Hi Greg, You write: >What I do know is that you can drop the ball >vertically from the entry position, without magnets >and measure the KE delivered in a fall to a level >reference plane, then replace the ball at the entry >point and allow it to do the climb, drop and fall to >the the same entry plane. The measured final exit KE >is not significantly different to the calculated exit >PE. This to me indicates there has been very little >effective magnetic dragback.
OK, thanks for the capsule summary. I would disagree that this is really novel from your first experiments, but let's put that aside for the moment and focus on the experiment. How much energy is required to push the ball back to the starting position? It's trivial to redirect the ball, recovering the kinetic energy. That's your input energy. Pushing the ball under the ramp will no doubt take some energy. Making the ball go around the ramp in a big loop will also take energy, although this may not be as clear or easy to measure as the first method. Start with the first method, and experimentally determine the energy. You have two gradients, one magnetic, one gravitational. The vectors are complex as the gradients are not parallel and equal at all points. Yet, you should pretty easily experimentally determine if you've got extra energy if you do the last bit. Also, like many people on this list, due to the list software and my email client, hitting the reply button sends mail to me. Be assured, if you receive something from me, it's coming from the list, and it's best to reply there. Thanks. K.
