| Forum Home | ||||
| PC World Chat | ||||
| Thread ID: 80801 | 2007-07-05 13:31:00 | Yet another perpetual motion machine | zqwerty (97) | PC World Chat |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 566173 | 2007-07-08 05:01:00 | This reminds me of another perpetual motion device I saw about 62 years ago at the Olympia in Blackpool. I was only 13 or 14 at the time but even then realised that it was impossible - but it seemed to work. This device was an imitation fish that was made up of very fine steel wire and looked like a filleted flat fish - in other words no body just skeleton. It floated in a goldfish bowl and "just" rested on the surface tension. It was only classed as a toy but the odd thing about it was the way it continually moved (very slowly) around the bowl. I have never heard of it since or had anybody explain how it worked. Was it a trick? The people on the stand were in fact disinterested in the thing and only used it as an attraction. Tom |
Thomas01 (317) | ||
| 566174 | 2007-07-08 10:52:00 | brownian motion (which is basically microcurrents in the water/air pushing it about) wiki it |
motorbyclist (188) | ||
| 566175 | 2007-07-09 00:17:00 | brownian motion (which is basically microcurrents in the water/air pushing it about) wiki it Could be except for the fact that the motion was not random but constantly clockwise. I think I remember the staff on the stand drinking very hot cups of tea which as Douglas Adams explained in his Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is the ultimate Brownion Motion Generator. But the book had not been written then - in fact I wonder if Douglas was even born. So this theory falls a little flat. Tom |
Thomas01 (317) | ||
| 566176 | 2007-07-09 03:05:00 | precession | SurferJoe46 (51) | ||
| 566177 | 2007-07-09 05:48:00 | Speck of soap on one side of it, heads in the direction of the side that the soap is on, breakdown of surface tension don't yah know, I could be wrong but I seem to remember this from school. Of course this only keeps happening as long as there is some soap left. | zqwerty (97) | ||
| 566178 | 2007-07-09 07:33:00 | Well I'll be blowed.so it's the soap that did it. | Cicero (40) | ||
| 566179 | 2007-07-10 00:39:00 | Speck of soap on one side of it, heads in the direction of the side that the soap is on, breakdown of surface tension don't yah know, I could be wrong but I seem to remember this from school. Of course this only keeps happening as long as there is some soap left. Hey ZQWERTY you may have something here. Now going back 60 plus years and trying to remember details is not the most reliable thing to do but my memory of the beast is that it had a whitish looking head. This could of course been a bit of LUX soap or something similar. Hmmm I wonder! Tom |
Thomas01 (317) | ||
| 566180 | 2007-07-10 01:21:00 | Hey ZQWERTY you may have something here. Now going back 60 plus years and trying to remember details is not the most reliable thing to do but my memory of the beast is that it had a whitish looking head. This could of course been a bit of LUX soap or something similar. Hmmm I wonder! Tom Then again it could have been Cashmere Bouquet !That has a certain zing to it! |
Cicero (40) | ||
| 566181 | 2007-07-10 02:58:00 | Thomas's machine might have been something like a Foucalt pendulum, which vibrates in a stable plane while the earth rotates around it. Of course, it might have been nothing at all like a Foucalt pendulum. ;) Back to the original subject, I think R2x1 has discovered the secret. It will certainly infringe on several hundred Microsoft patents (do you think MS haven't patented perpetual motion?) , and the Irish will be suffocated under a horde of lawyers in a feeding frenzy. |
Graham L (2) | ||
| 566182 | 2007-07-10 04:43:00 | If the above didn't have a f****g pendulum,how did it work? | Cicero (40) | ||
| 1 2 3 | |||||