Posted by Rob (167.206.235.5) on May 27, 2003 at 11:03:10:
In Reply to: Yet ANOTHER idea(I THINK this is a good one, though!:-D :-)) posted by Joel L. Lewis on May 27, 2003 at 09:29:58:
Actually, your first assumption is wrong: a lever with equal weights equidistant from the pivot would not move at all, since it is balanced.
: Actually, I've got about three now, among them one that I suspect is just a re-hash of what John collins is attempting(:-D), but this is the one that I feel most confident with;oddly enough, though, it's also the least 'efficient' and least likely to be the one Bessler employed. Odd. Anyways, here goes; tell me what you think:
: Example 1: Imagine a lever at an angle, with two equal weights equidistant from the center. Left on it's own, what's going to happen? The lever is going to seek a position of rest, which here is both weight's level with the axle, right? In fact, if you drew a line through it, another way of looking at it would be to say that gravity drew the two weights, from equal distances above and below the axle, together to that level even with the axle, right?
: Okay, second thought experiment: same lever, same angle, same weights, same distances from the axle. This time, though, there's one difference;the weight at the top is tied to it's end, and hangs down far enough that it is level with the other weight. What happens if the lever is left free to turn this time? While the places where the forces of the weights are APPLIED to the lever, I.E. the one attached weight and the place where the other weight is tied to the lever, will do the same thing as in the previous example, if you draw a single, horrizontal line through the center of both of the weights THEMSELVES, you can see that something very different happens to them-the weight actually on the lever moves up, the weight tied to the other end of the lever moves down, the same distance of course, and they will come to rest one above and the other equally below the position they began at. In other words, you could say that here gravity drew the weights equal distances up and down AWAY from their common level, which is THE VERY OPPOSITE OF WHAT HAPPENED TO THE WEIGHTS IN EXAMPLE 1. Now, it's just possible that I am missing some subtle, vital point here that would swamp the whole idea, but it seems to me that we have here the two halves of a 'closed loop', AND have some energy left over to boot.
: Well, whaddya think?