Is gravity a force? Or is it pure acceleration? Is there any fundamental difference between the nature & effect of gravity and other cases of acceleration? Can one cancel out the other?
I have never had an adequate answer to this question: If it requires force to cause a change in velocity, and if velocity is a vector, and it requires force to cause a mass to turn in a curve ... does this not mean that a rotating wheel of fixed speed is constantly accelerating?
(Feel free to throw the first stone for asking these dumb newbie questions ...)
Have you ever been in the amusement park ride where centrifugal force throws you against the spinning wall - and then the floor is taken away, but you are glued to the wall anyway?
With linear motion (say a car, airplane or a rocket sled), the force of acceleration is only felt while the vehicle is actually accelerating. Once a constant velocity is maintained - whether fast, slow or zero - there is no acceleration force felt ...
BUT ... in the case of a rotating wheel ... at a fixed rotational speed, centrifugal force still exists ... and it feels very much like an Acceleration ... I can still recall how uncomfortable this felt in the Gravitron or whatever it's called at The Rainbows End ...
So excuse this simpleton, but it seems to me that centrifugal force is pretty much evidence that rotating objects are constantly accelerating. Rationalise this away with whatever semantics you choose, but this seems significant to me. (Simply saying that CF is a fictional force does not work for me).
Next post I will present a theoretical method for levitating mass with minimal energy input ... please expose the flaws in this ...
Balancing gravity with CF
Moderator: scott
Balancing gravity with CF
Anything not related to elephants is irrelephant.
re: Balancing gravity with CF
Imagine a tall metal cup in the shape of an inverted cone - any scale, but for the purpose of this thought experiment, make it massive like a grain silo.
Let's rotate this huge cone up to a high speed - lets say 3000 rpm with an electric motor. For the sake of this experiment, let's say that the bearings are magnetic, and the cone is perfectly balanced.
Basically this is a massive flywheel, and it will take considerable power to accelerate this up to speed. But once this is up to speed, the current draw on the electric motor should drop to next to nothing - simply maintaining frictional losses.
Now imagine that we drop a single drop of water into this cone. As it hits the bottom, it should pick up velocity (due to friction) and be throw outwards (due to centrifugal force) and then continue up the cone (due to the constantly increasing diameter offering the path of least resistance to the CF).
If we continue to pour water into this spinning cone, the water should fly outwards and upwards, eventually spilling over the top.
Now imagine that we increase the rate of water and attempt to fill up the cone. Let's adjust the speed of the cone, so the water doesn't all spill out the top. Let's try to get the cone about half full - so there is a solid vortex of water spinning, and let's balance the speed very carefully so this vortex of water rises to the very top of the cone, but doesn't actually spill over.
While we are filling up this cone, the mass of this flywheel is increasing, and power is required from the motor: the current draw will reflect this.
But after a while, we should reach a stable condition, where the cone is half full of water, spinning at a constant speed, and the height of this vortex is exactly level with the top of the cone.
At this point - the energy input into the cone should be very minimal. The downwards force of gravity is exactly balanced with the centrifugal force of rotation. The mass of water in this flywheel is essentially weightless.
Any opposition to the theoretical possibility of this experiment so far?
Next ...
Let's rotate this huge cone up to a high speed - lets say 3000 rpm with an electric motor. For the sake of this experiment, let's say that the bearings are magnetic, and the cone is perfectly balanced.
Basically this is a massive flywheel, and it will take considerable power to accelerate this up to speed. But once this is up to speed, the current draw on the electric motor should drop to next to nothing - simply maintaining frictional losses.
Now imagine that we drop a single drop of water into this cone. As it hits the bottom, it should pick up velocity (due to friction) and be throw outwards (due to centrifugal force) and then continue up the cone (due to the constantly increasing diameter offering the path of least resistance to the CF).
If we continue to pour water into this spinning cone, the water should fly outwards and upwards, eventually spilling over the top.
