I was watching a video of one of those fake perpetual motion machines where a ball falls down a hole and then flies off a ramp back onto the starting platform.
As suspected, the large base is hiding an electromagnet. Studying frames of one cycle it seems that the ball seems to suddenly accelerate in an unexpected way around where the blue arrow is pointing.
Here the rail touches the ground and the electromagnet looks to be switched on at that point due to a pressure sensor. However, I am a bit confused how the magnet is working to accelerate the ball, can a magnet ''push'' a ball in this way? How is energy loss due to friction being overcome?
Best Answer
Another way that this might work is that an electromagnet is turned on when the ball passes through the hole in the platform. This electromagnet would accelerate the ball faster than gravity towards the bottom of the ramp. Before the ball reaches the lowest point in the ramp the electromagnet is switched off allowing the ball to continue around the rest of the ramp to be launched back to the platform with the extra momentum from the small amount of extra speed it got from the time when the electromagnet was turned on.