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Jon's perpetual motion idea!

Jon_in_london

Illuminator
J
Joined
Aug 7, 2002
Messages
4,989
Drill a hole through the earth right through the core from one side to the other. Throw something down the hole. Whatdayaget!?! simple harmonic motion!

Kaching! $1million please! :D
 
It's an interesting idea. Carl Sagan discusses it in "Cosmos" in the context of a mass of super-dense material that "drills" its own hole as it falls.

Assuming the feat could be done, perpetual motion would not result, of course. Unless the hole were drilled in the proper place and in the proper way, the rotation of the Earth would cause the projectile to come in contact with the sides of the hole. Friction due to contact with the sides and friction due to air resistance will cause the projectile to lose energy and eventually stop oscillating.
 
Lining the hole with unobtanium would eliminate the friction. If the hole were drilled from the north pole to the south pole, the earth spinning about the projectile could be used to generate extra energy.
 
Of course, lining the hole with unobtanium would be prohibitively expensive. One could drill a million holes through the Earth at the cost of lining just one hole with unobtanium. And that's assuming that you don't want the "deluxe finish."

Besides, the paramagnetic properties of unobtainium would adversely affect the ability of the projectile to generate electricity via current loops that interrupt the flux of the Earth's graviational field. The electricity (generated by Faraday's law and Lenz's law) could be used for propulsion to overcome the friction of air resistance.

Just in case anyone thinks I'm serious about this, I'm not.
 
arcticpenguin said:
Lining the hole with unobtanium would eliminate the friction.
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Excellent idea! Now, how would I go about obtaining some of this material?
 
roger said:
Excellent idea! Now, how would I go about obtaining some of this material?
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You need to go to the planet Algon, where unobtanium is relatively cheap, at least in comparison to the price of split-crotch panties.

Yes, it's the obligatory Monty Python reference.
 
roger said:

Excellent idea! Now, how would I go about obtaining some of this material?
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They used a bunch of it in the movie The Core. I'll bet you could recycle it from the props.
 
Just for the sake of meaningless speculation, what if you used superconductive stuff. Wouldn't a superconductor moving in a vacuum in a magnetic tube be frictionless? Or a magnet in a superconductive tube, or something like that?

By the way, Jon, I like that you referred to yourself in the 3rd person in the thread title. Adds that extra bit of loony.
 
Michael Redman said:
Just for the sake of meaningless speculation, what if you used superconductive stuff. Wouldn't a superconductor moving in a vacuum in a magnetic tube be frictionless? Or a magnet in a superconductive tube, or something like that?
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An object or machine that could completely eliminate friction and other dampening factors and thus continually oscilate would not violate any of the laws of physics or be remarkable. The planet Earth has continued to rotate and orbit the sun for as long as records of that motion have been kept.

What would be remarkable is a device that does that, in some way produces more nergy than is put into it, or than can be generated by the fuel it consumers.

-Bill
 
arcticpenguin said:

They used a bunch of it in the movie The Core. I'll bet you could recycle it from the props.
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You fool, that wasn't unobtanium. That was just chocolate sauce. In black and white, they look identical.
 
While certainly an excellent solution, I still feel that the BCA is the way to go for your personal perpetual motion needs.


BCA= buttered cat array
 
billmi said:


An object or machine that could completely eliminate friction and other dampening factors and thus continually oscilate would not violate any of the laws of physics or be remarkable. The planet Earth has continued to rotate and orbit the sun for as long as records of that motion have been kept.

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The Earth and other celestial bodies are not free from friction. All are subject to some amount of internal friction due to tidal forces.

And while we're on the subject: the Earth's axis wobbles slightly (a component of it's spin called precession) so over a long period of time it actually describes 2 cones point to point. Sooner or later your object is going to hit the sides of the hole.

Also, how do you harness this harmonic motion without introducing any friction? How would you make it do work?
 
DaChew said:
Perpetual motion? I solved that years ago.

Slinky on an escalator.
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*grin* Now if you could just get that darn slinky to power the escalator then you'd be set.
 
Get a piece of freshly buttered toast and one cat.
Tie the buttered toast to the cats back with the butter side upward..

Drop the cat.

The mechanics are described as follows:
a cat -always- lands on its feet and a piece of buttered toast always lands butter side down.

The humour impared will have to nut it out for themselves
 
:th:
You guys are absolutely HYSTERICAL! I'm just trying to relax, so I can get to sleep. But after reading this thread I'm laughing hysterically. I'll never get to sleep now!!
DAMMM YOU ALL TO H3LL!
 
Isn't gravity just potential energy as well? So either if this hypothetical situation could be done, wouldn't it still not be causing perpetual motion?
 
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