There are times when I can't think of anything to write and others where I have to store pages for future publication. But I notice that the number and quality of comments both here and on the Besslerwheel forum have dropped off. So in the face of my own 'writer's block', or as it is sometimes called, 'Literary Constipation', what is one to do? Looking to the wisdom of those who came before me; I should take a break, write something entirely unrelated to the usual stuff.
Someone asked how my work on Bessler's wheel was going and why did I say nothing about it? I don't say much because there isn't much to say. I could describe the many hours I spend designing and building new configurations and also the many times I've eventually dismissed them as unworkable, but there is little of interest there. I don't post images because if I did, and the design worked I'd have given it away, on the other hand once a design fails I cannibalise the parts so there's nothing left to see.
I have a number of different tasks associated with Bessler's wheel and I have to fit them in with my more mundane chores such as keeping the garden tidy and responding to my wife's pleas for a new tree here, dig up one there, clean the gutters, paint numerous parts of the house and outbuildings, everywhere. Not to mention removal of the bees which have invaded our attic and found their way into the bathroom via the downlighters! The final indignity was when one of them stung Mrs C! These particular bees are bumble bees and quite large, hairy and scary. You're probably familiar with the venerable line about scientists having proved that a bumblebee can't fly which appears regularly in magazine and newspaper stories, but it's not true, however I can tell you from direct observation that they are incompetent fliers, bumping into each other, tumbling about and missing the hole in the wall etc etc! Really quite funny - funny, but a nuisance - of course in this country there are laws against killing bees - and foxes and squirrels for that matter, each of which think our garden (backyard) is their personal residential play area.
I have a number of different tasks associated with Bessler's wheel and I have to fit them in with my more mundane chores such as keeping the garden tidy and responding to my wife's pleas for a new tree here, dig up one there, clean the gutters, paint numerous parts of the house and outbuildings, everywhere. Not to mention removal of the bees which have invaded our attic and found their way into the bathroom via the downlighters! The final indignity was when one of them stung Mrs C! These particular bees are bumble bees and quite large, hairy and scary. You're probably familiar with the venerable line about scientists having proved that a bumblebee can't fly which appears regularly in magazine and newspaper stories, but it's not true, however I can tell you from direct observation that they are incompetent fliers, bumping into each other, tumbling about and missing the hole in the wall etc etc! Really quite funny - funny, but a nuisance - of course in this country there are laws against killing bees - and foxes and squirrels for that matter, each of which think our garden (backyard) is their personal residential play area.
In the act of getting closer to the bees by climbing onto the flat roof of an adjacent building, in order to see how they were getting in, I happened to observe that the gutters were full of dead moss, leaves and the occasional small bird; and so I've bought a stand-off extension to my ladder so that I can get at the gutters and clean them - never mind the fact that I have a fear of heights and shall have to overcome it to do the job!
We also have a small bird-bath outside one of the garden windows, which is shared by a blackbird and a robin. I never realised that robins love to bathe six or seven times a day and make a great show of splashing everything around! He bathes even if we are sat four of five feet away - magic! I also have a photo of my feet resting on a foot-rest in the garden, a glass of wine in one hand and the robin perched on the end of my foot watching for worms and grubs to appear in the grass, what a cheek!
As for my Bessler project, I have completed my tests on a test-rig and my mechanism does what it is designed to do, (I'll say no more for now, on what that might be) and I've cut two MDF discs for use as the basis for my final wheel and a spare, incorporating the mechanisms. I'm starting with just one mechanisms and will then advance to two, three and finally five to try to discover what difference if any, the numbers make. Everyone knows that I think five is the optimum number but Bessler seems to suggest that fewer will provide enough stimulus to rotate the wheel, just - so, we shall see. My chief problem in have five mechanisms is how to fit them all in. I anticipate that squeezing them all in will be a bit like herding cats and prove equally impossible.
I have finally completed my book to follow up and update my previous one which came out in 1997! I'm not going to self-publish it this time, but will wait until either I or some other person has succeeded in building Bessler's wheel at which point hopefully someone else (a publisher!) might be interested in taking on all the work involved publishing. If not I'll offer it as a digital download at some point in the future.
