Magnets In Motion

Today there was an interesting discussion in the forums debating Sean's claim of orbo's power density at around 0.5 watts per cubic centimeter. pcstru4 starts the thread off:

The probability of them breaking CoE might still be 0.000001% but the probability of 0.5w per cc using only the motive forces of even the most powerful rare earth magnets, is 0. Steorn's claim of 0.5w per cc is simply false in any configuration, stop/start or continous motion. Fact.

I haven't taken the time to do the math, so I can't say one way or the other if this is "Fact" or not. WhiteLite did a little digging and had this to say:

OK, I've seen figures of 2.5W/cc for electric motors, (which contain electromagnets and therefore magnets with field that can be switched on/off), so if we assume that permenant magnets can be more powerful than electromagnets for the same size and that Steorn's device doesn't have to rely on permenant magnets being "switched off" I think a figure of 0.5W/cc is easily reasonable.

cyrilsmith had some thoughts and a suggested experiment:

Something wrong with your math there. Forget about acceleration, just measure force.v distance. I have some NdFe magnets that are 25mm dia and 5mm thick, magnetized along the thickness direction. I can place these in a tube glued upright to the bench, put two magnets in opposing each other.

And finally Dr. Mike puts all of this into perspective:

Hi JiO,

I don't think there's any problem with physics. I do not think power density is useful, energy density is far more useful. It doesn't really matter how much time it takes to get the energy out, what matters is how much is there.

It takes energy to create a magnetic field. It takes energy to create a mountain lake. Once formed, the energy can be extracted later. Using a water wheel with a magnet tied to it you can create electricity. Using electricity and a superconductor, you can create a powerful magnetic field.

I don't think the power density claim is valid either, but I also don't think it really matters. There's no such thing as "free energy" or "over unity" or "perpetual motion". I'm really not to worried about "paradigm shifts".

It's unclear if pcstru4 was off on his calculations, or if anyone has reached an agreement on the topic. It's always fun though to read about other people's experiments with N42 grade neo magnets.

If there are past threads that you found interesting, let me know. I have a feeling we'll be focused on the past over the next couple of months while we wait for the July Demo.