Magnetic Engine, and how the universe is a jerk

[Jonluw]

If you're planning to keep living in this world you're going to have to get used to people having thought of things before you.

I remember I thought I was sooo smart back when I got the idea that maybe all people didn't perceive colours the same way.

Fun idea expanding on that: What if someone's optic nerve isn't calibrated right, so they see everything upside-down? They wouldn't know.

Hmmmm...

I'm trying to figure out the exact mechanics of this now. My mind is breaking.
When you turn your head(eyes) upside down, assuming you manage to keep the exact same field in your vision, is your brain sent the exact same image as before - then continuing to use input from gravity to interpret it as upside down, or does your retina have an 'up' side and a 'down' side that all images are registered with one side up and one side down?

If the latter assumption is right, I think they might be able to notice in regard to one thing though: Even blind people can move their limbs quite accurately. Our senses allow us to know how we are moving despite not seeing our limbs. A person with "upside down" eyes would perhaps notice that the input from the eyes does not correlate to the input from the other senses. Move hand up, hand goes down. However, there is no way for him to know this isn't how it's supposed to work...

Eeeehh...
This person would undoubtedly be very clumsy though, since his senses don't correlate.

I think what needs to be done is to pick an eye out of its socket, while keeping it attached to the head still, and then rotate it around an axis that goes along the optical nerve. That way we could see if the person perceived it as the image input being turned upside down, or if it's not important where on your retina the light falls.

OT: As for actually clever ideas for creating energy. Here's a good one. Salt power [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmotic_power].
Do you have a river running out into the sea? Do you remember the concept of osmosis from high school? Then you're in luck.
If you have a container separated into two compartments by a semi-permeable membrane, you can let fresh water from the river into one compartment and salt water from the sea into the other. Osmosis means water from the fresh water half of the container will travel over to the salt water half. This causes pressure to rise in the salt water part of the container. When you release the pressure it can be used to drive a turbine.

That's a simplified version at least.

Our eyes already correct up and down automatically, the image is reversed through the refraction through the eyes, and hits your retina upside down. Your brain simply makes it the right way up (Based on gravity, I think, not so sure)

I know the image is projected upside down on our retina, but what I'm trying to figure out is if there is some mechanism in our eyes/brain that interprets te image and keeps track of what is up or down in relative to our body (so that when you lie on your side, sideways is "up") or if all the directional interpretation of the image that reaches our brain is attributable to gravity.

I know a person floating in space won't feel upside down if he has his head pointed towards earth, but I would assume the image he sees is still interpreted with "up" being the direction his head points in. i.e. he wouldn't be able to read upside down even though he has no gravity to tell him what's up and down. Which would mean there is some mechanism in the retina or brain that causes the light that hits the lower part of the retina to be interpreted as coming from "up".

 

[Randomspike]

Even if you could somehow get past the problems of friction and air resistance, perpetual motion with magnets is still impossible due to Lenz's law ("An induced current is always in such a direction as to oppose the motion or change causing it").

 

[Lukeje]

If you're planning to keep living in this world you're going to have to get used to people having thought of things before you.

I remember I thought I was sooo smart back when I got the idea that maybe all people didn't perceive colours the same way.

Fun idea expanding on that: What if someone's optic nerve isn't calibrated right, so they see everything upside-down? They wouldn't know.

Everyone does see things upside down. The body recalibrates (as has been shown in many experiments and studies).

 

[Zantos]

Magnets aren't the answer to everything. Physics has a nasty habit of spoiling fun.

You could try and figure out a way to use a cavity to extract zero point energy, that'd be a fun use of an afternoon

 

[Quaxar]

Perpetual motion is impossible to use as an energy source (it's not impossible in and of itself though, because of the third law of thermodynamics. A particle will always have a temperature, and thus some kinetic energy).

Care to explain? Because I seem to not quite be able to get it. How does the third law of thermodynamics allow for perpetual motion?

Now unless I get you wrong and you are implying that an atom in itself is more or less a perpetual-motion-machine.

 

[Redingold]

Perpetual motion is impossible to use as an energy source (it's not impossible in and of itself though, because of the third law of thermodynamics. A particle will always have a temperature, and thus some kinetic energy).

Care to explain? Because I seem to not quite be able to get it. How does the third law of thermodynamics allow for perpetual motion?

Now unless I get you wrong and you are implying that an atom in itself is more or less a perpetual-motion-machine.