I hope this was not too random and uninteresting. These ordinary accounts of everyday activities make a break from the serious stuff.
JC
John,I like the photo, a nice point of time.
ReplyDeleteJust enjoy your retirement John!
ReplyDeleteJohn,
ReplyDeletejust a little conversation about nothing in particular.
The Taiwanese Ambassador sent a group of bird watchers to our place once, just for lunch.
They ended up staying for over four hours taking photos!
I think they took more pictures in our yard then they did at the nature reserve.
They are in a book they published, but it's way too expensive to buy, so when I'm at the bookshop I do a sneaky W.H.Smith special, and take a peek. :-)
To anyone interested, who's out there,
ReplyDeleteI've had a Sunday afternoon tinker with my glorified see-saw, and got into the "just a little more weight here cycle".
Time to move on.
Are you UK based, Stevo? I guess not.
DeleteJC
John, I'm a Brit abroad, I live in St. Lucia, W.I.
DeleteI've just found another amusing video at,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZYsa2kfNkw
It's one of David C. Roy's kinetic sculptures,you can guess what I was thinking when I saw the first three pieces tumble.
The other sculptures are amazing too!
On the proposition that a minimum number of identical mechanisms is somehow optimal, it seems to me such a notion is inconsistent; each individual mechanism has to perform an asymmetric interaction - it is not tenable that an asymmetry only arises beyond a finite number of repetitions.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, by lengthening the axle we can have any number of repetitions, 10,000 strokes per cycle is just an engineering problem.
But if they're all identical, then either they're all over-unity, or none are. It's one or the other, there's no room for middle ground.
The number 5 cannot logically pertain to the number of repeated mechanisms. Whatever their significance to Bessler, any such numbers are irrelevant to the technology. The problem is dropping something when it's heavier, and lifting something when it's lighter. No individual integer or ratio or fraction or any particular value can have any bearing on the issue. A differential may be significant (a time rate of change differential between changing input and output forces, for example) but this too is unlikely to implicate any particular value - it'd be a variable relationship between a pair of variables, after all.
I based my supposition that five was the optimum number on the fact that Bessler said that with only one or two crossbars the wheel was hardly able to turn, therefore I inferred that more would produce faster rotation. I assumed that his ubiquitous fives were a pointer to five being either the optimum number, or the most he could squeeze onto the wheel. This implies that he believed that more crossbars would give more speed.
DeleteHowever I understand your argument and kind of agree with too!
JC
John,
DeleteI don't see why five mechanisms wouldn't work, if they were "one ended" so to speak,
four could be in balance, and the action of the odd one cause the overbalance at the right time.
My latest thinking on this elusive asymmetry has got me wondering about scissorjacks again. Specifically, i'm wondering if anyone has actually measured them to check they're not OU already?
ReplyDeleteWhy would i suggest such a mad thing? Because it occurred to me over the hols that the distance - the excursion or travel length - of the jacks is dependent upon the number of cells from which it is constructed (ie. where XX is one cell).
A jack with 10 cells will extend 10x as far as one with only a single cell. But if we consider a single cell jack; it's just a simple class 1 lever; It simply trades force for distance. Assuming the beams from which it's built are all equal length, and pivoted exactly at their centers, then a jack of any arbitrary length is still a simple class 1 lever. If the cell at one end is perfectly square, then so is the cell at the opposite end - the beam angles remain uniform across it's length, hence the mechanical advantage does not change between cells. Ignoring frictional losses, a 1:1 mechanical advantage would be maintained across an infinitely long scissorjack.
So you can probably see where i'm going - the energy of an interaction, or work done, in simple Newtonian terms is a function of force and distance. Yet here, force is a function of leverage, while displacement is a function of the number of repeated cells. Adding more cells increases the distance, without decreasing the force. Hence the integral - the energy under the curve - is increased accordingly.
