magnetic perpetual motion

[mastersus]

Hi all from this newbie,

Please allow me to tell you all a story of something that I saw with my own eyes.

this was back in the seventies in my homeland Scotland, I was a new salesman in stationary and office supplies and keen as mustered to make my mark. Working in the new town of Glenrothes, Fife, I happened upon a man working in his work yard, welding together mini skips, with the attitude nothing ventured nothing gained I approached him with my best introductory smile and catalog in hand. At this point I didn't expect much, just to leave my card and catalog would be welcome. Anyway he asked if I had anything in the catalog that would allow him to visually display his process at a university presentation he was giving in six weeks time. Jumping at the chance to show my prowess and ascertaining his exact needs, I was ushered inside the adjacent workshop.
This is where the story begins:-

He produced a small piece of wood approx 2"x4"x1/2"with two wood up-rites about 3" apart, both with simple V notches cut into their tops, effectively forming a cradle. There were two blocks of metal fixed at each side of one of these blocks, which tuned out to be magnets. So a base of wood, two wooden up-rites with v notches cut into there tops and two magnet  attached the base , one each side of one (only) of the uprights. having handed it to me for inspection he then handed me the next piece of the puzzle,
Turned out this was an armature of sorts consisting of a long needle passed through a short length of 1/4" wooden dowel, on this was glued several triangular segments around one end of the dowel, turns out they weren't exactly triangular but tapered toward the dowel at one end of each segment. I was then given a small bar magnet (broken in the middle) which he asked if I could put together, this I did, after some thought I may add. Of course the broken ends could not come together as the ends repelled each other, he did this to see if had the knowledge of how magnetism worked. Having passed the test, he then asked me to place the rotor into the cradle, then with only my finger give it a gentle spin, that's when I witness something that nothing I could not explain. The rotor built up speed rapidly until it literally jumped/burst out of the cradle. He explained that the tapered  magnet segments, glued to the dowel, were attracted to the two stationary magnets, fixed to the base, by the leading faces of the direction of rotation, and that the opposite end  repulsion that should effectively have stopped the rotor, was weakened by it's tapered end section, hey ~ presto, perpetual motion, only he needed the university brains to design a centrifugal brake that would work intuitively to slow the spin action according to load/torque.
I might not have believed this, had I not both seen and set up the apparatus myself.

The man in question, had quite literally disappeared when I went back to inquire as to his success or otherwise. Workshop closed and empty, non of the surrounding companies saw the emptying and non knew how he could be contacted, mysterious!

...mastersus 

[TheOne]

Hi all from this newbie,

Please allow me to tell you all a story of something that I saw with my own eyes.

this was back in the seventies in my homeland Scotland, I was a new salesman in stationary and office supplies and keen as mustered to make my mark. Working in the new town of Glenrothes, Fife, I happened upon a man working in his work yard, welding together mini skips, with the attitude nothing ventured nothing gained I approached him with my best introductory smile and catalog in hand. At this point I didn't expect much, just to leave my card and catalog would be welcome. Anyway he asked if I had anything in the catalog that would allow him to visually display his process at a university presentation he was giving in six weeks time. Jumping at the chance to show my prowess and ascertaining his exact needs, I was ushered inside the adjacent workshop.
This is where the story begins:-

He produced a small piece of wood approx 2"x4"x1/2"with two wood up-rites about 3" apart, both with simple V notches cut into their tops, effectively forming a cradle. There were two blocks of metal fixed at each side of one of these blocks, which tuned out to be magnets. So a base of wood, two wooden up-rites with v notches cut into there tops and two magnet  attached the base , one each side of one (only) of the uprights. having handed it to me for inspection he then handed me the next piece of the puzzle,
Turned out this was an armature of sorts consisting of a long needle passed through a short length of 1/4" wooden dowel, on this was glued several triangular segments around one end of the dowel, turns out they weren't exactly triangular but tapered toward the dowel at one end of each segment. I was then given a small bar magnet (broken in the middle) which he asked if I could put together, this I did, after some thought I may add. Of course the broken ends could not come together as the ends repelled each other, he did this to see if had the knowledge of how magnetism worked. Having passed the test, he then asked me to place the rotor into the cradle, then with only my finger give it a gentle spin, that's when I witness something that nothing I could not explain. The rotor built up speed rapidly until it literally jumped/burst out of the cradle. He explained that the tapered  magnet segments, glued to the dowel, were attracted to the two stationary magnets, fixed to the base, by the leading faces of the direction of rotation, and that the opposite end  repulsion that should effectively have stopped the rotor, was weakened by it's tapered end section, hey ~ presto, perpetual motion, only he needed the university brains to design a centrifugal brake that would work intuitively to slow the spin action according to load/torque.
I might not have believed this, had I not both seen and set up the apparatus myself.

The man in question, had quite literally disappeared when I went back to inquire as to his success or otherwise. Workshop closed and empty, non of the surrounding companies saw the emptying and non knew how he could be contacted, mysterious!

...mastersus

Great story, I am trying to visualize the device but I cannot , can you draw something that look like the device you saw?

[e2matrix]

Great story and I agree with TheOne it would be nice to see a drawing of it.  I was able to visualize nearly all of your description though as it was quite clear but things got a little hazy with the shape of the magnets on the dowel and a couple other little things.  If he had a scheduled appointment at a university that could well have drawn attention of the sorts that caused his disappearance.   How much later did you check back on him?  Maybe he got paid off big and moved to a better place. 

   One thing that this story brought to mind I find intriguing is the idea of a triangular shaped magnet.   That is something I have never seen but in thinking about it I can see some interesting possibilities.   Assuming that you could magnetize one tip of the triangle to North and the other two to South it would seem the imbalance in geometry might be an interesting advantage as your customer may have found.   

[e2matrix]

I'm seeing something along this line?  - just a rough drawing from the side view.   I would imagine an odd number of triangular shaped magnets attached around the dowel and any slight deviation from symmetry along with a careful location might cause a spin.  I'm just guessing on this and I'm far from a magnetic field expert but I can sort of see it if our old enemy stiction doesn't get too heavy handed. 

[Hope]

Please make a hand drawing or a CAD drawing or anything representative of what you saw.     This sound interesting.   Please do not hesitate for others with hard souls will try in stop a working principle being shown.   Thank you


Richard Williams