Re: First Law????

["Donald E. Simanek" <dsimanek@EAGLE.LHUP.EDU>]

On Sat, 23 Jan 1999, Chuck Britton wrote:

> Here's a first quick stab at a gravity shield motor.
>
> Load up a Ferris Wheel with as much mass as feasable.
> Position the wheel so that one side of the wheel is shielded and the other
> half is not.
>
> 'Clearly' the shielded side will rise because is has less 'weight' than the
> unshielded side.
>
> Put a generator on the axis and away we GO!

If your partially gravity-shielded Ferris wheel *did* rotate, through
angle theta, what would be its change in potential energy during this
process? Zero. So why do you think it *would* rotate?

There's always as much mass moving into the shielded side as is leaving
the shielded side.

        -- Donald

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Donald E. Simanek
dsimanek@eagle.lhup.edu                 http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek
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