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Got yelled at by an old physics teacher about my perpetual motion doodle
I was sketching this idea for a magnetic wheel that spins forever (you know, the kind of thing you do at 2am), and my former professor saw it at a coffee shop. He said 'conservation of energy isn't a suggestion, it's a law' and then spent 20 minutes showing me where friction would kill it every time. So now I'm looking at it as a thought experiment about how we waste energy in daily life instead. Anyone else have a pet theory that got crushed by a simple fact?
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roberts.leo1mo ago
Wait the dude literally stopped mid-coffee to lecture you for 20 minutes about friction on a doodle? That's wild, I'd be too stunned to even argue back lmao.
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ward.kim1mo ago
Three years back I had this whole scheme to build a magnetic levitating skateboard in my garage. My buddy who works as an engineer at a machine shop saw my drawings and just laughed. He pointed out that even if I got it floating, I'd need a constant power source to keep the magnets stable and the thing would just drag against the air anyway. Took the wind right out of my sails, but you know what helped? I took his feedback and started small. Built a little floating platform using cheap magnets and a simple fan, nothing fancy. It didn't work like I wanted but I learned more about drag and friction in that one afternoon than any book could teach me. Sometimes the best thing is to just build the dumb version first and let it fail. That way you see exactly where the energy leaks out.
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