my mates perpetual motion machine!!?

Question

so there's the obvious drawbacks which i may list later if i have the characters but the idea runs thus...
we know that a theoretical incompressible rod of incredible length when pushed at one end would not move at the other immediately (if it were a lightyear long then the movement would take more time than the light took to get to the other end). imagine this rod were formed in a slightly incomplete circle with ends A and B. if A were pushed in a circular motion the long way round to B. before that movement had travelled to end B a filler is placed between A and B (completing the circle) would the eventual movement in B then force A round further again moving B and resulting in continuous motion? i realise the limitations of this idea in terms of size, friction etc. but has it been theorised before?

what really!!!? it cant work? my god!!! better stop building this big hoop. wanna give some reasons rather than just stubbornly sayin no.

perpetual motion, not lookin to harness any power.
as i said obvious assumptions have been made. i disagree that the delay in B is due to compression but more like a delay in the transmission of new 'data' - momentum passed from one atom to the next (yes i know this is not conservable) kind of an update in placement in spacetime

Answer 1

What you are describing is no more remarkable than orbital motion of planets. The same phenomena which would eventually cause a planetary orbit to decay would cause this machine to slow down

Answer 2

Incompressible implies that movement will occur at A & B at the same time. If you have movement at A before B then the length of the rod is shorter hence it is compressible.

So if the rod is truely incompressible then you can never add your filler piece. So your perpetual motion won't work.

If the rod is compressed and then you can put in a filler piece then the deformation of compression converts some of the energy into heat due to internal friction therefore your total energy will disspipate over time and the thing will stop moving.

Answer 3

For starters, the incompressible bit runs against the notion that the B end moves some time after A is moved. The delay in the motion is due to compression, which is a function of the speed of sound in the medium (the stuff the rod is made of).
And no substance is therefore perfectly and totally incompressible, as this would mean a speed of sound that would be infinite.

Answer 4

what force is applied to bending the hoop? all teh hoop does is store energy as tensile compression, if the beam cannot absorb the energy it will distort and buckle, and thus absorb the forces applied. your basically riding a shockwave, and its echoes..and good old entropy says no no no... we cant have this, and obeys the laws of physics and eventually the harmonics disspate the energy into space as heat.

and if i push a beam of light at one end, it can compress, but light offers no resistance, use a solid beam, and if i push at A, it will move at B instantly, unless i use enough force to induce a harmonic wave, without the distortions bucking the beam, and absorbing the energy, and essentially stopping the signal... its damped out.

plug a bit of wire into a plug and touch it... BANG, you get thrown across the room... (silly sod for trying it) roll a wire out half a mile or so, and youll be lucky to register power.. in this instance its resistance, which generates heat, and destroys the materials capacity to do work, whichis to conduct energy from A to B.

and maybe perpeptual motion machines are impossible, but didnt someone say man would never fly... and it gives us older folks the opportunity to engage a few more synapses and fight off the alzheimers... but i might already be too late...

Answer 5

It cannot work, sorry. Ask those nice people at Steorn about OU devices...they are still trying to tell us they can overcome the first law of thermodynamics

Answer 6

The device described might spin indefinitely, but there is no source of energy to keep it spinning if you attempt to draw power from it.