What if?

[Daniel.R]

What if You Could Turn Gravity On and Off?

This idea has haunted me for the past few months. Imagine a 1 kg weight resting on a table. To lift it, you would need to apply an upward force greater than 9.8 N. However, if you could turn off gravity and friction, the force required to move the weight would become infinitesimally small. In such a gravity and friction-free environment, movement would depend only on time and the force applied. For instance, applying the smallest imaginable force would cause the weight to move—albeit taking millions of years to reach, let’s say, 1 meter from its starting position.

In a gravitational field, the weight’s GPE is tied to its position relative to the field. Raising the weight by 1 meter requires input energy equal to the GPE gained. However, if gravity could be turned off, the concepts of "up" and "down" would become irrelevant, as force and motion would no longer be tied to the direction of gravity.

Let’s consider this scenario: imagine you turn off gravity, then push the weight in the opposite direction of the gravitational acceleration that existed moments ago. Applying a minuscule force over time would eventually move the weight to a position 1 meter "higher" than its original position. If you were to turn gravity back on at this point, the relationship between the energy input and the GPE gained would appear asymmetrical. How could such a system conserve energy?

To explore this in a mechanism, let’s use a balanced beam as an analogy. Normally, when one side of the beam is raised, the other side lowers. This trade-off in height conserves energy. In a perfectly balanced system, gravitational forces cancel out, and the beam can be moved with only a small input force to overcome inertia and friction at the pivot. Now, consider whether it is possible to balance a beam without sacrificing height on one side.

Imagine matching the moments on a lever arm without sacrificing height. One weight moves along a circular arc upward around a pivot, while the other weight moves only horizontally inward toward the pivot to maintain balance. When the upward-moving weight reaches the top-dead-center (TDC) position, it exerts zero moment on the lever arm, and the other weight is positioned at the pivot. As the first weight is lowered from TDC, the horizontally moving weight must move outward to maintain balance. If the arc-moving weight is perpendicular to the direction of gravity, the horizontal position of the other weight should mirror it, much like a regular balanced beam.

This raises an intriguing question: Would such a mechanism allow you to match moments in a way that mimics the ease of moving a balanced beam from horizontal to vertical? Or would the energy required to lift the vertically moving weight ultimately be the same as lifting it without the moment-matching mechanism?

This idea challenges intuition. On one hand, the system redistributes the forces to maintain balance, reducing the immediate force required to lift the weight. On the other hand, the fundamental energy requirement to raise the weight’s GPE remains unchanged. While the mechanism may simplify the process by dynamically matching moments, it cannot eliminate the total energy required to lift the weight?

(Excuse the obvious use of chatgpt, lol)

/Daniel

[Kattla]

Best idea i've seen on this forums so far.
I tested something simular , one was very promising, the other.. maybe.

HAve to go work now.

[Kattla]

This is the "maybe" version.

It will lift itself back up to the middle, and then stop, since the pink counterweights (which do most of the actual lifting) are both in rest position.
To make it work, it would have to move slightly further , to make the rollers actually roll to the other side.

And yes, i have experimented with it. Mostly to get the idea out of my head, but it worked far better then i thought it would. I was mostly worried i wouldn't get enough energy from the rollers to lift the secondary weight. But uhm.. don't underestimate the power of freerolling / freefalling rollers and a nearly perfectly balanced rod /wheel. Be careful with the floor if you test it though.

Still, it is not a wheel, and extracting excess energy might be tricky , even if one manages to find better mechanical solutions. There are also other issues with it, like, it does not have good timing. I think it is close to what you describe though.

[johannesbender]

@Kattla , you don't need to worry about building wheels specifically .

[Robinhood46]

I agree that turning gravity off would definitely work, there is no doubt about that. I have loads of wheels that would work if i could turn gravity off.
You don't need to turn gravity though, pixie dust will do it with gravity on. Pixie dust is far more effective than turning gravity off.
The advantage of pixie dust, over turning gravity off, is that gravity being on and off, or variable degrees of it being on or off, are still limited. Pixie dust is amazing, you can find far more ways of achieving PM with it.
Pixie dust is definitely the way to go when it comes to imaginary solutions.

[Daniel.R]

That’s great to hear, Kattla!

I’ve studied your rollersaw mechanism, and I must say the design is quite ingenious—especially if it actually manages to lift itself back up and maintain balance. Did your experiments confirm that it lifted itself back up?