Everything that has a temperature vibrates, yes? That's what temperature is. 0 kelvin is where these vibrations stop, but the third law of thermodynamics says you can't get to 0 kelvin, so there will always be some slight thermal motion. Hence, perpetual motion. You can't use it to do anything, though.

 

[Quaxar]

Perpetual motion is impossible to use as an energy source (it's not impossible in and of itself though, because of the third law of thermodynamics. A particle will always have a temperature, and thus some kinetic energy).

Care to explain? Because I seem to not quite be able to get it. How does the third law of thermodynamics allow for perpetual motion?

Now unless I get you wrong and you are implying that an atom in itself is more or less a perpetual-motion-machine.

Everything that has a temperature vibrates, yes? That's what temperature is. 0 kelvin is where these vibrations stop, but the third law of thermodynamics says you can't get to 0 kelvin, so there will always be some slight thermal motion. Hence, perpetual motion. You can't use it to do anything, though.

Aight, I was hoping you were referring to atomic/subatomic motion and not some kind of whacky device.
Problem solved.

 

[Melon Hunter]

Perpetual motion is impossible to use as an energy source (it's not impossible in and of itself though, because of the third law of thermodynamics. A particle will always have a temperature, and thus some kinetic energy).

Care to explain? Because I seem to not quite be able to get it. How does the third law of thermodynamics allow for perpetual motion?

Now unless I get you wrong and you are implying that an atom in itself is more or less a perpetual-motion-machine.

Everything that has a temperature vibrates, yes? That's what temperature is. 0 kelvin is where these vibrations stop, but the third law of thermodynamics says you can't get to 0 kelvin, so there will always be some slight thermal motion. Hence, perpetual motion. You can't use it to do anything, though.

That's a bit different; the Third Law states that the entropy of a crystal at absolute zero will be zero. As you can't completely remove entropy from a system, this means there will always be residual heat energy in a molecule so true absolute zero is impossible to reach by refrigeration. Perpetual motion machines are usually undone by the Second Law, in particular the Clausius statement that states that you cannot construct a device that can convert all of the heat from a heat source into work; i.e. an engine will always have <100% efficiency as it must lose some energy to the surroundings by air resistance, friction, etc.

 

[Redingold]

Perpetual motion is impossible to use as an energy source (it's not impossible in and of itself though, because of the third law of thermodynamics. A particle will always have a temperature, and thus some kinetic energy).

Care to explain? Because I seem to not quite be able to get it. How does the third law of thermodynamics allow for perpetual motion?

Now unless I get you wrong and you are implying that an atom in itself is more or less a perpetual-motion-machine.

Everything that has a temperature vibrates, yes? That's what temperature is. 0 kelvin is where these vibrations stop, but the third law of thermodynamics says you can't get to 0 kelvin, so there will always be some slight thermal motion. Hence, perpetual motion. You can't use it to do anything, though.

That's a bit different; the Third Law states that the entropy of a crystal at absolute zero will be zero. As you can't completely remove entropy from a system, this means there will always be residual heat energy in a molecule so true absolute zero is impossible to reach by refrigeration. Perpetual motion machines are usually undone by the Second Law, in particular the Clausius statement that states that you cannot construct a device that can convert all of the heat from a heat source into work; i.e. an engine will always have <100% efficiency as it must lose some energy to the surroundings by air resistance, friction, etc.

Am I still correct in that a particle at almost 0 is still vibrating and is thus an example of perpetual motion?

 

[Olrod]

It may be perpetual motion, but it's unable to transfer any of that kinetic energy into anything else, so it doesn't really count.

 

[lacktheknack]

If you're planning to keep living in this world you're going to have to get used to people having thought of things before you.

I remember I thought I was sooo smart back when I got the idea that maybe all people didn't perceive colours the same way.

Fun idea expanding on that: What if someone's optic nerve isn't calibrated right, so they see everything upside-down? They wouldn't know.

Everyone does see things upside down. The body recalibrates (as has been shown in many experiments and studies).

Hence the "not calibrated tight" bit in my idea.

 

[Buzz Killington_v1legacy]

George Stratton started experimenting with the upside-down vision idea (using special glasses) back in the 1890s. What happens is that the body adjusts after a few days and starts seeing things the right way...then as soon as the glasses are removed, the process repeats itself in the other direction and soon the subject is seeing normally again.