Hi Frank. The shape factor for magnets determines the shape of the external field, and perhaps more importantly the internal demagnetizing field inside the magnet. It is usually the case that special shapes are used to extract the intrinsic BH loop from the experimentally measured one.
There is a massive body of prior art on magnet based energy machines, if you can be more specific about what you have in mind I can point you at the relevant art. Also, I've been talking to Jones about OCR'ing some of your papers. I won't bore the list with details but if you're game we'll discuss it privately. K. -----Original Message----- From: Grimer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2004 11:13 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: MAGNETS - importance of shape. In a recent e-mail from my colleague, Nigel Clayton, he drew my attention to a reference in Mark Buchanan's UBIQUITY to the importance of magnetic shape. Nigel writes, ====================================================== "A particular point he makes (on page 81) reminded me of the concrete compressive stress-strain tests. In relation to magnetism, he says that only two things matter: the basic physical (external) dimension of the thing in question and the general shape of its elements. The tests I did in later years also showed that the value of the power depended upon the shape of the specimen. I tended to ignore this, but it is clearly important." ====================================================== The specific passage from UBIQUITY is, ====================================================== page 81, 3rd paragraph "In studying the critical numbers that pop up in the critical states for different phase transitions, Kandanoff found that the basic physical dimension of the thing in question, of the very space in which it lives, is one of the factors that matters." Mark Buchanan ====================================================== I can see the reason why this might point us in the right direction for the goal of extracting energy from the magnetic atmosphere. The essence of Carnot is cycling between two power curves, more specifically in the case of Carnot the isothermal and the adiabatic power curves. If different shaped magnets (short and fat, tall and thin) give rise to different shaped fluxes (flows), in effect different power curves, then by cycling between them one might be able to tap ZPE. This is the kind of exploration where the "garage experimenter" is likely to come up with the answer long before the theoreticians fully understand how and why it works. My question therefore is, have experimenters systematically investigated the effect of combining powerful magnets of different shapes in a variety of different configurations? If not, why not? One needs to remember from the history of empirical research that often success is only achieved after exhaustive experimentation since one is groping around, if not completely blind, at least very optically challenged. Cheers Grimer
