Question

Being that I don’t know jack about the subject I figured I would ask whether it’s wrong or not.

Why don’t I see magnets being used as a source of power or energy anywhere? Is there something wrong with them? It seems like There has gotta be an easy way to develop a contraption that can harness its energy yet I don’t see any. I figure well maybe I just don’t know the mechanics to anything and they really do. Or maybe no one thought of it. Or maybe there was a flaw in magnets that made them ineffective. But o well my question ^…

Okay CBA, this is getting too freaky. Our last conversation, prior to martial arts, was about predictions and coincedences. I just wrote back to Polemarchus about the lack of original ideas. And now here you are proposing something that I have always wished to investigate further. Here is what I once thought…a few years ago I had a thought that magnetic energy could be controlled. Not only could it be controlled but it could be used to attract or to repel (nothing new here), I actually took the idea so far as to suggest that magnetism could help move rocket ships away from earth’s atleast a few hundred meters off the ground, and save them much fuel, since a majority of a space shuttles fuel is burnt in order to get it into the earths orbit. This may sound like fantasy, but I am only giving a concise overview, I got a few books from the library but couldn’t find anything that I was looking for other than the basics of magnetics. I then began to search on the internet and I found an interesting site that explained somewhat what I was looking for. I emailed the scientist (Joseph P. Hornak) and he actually emailed me back, I was very surprised, and he told me that he didn’t think anything of the sort was thought up before, but that I should keep investigating, and yada yada. Anyway, the point is that obviously it sounded like I was just a kid fantasizing about some crazy thought, but he was really sincere and wished me best. All of you who find it funny can laugh now. Anyway, he actually helped me out a lot in the end, and I have come to learn much more on Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. He actually has a beginners guide to NMR on the internet for all those interested. I printed out a copy, and believe me it’s interesting stuff.

CBA, if your interested, and believe me even though it’s the beginners guide, or what he calls it; the basics, maybe you can make heads or tails out of it with no problem. I on the other hand had to read it and do further investigation, but I got the jist of it, I guess. The down side to the story is that with most ideas I have they are short lived due to life pressures, Ie. Family, friends, girlfriend, school, work, other hobbies, etc,etc. I haven’t been able to devote much time to it, but if I ever become rich I will devote my life to actualizing all my ideas. My point was, I trailed off, I wanted to give you the URL to the site so you could check it out and let me know what you think…

cis.rit.edu/htbooks/nmr/inside.htm

Also, I made a little experiment from a basic physics book, I have a magnet in my room with three pins attached to string which is attached to the wall and the three pins sit hovering on an angle from the wall trying to reach the magnet every second of every day. The idea is, you are right about thinking about magnetism as an energy source. I think magnetism is the most abundant energy system in the universe. All matter creates magnetism of some kind…this was just a theory I believe first postulated by Newton, he gave an example of two boats cruising beside each other, and he said that if everything is set so that they travel parallel to each other - they would invariably crash into each other sooner or later for the simple reason that they are matter which attracts. Or something along those lines. Anyway, every morning and every night looking at the pins just hovering there, me being able to slide anything (non-metallic) between the pins and the magnet without disturbing the pins gives me inspiration. Watch, this will fuel the fire of those that already think I am weird here on the board.

Lastly, like you said, it is nice to hear someone having the same ideas, quite coincedently, and being able to share them.

What’s your take?

Im not an expert by any means, but doesnt a rail gun use magnets to propel a slug to very high velocities? I think a similar, but bigger, device is being drawn up to launch spaceships.

I could be wrong tho…

I always wondered why couldnt we put magnets in the Hwys and then put the wrong kind of magnet under cars and have them float off the ground being rejected by the polarity of the magnet in the hwy creating lift. Use propellers for speed. Or what about in monorails. Make the tracks opposite polarity lifting the rail system up then just stick a jet engine on the back and we can go from russia to tokyo to egypt and to Idaho within what moments?

