Thread: Serious question for people smarter than me.

I recently got an email trying to sell me the plans for a Tesla generator, they called it an infinity coil, but I have been wondering for a long time now, why can't a generator be built with permanent magnets, and the attraction and repulsion of the poles. I have seen some on YouTube and they look like they should work, however if they did, then everyone would have one. I have a better than average handle on physics and understand that friction and other forces are at play. Can anyone who is a scientist, and uses a straight razor, explain whether any such contraption can work? In plain English. This particular one says it's using technology from Tesla, and, as we know, he was able to draw electricity from the atmosphere when no one else has been able, at least from what I have read about his time out west. It has been reported that he successfully transmitted current as far as ten miles. I don't know, I wasn't there. I know we have them, so a few answers from some smart people, please.

Do you mean a tesla coil to produce electricity? He used it to send electricity through the air but it requires very high voltage to charge the system and some humongous capacitors to store current until the built up current can be discharged. That has no practical value these days.

There are Tesla Batteries but they are nothing special.

I'm talking about the Tesla generator which uses the attraction and repulsion of magnets to turn the aperture (I think) of a generator. After the first addition of power, the magnets are supposed to keep them turning. Look on YouTube and you'll see what I mean. It looks like it should work but many have tried and said it doesn't. When Tesla was in Colorado the farmers came to him complaining that the current was shocking the livestock because of the iron shoes from ten miles away. That was from the coil.

The only thing I saw was a generator using steam and an airspring which in the end didn't work.

There is no free lunch and no perpetual motion machine. Nothing works by itself. It requires some energy source to keep it running one way or another.

Tesla was a genius sure enough but he also had a lot of crackpot ideas and even the good ones were theories and no one was gonna finance most of his ideas which is why he died a poor man with psychological problems. He needed an army of George Westinghouses. Even JP Morgan gave up on him.

His problem was theory doesn't always equal practical use and he was long on theory and short on practical use.

Do a little more research, he spent the rest of his life in a hotel in Manhattan, which just so happened to have two generators big enough to run half the city. Also the feds raided his place before he was cold and took all of his work, which has never been seen again. I'll send you a link for the machine I'm talking about. Once you put in enough energy, it seems to defy normal physics.

Yea, he spent the rest of his life in a Hotel in Manhattan slowly going crazy until he was evicted and died penniless.

Unfortunately there is all this hype surrounding him and it has grown over the decades turning him into a literal magician.

Responding only to your first post:

The simplest answer (which also has the least depth) is that generators have to have moving parts to "generate electricity." So a "closed system" that generates electricity would have to be a perpetual motion machine. That is not possible.

To expand just a little, the quotes above are because the process is actually a conversion of some form of energy into "electrical energy," which then leaves the system. The energy stored in permeant magnets simply because they are magnetized is very small, and thus, even if we had a way to convert it into "electrical energy," you wouldn't get much out before there was no more stored in the magnets.

But also generators ARE built with permanent magnets. The magnets are not, however, the source of energy that is converted to "electrical energy" - they are the mechanism through which this happens. When a wire is moved through a magnetic field such that the length of the wire "cuts" the magnetic field lines, an electric potential difference (voltage) is induced between the ends of the wire and charges flow (electric current) accordingly. If you yourself move enough wire through a strong enough magnetic field, you can actually feel the "resistance" - kind of like running while submerged in water - as the kinetic energy you input is converted into "electrical energy," which will slow the wire unless you keep it moving by inputting more of your own energy.

Now isn't that basically what I said? I guess when a Physicist says it, it sounds more authoritative.

Har har.

No,he actually explains that permanent magnets aren't permanent forever. Also part of the question was that once revved up to speed, they say that it would keep going, I never said that it didn't need some sort of power to get it going.

Well, common sense says nothing is permanent and perpetual motion machines don't exist. It's not that you need energy to get it going, you need energy to keep it going.

To my knowledge the closest thing to an perpetual motion machine is an Atmos Clock. It runs on temperature changes in the room.