cooperation

Uh-oh. Sounds like a perpetual motion machine.

Don Kansas City

Hehe...I had the exact same thought.

Do you remember the one featuring a magnet that would run up a slope if placed at the foot, and run away down the other side. The PM designer tried to run rails around from the far side back to the start point, reasoning it would run up the ramp again, and again.... sadly it won't.

Brian Whatcott Altus OK

Whenever I hear "invention" and "magnets" in the same sentence, I'm quick to think "crackpot".

Don Kansas City

Speaking of crackpot or not, what about this thing? I've seen it advertised lately on late-night TV (that's how much of a life I have, right now ).

It's a no-battery flashlight, supposedly using Faraday's law of induction, which I don't recall exactly from sophomore physics, but IIRC, it has to do with the creation of magnetic fields being induced because of the changes in electrical fields, and thus inducing another electrical field?

Is that way off in space, or am I close? It's been just a few years, I should remember that better- but I've never since used that stuff, though I found it fascinating when learning it.

So, real new and good idea, or something akin to an "ionic hair dryer"?

k wallace

Once you've heard about the fist-size X-ray generator that operates on a few watts of electricity to warm up a thermoelectric crystal, you think carefully about gadgets you can easily dismiss. I too have seen a squeeze to operate flashlight. Is that the one?

Brian Whatcott Altus OK

This is one you shake to operate. Here's a link to buy one for ten bucks:

Is this something that will work well? I don't remember my physics well enough, but I assume it does work; I just don't remember exactly HOW it works.

-k wallace

Ah yes, I hadn't seen this before. I'm pretty sure it will work as advertized - that is - a vigorous 30 seconds shaking gets you 2 or 3 minutes of led illumination. But I try to remember: it's amazing how little useful power a whole lot of sweat equity buys, all the same!

Brian Whatcott

I had to change my email address. Now it is snipped-for-privacy@sympatico.ca

Sorry for any inconvenience

Dear oscar mast:

I strongly recommend you make some effort to disguise your email address in some way. Usenet postings are harvested for valid email addresses, to which spammers send spam.

Something like "o_mast@sym_patico.ca (without underscores)" will make it less easy to do this harvesting automatically.

David A. Smith

Could be used to generate electricity from Ocean waves?