Now imagine that we increase the rate of water and attempt to fill up the cone. Let's adjust the speed of the cone, so the water doesn't all spill out the top. Let's try to get the cone about half full - so there is a solid vortex of water spinning, and let's balance the speed very carefully so this vortex of water rises to the very top of the cone, but doesn't actually spill over.
While we are filling up this cone, the mass of this flywheel is increasing, and power is required from the motor: the current draw will reflect this.
But after a while, we should reach a stable condition, where the cone is half full of water, spinning at a constant speed, and the height of this vortex is exactly level with the top of the cone.
At this point - the energy input into the cone should be very minimal. The downwards force of gravity is exactly balanced with the centrifugal force of rotation. The mass of water in this flywheel is essentially weightless.
Any opposition to the theoretical possibility of this experiment so far?
Next ...
Anything not related to elephants is irrelephant.
re: Balancing gravity with CF
Unless i'm mistaken, this stable condition represents a gravity anomoly that could be maintained for very little energy input.
Now imagine that we introduce more mass (lets say water) into the bottom of the cone. The easiest way would be a simple siphon over the top and down to the bottom. A siphon allows us to avoid a mechanical rotating seal, and fluid Head going up is balanced out by the fluid Head falling down - therefore apart from pipe frictional losses, it requires very little energy to insert water into the bottom of this tall cone.
As soon as we add more water at the bottom - it should spill out the top - many meters higher. But we have not had to fight against the force of gravity. Gravity has been nulled with the opposing centrifugal force.
So how much energy is required to pump water into this tall, spinning cone to have it spill out the top? Bearing in mind, the system was perfectly balanced, stable, and requiring minimal energy input to maintain?
I am speculating that the energy required to pump the water into this system would be little more than required to pump this horizontally ... maybe a head of 1 metre would cause flow ...
But if the cone was - say 30 meters tall - the water falling back down again would have significantly more kinetic energy than it took to send it up the cone ...
IF Bessler's wheel is possible at all, I don't see why this should be impossible. It may not have any resemblance to Bessler's wheel, but it seem easier to experiment with and prove whether overunity is possible using CF to oppose gravity ...
Do I hear a chorus of yawns ... or does this raise your heartbeat ...?
Now imagine that we introduce more mass (lets say water) into the bottom of the cone. The easiest way would be a simple siphon over the top and down to the bottom. A siphon allows us to avoid a mechanical rotating seal, and fluid Head going up is balanced out by the fluid Head falling down - therefore apart from pipe frictional losses, it requires very little energy to insert water into the bottom of this tall cone.
As soon as we add more water at the bottom - it should spill out the top - many meters higher. But we have not had to fight against the force of gravity. Gravity has been nulled with the opposing centrifugal force.
So how much energy is required to pump water into this tall, spinning cone to have it spill out the top? Bearing in mind, the system was perfectly balanced, stable, and requiring minimal energy input to maintain?
I am speculating that the energy required to pump the water into this system would be little more than required to pump this horizontally ... maybe a head of 1 metre would cause flow ...
But if the cone was - say 30 meters tall - the water falling back down again would have significantly more kinetic energy than it took to send it up the cone ...
IF Bessler's wheel is possible at all, I don't see why this should be impossible. It may not have any resemblance to Bessler's wheel, but it seem easier to experiment with and prove whether overunity is possible using CF to oppose gravity ...
Do I hear a chorus of yawns ... or does this raise your heartbeat ...?
Anything not related to elephants is irrelephant.
re: Balancing gravity with CF
Hey greendoor, you stole one of my ideas! :))
Somewhere on my old computer I have the plans and drawings from about 6 years ago. I contemplated whether to use a rotating container or whether to just swirl the water around inside. I opted to swirl the water in a 55 gallon steel drum. The barrel top was a removable clamp on type and I just cut a large hole in the middle of the top piece. This gave me a lip for the water to rise up into. I then made a 3 inch hose bracket fitting off at a tangent to the barrel OD right at the top. This way when the spinning water exited the barrel it would be moving at the speed of the spinning water inside the barrel and have the pressure of the centrifugal force.
