child's play.

Whether or not Bessler used buoyancy doesn't really matter: if we can establish a simple method of any type that raises mass at very low energy cost, the doors of perception will be opened, and other gravity wheel ideas will become feasible. So please bear with me, even if you have no interest in buoyancy, or have perhaps ruled it out as unworkable (as did I). Because this is dealing with the heart of what gravity really is, and why masses want to go 'up' or 'down' in this mysterious thing we call 'Gravity'.

At first glance - buoyancy is exciting, because we can see heavy masses (such as a balloon, airship or submarine) rising great hights with no apparant energy input. If we could just pop a certain type of mass into a vertical tower at the bottom, and get it to pop out the top for free - then we can let it fall down outside the tower and power a gravity wheel that is just as normal as a waterwheel.

But the catch is what I call the "price of insertion". To actually insert the mass in at the bottom requires the displacement of the fluid - which has a great head of pressure above it.

After my initial excitement - I came to realise that buoyancy works just like the reverse of a falling mass. It's the weight of the fluid 'falling' around the buoyant mass that squeezes the buoyant mass upwards. So we are back to the old problem of losing height - the COG of the fluid falls, and it costs energy to force it back up again. That's what I call the "price of insertion". However ...

[greendoor]

Unless i'm sadly mistaken - I believe I have a workaround solution to the "price of insertion". If i'm correct, this could unleash enormous energy from gravity.

This draws on a few very basic physical principles that are undisputed. It's the combination that I haven't seen put together. I'm not going to draw a machine, because it's the very basic principle I want to establish first. I'll try to paint a word picture to get the idea across ...

1 - Pipette effect - this is used in labs everday - we can suspend a column of water in a tube simply by closing off the top. The fluid can't fall down, because air can't rush in at the top. So we can lift a column of water up and down, with no bottom to the column.

2 - balanced beam - we could lift a column of water of any size up and down for virtually free, provided it's balanced with a counter-weight.

So basically my idea is to use the combination of these two principles to lift the tower of water upwards, with an open bottom, and then lower it onto a buoyant mass. If the design problems of then sealing the column of water at the bottom and opening it at the top are solved - the mass should rise to the top and be ejected - to be used as a falling weight, and then returned to the bottom.

The snag I can see is that until the mass has risen up the column and been ejected, the column may not full settle fully to the ground. It would be important that it returns to the original level, so the counterweight returns to it's original height so it can be repeated endlessly.

I'm aware of the design problems - but is there a possiblity to cheat the "price of insertion" here? Or to greatly minimise the energy required, compared to the energy that could be extracted ...?

[jim_mich]

GreenDoor,

It is my opinion that there is no workaround. You will always have the "price of insertion" to deal with. If you use a balanced beam then you must lift both the column of water and the weight. You are back to trying to use gravity to leverage one weight with another.

[Marctwo]

Insertion isn't really the problem with this type of thing. It's displacement.

The tower wouldn't need to move. As long as the open bottem stays below the water line of the reservoir and you have an airtight removal system, you'd only have to push the float down a little under the wall.

The problem is, when the float enters the tower, it replaces water in the tower. So when you remove the float at the top you'd need to replace it with more water or else the get more air with each cycle and the water level drops.

[greendoor]

GreenDoor,

It is my opinion that there is no workaround. You will always have the "price of insertion" to deal with. If you use a balanced beam then you must lift both the column of water and the weight. You are back to trying to use gravity to leverage one weight with another.

Thanks Jim - maybe I didn't explain this well enough, because the whole point is not to lift the weight. The weight (which has previously fallen from a great hight just sits on the ground. The whole column of water is lifted for virtually free, due to being counterbalanced, and is then dropped over the weight.

Yes - there is a need for the water to be displaced - which is why I think the column of water will not quite have enough weight to force itself fully back down to the ground - not until the weight has risen up the tube and popped out the top (releasing the displaced volume it occupied) ...

