Posted by Jonathan (68.14.212.239) on October 18, 2003 at 02:52:47:
I think that I've determined that the COG device shown in simplified animation in the upper right corner here:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kuenstler-energie.de%2F&langpair=de%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools
doesn't work. I made a simple model out of legos and there was no overbalancing. If I did recreate it succesfully, then I think the reason it doesn't work is that though the weight is eccentric, it's forced to exert its weight at the pivot regardless of postion. If this is true then the device should be no different than having the same length arms shown with same weight shown (but uniform density, which is different than shown) and masses connected at the same pivots as shown. This is what the experiment seems to indicate.