In short, if the scissorjack is suspended from precisely its midsection, then it's a simple 1:1 lever, and the force / distance integrals at each end are identical. No different to a balance beam or see-saw, just with extra fulcrums. But if it's suspended from any other point, ie. asymmetrically across its length, then the force at each end differs accordingly. The question i'm thus asking is "does the force decrease linearly with distance?" - in other words if i add say another two cells to one end of my jack, is the change in force directly proportional?
It's such a stupidly simple (or simply stupid) question i can quite understand if no one's thought to check it before... Next week i intend to build a test rig. Simple measurement to make - drop a heavy weight a short distance, lift a lighter one a greater distance, but double check that this increased distance is truly proportionate.
Doubtless, it is. But if it ain't, we have our symmetry break. However if one jack isn't, then making four more won't change that outcome.
Incidentally, however, i can't help but concede that if this line of enquiry bears fruit, then, as it depends on decoupling force and distance, such that multiple cells amplify displacement disproportionately to force, then a possible minimum number of cells might be five - ie. three on one side of the fixing point and two at the other. Then again, three would be neater (ie. two on one side, one on the other)... but then maybe 3 didn't work for bessler cause the asymmetry was below measurable levels, and only became apparent at higher magnitudes. Still, something LIKE this would be a contender mechanism - a simple mathematical symmetry break from one mechanism, that can be repeated around an axle.
One way or another, my current hunch is that there IS a 'correct' application of the 'jack, and it creates and destroys PE depending on the direction of the asymmetry. Or else, whatever the exploit is, it's something that can be done with scissorjacks, if slightly modified... I'll post some results next week hopefully..
@ Vibrator,
Deleteas a well known muser, I did ponder on the idea of fitting a heavy weight on each of the handles of the tongs, to lift a lighter weight on the other end, because at the 12 O'clock position, they would swing inward, lifting the weight.
At the 6 O'clock position, they would swing out, pulling the weight up, so two opposite tongs moving the weights in either direction should move the wheel.
The problem is trying to get it to happen in these positions only, maybe an oil dashpot, or a locking device is the answer.
I don't think the heavy weights need move too far from centre, and so long as the lifted weights are the right size, they should overcome any discrepancies.
A better idea maybe to move the wheels rim itself, rather than weights, this will still cause an overbalance, and both tongs will work in unison.
Nearly forgot, the first hinge-pin nearest the handles would be extended and used as a pivot fixed to the wheels sides, and all the other pins would be rollers, fitted into a track, just like the old fashioned lift (elevator) gates.
DeleteThis would be for stability.
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DeleteScissorjack is a nonlinear device. The force which it exerts is changing nonlinearly with its length. Additionally, it can convert vertical force to lateral or vice versa. Beside these two poperties, there is nothing special about the scissorjack.
DeleteMT41: I can assure the reader that there is something special behind the stork's bills.
DeleteI don't think there is anything special about the scissor jack linkage by itself, but maybe there is when used in conjunction with another necessary component of the wheel.
Don't get me wrong Zoelra. I am very convinced Bessler definitely found something special. The scissorjack is not a very efficient device, hence it isn't very popular. Most probably the special poperty (I think it is the nonlinear/inverse operation) must have been overlooked.
DeleteA scissor mechanism is a linear device.
DeleteEd you are right in terms of total force (and well mostly in terms of scientific language :) ). But, think about applied lateral force and obtained vertical force. I am thinking in this way because the toy page shows a vertical upwards arrow at the tip of the jack, well, at least, this is my interpratation of what Bessler was trying to say. While a constant lateral force is applied to the jack handles, the jack starts to open up and the vertical upwards force starts to change. I want to think these machines in terms input and output forces. Honestly, I am no way a master of mechanic, I might be interpreting things very very wrongly.
DeleteHehe. I love internet :) Here, I've found some equations;http://www.engineersedge.com/mechanics_machines/scissor-lift.htm
DeleteAfter some mambo-jambo, there is a final equation at the bottom of the page; Fx=W/tan(theta) W is the load then it can be assumed to be the upward force. Then W=Fx.tan(theta). Of course I don't want to prove anything here. I don't know any solutions to the PM. This is just my interpretation of a drawing. In my point of view, all of the Bessler clues show somewhat shape changing mechanical devices and they point in someway nonlinear relations between system components.