It seems somewhat similar, perhaps... but I’m simply curious whether the moments on a lever arm could be matched by a strictly horizontally moving weight instead of a weight mirroring another weight on a balanced beam. I’ve made some diagrams that hopefully explain this better. The first figure showing a traditional balanced beam, the colors of each weight represent the lever arm’s moment at a given position. Now, the positions of the horizontal weight is not correct for the beam to balance in figure 2, but the general idea is there.

A balanced beam will always cancel gravity. If the same effect could be achieved using a strictly horizontal moving weight in combination with an arcing weight, then lifting the arcing weight might be as easy as moving weights on a traditional balanced beam + the friction in the mechanism.

I’m not sure if this is mechanically possible, though—I’m having trouble visualizing a suitable mechanism that could achieve this. One important point to note is that the horizontal weight must always exert its weight on the lever beam to keep it dynamically balanced at all times.

I appreciate your sarcasm RH46, it gave me a good chuckle.
That said, according to established science, I fear we all might just be playing with pixie dust here.

/Daniel

[Robinhood46]

I appreciate your sarcasm RH46, it gave me a good chuckle.
That said, according to established science, I fear we all might just be playing with pixie dust here.

Can it not be argued that gravity is because of pixie dust?
We only know what it does, not why it does it. So we might be onto something, if we could just turn the pixie dust off and on.

I'm all for pixie dust playing a role, and having a bit of a chuckle.

[johannesbender]

That’s great to hear, Kattla!

I’ve studied your rollersaw mechanism, and I must say the design is quite ingenious—especially if it actually manages to lift itself back up and maintain balance. Did your experiments confirm that it lifted itself back up?

It seems somewhat similar, perhaps... but I’m simply curious whether the moments on a lever arm could be matched by a strictly horizontally moving weight instead of a weight mirroring another weight on a balanced beam. I’ve made some diagrams that hopefully explain this better. The first figure showing a traditional balanced beam, the colors of each weight represent the lever arm’s moment at a given position. Now, the positions of the horizontal weight is not correct for the beam to balance in figure 2, but the general idea is there.

A balanced beam will always cancel gravity. If the same effect could be achieved using a strictly horizontal moving weight in combination with an arcing weight, then lifting the arcing weight might be as easy as moving weights on a traditional balanced beam + the friction in the mechanism.

I’m not sure if this is mechanically possible, though—I’m having trouble visualizing a suitable mechanism that could achieve this. One important point to note is that the horizontal weight must always exert its weight on the lever beam to keep it dynamically balanced at all times.

I appreciate your sarcasm RH46, it gave me a good chuckle.
That said, according to established science, I fear we all might just be playing with pixie dust here.

/Daniel

Daniel a way to do it is to match the torque of the pivoting weight (or the "arching weight" as you call it) to the force of the lateral translating weight by its distance on a lever but if you are really keen on keeping it horizontal then a spring instead , the designs i did was a hanging mass matched to a cam so that the force of the hanging weight (your lateral weight example) was levered with the cam shape which then connected to a yoked arm ("the arching weight") , and another i did was a spring that was forced matched on the opposite end of a weighted lever.

https://youtu.be/YNI-U5IiLeI?list=PLpQf ... xiUpfXJ8ff
What you are discussing is similar except you are not trying to use a spring .

[agor95]

What if You Could Turn Gravity On and Off?

This idea has haunted me for the past few months.

I can see how this could haunt you and others.

Regards

[Tarsier79]

JB, that video is awesome. It "looks" like very little energy is required to adjust a relatively significant weight on the arm. Did he create PM and not even know it? If it takes less energy to move the adjuster than he can get from dropping that weight...

[johannesbender]

JB, that video is awesome. It "looks" like very little energy is required to adjust a relatively significant weight on the arm. Did he create PM and not even know it? If it takes less energy to move the adjuster than he can get from dropping that weight...

Tarsier the issue with all these types of designs i tested and looked at is the resets , but it is true that it takes very little energy to move because the forces are near equilibrium , of course friction and air resistance wont disappear , and i believe the adjustment is counter balanced , i saw a few patents with adjustment counter balancing systems although i believe the rotary one in the video is being locked when he adjusts , but i get what you see in it (why reset if you can adjust).

[Tarsier79]

but i get what you see in it (why reset if you can adjust).

You would need to adjust to balance(or near, or even past) for the upswing, then harness the energy of the downswing.

[Kattla]

That’s great to hear, Kattla!

