Anybody seen this?

[whatever]

Yeah, that's Firsund sculpture. - pretty cool but just a piece of art basically.

Back to magnetic track:

In his description the guy says that the car is unpowered, the track is. I wonder how much power does it take to move a unit of mass around. What would happen if we put 3,5,20 cars on the same track - would you need to increase power supplied to the track?

Stupid questions prbbly, but if someone cares to educate.......

[hansvonlieven]

G'day all,

To answer your question whatever, it takes more energy to power the track than it would to power a tiny motor in the little car.

These kind of systems have been around for a while and not just as toys. some magnetic stirrers are used in chemistry where you have a field similar to this one surround a flask or so and a magnet inside the flask that stirs whatever nasty stuff is inside. Often the magnet is encased in some inert material that does not react with the stuff inside the closed container.

These systems are not very energy efficient, yet do their job very well under those circumstances.

Hans von Lieven