You can take mild steel washers (the kind that does not stay magnetized when magnet is removed) and place them on a vertical wood dowel. Now place a magnet on each side of the washers with the north pole of one facing the south pole of the other. Have a horse shoe shaped flat bar connecting the outer poles of each magnet so that you have a self made horse shoe magnet.
Now move the open air space between the inner poles so that the washers will be between the two faces of the magnets.
Notice that the washers separate from each other. This is because the magnetic path through each washer has the same orientation and they repel each other.
Now notice that the work needed to remove the horse shoe is equal when the washers are together and touching each other or when they are separated. This means that the work available from the separating of the washers is free because the washers separate at a 90 degree angle to the magnetic field or flux flow direction. After testing I posted a series of drawings years ago, but no one bothered to notice this.
Do not allow washers to separate to a point where they go beyond the width of the magnet. They must stay in the space between the pole faces of the two magnets.Remember the wood dowel is at 90 degrees vertical to the horse shoe when the horse shoe is laying flat on a table.
I have posted to my web page 7 drawings that include a new rotary version using this principle which makes use also of the conservation of angular momentum as part of it's operation. As you know when a mass is rotating in a circle and work is done to make the mass move toward the center axis of rotation the speed of the mass will attempt to increase and the work done on the mass shows up as an increase in the speed and kinetic energy of the rotating mass.
This is done in my design with out having to put additional work into the system.
This should open up a whole new field in overunity permanent magnet and/or electromagnet research and development.
See web page > Open folder B00 and look at drawings, Butch10, Butch8, Butch2a, Butch2, Butch11, 1-7-08 A and 1-7-08 D
Also see attached drawing
Thanks,
Butch LaFonte
The LaFonte Group
Birmingham, Alabama