I made a hose bracket nozzle that injected the water at an upward angle into the bottom near the center of the barrel. Thus the water would exit the barrel at the top outer diameter and re-enter at the bottom near but not at the center angled in the flow direction.
The only flexible hose that I could find that fit the plastic pipes of the hose brackets and also fit my budget was some corrugated plastic hose from McMaster-Carr.
I had plans to put paddles inside the barrel but after some early testing and some calculation I abandoned the whole idea.
When the water was injected it has a speed of the water at the top rim. I thought that since the water in the middle of a vortex is moving slower and the injected water faster it should speed thing up. What I initially failed to understand is that the water as it migrates from the center to the outer edge MUST speed up. This is what the paddles were for; they were to absorb the impulse of the water as it entered and translate that force to the water at the outer edge. After some analysis it was plain that because the volume increases as the water moves outward, the paddles wouldn't do any good.
My attempt had way too much friction from the moving water. I realized that the whole barrel needed to be spinning. I designed on paper a barrel inside a barrel that let the water spin off the top and flow down the sides between the two barrels and into the bottom nozzle. But this also would have too much water friction.
So I figured a spinning barrel with a scoop pipe at the top would be the best solution. It would return down the center of the drum and inject the water just under the bottom of the vortex surface. If the dang thing did actually gain energy then it would cause the water inside the barrel to speed up so a few fins on the inside of the barrel would act like a turbine.
Thus I needed some type of framework to hold a spinning barrel and a very rigid framework to support a pipe sticking down through the top of the barrel all the way to near the bottom. Making this required a welder and welding experience. I have an old Lincoln stick welder but am totally inexperienced at welding. So I set the project aside and forgot about it until you posted here.
I don’t know if this idea would work or not. My calculations seem to say that it won’t work but the calculation could be wrong. It all has to do with the inertia of the water circulating around and around and the water has no way of gaining inertia. Unless the gravity drop adds energy. Hmmm...
Somewhere on my old computer I have the plans and drawings from about 6 years ago. I contemplated whether to use a rotating container or whether to just swirl the water around inside. I opted to swirl the water in a 55 gallon steel drum. The barrel top was a removable clamp on type and I just cut a large hole in the middle of the top piece. This gave me a lip for the water to rise up into. I then made a 3 inch hose bracket fitting off at a tangent to the barrel OD right at the top. This way when the spinning water exited the barrel it would be moving at the speed of the spinning water inside the barrel and have the pressure of the centrifugal force.
I made a hose bracket nozzle that injected the water at an upward angle into the bottom near the center of the barrel. Thus the water would exit the barrel at the top outer diameter and re-enter at the bottom near but not at the center angled in the flow direction.
The only flexible hose that I could find that fit the plastic pipes of the hose brackets and also fit my budget was some corrugated plastic hose from McMaster-Carr.
I had plans to put paddles inside the barrel but after some early testing and some calculation I abandoned the whole idea.
When the water was injected it has a speed of the water at the top rim. I thought that since the water in the middle of a vortex is moving slower and the injected water faster it should speed thing up. What I initially failed to understand is that the water as it migrates from the center to the outer edge MUST speed up. This is what the paddles were for; they were to absorb the impulse of the water as it entered and translate that force to the water at the outer edge. After some analysis it was plain that because the volume increases as the water moves outward, the paddles wouldn't do any good.
My attempt had way too much friction from the moving water. I realized that the whole barrel needed to be spinning. I designed on paper a barrel inside a barrel that let the water spin off the top and flow down the sides between the two barrels and into the bottom nozzle. But this also would have too much water friction.
So I figured a spinning barrel with a scoop pipe at the top would be the best solution. It would return down the center of the drum and inject the water just under the bottom of the vortex surface. If the dang thing did actually gain energy then it would cause the water inside the barrel to speed up so a few fins on the inside of the barrel would act like a turbine.
