Re: Magnet question


FiNOH wrote:
Where does a magnet get its power?

Why doesn't this source run out?

Power is work per unit time.

Work is force times distance.


A magnet has an attractive force, but the distance is limited, once the
pieces click together, you can't get any more work out of it. Then you
have to pull the pieces apart, supplying work to return the parts to
their original states. And it's just as much work to get back to
original state as you got from the first attracting part of the cycle,
so there is no net work done.

Now there is a clever engine, where you heat the magnet above its Curie
temperature, which lets you move the pieces apart with little or no
work. But the dang law of conservation of energy seems to hold
anyway-- it takes much more heat to do this than you ever get back out.
Dang.

.