The more science I know, the less I know

[Simpo Two]

skwdenyer said:

If you lift a mass up above the floor, you’ve imparted potential energy to the mass. Conservation of energy means there must be an equal and opposite negative potential energy for the floor itself.

I get it. Negative potential energy is antigravity!

I have long mused on building myself an anti-gravity machine. Gravity holds us down, but centrifugal force is trying to throw us up. Fortunately it's not strong enough. All my machine needs to do is concentrate the centrifugal force from a greater area into the area of the machine, such that gravity is first neutralised and them ovecome - and up she goes!

[Cryssys]

Simpo Two said:

I get it. Negative potential energy is antigravity!

I have long mused on building myself an anti-gravity machine. Gravity holds us down, but centrifugal force is trying to throw us up. Fortunately it's not strong enough. All my machine needs to do is concentrate the centrifugal force from a greater area into the area of the machine, such that gravity is first neutralised and them ovecome - and up she goes!

Sounds great! I think this has potential.

Let me know if you need any investors.

[skwdenyer]

Simpo Two said:

skwdenyer said:

If you lift a mass up above the floor, you’ve imparted potential energy to the mass. Conservation of energy means there must be an equal and opposite negative potential energy for the floor itself.

I get it. Negative potential energy is antigravity!

I have long mused on building myself an anti-gravity machine. Gravity holds us down, but centrifugal force is trying to throw us up. Fortunately it's not strong enough. All my machine needs to do is concentrate the centrifugal force from a greater area into the area of the machine, such that gravity is first neutralised and them ovecome - and up she goes!

As Douglas Adams wrote, flying is easy - you just have to throw yourself at the floor and miss...

[Simpo Two]

Cryssys said:

Sounds great! I think this has potential.

Let me know if you need any investors.

Thanks for the offer! £1M would help me get some construction plans drawn up.

skwdenyer said:

As Douglas Adams wrote, flying is easy - you just have to throw yourself at the floor and miss...

The issue is more of control - you don't want to be zooming upwards at an angle or in a wind, leave the uplift zone and fall to to the ground. Weightlessness is great but not in that context. So the first tests would be in a vertical tube (with some catch netting at the top in case it works really well).

[Cryssys]

Simpo Two said:

The issue is more of control - you don't want to be zooming upwards at an angle or in a wind, leave the uplift zone and fall to to the ground. Weightlessness is great but not in that context. So the first tests would be in a vertical tube (with some catch netting at the top in case it works really well).

I can see that you have given this considerable thought and I appreciate your health and safety awareness. Please send me a copy of your risk assessment/method statement for review.

I'm working on the £1m but I need to know that you're serious about this and not just some fly by night con merchant.

Would you prefer cash or beans?

[Simpo Two]

Cryssys said:

I can see that you have given this considerable thought and I appreciate your health and safety awareness. Please send me a copy of your risk assessment/method statement for review.

H&S is a good point and one I hadn't considered. Fortunately, centrifugal force acts the same on any mass, man or potato, which means we can get some real-time data with a sack of potatoes before trying a human. Thanks for the idea.

Cryssys said:

I'm working on the £1m but I need to know that you're serious about this and not just some fly by night con merchant.

Would you prefer cash or beans?

You can pay in installments if it helps. Bank transfer is fine; and as a little thankyou for your assistance we can affix a small plaque to the base of the machine saying 'Sponsored by Cryssys plc'.

[skwdenyer]

Simpo Two said:

Cryssys said:

I can see that you have given this considerable thought and I appreciate your health and safety awareness. Please send me a copy of your risk assessment/method statement for review.

H&S is a good point and one I hadn't considered. Fortunately, centrifugal force acts the same on any mass, man or potato, which means we can get some real-time data with a sack of potatoes before trying a human. Thanks for the idea.

Cryssys said:

I'm working on the £1m but I need to know that you're serious about this and not just some fly by night con merchant.

Would you prefer cash or beans?

You can pay in installments if it helps. Bank transfer is fine; and as a little thankyou for your assistance we can affix a small plaque to the base of the machine saying 'Sponsored by Cryssys plc'.

I can't wait to see how the laws of physics as we know them are applied to a device designed to decouple the "centrifugal force" acting on a mass from the gravitational force acting on it.

Given the rotating frame of reference, I'll also be keen to learn how this machine will cause the human (or vegetable) to go straight up in opposition to the law of conservation of momentum.

If you can crack those then, yes, you're definitely on to something!

[Cryssys]

Simpo Two said:

little thankyou for your assistance we can affix a small plaque to the base of the machine saying 'Sponsored by Cryssys plc'.

Whad'ya mean "a small plaque". I had you down as a gentleman and intellectual not some bloody cheapskate!

I'm out!

[Flying Phil]

skwdenyer said:

Gravitational Potential Energy is always negative, because positive work must be done on a mass to counter it.

If you lift a mass up above the floor, you’ve imparted potential energy to the mass. Conservation of energy means there must be an equal and opposite negative potential energy for the floor itself.

This holds in all cases. Take the mass millions of miles away from the Earth (so out of Earth’s gravitational field) and the gravitational pull of Earth has been permanently reduced (thanks to GmM/r^2 above).

But I thought that the Potential energy increase of the mass came from the means of lifting it ie the Chemical energy of the person lifting?