Thus I needed some type of framework to hold a spinning barrel and a very rigid framework to support a pipe sticking down through the top of the barrel all the way to near the bottom. Making this required a welder and welding experience. I have an old Lincoln stick welder but am totally inexperienced at welding. So I set the project aside and forgot about it until you posted here.
I don’t know if this idea would work or not. My calculations seem to say that it won’t work but the calculation could be wrong. It all has to do with the inertia of the water circulating around and around and the water has no way of gaining inertia. Unless the gravity drop adds energy. Hmmm...
re: Balancing gravity with CF
Greendoor you answered your own question. While we are filling up this cone, the mass of this flywheel is increasing, and power is required from the motor: the current draw will reflect this.
The mass (water) isn’t only increasing it is being accelerated and lifted. When you take a small amount of moving water from the top, the water at the bottom has to be set in motion and lifted to the top.
Centrifugal force does not change the quantity to motion. The motion has to be provided from some other source; the motor in the Gravitron, for example, at Rainbow’s End. Centrifugal force consumes no motion either; it comes and goes without loss of motion. Catch an object on the end of a string, or cut the string; there is no change in the quantity of motion.
The mass (water) isn’t only increasing it is being accelerated and lifted. When you take a small amount of moving water from the top, the water at the bottom has to be set in motion and lifted to the top.
Centrifugal force does not change the quantity to motion. The motion has to be provided from some other source; the motor in the Gravitron, for example, at Rainbow’s End. Centrifugal force consumes no motion either; it comes and goes without loss of motion. Catch an object on the end of a string, or cut the string; there is no change in the quantity of motion.
re: Balancing gravity with CF
I'm probably starting to sound like a broken record when it comes to talking about relativity but I've been thinking for awhile now that what we commonly describe as CF is yet another by-product of the concept of relativity. Imagine yourself swinging a rope with a ball attached to the end of it around your head. The faster you swing the ball the heavier the CF pull is. If you suddenly release the string and ball the string will move rapidly towards the ball as it flies through the air. By accelerating the object around a fixed point it builds up its own sort of gravitational field, what we call CF, that pulls the rope towards the ball when it's released. So then E (energy) = M (mass) C2 (the speed of light squared in the original equation but in this instance it's simply speed squared).
re: Balancing gravity with CF
Is gravity a force?
Yes
Or is it pure acceleration?
A force causes acceleration.
Is there any fundamental difference between the nature & effect of gravity and other cases of acceleration?
fundamental difference in what area?
Can one cancel out the other?
If you mean to zero without any mass moving at all I highly doubt it.
I have never had an adequate answer to this question: If it requires force to cause a change in velocity, and if velocity is a vector, and it requires force to cause a mass to turn in a curve ... does this not mean that a rotating wheel of fixed speed is constantly accelerating? \
Yes, in physics it is said that a mass in circular motion, whether speeding up or slowing, down is accelerating.
(Feel free to throw the first stone for asking these dumb newbie questions ...)
Have you ever been in the amusement park ride where centrifugal force throws you against the spinning wall - and then the floor is taken away, but you are glued to the wall anyway?
Yes
Yes
Or is it pure acceleration?
A force causes acceleration.
Is there any fundamental difference between the nature & effect of gravity and other cases of acceleration?
fundamental difference in what area?
Can one cancel out the other?
If you mean to zero without any mass moving at all I highly doubt it.
I have never had an adequate answer to this question: If it requires force to cause a change in velocity, and if velocity is a vector, and it requires force to cause a mass to turn in a curve ... does this not mean that a rotating wheel of fixed speed is constantly accelerating? \
Yes, in physics it is said that a mass in circular motion, whether speeding up or slowing, down is accelerating.
(Feel free to throw the first stone for asking these dumb newbie questions ...)
Have you ever been in the amusement park ride where centrifugal force throws you against the spinning wall - and then the floor is taken away, but you are glued to the wall anyway?
Yes
Last edited by Michael on Sat Feb 21, 2009 8:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
re: Balancing gravity with CF
Edit. Just read the other posts, most of them answered this question.
