Posted by Rob (208.17.229.230) on March 18, 2002 at 10:49:36:
In Reply to: Re: another approach posted by Scott Ellis on March 12, 2002 at 23:50:52:
You make an assumption when you say:
: All previous attempts have shown that in fact, a weight is only able to lift an identical weight through a shorter distance than it fell (using leverage).
What if I lift an "un-identical" weight, ie a lighter weight?
How? What if 2 or more balls are falling for every 1 ball that is raised?
But that 1 ball is raised BEFORE the falling balls reach the bottom?
Then we would run out of balls at the bottom, but that would be fine because we always have a supply at the top.
Critical to this is transferring the balls from descending to ascending and vice-versa as rapidly as possible.
I've done some simple calculations which indicate in my arrangement that there would be periods in the cycle where forces would tend to reverse the wheel rotation,
but flywheel momentum could possibly overcome it. That makes me think about Bessler's wheel too, because some initial energy was imparted to the wheel to get it going.