Maybe it will need a little extra energy input to make it work - but i'm thinking this is in the catergory of using a feather to lift a cannon ball.

The thing that intriques me about buoyancy is that - once the mass is inserted into the volume of water - the difference between whether it sinks or floats is very small. A huge mass (like a submarine) could be balanced to a point where 1kg weight could sink it, or removing 1 kg could make it rise to the top - maybe 1000 meters.

Sure - there is an energy cost to raise 1 kg 1000 meters - BUT - in return, we get a whole submarine rising to the surface. If this was in a tower, we could pop the submarine out the top, and use it to power a gravity wheel.

So to my mind, it all comes back to the "price of insertion" or "displacement" which is the same thing. I believe my concept outlined above does actually remove the displacement issue, because we no longer have to force the mass into a tower of water with a high head pressure above it. We just drop the the whole tower of water onto the mass, having raised it temporarily for free.

Assuming we don't lose any water in the process, the balanced beam has to restore equilibrium, because the weight remains the same as it was before it was raised.

I will conceed that it may take a little energy input to make it work and overcome friction - but there is potential for far greater output than input.

Unless i'm missing something - but you'll have to spell it out very carefully, because i'm not seeing it ...

EDIT: oops - I guess by 'weight' you mean the counter-balance weight? I'm very aware of that weight, which is why I suspect the tower falling over the buoyant mass may not have enough weight to fully raise this counterweight while the buoyant force is acting upwards. But once it is removed (from the top) then equilibrium should be restored. But we now have a heavy mass back up the top ...

[primemignonite]

Greendoor, try as we might, we will always find that there is that "snag".

Mother Nature is most unforgiving toward those who try to fool her by means born of the application of their force-of-will alone.

I think that the secret to Bessler's wheel power might be found to have been an interventional one, one where, at some point, the natural conserving process is interrupted as in a truly clever conjuring trick.

Admittedly, this would be a tricky thing, but one for which Mother Nature would exact no penalty at all, I believe, as it would be of the nature of a discovered slight weakness which then gets exploited just-so, thereby acting to open that cornucopia of energetic treasures for free, just as it is in the case of wind, or the sun.

James

[greendoor]

Thanks James (my name is James too, btw). You sort of contradicted yourself there ... if you believe Bessler found a clever way to trick nature, then there is not 'always a snag'.

What i'm proposing above is, I believe, a way to trick nature too. If Bessler found one way, there are probably others.

I admit that after finding snag after snag, it gets a bit wearisome. That's exactly why the Laws of Thermodynamics got invoked. People got sick of finding snags, so they just decided to simplify the process and, and insist that energy always be conserved, just 'because'. It takes the intelligence out of science - and leads to rote answers without much thought behind them.

And then there was Bessler. The thorn in the side of conservative science. Did he succeed, or was he a fraud? I guess that's why we are here. I think there is enough reason to think that he succeeded ...

So please try to explain why my method above won't work - other than this general feeling that there will always be a snag ... you are probably right, but i'm not seeing it yet ...

[primemignonite]

Greendoor (James),

Sorry, but I cannot prove a negative, especially one which might actually be found a positive, in which case such would be YOUR triumph, not mine.

"Upon him who affirms lays the burden of proof, not on he who denies." Axiom of law.

James

[greendoor]

Lazy ass lawyers don't do it for me ...

The principle i'm proposing is very simple - and I can't see the snag.

We know that IF we can insert a buoyant mass (BM) into a tower of water, it will rise to the top. Inserting it is the problem.

We know that we can raise a tower of water without requiring a bottom to the tower (just like using a pipette in the lab).

We know that we can raise the whole tower with very little effort IF we use a counterweight. (Basic principle used in lifts and cranes all the time). The energy cost of lifting the tower is compensated by the energy gain of allowing the counterweight to fall, and then vice versa as it is returned.

So put it all together ... lift the tower of water up for practically free; the tower has no bottom. Drop the tower down on a BM. It is now inserted into the bottom of a tower of water, and has no choice but to rise to the top ...

