What is the problem with SMOTs?

[psychopath]

You can not misconstrue electromagnetic raditaion with electromagnetic fields.

Radiation, like you said, *is* energy. It can do work, and it is not conservative. Photons are quanta of this energy, and must be created from some source: excited electrons moving down energy levels. These electrons cannot excite themselves out of nothing. Some energy must be given to them in order for them to be able to jump and fall energy levels.


Magnetic fields, on the other hand, are merely the result of the orbits and rotation of the electrons themselves.

Yes you are right, I should have said "electromagnetic radiation" not "electromagnetism".

Magnetic fields, on the other hand, are merely the result of the orbits and rotation of the electrons themselves.

Yes that is right, but I being a pseudoscientific, perpetual motion hunting, UFO believing nut on a wild goose chase, disagree. I think that energy is used up when creating a field, and I feel the need to hang onto this otherwise I would probably stop trying to achieve perpetual motion...lol. Of course that is just my wild opinion.

By the way, the electrons do not "orbit" the nucleus, as according to the uncertainty principle, we cannot measure both the position and velocity of a particle, and the electrons have a certain probability to be in any spot at any time, and therefore we cannot say it orbits the nucleus(I just couldn't resist  ).

They're generally not something you can just whip together willy nilly. Usually some math goes into it and precision machining usually helps too.

Actually... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMb0OqK6gx8

[Paul-R]

Try looking out for "gauss rifle" or gauss gun". Some work is electromagnetic.
Paul.

[Dyamios]

Hehe, alright. Well you're correct. The Heisenberg principle does state that they more-or-less form a "cloud" around the nucleus.

@Paul-R

Gauss weapons and projectile accelerators can do work because the fields they produce are not static, and therefore not always conservative. One must also put energy into the system to create these temporary fields.

But good point nevertheless. It also reminded me of a video I saw of magnetic balls lined up in pairs of two. When one steel ball was placed at the beginning of the line, it would be attracted to a pair, and on contact, the energy would be transfered to the magnet ball on the other side of the pair (like a newtons cradle), sending another ball down the path, continuing this reaction, until finally the last pair gets a moving ball, and the last ball of the last pair is flung out with a considerable amount of force.

This is in theory a gauss cannon also. The interactions involved are still conservative nevertheless. You've merely taken a large amount of "money" out of the magnetic "bank", and you're going to have to pay it back some time. In order to reset the system, you'll have to separate all the magnets back into their original pairs, and the energy required to do this is equal to the amount of energy the last ball of the system acquired when it was launched out.

[psychopath]

Yeah that pretty much explains why perpetual motion in general is impossible, but what is it exactly that people are having trouble with when building SMOTs?

You also said something about the sticky point always turning up somewhere. Is there an example of this happening in a SMOT? Is it the fact that it can't get back up again?

I am basically after exactly what technical problems people are having after managing to drop the ball, and having the ball start moving with no initial help.

[Dyamios]

Yeah, basically the sticky spot, if you happen to be able to get the ball to fall, is to get the ball back to the beginning to close the loop.

The sticky spot the ball manages to get by at the end of the track removes any of the horizontal velocity of the ball, so the only way to get the ball back to the beginning of the track is to somehow give the ball extra horizontal velocity, which in this case may be provided by making another downward slope. But now you're faced with getting the ball back up to the original height of the track, and since friction will take away some of the energy, the ball won't be able to make it. This is why closing the loop is posing so much of a problem for SMOT experimenters.


So basically even if you take the sticky spot away on the magnetic side of the SMOT, it will return in the form of opposing gravity and friction.