Building a self looping "SMOT"

[lumen]

This is the question:
If a steel ball is attracted upward by a magnet against gravity with a force that is unable to hold it against the pull of gravity, does the ball fall any slower?
The ball would seem to weight less at the start of the fall because of the upward pull of the magnets, but the acceleration in gravity is the same regardless of an objects weight. So I would say no, the ball falls the same speed. (straight down only)

Now when you think about that, does that not indicate that a magnetic ramp could be overunity?

[Michael Q Shaw]

This is the question:
If a steel ball is attracted upward by a magnet against gravity with a force that is unable to hold it against the pull of gravity, does the ball fall any slower?
The ball would seem to weight less at the start of the fall because of the upward pull of the magnets, but the acceleration in gravity is the same regardless of an objects weight. So I would say no, the ball falls the same speed. (straight down only)

Now when you think about that, does that not indicate that a magnetic ramp could be over-unity?

lumen, now take it for what this is worth, I know what you are trying to say, and this is only my opinion and from what I have learned so far...my beliefs, the magnetic ramp must be stronger than the force of gravity lengthwise, which is why it is able to pull the ball up against it's own mass, against the force of gravity, but it is not stronger than the force of gravity through the thickness of the magnet, the width of the magnet stack, which is how it can slip out below.  The ball is able to slip through the width very easily, it gets pulled back by the the strength of the cumulative magnetic field strength through the length or at the so called "gates" or "sticky spots".  I do not believe it is over-unity, I believe it should be classed as an "open system" in thermodynamics -receiving a force input during all reactions.  When it slips out there is a slight tug against it yes, but that is why a ball sphere shape works so well and gravity can easily overcome it.  Look at a sphere sectional, a sphere starts small then gets bigger and bigger then it gets smaller and smaller, in other words the force gets stronger and stronger at first and upon disconnect, the magnetic field gets weaker and weaker, and the ball falls at the same speed as soon as it breaks free of the propelling field.  Great question.

[tinman]

@ Michael
Great to see you here,and good to see your still working on your device.
You probably already know this,but you will find that many here love sticking to there text book physics,while others actualy experiment and see what is fact. Most people will say-what crap,when i tell them a steel ball can actualy be repelled by a magnetic field-until i show them my video's of it doing just that.
I wonder how many of the naysayers have actualy tried building a SMOT them self?My guess is none,as they have that!!IT CANT BE DONE!! attitude. Thankfully,the wright brothers never had that attitude.

[TinselKoala]

Well.
I see that this thread has descended into a list of bad assumptions, poor observations, claims without evidence and even the usual "you didn't try to build it so you can't know" canard. You don't know what I've built or how much I've learned from the FAILED builds of others, now do you.

You are oblivious to scientific analysis and are happily fiddling along making assumptions, poor measurements and insulting your critics. Fine. Here's my prediction: none of you will EVER be able to show a self-looping SMOT! Not even close. Michael especially is making lots of faulty assumptions. If only his assumptions were true, he could easily loop his tracks. But he cannot... he must be really puzzled as to why not. The reason lies in the assumptions, which are actually false.

Learn from the mistakes of others, friends. You are all of you repeating work that has been done over and over and you are adding nothing new... so why do you expect to succeed where people like Howard Johnson couldn't? Never mind, it's a rhetorical question. It amuses and saddens me greatly to see such minds as yours wasting your time on this silly SMOT idea which will never work.

At least re-examine your assumptions. Yes, a ball that is attracted by a magnet above, will fall more slowly until it's out of the magnetic field. The acceleration of the ball is the result of the two forces it experiences, one of them doesn't magically vanish! Of course it's possible to get a ball to rise higher than the release point if it enters a zone of magnetic attraction. This doesn't mean it will _exit_ that zone with enough energy to go around and re-enter it! And uninformed allegations and assumptions about who built what are just silly. Thousands of people, quite literally, have tried every conceivable SMOT ramp arrangement and all have found the same thing: it doesn't work. But many more people, with firm groundings in physics, the mechanics of materials, dynamics, and experimentation have realized it's impossible, and why, and so they don't waste their time or money on it.

Carry on. When someone has something _new_ in the area of SMOTs, please let me know. So far.... this thread is like watching re-runs from the Seventies. Examine your assumptions, people; you are just wrong about many things, there are at least three major errors of fact on this page alone.

And by the way... the Wright brothers were surrounded by working examples of what they were trying to do: Birds. Where are your natural examples of what you are trying to do? Nowhere in the universe. But counterexamples exist all around you. So the popular ploy of mentioning the Wrights, or any other successful development that is founded on science, does not apply here. Where is your "magnetic wind tunnel" where you explore the characteristics and behaviour of magnets, before you try to "fly" them? Nowhere. So quit talking bollocks about the Wright Brothers.

[mondrasek]

I would like to second TK's points with a bit of a caveat. 

There is much merit in reproducing the experiments of others, even if they failed to accomplish what they originally set out to do.  I believe Faraday is a good example of an experimentalist that recreated every effort of those before him.  He was not content to simple believe what was presented by those who had come before, but instead took the time to learn all the subtle knowledge that those earlier scientists had acquired along the way.  Whether they succeeded or failed.

However, claiming to be able to do what others have shown before to be impossible, and failing to accept sage advice from those that have tried before, to the point of even dismissing their warnings and suggestions is fruitless.  It can only lead to wasted time.  I believe wisdom can more quickly be gained by researching what they have to say and/or trying the experiments that they suggest.

My $0.02.

M.