When I was a kid I came up with this design during a long road trip. I spent the whole time thinking I was some kind of genius, because how didn’t anyone else think of this before?
You can imagine my disappointment when I got home and created my prototype.
Equal AND opposite
This works in Kerbal Space Program
Because you need to put it on the back and have it repel the truck forward instead of attract it forward obviously
Needs more magnets and some springs.
You ever talk to someone confused by this, maybe ask them to lightly push the front magnet in the direction it’s trying to go.
I tried that, nothing happened to the picture. why???
Huh, try putting it next to the phone
You could get something like this to generate thrust in theory, just not enough to move an object with this much mass and air resistance. Also all of the work is being done on the rod suspending the magnet. It’s kind of similar to ionic propulsion.
It would work if the repulsion/attraction only went in 1 direction. But since it goes both ways, they just cancel out.
Conversely, the fan version of this idea (fan blowing into a sail) does actually work. But it’s nowhere near as efficient as simply turning the fan away from the sail to push you the normal way.
What if u put the fan in the water?
There’s oxygen in water, so it could work
Well because there the whole system now becomes the ship+air/water molecules rather than just the ship + you use energy to work the fan which imparts that energy to the air/water molecules. In the end the air/water molecules literally get pushed behind so the rest of the system can move forward.
You think it would work if one end is a magnet and the other ferrous metal? I’m pretty certain it wouldn’t
Whatever happens there’s no work done as the magnet and it’s partner don’t move relative to each other. There’s force between them, but no movement.
You think it would work if one end is a magnet and the other ferrous metal?
No, because the force of attraction is still working in both directions just not as strongly as it would with two magnets.
Curse you physics
Maybe it needs gas?
The magnet isn’t strong enough.
The wire/metal holding it needs to be springy and bobbing back and forth to generate the momentum, duh… Half-assed implementation I say.
Young lady, in this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
need two separate vehicles and two magnets, one weaker then the other
so the weaker one will repell the other and it will kick forward moving the other forward and rinse and repeat at a sonic speed
thats gotta generate some kinda motion
This is basically how a rail cannon works, just with electromagnets that can reverse their polarity.
It’s a powerful way to accelerate anything — I think it’s most famously used in those types of metal roller coasters that start you at a flat-with-the-ground angle, and then just fuckin launch you up a ramp to 45° with electromagnets. The issue is that you need a fuckton of energy to do that.
What we need for true perpetual energy is to just capture that guy Blanka from Street Fighter.
That’s not how a railgun works, that’s how a coilgun works. Railguns create a loop of electric current that flows into one “wire” (the rail), through the projectile into the other wire, and back down to the starting point again, this configuration creates a force that pushes the projectile down the rails
Ah, I appreciate the correction. I’m not an engineer but the youngest cousin of a clan of them, so I just got the highlights of the true evil genius shit. :p
“No srsly y isnt it?”
Why would it? Think about it, would the two magnet gets closer if the wheels started rolling?
Not with that attitude they won’t.
Excellent! It is always nice to see people asking questions - the journey towards the answer should prove most enlightening! :-D