I thought Japan already has a monorail based on magnets. You’ll have to look around for that as I saw that on Newsround (a UK kids news programme) so I must have been 8-12 to have seen it, and seeing as I’m 23 now, it was at least 10 years ago. What became of it, I do not know.

The magnets in to space idea is widely known (used by many SciFi writers I think, generally called a space ladder) and also is a real idea in progress, but for reason outlined below, impractical at the moment.

I’m no expert on the matter in any sense of the word, I only know a-level/basic uni physics but I think I can guess what the problems would be.

The reason you can’t create energy from magnetism is that it’s fine keeping them apart/getting them to fly together/ getting them to balance because of gravity, it’s when you try and create energy from them you have to do work. Think how a power station works, the generator is based on revolving magnets inside coils so that a current is created. But the revolving only happens if you provide an outside source of power, namely steam turning a turbine. You create no energy from equilibrium!

If you have two magnets repelling each other (or attracting) you can create energy from them as they repel each other, but they will reach a state where they have pushed each other far enough away for there to be no more pushing. And then you have to move them back together again, expending exactly the same amount of energy you created (less friction/air resistance/whatever way you are using to harvest the energy), so you have a net loss as per the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

While you can use magnets in the form of monorails/space ladders you have to spend the money charging up the magnets (I don’t think convential magnets will be strong enough or flexible enough so you have to use electro magnetic coils, I could be wrong!), and yet again you got the net loss (I also assume it costs money to create conventional magnets, other than those created by the Earth’s field. I imagine underconstant stress from an outside source they would also degrade over time, quicker if you use them more). The trouble with monorails (I assume) would be the micro management of the fields, one little wrong move and wam, your train is wacking into the track/flying off it. The trouble with a space ladder is that we have no material strong enough to create one yet ( don’t forget you’ll have to have a rod or tower or such lined with magnets to propel a space craft up and it’ll have to go very high and bear the strain of both the tower’s weight and the space craft’s weight, which I imagine would transfer becuse of the magnetic field, I think some postulate C60 would be strong enough to make the tower and so make a space ladder worth it).

If you could make a gain out of magnetic energy someone would have created it by now, as magnets have been around for so long.

Like turning lead into gold, the quest for creating a device that creates more energy than you put in has been going on for a very long time and seeing as magnetism has been available to the budding invetors for all this time they would have found a way by now (the machine that creates more energy than you put in is called something but I can’t remember, but if someone knows, please say as it’s bugging me now)

A quick search has brought up these:

Some stuff about monorails:

monorails.org/tMspages/TPMagIntro.html

Some stuff about space ladders (including the difficulties of them and the cost):

chaos.org.uk/~eddy/project/space/ladder.html

The above link is very technical, and I now remember that they are more commonly called space elevators, which if you put into any search engine will bring up plenty of results for you to peruse!

Hope this helps.

I remember hearing something about newer roller coasters using magnets to propel them. The ones that don’t climb first they just go. I’m not sure though.

I was thinking about that and I wondered if you angled the magnets so that they pushed rather than just countered each other if they would go.

Something like this…

magnet a -____________

track magnet - / / / / / / / / / /

or

magnet a -____________

track maget - / _ / _ / _ / _

I was wondering if you put it into a circle if it would just spin forever.

| = magnet
----O = arm

    |----O

Imagine that with a circle set up with the magnet pattern I described above around it.

If it did then you could harness that for its energy. Being that the thing is spinning it could turn gears or cranks and if developed right could provide anything with power. And then to turn it off would go something like…

magnet a - ____________

track - =========

Where the top line would be some non magnetic material to disrupt the flow. Or some contraption to pull the track magnets out of the imediate area of the magnet powering the thing.

But I don’t know anything about it so I’m just asking. It’s just a thought I was wondering what the outcome was being that I don’t have anything to test it with.

If you created a circle with magnets they wouldn’t be the same polarity all the way round I think. Otherwise it would already have been done, as I’ve already said.

Ummm, aren’t electronic generators just a coil of wire that’s spun around in a magnetic field, magnets are used to generate electricity aren’t they?

micro.magnet.fsu.edu/electromag/ … or/dc.html