Posted by Nick Hall (195.74.122.243) on May 08, 2003 at 03:28:27:
In Reply to: VITW posted by D.Me on May 07, 2003 at 16:51:31:
D.Me wrote regarding the VITW claim to a working model:
: Actually all you would ever need to do is just go to your local paper and the news would spread like wildfire, that much is very obvious. Reason primo for not believing it to work for those who can't see why it won't work.
My problem is that I am not sure this is true...
For example, the Finsrud device clearly "works", in tabloid speak it "keeps going" - there are video clips and pages about it all over the net.
Yet no-one from the mainstream scientific community has, to my knowledge, made a big deal about this or said "Well, so PM is possible after all...".
In fact it is arguable that the Finsrud device actually confirms sceptics in their belief because:
-- it does stop occasionally
-- it is clearly very accurately balanced and it is impossible to isolate it from unforseen potential energy sources.
I haven't studied it carefully but I suspect that it is basically something which is so carefully balanced, that fluctuations in the earth's magnetic field, temperature, solar radiation etc etc etc, can at one time all work in favour of continued rotation and at other times work against it. If this is the case, then the positive and negative influences of all the possible sources (if you were able to isolate and graph them) would be akin to a chaotic plot in which there are regions of slightly positive net forces and at other times slightly negative. The average over a very very long period of time would approximate to zero, but in the short term give the _appearance_ of "O/U" behaviour.
In any event it is obvious that Finsrud, unlike Bessler's wheel, cannot immediately be harnessed into providing useful and obvious output energy.
This last point is the touchstone for all claimed devices. For example, VITW has so far declined to answer some very basic questions which are central:
-- How long does it turn for?
-- Does it stop? And if so, does it always stop after approximately the same time period? - (assuming a constant amount of work to start it).
-- Can you extract output energy while it keeps working?
Notice the second point: "work" - not just "perceived force in your hands" or even "energy".
It is very easy to make simple mechanical systems which behave differently given different initial impetuses (sp. impeti???) with different amounts of work.
Work is the rate of 'flow' of energy. A given mechanical device can be given an initial input of X joules over Y seconds which equates to Z watts (joules per second). Or you can input X joules over Y/2 seconds to yield 2Z watts. The input energy is the same but the 'rate of input' of initial energy is different and you will often observe different mechanical behaviours in nearly balanced systems, particularly ones involving springs, but which for all that are not gravity sustained (as with Besslers).
I am fairly sure this is what is happening with VITW - he admits that it behaves differently if you give it a larger shove at the start etc...
Nick