I have studied scissor mechanisms six ways from Sunday, including putting formulas into an elaborate spreadsheet, and it doesn't matter if the segments are different sizes or if force is applied laterally.
DeleteI think you have to look at the scissor mech in conjunction with another part. The scissor is what enables that other part to function in OU. I'm in the process of building a test rig to verify. Bessler didn't say the storks bill was special, he said there was something special behind the storks bill. A different meaning perhaps. Of course we are working off a translation so who knows for sure.
Deleteyellowson said:
Delete"Don't get me wrong Zoelra. I am very convinced Bessler definitely found something special. The scissorjack is not a very efficient device, hence it isn't very popular. Most probably the special poperty (I think it is the nonlinear/inverse operation) must have been overlooked."
I agree.
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DeleteThere is a movement in the stork’s bill that I believe complements the movement of another component, and together would allow for OU.
DeleteThe combined mechanism would constitute a prime mover and would be capable of producing a linear push/pull as long as it continues to rotate.
The prime mover would be used in conjunction with one of the basic overbalanced wheel designs, and would be responsible for the lifting of the weights to the overbalanced position. The overbalancing would be responsible for driving the wheel and keep the prime mover rotating, which would in turn maintain the overbalanced condition of the wheel. The prime mover and wheel each provide what the other needs; the prime mover needs continual turning and the wheel needs continual overbalancing.
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Deletealso, @ys and all, on the toys page the lower single-cell jack is larger than the upper one with the scholar and thresher, hence if they're somehow linked then the lower one will be forced to over-extend in each direction, engaging and thus tensioning the springs alluded to in the 'twisted peasants'.
DeleteIf you rotate the image of the axle shaft 90° to the horizontal, and hang the two said units off either side of the axle via the opposing and offset loopholes, and then hang the weird chain-belt thingy from them, we seem to get a kind of spring-assisted jacob's ladder, insofar as the chain-belt thingy adopts an alternating zig-zag action with each half-turn of the axle.
What this contraption has to do with the scissorjack or up-turned whistling top is anybody's guess, however... assuming they ARE glyphs (a good form of cypher as they're somewhat culturally/linguistically agnostic) is the intention some kind of allusion to translated centrifugal force?
Of course if the scissorjacks are potentially over-unity in their own right then all other details are incidental, thresher, flail and all..
@Stevo - i think i understand what you're describing, and it sounds interesting. Moving the rim (or the axle centre) is also something i'd considered, inspired (no doubt incorrectly) by MT127. A rough sketch would help though - where's the symmetry break (presumably the idea would be to try and keep the center of gravity above the axle)?
Delete@yellowson - it's in essence a simple class one lever, on the one hand... but my contention is that adding more crossbars increases the displacement, but without decreasing the force.
This is different to a most basic class 1 lever, such as a balance scale, because usually we get increased distance at the expense of reduced force.
With the lazy tongs however, the force does NOT attenuate as more crossbars are added. This is because the crossbar angles remain uniform across its length (ie. if the lowermost scissor angle is 90°, then so is the uppermost one).
This does seem to be a special property, since on paper at least, it creates energy from nowhere. Clearly my train of logic has derailed somewhere, but how..? Any thoughts on this point?
@Zoelra - see my reply to yellowson above..
@yellowson, (again (re. your reply to Ed)) one possibility i've entertained seriously is that the scissorjack is a mere metaphor for translated forces (the toys page is almost certainly a hieroglyph, at least as 18th century scholars understood them). Yet we also have the "humble tool" quote, as well as the MT41 'assurance'... besides, mere translation can be achieved with a chord and pulley. If, then, the scissorjack is merely illustrative of something, i'd expect it to be something more interesting than a mere translation. Rather, i'd expect it to point, somehow, to a symmetry break..
Re. your 4th reply with the lift equations - nice find but it's a bit dense for me... (ahem, i mean I'M a bit dense, for it) but can this be adapted to model the jacks when used as i describe above (ie. as shown in MT40; fixed from their penultimate linkage)?
