Posted by Davis Landstrom (62.188.8.252) on February 04, 2002 at 08:36:23:
I have studied that video of the Cowlishaw Gravity tapping-GIT, I am undecided as to weather it will work or not.
When the balls are in their descending (energy gaining) phase, they are supposed to transfer their energy to the wheel and to a single ball on the ascending side. On the descending side the ball bearings are rotating about their centres so will travel slowly (this is what allows them to accumulate on one side) the problem for me here is that I think that the bearings will generate less of a turning moment, moment being the product of force multiplied by distance, I think that they will have diffuiculty turning that disk and diffuiculty moving a ball up the other side as a resault, but there are many ball bearings on the descending side and only one in transit to the top, the sum of the anti-clockwise moments in this system might well be greater than the sum of the clockwise moments and allow perpetual movement but then we must look at exactly how many ball bearings are having an effect on the descending side, how much work will need to be done raising a bearings centre of mass at the bottom of the device where the runners are converging and of course all the mechanical losses.
This desighn looks interesting but I don't think that it has been built. Trust David Cowlishaw to come up with it though. Physicists scoffed at the thought of a reactionless continuous mechanical drive force generator and he produced the GIT which converted angular momentum into linear momentum in a most efficiant way. Perhaps this device could run. Cowlishaw most certainly is no fool, he doesn't make suggestions that he thinks will not work.
As for his other 'Bessler' wheel with the four cylindrical rolling masses, I agree with you, it is obvious that it doesn't work, however that is not the Cowlishaw style, he wouldn't suggest something that obviously wouldn't work, there is more to this desighn than meets the eye forinstance what is the purpose of the bi-colouring of the masses? Is one side of the cylinders meant to be heavier than the other? Untill we can translate the French associated with the desighn description then we shall not know. I have seen no reference to this device or anything like it on his web pages.