Steorn's measurement mistake

[exnihiloest]

I did not follow Steorn's Orbo closely and do not know what you mean by that.
What was the error in their interpretation of their results?

It's a long story. I was speaking of the Steorn's motor. I recall the alleged  principle: rotating permanent magnets are attracted towards the ferrite cores of toroid coils on a stator. By suitable pulses at the right time, the saturation of the cores reduce the permeability, and so the magnetic force when the magnets move away from the toroids is weaker than when they move forward, giving a net energy gain. As the energy for saturating the cores is presumed to be independent of the energy involved in the magnetic attraction, it could be less, giving OU.

Steorn calculated the useful electrical energy for pulsing the coils: it's the provided electrical energy minus the Joule losses in the resistance, minus the "iron loss" in the ferrite, minus the difference of energy stored in/recovered from the inductance between the start and the end of the pulse if the inductance has changed in between due to the change of permeability.
Steorn knew the coil resistance, inductance, they measured the "iron losses" in the ferrite,  and so, they could say that once you have removed the losses, the useful energy provided to saturate the ferrites is less than the energy that rotates the motor.

The mistake of their measurement interpretation consisted in having taken into account among the losses, the useful energy!

When a permanent magnet approaches a ferrite toroid, the magnetic flux penetrates it and loops through a section of the toroid. When you pulse the coil, the flux from the coil in this section superposes to the flux from the magnet. They add or subtract, depending on their relative direction. The  flux becomes no more uniform along the whole toroid, and so is also the permeability. The toroid is no more toroidal from a magnetic viewpoint. The coil flux being conservative, this means that there is a flux leakage outside, around the section of less permeability (I can develop this point is necessary). This outside field is the magnetic field that powers the motor at the price of the Lentz law that applies now due to the toroid partly open.

From the viewpoint of the measurement, the "counter-voltage" from the Lenz law is not distinguishable from an iron loss  and so, Steorn counted it as a loss instead of the real energy for rotating the motor.

Nevertheless their motor has been instructive for me, when I discovered that the saturation of a ferromagnetic core applies only along the lines of the saturating field:




In other words, this means that to saturate a material and for the saturation to have an effect on a controlled flux, the controlling flux must be colinear with the controlled flux. Therefore the sources of the two fields are coupled and interact with eachother. The work done to control the direction of the magnetic domains by the saturating field opposes the work done by the controlled field, the laws of conservation (momentum, energy) and Lenz law apply, as in all other parametric devices.

[GibbsHelmholtz]

Here is a simple thought experiment.

We have two magnets attracting each other.  A spring is put in between and get compressed.  After reaching equilibrium, we do an energy analysis.

Work spring + magnet energy = 0

So magnet has done work on the spring.  The total energy of the magnet is less.  Does this mean the magnet gets weaker or does it replenish itself and stay the same.

[Paul-R]

Here is a simple thought experiment.

We have two magnets attracting each other.  A spring is put in between and get compressed.  After reaching equilibrium, we do an energy analysis.

Work spring + magnet energy = 0

So magnet has done work on the spring.  The total energy of the magnet is less.  Does this mean the magnet gets weaker or does it replenish itself and stay the same.

You need to account for the potential energy in the compressed spring.

[GibbsHelmholtz]

You need to account for the potential energy in the compressed spring.

Thanks Paul-R,

You're right, I'm getting ahead of myself.  It should be

Work in + spring potential energy = 0

Work in = spring potential energy.  Then we ask what provide energy for work in and how.

[GibbsHelmholtz]

I think I've solved the magnet energy problem.

Suppose we have two magnet attracting each other from far away.  The rest mass of the system is the sum of two magnet.  As it accelerate to each other, it gains kinetic energy.  If energy being dissipated and pass the system boundary, mass is being loss.  Magnet energy is mass energy equivalence.  Kinda redundant because doesn't everything? lol  But what interesting is attracting magnet have less mass than repulsing magnets when being push together.

The picture shown two magnet far apart within the boundary condition.  As it come close together and smash, energy being released.  If the boundary contain these energy, mass is not changed.  As energy leaving the boundary, total mass of the system decreases.  Like a nucleus mass vs individual component mass in an atom.