And this is open to everyone, of course - assuming the jack in MT40's box-out diagram is notionally massless/weightless, are we not getting free extra displacement for each additional scissor cell above the fixing point, without a corresponding loss of lifting force? Because right now, the only thing suggesting otherwise to me is that this would be very easy free energy...
@Ed - "it doesn't matter if the segments are different sizes or if force is applied laterally." - agreed, but what about this MT40 "one down five up" config and the corresponding force/distance integrals - have you considered this aspect?
This config is 'special' insofar as it's not so simply replicated with say pulleys and chords. Whereas if the jack is only attached via its end terminals then it doesn't do anything a chord and pulleys can't. In other words if there's anything special about the jacks then it's when they're used in this way, via an asymmetric fixing point..
And again, open question to all - anyone skilled enough in WM2D to knock up a simple lever-jack as per MT40's adjoining figure? I have a copy but still struggling to learn how to use it... this would be much simpler and more conclusive than a real test rig though, circumventing as it could friction and even the jack's own mass...
@Zoelra - interesting points... re. the 'prime mover'; he does seem to find good currency in the so-called 'lever weights', as per MT40 and countless others. Where these are introduced in MT19 he describes them somewhat ambivalently as neither particularly useful, nor harmful - could this be a kind of coy delineation between 'usefulness' in terms of overbalancing (ie. they're not useful in this respect) as opposed to their relative 'harmlessness' as actuators / prime movers / shifter weights? Or perhaps even sprung, as alluded to in the preceding print, MT18 (amongst others)?
Sorry I was a bit vague in my last post as I am pursuing a design. Let me rephrase to hopefully shed some light.
DeleteIf you have two components, and one has to move a little while the other moves a lot, then the scissor jack may fill that requirement.
For example, say you have a five segment scissor jack that is pinned so that one segment is on the left of the pin and four on the right of the pin. A movement on the left results in a four-fold movement on the right.
"Six ways from Sunday" does include simulation, as well as physical models and calculations. A simple spreadsheet will show you how the MT40 side figure behaves (and all of MT40 for that matter). I can assure you there is nothing special about a scissor mechanism. Adding more "diamonds" is a force/distance trade-off, which you can see by using a spreadsheet.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteIt seems that all everyone looks at when considering the scissor jack and other leverage systems is in relation to a mechanical (force) advantage. I have found that its usefulness comes not from how much it can lift, but from how it moves (or more correctly, how it can interconnect). Bessler depicts a scissor jack in MT138 with decreasing link (diamond) sizes. A clue? If you have one continuous scissor, pinned somewhere between the two end links (diamonds), one side can contract while the other expands. Further, movement doesn't just mean how far, but also how fast. There are many possibilities to consider. It took me years of building to see the connection (or as I said, the interconnection).
DeleteSorry I sounded a little crass in my last post. No offense intended to anyone. My point was we are all looking for something to give us a mechanical/force advantage to possibly lift weights to the OB position, and rightfully so, that is what is needed.
DeleteIf you study the 2SO and other pendula mechanisms long enough, you may find that everything we need is right in front of us. But, two parts don't move in unison or in the same way, and that is where I think the scissor jack fits in. Not for any mechanical or force advantage, but because it links the two parts together creating a single harmonious moving mechanism.
@Zoelra - "say you have a five segment scissor jack that is pinned so that one segment is on the left of the pin and four on the right of the pin. A movement on the left results in a four-fold movement on the right."
DeleteExactly my point. The question though is the energies involved on either side of the jack. Ed maintains above that the force varies as a function of distance, but doesn't elaborate exactly how... (How, Ed?)
As i've previously noted, if the output distance increases relative to the input distance, then the associated force must DECREASE in order to balance the input energy. Yet in this scenario, the energy is only balanced relative to the scissorjack - outside of this closed system, we've raised the weight higher against a lower force... ie. we can then drop it from the jack, and harvest this boosted GPE.
In reductio ad-absurdum, an sufficiently long scissorjack would raise a weight so far the force would eventually tend to zero.
This can't be right, surely?
So what happens if the force increases with distance, instead... does that balance things out?
