Well generally it will be found through many different setups and experiments that if you remove the sticky spot at one point, it reappears somewhere else in the system... sometimes in a different form.

Generally magnetism should be considered a conservative form of energy (in its simplest state... there are oddities to magnetism that make it not so, but in its general nature it is). This means that, while a magnet will attract a metal ball or another magnet with seemingly no energy input, it will require energy be "put back in" to the magnet in order for this energy to be useful.


Think of it like this: the metal ball will have a potential energy whilst at rest at a certain distance away from the magnet. Since there is friction, the ball is kept in place if far enough away from the magnet. But once the ball gets close enough, the magnet will convert this potential into kinetic (movement) energy, until the ball gets stuck to the magnet.

When the ball gets stuck to the magnet, it is in a state of zero-potential energy, and maximal-static kinetic energy (in a way... the ball isn't moving per se, but the normal force of the ball pushing off of the magnet is equal to the kinetic energy  the ball would have if the magnetic field of the magnet was there, but the magnet itself was not).

Therefore, in order to remove the ball, you must return the potential energy to the ball by pulling it away.


The problem with this is that no energy is gained. You have merely sent the ball on a magnetic form of a roller-coaster hill. The ball gains kinetic energy, losing potential. Then it gets stuck to the magnet. Then you add the potential back to the ball by pulling it away.

Similarly a roller-coaster car has potential when resting on top a hill, gains kinetic whilst going down, losing potential. And then regains the potential when it rises to the next crest of the next hill.

In both cases the net energy gain is 0.


-^THIS^- is what everyone forgets about when making SMOT's or other types of magnetic overunity toys.

Whilst the ball may go up an incline, the ball still gets stuck at the sticky point, but gravity is what re-adds potential energy to ball instead of your hand pulling it away. The net energy gained is still 0, regardless of what re-adds the potential.

Ofcourse there are anomalies, there always are and there always have been. And this what we have to explore in depth. Perhaps gravity-based potential energy is somehow "lead out" (Tseung's Theory) of the system by the ball.

Just my two cents.

And thats the heuristic many people seem to be stuck on:

Whilst yes, metal objects and other magnets do move towards other magnets, the energy gained MUST be put back into the system (as potential) at some point in time. And thats the catch. Nature doesn't know nor does it care when you pull the ball away from the magnet, but only cares that eventually it must be (or until the universe implodes/explodes or ball&magnet are vaporized or something).

Yes in theory you could make a magnetic generator by continually supplying steel balls to a magnetic field to which they are attracted, but eventually the field will become saturated and you will run out of room to put more balls.

Think of magnets as a "credit card" for energy. You can take energy out of the bank now, but eventually you'll have to pay it back (in the form of potential).

And that's what its conservative. You can gain energy temporarily, but in order for that energy gained to be considered a net gain, it will have to be more than the energy required to remove the object from the magnetic field.

And this is what people struggle with their whole lives, trying to figure out a loophole. There very well may be, but its most likely not going to be simple, or it would already have been discovered and exploited. Sure there may be little energy gains here and there, but they would measure only very little, and be insignificant in practical applications.


As for why people have problems with SMOTs: just like with any other fickety analog device, they must be tuned properly. They're generally not something you can just whip together willy nilly. Usually some math goes into it and precision machining usually helps too.

You can not misconstrue electromagnetic raditaion with electromagnetic fields.

Radiation, like you said, *is* energy. It can do work, and it is not conservative. Photons are quanta of this energy, and must be created from some source: excited electrons moving down energy levels. These electrons cannot excite themselves out of nothing. Some energy must be given to them in order for them to be able to jump and fall energy levels.


Magnetic fields, on the other hand, are merely the result of the orbits and rotation of the electrons themselves.

Yes you are right, I should have said "electromagnetic radiation" not "electromagnetism".

Magnetic fields, on the other hand, are merely the result of the orbits and rotation of the electrons themselves.

Yes that is right, but I being a pseudoscientific, perpetual motion hunting, UFO believing nut on a wild goose chase, disagree. I think that energy is used up when creating a field, and I feel the need to hang onto this otherwise I would probably stop trying to achieve perpetual motion...lol. Of course that is just my wild opinion.

By the way, the electrons do not "orbit" the nucleus, as according to the uncertainty principle, we cannot measure both the position and velocity of a particle, and the electrons have a certain probability to be in any spot at any time, and therefore we cannot say it orbits the nucleus(I just couldn't resist  ).

They're generally not something you can just whip together willy nilly. Usually some math goes into it and precision machining usually helps too.

Actually... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMb0OqK6gx8

Hehe, alright. Well you're correct. The Heisenberg principle does state that they more-or-less form a "cloud" around the nucleus.

@Paul-R

Gauss weapons and projectile accelerators can do work because the fields they produce are not static, and therefore not always conservative. One must also put energy into the system to create these temporary fields.

But good point nevertheless. It also reminded me of a video I saw of magnetic balls lined up in pairs of two. When one steel ball was placed at the beginning of the line, it would be attracted to a pair, and on contact, the energy would be transfered to the magnet ball on the other side of the pair (like a newtons cradle), sending another ball down the path, continuing this reaction, until finally the last pair gets a moving ball, and the last ball of the last pair is flung out with a considerable amount of force.

This is in theory a gauss cannon also. The interactions involved are still conservative nevertheless. You've merely taken a large amount of "money" out of the magnetic "bank", and you're going to have to pay it back some time. In order to reset the system, you'll have to separate all the magnets back into their original pairs, and the energy required to do this is equal to the amount of energy the last ball of the system acquired when it was launched out.

Yeah, basically the sticky spot, if you happen to be able to get the ball to fall, is to get the ball back to the beginning to close the loop.

The sticky spot the ball manages to get by at the end of the track removes any of the horizontal velocity of the ball, so the only way to get the ball back to the beginning of the track is to somehow give the ball extra horizontal velocity, which in this case may be provided by making another downward slope. But now you're faced with getting the ball back up to the original height of the track, and since friction will take away some of the energy, the ball won't be able to make it. This is why closing the loop is posing so much of a problem for SMOT experimenters.


So basically even if you take the sticky spot away on the magnetic side of the SMOT, it will return in the form of opposing gravity and friction.