Last edited by Michael on Sat Feb 21, 2009 8:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
re: Balancing gravity with CF
That's an interesting idea erick. If the kinetic energy of an object really does increase the objects mass, and if a greater mass does equal a greater gravity field, then I suppose an increase in a masses kinetic energy would result in an increase of its gravity field.
Re: re: Balancing gravity with CF
Yes - BUT - once this cone is full and up to speed, the energy input drops to merely frictional losses. I am talking about creating a stable, sustained virtual zero gravity zone.pequaide wrote:Greendoor you answered your own question. While we are filling up this cone, the mass of this flywheel is increasing, and power is required from the motor: the current draw will reflect this.
Once the cone is full, the mass of the cone remains static. Any water leaving at the top is balanced by water entering at the bottom. How much energy does it take to "lift" this water in this virtual zero gravity zone?The mass (water) isn’t only increasing it is being accelerated and lifted. When you take a small amount of moving water from the top, the water at the bottom has to be set in motion and lifted to the top.
Yes - but I am comparing this to pumping the water horizontally. The siphon introduces a little extra pipe friction too - but essentially we are talking about the minimal energy to create horizontal flow. I am thinking that the small head required to initiate this flow into the bottom of the cone. Imagine that an equivalent amount of water now flows out the top (say 30 meters higher) but we have not needed to overcome gravity, because the previously established centrifugal force of the greater bulk of spinning water is balancing this out.Centrifugal force does not change the quantity to motion. The motion has to be provided from some other source...
Another way of considering this is to imagine a little area of anomolous zero gravity in your backyard. Imagine you squirt your garden hose around your backyard - and whenever the water jet crosses this zero gravity zone, the water flys upwards and then continues on it's path, but at a higher elevation. Not exactly the same, but i'm trying to get you to imagine what i'm trying to describe.
Anything not related to elephants is irrelephant.
Re: re: Balancing gravity with CF
Didn't mean to steal your idea Jim! And i'm not claiming this is my idea either - basically it's a little twist on the old public domain Messias Wheel idea. Thanks for at least considering this.jim_mich wrote:Hey greendoor, you stole one of my ideas! :))
Somewhere on my old computer I have the plans and drawings from about 6 years ago. I contemplated whether to use a rotating container or whether to just swirl the water around inside. I opted to swirl the water in a 55 gallon steel drum. The barrel top was a removable clamp on type and I just cut a large hole in the middle of the top piece. This gave me a lip for the water to rise up into. I then made a 3 inch hose bracket fitting off at a tangent to the barrel OD right at the top. This way when the spinning water exited the barrel it would be moving at the speed of the spinning water inside the barrel and have the pressure of the centrifugal force.
I made a hose bracket nozzle that injected the water at an upward angle into the bottom near the center of the barrel. Thus the water would exit the barrel at the top outer diameter and re-enter at the bottom near but not at the center angled in the flow direction.
The only flexible hose that I could find that fit the plastic pipes of the hose brackets and also fit my budget was some corrugated plastic hose from McMaster-Carr.
I had plans to put paddles inside the barrel but after some early testing and some calculation I abandoned the whole idea.
When the water was injected it has a speed of the water at the top rim. I thought that since the water in the middle of a vortex is moving slower and the injected water faster it should speed thing up. What I initially failed to understand is that the water as it migrates from the center to the outer edge MUST speed up. This is what the paddles were for; they were to absorb the impulse of the water as it entered and translate that force to the water at the outer edge. After some analysis it was plain that because the volume increases as the water moves outward, the paddles wouldn't do any good.
My attempt had way too much friction from the moving water. I realized that the whole barrel needed to be spinning. I designed on paper a barrel inside a barrel that let the water spin off the top and flow down the sides between the two barrels and into the bottom nozzle. But this also would have too much water friction.
So I figured a spinning barrel with a scoop pipe at the top would be the best solution. It would return down the center of the drum and inject the water just under the bottom of the vortex surface. If the dang thing did actually gain energy then it would cause the water inside the barrel to speed up so a few fins on the inside of the barrel would act like a turbine.