I’ve studied your rollersaw mechanism, and I must say the design is quite ingenious—especially if it actually manages to lift itself back up and maintain balance. Did your experiments confirm that it lifted itself back up?

/Daniel

Yes, my experiment with the "maybe" version did confirm that it could lift itself back up to the middle. And then stop since at the top it looses the aid of the pink counterweights (33 grams each). The small red and blue counterweights are nowhere near heavy enough to do any lifting on their own (9 grams each). Only together do they get heavy enough to lift it back up. For the records, i used 7 steel rollers, each weighing 9-10 grams , so, not really much bang for the buck. But still a bang. Makes me wonder a little bit if Bessler used freefalling weights too, and that is what put such a strain on the floor under his wheels.

Some of the rollers may have ended up on the opposite side of the pivot too, helping out with the balancing.

Idea is to balance it as much as one can , be it with counterweighs, springs, whatever method one chooses, and then use as small a part of the energy it creates (well, actually converts) to do the reset. And hopefully have a better system for getting surplus energy then the rollersaw method is.

[johannesbender]

but i get what you see in it (why reset if you can adjust).

You would need to adjust to balance(or near, or even past) for the upswing, then harness the energy of the downswing.

If his axle went through to the back and had a crank on it with a pushrod connected to the adjustment mechanism to push and pull on the correct time , but there would have to be multiple weighted arms though because 1 would fail under any load on the ascend .
https://patentimages.storage.googleapis ... D00012.png
https://patents.google.com/patent/US7798035B2/en

....
My design i thought about based on this concept was here https://www.besslerwheel.com/forum/view ... 0&start=60 , but as can be seen in the way i approached it - resetting it would be impossible and just dumb.

check this.

[Daniel.R]

Tarsier the issue with all these types of designs i tested and looked at is the resets , but it is true that it takes very little energy to move because the forces are near equilibrium , of course friction and air resistance wont disappear , and i believe the adjustment is counter balanced , i saw a few patents with adjustment counter balancing systems although i believe the rotary one in the video is being locked when he adjusts , but i get what you see in it (why reset if you can adjust).

Daniel a way to do it is to match the torque of the pivoting weight (or the "arching weight" as you call it) to the force of the lateral translating weight by its distance on a lever but if you are really keen on keeping it horizontal then a spring instead , the designs i did was a hanging mass matched to a cam so that the force of the hanging weight (your lateral weight example) was levered with the cam shape which then connected to a yoked arm ("the arching weight") , and another i did was a spring that was forced matched on the opposite end of a weighted lever.

This is the effect I believe we're after, but without springs. Those counterbalanced manipulator arms surely makes the total weight of the system easy to manipulate... duh.
Using springs however is how the reset problem introduces itself. Matching the torques with a strictly horizontal moving weight should be able to counterbalance a vertically arching weight, just like the cam and spring system does. Having the counterweight move in strict X-axis removes the reset problem due to no GPE being gained or lost while counterbalancing.
How did your design with the hanging mass and cam system operate JB? Did the hanging mass translate up and down while counterbalancing the arching weight? Do you believe this would be possible with a horizontally translating weight and an arching weight instead?

Yes, my experiment with the "maybe" version did confirm that it could lift itself back up to the middle. And then stop since at the top it looses the aid of the pink counterweights (33 grams each). The small red and blue counterweights are nowhere near heavy enough to do any lifting on their own (9 grams each). Only together do they get heavy enough to lift it back up. For the records, i used 7 steel rollers, each weighing 9-10 grams , so, not really much bang for the buck. But still a bang. Makes me wonder a little bit if Bessler used freefalling weights too, and that is what put such a strain on the floor under his wheels.

Some of the rollers may have ended up on the opposite side of the pivot too, helping out with the balancing.

Idea is to balance it as much as one can , be it with counterweighs, springs, whatever method one chooses, and then use as small a part of the energy it creates (well, actually converts) to do the reset. And hopefully have a better system for getting surplus energy then the rollersaw method is.

Oh, I was actually wondering about the weight of it all. I couldn't understand how the small lifted counterweight could balance the system, unless the rolling balls where very light, which they were. Now I can see how it works. Is the action fast? I bet it is. Very interesting nonetheless.
Good job on that!

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I feel it almost redundant to mention, but I'm not discussing trying to turn off gravity in the literal sense. I'm merely trying to find a mechanism that mimics the effects of doing so. In my mind, a balanced beam is prime example of that.

/Daniel