> I guess its because I offer my services in industrial design and related
> consulting, I get the question on magnetic motors quite frequently...
> I always try to be very careful reminding people about the laws of
> physics specifically thermodynamics that seem to have established quite
> convincingly that there will always be more losses than gains ( I take the
> time to remind people then that renewable energy harvesting is a
> more promising investment of time )...
>
> Anyhow I might try to explain that you can't use a magnet to attract
> a heightened magnetic field, and then just somehow to be coerced to drop
> that field and let some other magnetic power deliver the new superior
> desire to turn in the same direction...
> Completely impossible - and then to add something of value I might
> speculate what if it ever could be developed could get a desired effect
> like that? What if like an FET controlled with very little energy
> investment something could influence instead of the flow of current the
> 'flow' of the magnetic field? What if a components para-magnetic properties
> could be controlled? There might be physical difficulties but why shouldn't
> it be possible to have a controlling voltage have superior effect over a
> magnetic dielectric material ?
>
> Any thought provoked were fully intended ;)
> Let it flow, I want to know!
>
> Tobias

> I guess its because I offer my services in industrial design and related
> consulting, I get the question on magnetic motors quite frequently...
> I always try to be very careful reminding people about the laws of
> physics specifically thermodynamics that seem to have established quite
> convincingly that there will always be more losses than gains ( I take the
> time to remind people then that renewable energy harvesting is a
> more promising investment of time )...
>
> Anyhow I might try to explain that you can't use a magnet to attract
> a heightened magnetic field, and then just somehow to be coerced to drop
> that field and let some other magnetic power deliver the new superior
> desire to turn in the same direction...
> Completely impossible - and then to add something of value I might
> speculate what if it ever could be developed could get a desired effect
> like that? What if like an FET controlled with very little energy
> investment something could influence instead of the flow of current the
> 'flow' of the magnetic field? What if a components para-magnetic properties
> could be controlled? There might be physical difficulties but why shouldn't
> it be possible to have a controlling voltage have superior effect over a
> magnetic dielectric material ?
>
> Any thought provoked were fully intended ;)
> Let it flow, I want to know!
>
>

>> I believe that the time will come when magnetism, like gravity, is an
>> explainable event
> Presumably that means that "magnetism will be ..., like gravity will be ...."
> ie "will be" in both cases :-).
> "Mediated by gravitons" does not yet sit quite comfortably.
>
>> that can
>> be discussed at the dinner table with the 6-year-old twins, just like
>> the weather is now.
> Here we find the fine distinction between "can be discussed" and "is
> explainable without a much larger super-computer than has yet been
> conceived of" :-).
> That said, people have been doing a very good job for a very long time
> of getting it right often enough when it mattered - one such excellent
> example being  J M Stagg*, no doubt aided by an with invisible coterie
> of able and unseen helpers in place of the then  non-existent
> (super)computer, but clearly very much aware of how the arcane system
> worked, more or less. That it was more than less on the occasion that
> mattered means that I am writing this in English.
>
>> I also believe that- in time- mankind will finally abandon foolishness
>> like nuclear-generated&
>> coal- or oil-generated electricity, and capture it from the sun, as God
>> intended.
> Reminds me of a rocket-ship quote - " Takes off and lands rear end
> first, as God and Robert Heinlein intended".
>
> Assuming all the standard models are correct (although the guys at
> CERN look liable to destroy that assumption in the not too distant
> future as their Higgs window shrinks to zero width) then all our
> energy comes from the sun. Some takes longer to get here. We have lots
> of Hydro power here, which is relatively short path. PV is a bit too
> short path by itself, clouds and night causing it problems. Wind is
> reasonably short path, but the path is a bit meandering, unless you
> find somewhere unusual. (Altimont Pass, offshore, ...).  Anything
> above Iron is Star fabricated (providing standard model ... etc) and
> stuff below Iron is part processed raw material on its way to being
> iron. Hydrogen is the arguable exception (assuming ex Nihilo processes
> do not constitute being a star :-). Radioactives (see above iron),
> coal, oil - yep. Trees etc - proto coal. Bio fuels.  Solar energy
> drives the lot.
> But of course we all know all this.
>
> I suspect we may yet extend the lunacy with Lunar Helium. TBD. it
> needs third stage fusion and so far we have been trying for 50 years
> to get stage one viable. By the time we can use lunar Helium space
> assess will either be trivially easy (beanstalks, ...) or all but
> impossible.
>
>> I hope mankind survives long enough.
>
> Amen.
>
>
>      Russell
>
>
>
>
> * More fun for Jack if I don't give a reference ;-)