[GibbsHelmholtz]

Now I have to go to a puzzling issue.

As the example stands, the energy release when two magnet attracting each other is shared by both magnets, is it not?  If we replace one with an electromagnet, then does the resulting kinetic energy still shared by both parties?  If so, the electromagnet doesn't entirely responsible for the total kinetic energy.

[Allcanadian]

@Gibbs

It may help to apply what we know rather than what we see, feel and measure. As well we have made similar mistakes in the past when everyone thought the Sun revolved around the Earth. It is obvious the Sun rises in the East and sets in the West and any logical person could conclude that it revolves around the Earth from our perspective but this is not the case. We have been misled by our senses and created a false reality to justify our perspective regardless of the truth in it.

What do we know?, we know the force between two magnets is not solely a function of the magnets because matter does not have the capacity to act through a distance we consider to be empty, that is devoid of matter. Thus we can say the properties of the matter present in a magnet may be the cause of the forces present but it is not the effect which is the force in itself, the magnetic field.

Now consider two magnets in supposed attraction, we know Energy moves from high to low and travels the path of least resistance so where is the lower energy density?. If we have two magnets then it must be between them somewhere otherwise there would be no force causing motion. In fact if we measure the field density we will find an area between the magnets having no magnetism, that is the field density is zero. Thus we know why the forces cause the magnets to move towards one another and in fact the magnets are not "attracted" to one another, that is absurd. Both magnets move towards the point of lowest energy density nearest to them which is the point where the two fields meet between the magnets, the neutral center. The magnets were never attracted to one another but forced to move to the lower energy state, the neutral center, between them.

If we want to understand why two magnets supposedly repel one another we can reverse the equation. If the highest field density is now between the magnets and we know it is because we can measure it then we know the reason why the magnets move apart. If Energy moves from high to low then the higher field density between the magnets is the reason both magnets move towards a lower energy density which is everything else not between the magnets.

The thing to remember here is that there are no field lines, they are imaginary and simply a form of notation. The magnetic field is a uniform field gradient acting through a space and it is generally agreed that the field must be considered as distinct or separate from the source which created it,ala Ampere. I remember a video of an interview with Richard Feynman and when asked what a magnetic field was he hesitated and started avoiding the question and in fact would not answer it. I believe he knew the answer as I know it and understood that first it would not be accepted and second that it requires a more universal perspective few can grasp.

You see at the end of the day we are still not much better off than some fool staring at the Sun wondering why it rotates about the Earth. We have come a long way mind you but not in the area of primary physics which deals solely with the fundamental cause of things. Which always leads to the same question everyone was asking 100 years ago, what is a magnetic field fundamentally. Not what it does or seems to do but what it is, why it is, and in this area most all the supposed experts are still left wanting because they have no idea of where to even begin.

P.S- I should clarify that the North and South poles are a form of notation as well and are imaginary. The north and south poles are not opposites they are the same thing(magnetism) having different properties as they are both the same magnetic field. How can magnetism be the opposite of magnetism, that is absurd, the opposite of a magnetic field is a field which would expel all magnetism regardless of it's supposed polarity .

AC

[GibbsHelmholtz]

AC,

Seeking truth will set you free so people said.  What if the truth doesn't make a satisfying answer.  If the truth is "It is what it is", would people accept that? 

When we are young, we afraid of the dark.  When we get old, we get over it.  It is because we know the truth of darkness.  I think people will live happy if they know the truth about the universe.  If it's objective, we should complete the Grand Unified Theory soon.

[GibbsHelmholtz]

In attempt to keep the universe objective, I tried to understand the relationship between gravity and electromagnetism. lol

I think what we need is a logic framework and go from there.

So what is the relationship?  I think it's too hard to tackle it in raw form.  It sparks me that we human have mechanism to distinguish the two forces.  Our ears able to hear sounds and our eye able to see colors.  Base on this, I think we can establish the framework to understand the two forces, or maybe more.

sound  - gravity
light     - electromagnetism
gamma - strong

I believe by understanding the relationship between these waves, we can understand gravity and electromagnetism.  Unfortunately, my thoughts terminated here... lol