Posted by John (207.150.66.33) on February 22, 2002 at 12:37:44:
In Reply to: Re: Some engineering thoughts posted by L. P. Marken on February 20, 2002 at 17:47:07:
I would say the reason that no one (or most of the people as far as we know)statistically have achieves an overbalancing or whatever affect is because there seems to be an infinite amount of ways that this won't work, and one or maybe just a few ways that this will work. IMHO the only way to have something along these lines be a success to have tension at odds with tension in a manner that doesn't cancell out. John : : Hi Lars, thanks for your post.
: : First, I'd like to point out that a machine that taps into any of the natural motions you describe would be made out of mechanical parts, and possibly even weights. Thus, it is perfectly consistent to seek a way of tapping into, say, the earth's kinetic or rotational energy, using mechanical devices and contraptions.
: : You say that none of the natural forces you describe could account for the documented behavior of the wheel. What makes you so sure? The gravitational force of the moon is quite strong; just look at the work it does on the oceans every day.
: : Also, the kinetic energy and angular momentum of the earth are enormous. In fact they are astronomical. ;)
: : Finally, to argue that something is impossible "because someone would have invented it by now if it WERE possible" is extremely poor logic, and has been shown again and again to lead to erroneous conclusions. One could have used the same argument about human flight less than 100 years ago. (Please see my historical perspective on human flight.)
: : I think the real question comes down to gravity. The fact is that we really don't understand it. It is the last natural force yet to be unified into a general theory of the universe. We're not even sure what causes it. Therefore, IMHO, it seems a bit premature to rule out our ability to somehow tap its force.
: : (If you think we actually understand gravity, please see this link, there are thousands more like it.)
: :
: : Did you know that the universe's rate of the expansion is accelerating? It is, and here are some links about it:
: : http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9802/27/accelerating.universe/
: : http://www.msnbc.com/news/224520.asp
: : http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0104/03supernova/
: : http://focus.aps.org/v5/st8.html
: : http://enews.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/SNAP-1.html
: : http://www.sciencenews.org/20010407/bob14.asp
: : http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/generalscience/darkenergy_folo_010410.html
: : If there is some force constantly accelerating the universe's rate of expansion, isn't it possible that we could tap that force?
: : Just my $0.02.
: : -Scott Ellis
:
: :
: : : Hello all,
: : : I found the besslerwheel site yesterday. It makes fascinating reading, but I find it a bit strange that people in our time and age are STILL trying to make a PM wheel by using weights and mechanical parts.
: : : I firmly believe that if some bisarre twist of nature made such a design possible, someone (besides Bessler) would have figured it out hundreds of years ago. The way I understand mechanics, there is no way it could be done.
: : : Approaches that COULD work would have to tap into the e