Well, no, apparently... remember we're counter-balancing the jack's own mass (ie. basically we're ignoring it, and friction too, so we can focus on the underlying Newtonian integrals between the weight dropped and the weight raised on either end of a notionally-weightless, frictionless jack). So if the force increases as we add more diamonds, the weight needing to be dropped increases too. Hence if a 2kg weight drops say 1 meter, it may lift a 1kg weight 2 meters. But if we want to lift it say 4 meters, then we'd need to double our input mass to 4kg, for the same drop distance.
Yet how and why should this occur - what exactly raises the input force required? Each diamond of the cell is formed by paired see-saws, pivoted at their ends and mid-centers. They're all 1:1 levers, with equal input/output force distance integrals! On a regular balance beam the force increases inversely to distance, yet Ed's contention here is that the reverse is true for beams paired in series and parallel like this.. so how and why would this arise?
I can see that inertia increases, however this only seems to affect the power distribution - the rate of drop vs lift. I cannot however see that increasing the number of linkages (presuming they're counterbalanced and free from friction) increases the effective weight of the raised load.
This is the issue - the static force that the raised weight exerts upon the dropped weight at any given scissor angle / degree of extension. This, to me, seems impervious and oblivious to the number of scissor linkages. They're all perfect identical 1:1 translations..!
A simulation would help clear this up...
Vibrator is correct in his arguments about OU and numbers, and I can confirm that scissorjacks have no OU. One larger X or several smaller.."same same". But they have one more possible mechanical function that seldom is mentioned.
ReplyDeleteRegaring the number 5. The number 5 or 55 has very different meaning than any mechanical number.
It has to do with geometry connected to the roman figure V, W, alchemy, astrology and tarrot. Together there are several geometrial "coincidences" that prove the mechanical principle.
I am continuing on with further inventions, at the moment I am looking into powering the airplane I invented last year with the free energy magnet motor I invented last week.
ReplyDeleteJohn,
ReplyDeleteabsolutely nothing to do with Bessler, but the name of the stuff caught my eye.
It's called Non-Newtonian Fluid, the pool party videos are good fun for a slow afternoon.
It's bound to rain in the UK soon, Wimbledon's on. :-)
Ealadha, why are you posting nonsensical rubbish? You sound like an affected infant ....
ReplyDeleteWhat nonsensical rubbish ?
DeleteI have invented things recently and I am only mentioning it here because I got the idea to invent things from the bessler wheel on the internet.
ReplyDeleteGuys, this is important, i'm having trouble with my laptop, I keep trying to start windows, and it keeps setting off an alarm, and not starting. I think it's a virus that I cannot clear.
ReplyDeleteI can get online eventually by fiddling around, hence this posting.
Usually if I manage to get this far, every time I try to type I get a never ending series of WWWWWW's, including when I click the internet explorer icon.
When I click on the favourites icon, I.get,gobierno.USA.gov.and.USA.gov.now.my.spacerbar.has.gone!
I.have.never.been.to.these.sites.
What.with.the.reply.deletions.someting.fishy.is.going.on.
BE.CAREFUL.
Have you guys ever read George Airy's paper? I think he was onto something.
ReplyDeleteI have just read about him on wikipedia.
DeleteJust reading about linear wave theory has given me an idea for a new type of wheel, my idea should work, I will have to try it .
@Yellowson,
Deleteby some accounts he was talking about vocal cords, much like a clarinet reed.
Interesting, I once commented that the other alleged inventions of Bessler point out utilization of air pressure based mechanisms. Since the air is everywhere and the resulting device would not be against the conservation of energy. The required energy is basically taken from the environment. But on the other hand, witnesses should have realized such system in action in Bessler's demonstrations.
DeleteGuys, guess what,
ReplyDeletesince I mentioned my mother's brother Samuel,my laptop is behaving itself, strange eh ?
