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From: rimey@ernie.berkeley.edu (Ken Rimey)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Re: "Free Energy Machine"
Message-ID: <12434@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Sun, 16-Mar-86 19:25:35 EST
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Posted: Sun Mar 16 19:25:35 1986
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Reply-To: rimey@ernie.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Ken Rimey)
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>> I can do one that *will* work in a closed box.
>
>My "free energy machine" taps the precession of a sizable gyroscope.
>The source of the energy is the Earth's rotation.  Perhaps we're
>lucky that there isn't enough energy available this way to make it
>worthwhile; I don't think that I'd accept a 25-hour day as the cost of
>"free energy".
>-- 
>Doug Pardee -- CalComp -- {elrond,savax,seismo,decvax,ihnp4}!terak!doug

The axis of a good gyroscope will appear to move with a 24 hour period
as the earth rotates underneath it.  (Of course, the gyroscope is
stationary; the earth moves.)  Are you saying, slow down the earth by
allowing such a gyroscope to do work?  Conservation of angular
momentum says you can't slow down the earth that way.

Imagine that at noon the gyroscope is in its storage cabinet, not
spinning.  Take it out, spin it up, and use it to convert some of the
earth's rotational energy into electricity.  At noon the next day,
stop its spin and put it back in the storage cabinet.  By conservation
of angular momentum, the earth's spin is the same as it was at noon
the previous day.  Where did that electrical energy come from?  It is
energy that you put into the gyroscope when you spun it up.

						Ken Rimey