Attn: Perpmos and other eccentric swingers. There is an interesting OU possibility which arises from observing the "Swinging Atwood Machine" (SAM). Many undergrad physics classes use these for demos, and some have been very artfully constructed.
http://metric.ma.ic.ac.uk/articles/samos98/Swinging.pdf Pendulums can be very efficient anyway- 99.99+% And the potential anomaly comes from the possibility of creating slight variations of a 3:1 mass ratio on either of the two sides of the device.... ... begging the question of "why is a three-to-one ratio so important" ? This ratio pops up in science from time to time. Mendel found it in plant genetics, etc. but is there a more basic importance? ...and what could happen IF that ratio were to be automatically "alterable" on demand (via computer control) in a positive (gainful) way?. It doesn't take much alteration to get big results in the swings, but the predictability of the variation in unknown. SAMs simplicity of construction and operation is evident in the Hamiltonian, and it can be modeled easily using software such as Mathematica - but belies the complex dynamical behavior when M > m or M < m, even in very slight amounts. Is there room for near perpetual motion here ? (lifetime of the bearings) and assuming everything is as close to frictionless as possible in the mechanism- and that the windage has been minimized by a partial vacuum. Jones