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ReplyDeleteHiya peeps and apologies for my tardiness, been busy the last week. I threw together this scissorjack last week:
ReplyDeletehttp://s23.postimg.org/o50fqgoff/IMAGE_001.jpg
..but i've not had much success getting a clean measurement so far. The main reason for this is that the holes in the Meccano beams are slightly larger than the bolts, and this teeny gap accumulates across many joints, leaving too much free play to maintain consistent beam angles across the jack - in short, one end can be partially extended while the other is still partially retracted.
Obviously, we need the angles to be uniform to get a consistent leverage and thus clean measurement.
I've got a pile of wooden coffee stirrer sticks here i'd been intending to make a lighter, longer jack with, however i'm unsure as to how to connect them - i figured simply pinning them together with say thumb tacks would work, and would eliminate the unwanted slack, but at the expense of increasing friction.
So i'm kind of resigned to defeat for now - what's needed is a well-crafted jack with half decent bearings on all joints.
I've actually got a load of such bearings, too, but building such a rig would take all of my free time for the best part of a week...
It would be easier of course to just do this mathematically, but then any such theoretical result would need confirming with an experiment, no?
Suggestions, anyone..?
@ Vibrator go to the pound shop/dollar store and buy some cheap metric bolts in a selection box, I think the bolts in Meccano sets are 2B.A. I'm sure M5's are slightly bigger.
DeleteP.S.
DeleteTake a piece of Meccano with you to check it out.
P.P.S.
DeleteTin foil wrapped around the bolt may last long enough for a test.
P.P.P.S!
DeleteThat would be the Chinese take away/out tray type of foil, not the food wrap stuff.
lol good advice, cheers, will do..
DeleteResign?
ReplyDeleteAfter watching a few Liveleak vids i'm actually considering taking up 'bathsalts'... just seems a quicker and easier means to the same despairing end..
Deleteserioshly tho, there's gotta be a way to crack this from 1st principles. I mean, if you just imagine a circle and some disembodied weights floating about, it's EASY to find an OB gain path. Surely finding a corresponding mechanism is just an engineering problem..?
If we just start from the presumption that the most authoritative accounts are accurate, then it SHOULD be possible to co-discover the trick independently, without further reference to Bessler..!
A final thought for the night...
ReplyDeleteSuppose we had a scissorjack that could extend all the way to the moon.
It doesn't matter what its retracted height is, for arguments sake; could be meters or miles, just depends on the thickness of the beams.
Or lets widen the thought experiment; lets make our tongs arbitrarily long. Perhaps infinitely so.
How much time does it take to extend? Take the moon example - say our jack starts out as a squat 1km-high tower, but when we squeeze it, shoots up to the lunar surface - what's its travel time?
It's instant, isn't it? Or rather, it's the time for any individual pair of scissor beams - say, the first, middle, or last pair - to undergo full extension through say a 90° arc. And that's it. Near-instant arrival at the lunar surface.
Of course the work involved is that of the mass of the jack multiplied by the mean lunar distance, in this extreme example, yet this mass can be counter-balanced. So suppose we have our million-tonne scissor jack, astride an equal megatonne counterbalance...
Now suppose we attach a 1kg load atop it, and an additional 2kg load to the counterbalanced end.
The jack will now launch the 1kg load to the lunar surface, while only dropping the 2kg load a few km, say. The exact ratio is a matter of engineering - chiefly a function of the beam thickness and relative fixing point along its length.
So presumably what we come down to is a power distribution... and the 2kg 'shifter' weight will only be able to drop very slowly, while the 1kg load weight accelerates through space and blistering speed... or something...?
It's a cool meditation, no..? ;)
Edit to the above:
ReplyDeleteAcshually on 2nd thoughts it one of those 'factorial' equations innit? Ie. the entire mass of the jack doesn't travel the entire earth-lunar distance - so the work done diminishes along its length, whichever end one measures it from..?
The first pair of scissors travel through their 90° arc, so depending on the beam length that might be a few meters, and so on, per scissor pair, with the total distance traveled per pair increasing towards the lunar-bound end.
Yet this only matters to the net inertial resistance and thus power ratio - it doesn't affect the input-to-output efficiency ratio, in terms of input / output mass * distance.
Hmm this is a confusing and perplexing problem... and as you can see i'm far from clear on it for now... any inputs appreciated...