AgingYoung,
I don't perceive - and this is really only my personal opinion - the term "law of nature" to express how great and awesome we are to have figured it out. To me it emphasizes that it's the nature that makes objects follow these laws, not people; things will keep falling down no matter how much we will wish and beg for it to be otherwise. That's why I see the term as a recognition of our subordination to nature and thus humble, rather than arrogant.
But this is obviously entirely a matter of subjective interpretation. In general, as you say, I think we agree.
Jim_Mich,
So far I can find nothing that says the 4 gyroscopes are to be spun at different speed during the testing phases. I will continue to search in more detail as my time permits.
All right, keep searching. The forum doesn't allow me to post links, but the final spin rates of the gyroscopes (the science phase) ranged from 3700 RPM (gyro #2) to 4900 RPM (gyro #3). During preparation phases, according to status reports, the differences between individual spin rates were more pronounced, apparently over 6000 RPM.
But hey, I have something even better for you than these boring data! How about a simple recipe for a PMM machine? If you can make spinning objects fall faster than non-spinning objects, here's how you can easily build one:
Suspend a gyroscope with mass
m on a string (and, I guess, low-friction bearing at the point of contact). It's at rest, to begin with.
1. Pull the string and lift the gyroscope by
h meters. To do this, you will spend energy
E1 =
m*
g*
h.
2. Spin the gyroscope up, spending energy
E2.
3. Release the string and let the gyroscope fall
h meters. Now, a non-spinning gyroscope, after falling
h meters, would gain velocity sqrt(2*
g*
h) and kinetic energy
m*
g*
h. However, because your spinning gyroscope falls faster than that, with acceleration
g2 >
g, it will reach greater velocity and greater kinetic energy
E3 =
m*
g2*
h >
m*
g*
h =
E1.
4. Catch the spring, stopping the fall of the gyroscope and extracting its kinetic energy
E3.
5. Stop the gyroscope, getting back the invested rotational energy
E2.
Your pure energy gain (ignoring losses) is
E3 -
E1 > 0.
Ta-daa! Will you share some of your Nobel Prize with me?
Of course, there's just a little catch: this will only work in dream world where spinning objects fall faster than non-spinning objects.