Building a self looping "SMOT"

[lumen]

Here are my observations, and why this will never self loop continuously.

With no magnet present the ball completes only part of a loop due to friction. Starting the ball higher may allow the ball to loop back via a lower path if the track was properly designed. With a small amount of friction present it may even loop for a while. This is the source of my comment 'It would work better without the magnet'.

You then introduce the magnet into the setup, and it 'apparently' performs better in that the ball is propelled further up than in the no magnet case.

However you neglect to account for the fact that you are giving the ball potential energy by moving it within the magnetic field by hand.

The extra potential energy you give it manifests itself as the kinetic energy of the ball being propelled up the ramp. (This is exactly what would happen if you did NOT have a loop and placed a ball on a straight track adjacent to one end of a magnet.)

You will note that when the magnet is in place you must take the ball from its ending position and move it AWAY from the magnet for the ball to start moving around the loop. Think about that FACT carefully as that is where the energy to propel the ball is coming from.

All you have done is use a bit of misdirection and/or fool yourself as to the possibility that this particular geometry can magically cause magnetism to become a non conservative field (i.e.  the net energy moving and object in the field around any closed path is somehow not zero.)

I don't know whether I have explained that very well but I'm sure pondering why you have to move the ball away from the magnet will give you the answer.




Placing the ball in the magnetic field gives the system potential energy, supplied by your hand.
You release

Seems to me that placing a steel ball into a magnetic field only lowers the potential energy. Does not the ball have the most potential energy further from the magnet and lose it's potential energy as it gets closer?

I mean it's a one way trip, once it reaches the magnet there is no longer any potential energy, so placing the ball anywhere in the magnetic field is a point of already lower potential energy.

Is it possible to place a steel ball close to a magnet and then have it escape because of the energy you gave it placing it there?

[TinselKoala]

When you "place" your steel ball by hand close to the magnet... are you preventing it from being attracted to the magnet, even faster than it would be without your hand "placing" it there? Are you restraining it in any way?

If so... you are adding energy to the system, doing work on it. Let's say you first feel the attraction of the ball to the magnet at 10 cm away, but you bring the ball in to 5 cm, hold it there, and then release it. Does the ball strike the magnet with more kinetic energy, or less kinetic energy, than it would if you had just let it "fall" in from the 10 cm distance?
The difference represents work you are _supplying_ to the system, since magnetic PE, just like gravitational PE... is negative.

[norman6538]

Stop all the keyboard drivel and get out to the bench and experiment and you will be amazed at what you find.

I just dropped my tilt from 3 inches to 2 inches and the ball went much further. Who would have ever guessed that. Then when adding magnets it went all but the last inch. I'm gettin there......Slow but sure.

Norman

[Pirate88179]

Stop all the keyboard drivel and get out to the bench and experiment and you will be amazed at what you find.

I just dropped my tilt from 3 inches to 2 inches and the ball went much further. Who would have ever guessed that. Then when adding magnets it went all but the last inch. I'm gettin there......Slow but sure.

Norman

No offense intended but, thousands of folks (including me) have built devices that go "all but the last inch."  It is this last inch that is the problem.  That and adding additional energy into the system using "Mr. Finger".

Don't get me wrong here.  I hope this fellow has actually done it, and his reasons for not disclosing were made clear in his first post.  But, you have to admit that it does really fit the pattern we all have seen here before.  "Well, I destroyed the one that worked and the second one almost works".  That is so cliche on here now.

As I said in my first post here, I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt but, please don't blame folks if they point out all of the red flags we have all come to know so well...not to mention known physics.

Bill

***EDIT***

Forget the toy company contract, if his original design self-loops, we are talking about a Nobel Prize.

[JouleSeeker]

Stop all the keyboard drivel and get out to the bench and experiment and you will be amazed at what you find.

I just dropped my tilt from 3 inches to 2 inches and the ball went much further. Who would have ever guessed that. Then when adding magnets it went all but the last inch. I'm gettin there......Slow but sure.

Norman

Thanks, Norman.  Can you remind me -- what magnets are you using?  (big c8?)