- #1
WitlessWanaBe
- 2
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I'm probably going to make a fool of myself for asking this, but that's what the anonymity of the internet is for right? (That and other things that you probably won't find at a physics forum)
If I understand correctly, and I may well not, the reason you cannot build a device that will generate movement indefinitely is that any kind of process which generates energy requires a change of state of mass, from a higher energy state to a lower energy state, or else a conversion of mass to energy. Both of these are unsustainable because eventually all the mass will be in a lower energy state or converted into energy.
But isn't gravity kind of the exception to this rule? In theory a body in a perfect orbit can continue in that orbit indefinitely, and generate kinetic energy in the process.
So armed with my high-school education I gave it a little thought, and I'm wondering if it wouldn't be possible to turn a large body orbiting another large body into a giant generator by magnetising it and building an enormous cylindrical tunnel around it, so that it generates a current as it orbits. Of course the magnetic resistence would change the radius of the orbit, but in theory that could be accounted for... or is this the weakness of the idea, that the magnetic drag would always throw off the balance of momentum and centripetal force and crash anybody attempting such an orbit?
I could (and may) attempt the maths myself, but I thought I would throw it out there for greater minds who could also tell me what other problems there are with this.
Let me know, thanks.
If I understand correctly, and I may well not, the reason you cannot build a device that will generate movement indefinitely is that any kind of process which generates energy requires a change of state of mass, from a higher energy state to a lower energy state, or else a conversion of mass to energy. Both of these are unsustainable because eventually all the mass will be in a lower energy state or converted into energy.
But isn't gravity kind of the exception to this rule? In theory a body in a perfect orbit can continue in that orbit indefinitely, and generate kinetic energy in the process.
So armed with my high-school education I gave it a little thought, and I'm wondering if it wouldn't be possible to turn a large body orbiting another large body into a giant generator by magnetising it and building an enormous cylindrical tunnel around it, so that it generates a current as it orbits. Of course the magnetic resistence would change the radius of the orbit, but in theory that could be accounted for... or is this the weakness of the idea, that the magnetic drag would always throw off the balance of momentum and centripetal force and crash anybody attempting such an orbit?
I could (and may) attempt the maths myself, but I thought I would throw it out there for greater minds who could also tell me what other problems there are with this.
Let me know, thanks.