Re: First Law????

[Chuck Britton <britton@ODIE.NCSSM.EDU>]

> On Sat, 23 Jan 1999, Donald E. Simanek wrote:
>
> > Here's a first quick stab at a gravity shield motor.
> >
> > Load up a Ferris Wheel with as much mass as feasable.
> > Position the wheel so that one side of the wheel is shielded and the other
> > half is not.
> >
> > 'Clearly' the shielded side will rise because is has less 'weight' than the
> > unshielded side.
> >
> > Put a generator on the axis and away we GO!
>
> If your partially gravity-shielded Ferris wheel *did* rotate, through
> angle theta, what would be its change in potential energy during this
> process? Zero. So why do you think it *would* rotate?
>
> There's always as much mass moving into the shielded side as is leaving
> the shielded side.

But we're IGNORING any sideways forces.

Lifting a loaded bucket in the shielded area gives it LESS GPE than the
loaded bucket OUTSIDE the shielding loooses in coming down. If the
shielding is 50% effective then fully HALF of the GPE lost by the outside
bucket could be used to drive the generator.

nicht wahr?

now maybe the spoke's lengths are effected a bit as they pass through the
shield, so it might not be QUITE that effective.

It's no accident that stressed          Chuck Britton
spelled backwards is desserts.          britton@odie.ncssm.edu