The snag I think is probably that the tower will not have enough force to fall fully to the ground ... the question is how much extra force it might need ...

[Marctwo]

Maybe my first post was a bit too concise so I'll try again with a bit more detail.

The open bottom of the water tower will have to be submerged in water or all the water will just fall out. As such, you can't just lift the tower onto a float; The float needs to be pushed below the water level and under the tower wall. So there's no need or point in moving the tower at all once it's setup. This much can be seen with a glass and a bowl of water.

The problem is maintaining the water level in the tower.

When the float reaches the top, you need to seperate it into an extraction system that can be closed off from the main tower leaving the tower air-tight. You then open the top and take the float out. But as you take the float out, the space it occupied is now filled with air instead of water. So when you close the top and reconnect the tower and extraction unit, The water level in the tower has dropped. And because the weight of the water creates a pressure imbalance, the level will drop by more than the volume of the float.

You need a water supply at the top of the tower to overcome this. And you know what that means...

[jim_mich]

Marctwo,

Everything always balances out.

[Marctwo]

Yes Jim, it certainly seems that way. But we don't necessarily have to fight that principle... we can use it to our advantage. It's just getting anything useful from it that seems to be the problem. :)

[Jim Williams]

Examples of buoyancy based US patents. Not a complete list:
1,708,807
3,412,482
3,934,964
4,363,212
5,944,480
www.uspto.gov
What alarms me is not these attempts at buoyancy driven motors, more power to the inventors for making the attempt, but that during the patenting process when the Patent Office uncovered that none of them worked, that the inventors were willing to settle for receiving a patent on some aspect alone that was patentable, giving a false appearance.

Why an inventor would want such a patent issued remains beyond me.

[primemignonite]

Greendoor advises us that "Lazy ass lawyers don't do it for me ... "

The meaning of the axiom is that, as in science like law, burdens of proof are clearly assignable.

Those who accuse, the state or a plaintiff, bear the onus of providing proof in substantiation of their accusations/complaints, and, that it is not in any way a defendant's task to prove his innocence or lack of liability.

Of course, in the case of administrative so-called "law", all is turned upon it's head and, as it turns out, that to effect a discharge of a charge, it is up to the accused TO PROVE his lack of liability (actually innocence, because administrative action invariably involves raw, confiscatory power which is way too easily morphed into that criminal.) By this means, as used by those who reject the ancient principle (which holds as logically solid to most who are right-minded) right is perverted into wrong for 'necessity's sake'.

In our sorry state, 'wrongs' have been multiply-compounded in order to produce proposed results of 'right'. This never works, for the results achieved by such means are invariably worse, taken in-toto, than the original maladies they were supposed to correct.

'Innocent until proven guilty' is correct; 'guilty until proven innocent' is not. Most alarmingly, the latter is the rule and not the exception in the devilish workings of so-called "administrative law" systems. This very spectacle adds great weight to the rule of thumb (also covered of by yet another axiom) that "necessity" alone as an appeal to action should NEVER be given-into.

Currently, the US Congress is being goaded into piling upon the American tax-payers, yet MORE TRILLIONS in debt, and insisting upon unilateral forgiveness' of any and all possible criminal actions done by the perpetrators of the present economic disaster, all this based upon appeals to "it is necessary to do!!"

It will be a mortally fatal, national mistake for them to listen and finally accede. "Necessity" is often referred-to as the whore of appeals, but the public seems to go for it, especially when under duress.

In Science as in law, it is up to those who propose theories or make accusations, to 'prove it' beyond a certain standard or level, and not that to those who might doubt or defend against them. It's that simple.

Prove to us, greendoor, that your heart-felt theory holds good and true, but don't, I would advise in a friendly way, expect others to do that work for you.

Also, random use of crudities is not much appreciated on Scott's pages. It can get one's greenie count down into the reds really fast, if pursued with excess gusto. I ought to know, and do, from painful, personal experience.

James