Vehicle powered by Magnetic force?

Question

I'm not sure this would work, but...

what if you had two negatively charged magnets (they repel each other) cylindrically shaped, and you have onebacked into a wall and the other right behind it just raised a little bit. wouldn't the lower magnet be propeled indefinitely?

the laws physics say that you can't get anything for free- but is this an exception? here is a diagram:

http://www.freewebs.com/whumit/magnet.bmp

Answer 1

No, the magnets when used this way don't produce energy they store it. Forcing the magnets together would take kinetic force and turn it into potential force. When they separated, kinetic force again. Think of it like a spring.

An electric motor works by alternating current through electro-magnets. The motor is taking potential energy from the electric voltage/current and turning it into physical kinetic energy (motion) However you still have to burn coal/turn a turbine/charge a battery or whatever to get that energy.

Edit- Just to be sure, you are talking about a vehicle POWERED by magnets, not one that simply rides (hovers) on them. While it is possible to construct a hovering mag-lev car the system would require vast amounts of energy, not provide it.

Answer 2

There are several trains that have been using mag-lev technology for years now.

http://www.howstuffworks.com/maglev-trai...

http://www.post-gazette.com/maglev/magle...

and if you watched the Tom Cruise movie "Minority Report," you would've seen the mag-lev concept vehicles used there (so no, you're not thinking of something new):  http://archive.cardesignnews.com/news/20...

As far as the physics goes, there's usually electrical resistance, besides air resistance, that would slow the vehicle down.

Answer 3

Dude, sorry about it but it won't work.

Answer 4

Magnets have polarity, not charge, and it's north and south, not positive and negative.  

Let's assume that the upper cylindrical magnet rotates on an axle.  Now, draw two tangential lines from the upper magnet to whichever point on the lower magnet that's closest to the upper magnet.  This latter point would be about ten o'clock on your cross-section of the lower magnet.  

Note that both lines are the same length.  This means that any point on the lower magnet will repel the two sides of the upper magnet the same amount, and that means that it would not turn.  

I'll let you figure out for yourself that no matter what arrangement you use, it always comes out like this.  

It's okay, though: everyone who learns to design stuff goes through a 'perpetual motion' stage in their thinking.  I certainly did.  What you have to do is work through all the weird combinations and then, after you realize that none of them are gonna work, move on from there to more useful stuff.  

I predict that your next step will be to try to shield part of the upper magnet from the lower magnet.  Unfortunately, magnetic shields aren't any better than gravity shields: they don't really work the way you'd like them to.  But try it out, and keep investigating.  Just don't get stuck on perpetual motion and stuff that's driven by permanent magnets: none of them work, even though there are hundreds of 'free energy' websites that claim otherwise.