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- Oct 29, 2012
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- 1,328
I've watched the youtube videos. I've been following this whole magnetic motor thing for long time. Can't seem to let it go, even though I know its bogus. See, I had this idea all on my own as a kid. I explained it to my parents and it sounded so intuitive that they both got excited. They bought me some magnets to play with. I went on the internet, to the messageboards, and started posting my poorly drawn "plans" and asked questions about what type of magnets would be best & etc. I was viciously flamed. I was told things like "you're not the first idiot to come up with this". There was one person who took the time to explain the physics to me though; he introduced me to the term "perpetual motion machine", recommended some library books, and explained exactly why the magnetic motor wouldn't work. I tried building the thing anyway and found that what benevolent messageboard guy explained was exactly the case. So I gave up. Then around the time youtube came online, and I saw videos of these things. Against my better judgement, I let myself get excited again. I had to go learn that same lesson again, and accept that the videos were a hoax.Did anyone look at the youtube videos of the working models? Repelling magnets will move by them self without other help*1. The magnet motor is not a perpetual motion device since the magnets will give up at some point*2 hence the law suit to get his patent.Paul
*1 yes, if you were to align the rotor of the magnetic motor so that it was in high opposition to the stator of the magnetic motor, it would move to a position of lower opposition. That position would be somewhere between the position of high opposition that you aligned it to, and the next position of high opposition. Then it would stop and lock up. Imagine a cog with sawtooth gear teeth; you jab a screwdriver into the side of one of the teeth, the cog turns slightly, but without you pulling the screwdriver out and repeatedly jabbing the screwdriver into the side of each successive tooth, it won't magically continue rotating.
2* even if you could somehow make the thing turn in circles, since you are not pulling energy from any real source, you must be pulling it from the magnets. Magnets can be thought of as batteries, albeit very inefficient ones. It takes a lot of electrical energy to create a magnet that isn't very powerful - once that magnet is created, it can be undone with much less magnetic energy. When you hold magnets in opposition, it quickly weakens their magnetic field. Given that it actually turns in a circle (which it doesn't, under its own power) this HOJO motor could not even run through the night. Permanent magnet electrical motors do not suffer this demise because the electrically generated magnet field is working with the magnets and not against them.
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