Thus I needed some type of framework to hold a spinning barrel and a very rigid framework to support a pipe sticking down through the top of the barrel all the way to near the bottom. Making this required a welder and welding experience. I have an old Lincoln stick welder but am totally inexperienced at welding. So I set the project aside and forgot about it until you posted here.
I don’t know if this idea would work or not. My calculations seem to say that it won’t work but the calculation could be wrong. It all has to do with the inertia of the water circulating around and around and the water has no way of gaining inertia. Unless the gravity drop adds energy. Hmmm...
I would urge you to consider the balanced state once the cone is full and up to speed - and then think about the energy required to unbalance this ...
I realise that there will always be friction losses in flowing water - but that hasn't prevented hydro power schemes from being sucessfull. If you have available head, you have pressure and you have potential energy to use.
The question is whether CF really can balance out gravity - and hence my original questions at the top of this thread. We know CF can create artificial gravity. Gravity appears, to me at least, to be a state of acceleration. But unlike linear acceleration, it appears that rotary acceleration can be maintained with zero energy input ...
Anything not related to elephants is irrelephant.
Re: re: Balancing gravity with CF
Thanks for that textbook answer. Now consider this:Michael wrote:Is gravity a force?
Yes
Or is it pure acceleration?
A force causes acceleration.
F = MA
If we consider M is a mass (say Newtons apple), we can observe that M accelerates when dropped to earth. But this thing we call 'gravity' - is it a Force, or is it an Acceleration? You are claiming it is a Force, because we have both Mass and Acceleration ...
But another way of looking at this is
A = F/M
If we could say that gravity is pure Acceleration, then the 'force of gravity' only exists when there is a Mass. Otherwise there is no force.
Both cases seem valid to me - hence my genuine question: is Gravity a Force (as assumed) or is it perhaps an Acceleration?
And if gravity can be considered to be an Acceleration - is there any fundamental differnce between this and any other Acceleration? Do we need to look for any mysterious gravity waves or 'field' or particules etc?
Anything not related to elephants is irrelephant.
Re: re: Balancing gravity with CF
It's probably semantics, but I think I am basically trying to say the same thing.erick wrote:I'm probably starting to sound like a broken record when it comes to talking about relativity but I've been thinking for awhile now that what we commonly describe as CF is yet another by-product of the concept of relativity. Imagine yourself swinging a rope with a ball attached to the end of it around your head. The faster you swing the ball the heavier the CF pull is. If you suddenly release the string and ball the string will move rapidly towards the ball as it flies through the air. By accelerating the object around a fixed point it builds up its own sort of gravitational field, what we call CF, that pulls the rope towards the ball when it's released. So then E (energy) = M (mass) C2 (the speed of light squared in the original equation but in this instance it's simply speed squared).
Physicists seem very reluctant to call 'Centrifugal Force' a real force. They like to call this a pseudo force - and maybe it is relative ....
I'm far from convinced - i've seen what happens when objects are rotated too fast - they fly apart and disintegrate from this so-called pseudo force ... should we perhaps say that this destruction is only relative destruction?
Maybe centrifugal force is an acceleration, not a force? Maybe it creates a force when applied to a mass? Maybe gravity is similar?
Anything not related to elephants is irrelephant.
re: Balancing gravity with CF
Hello!
Gravity is - or may be - the force that ''someday'' will make everything return and be together, just as in the previous state before the big-bang!
Gravity, may yes be the reaction to the expansion that still goes on, in the way or state, or reach, of maximum distance, or max. TIME cycle parameter! Zillions of years expanding ( bang ) and other zillions years in contraction.
I like to think on this way. :)
Cheers!
Murilo
Gravity is - or may be - the force that ''someday'' will make everything return and be together, just as in the previous state before the big-bang!
Gravity, may yes be the reaction to the expansion that still goes on, in the way or state, or reach, of maximum distance, or max. TIME cycle parameter! Zillions of years expanding ( bang ) and other zillions years in contraction.
I like to think on this way. :)
Cheers!
Murilo