Zero Point Energy, Perpetual motion is possible

[Pianoman]

Hey everyone. I have long been interested in the "free" power that magnets release. Free energy is ever present in our universe, and so far the only physical means of tapping into it, is magnets. The power of repulsion, always present, and we don't have to input energy to create a magnetic field unless we r dealing with electromagnets (not the case here). To the point, I'm interested in creating a zero point energy machine that harnesses that power. Basically the setup I have consists of a wheel with an even number of magnets opposite each other and evenly spaced to balance the wheel. These magnets are ONLY one pole. The opposite pole is placed on a fixed mount nearly touching the outside of the wheel. The repulsion force causes the wheel to spin. The rotational energy would allow for electricity production, similar to that of a windmill (the wheels axel connects to a gearbox and generator connected to a dc/ac converter). This would theoretically convert rotational energy to electricity. You might say, "well such a device would be capable of only infinitesimal voltages." HOWEVER, imagine large scale versions utilizing massive neodymium (N45 grade of course) magnets, loads of them. Anybody detect a solution to our power needs? I do. Another potential concern, "the cost of enough units of such devices would be unrealistic. At our current spending rate for electricity, a year of government funding and consumer support could easily make this happen. I'm not an expert and I'm not claiming to be one, I'm certainly not. I'm simply a sophomore college student throwing out a dream of mine, combined with a few weeks of dabbling research. I see potential, but I repeat I'm just dreaming. Any engineers or individuals with experience on this topic? I'd much appreciate any feedback. I'm going to try nevertheless because it will be a fun science project and neodymium magnets are fun, but feedback would still be much appreciated! Thanks guys.

Jonathan

[taggalucci]

Something like this...? http://www.google.com/patents?id=4sI...page&q&f=false

[swamidog]

good luck with this part: "These magnets are ONLY one pole."

Hey everyone. I have long been interested in the "free" power that magnets release. Free energy is ever present in our universe, and so far the only physical means of tapping into it, is magnets. The power of repulsion, always present, and we don't have to input energy to create a magnetic field unless we r dealing with electromagnets (not the case here). To the point, I'm interested in creating a zero point energy machine that harnesses that power. Basically the setup I have consists of a wheel with an even number of magnets opposite each other and evenly spaced to balance the wheel. These magnets are ONLY one pole. The opposite pole is placed on a fixed mount nearly touching the outside of the wheel. The repulsion force causes the wheel to spin. The rotational energy would allow for electricity production, similar to that of a windmill (the wheels axel connects to a gearbox and generator connected to a dc/ac converter). This would theoretically convert rotational energy to electricity. You might say, "well such a device would be capable of only infinitesimal voltages." HOWEVER, imagine large scale versions utilizing massive neodymium (N45 grade of course) magnets, loads of them. Anybody detect a solution to our power needs? I do. Another potential concern, "the cost of enough units of such devices would be unrealistic. At our current spending rate for electricity, a year of government funding and consumer support could easily make this happen. I'm not an expert and I'm not claiming to be one, I'm certainly not. I'm simply a sophomore college student throwing out a dream of mine, combined with a few weeks of dabbling research. I see potential, but I repeat I'm just dreaming. Any engineers or individuals with experience on this topic? I'd much appreciate any feedback. I'm going to try nevertheless because it will be a fun science project and neodymium magnets are fun, but feedback would still be much appreciated! Thanks guys.

Jonathan

[Pianoman]

Something similar to that yes, although I feel that there are better design possibilities that are yet to be tried. The other question is, with this being so feesible, why hasn't it been employed? I read several "conspiracy theories" that I didn't really buy into about the money and the big corporations hiding the research. (scratches head)\

Also, you don't have to have only one pole, it doesn't really matter. You just angle them so that the opposite pole is out of the way. But you can always cut them in a machine shop can you not?

[Things]

The problem is, magnets can't only have 1 pole. The other pole has to be somewhere.

[Pianoman]

Why can't you cut them in half? Do they lose their repulsion force? I'm curious because I've never tried. Again though, if thats not possible, you can just angle them so that they work for the purpose of spinning the wheel, the only reason for cutting them would be to reduce the number of magnets you have to buy for the experiment.

[taggalucci]

Why can't you cut them in half?

You can cut them in half. You'll just end up with 2 smaller magnets each with a North and South pole.

You can't have one pole without the other.

I also suspect that during the rotation there are sweet spots for repulsion as well as an equal number of bad spots for attaction. I believe at best you could get the device to balance between these states, but having more repulsion than attraction, without adding extra energy, would be interesting (in the same way that creating a worm hole would be interesting)!

[-bart-]

This magnet has only one pole.

..as in..

this medal has only one side ?

[taggalucci]

This magnet has only one pole.

..as in..

this medal has only one side ?

...............

[norty303]

Ok, so assuming I've understood what you're proposing correctly, here's a few issues I can see.

The fundamental idea seems to be that as each magnet come sup to the fixed one, it is repelled and thus continues to spin the wheel in the current direction.

The problem is that as each magnet approaches the fixed one it will start to be repelled in the opposite direction, thus slowing the wheel down.
Now assuming it has enough momentum to not stop it will pass the fixed magnet and be repelled, thus speeding up again.

At this point you have a theoretical perpetual motion machine - however as soon as you take into account friction effects at the wheel hub, you effectively have a machine that will eventually stop and hover between 2 magnets on the wheel.

Now if you want to generate energy (such as via a dynamo attached to the wheel) you massively increase those friction effects and it'll probably stop almost instantly.

Now, if you could introduce some sort of shield that 'masks' the approaching magnet on the wheel from the fixed magnet, you could have a wheel that only pushes in one direction - I'm no scientist or enginer so I have no idea if 'anti magnet' materials exist and how effective they are at blocking magnetic fields.