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I have a mechanical engg. question that I could ask my dad but he's 7 hours ahead of me Consider this zany contraption Would it take less energy to drive the last gear underwater than it would above? Can we construct a gearbox that arbitrages gravity?
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I see no reason it should. The inertia of the gear train would not change. You’d just add extra resistance. It should get marginally harder actually.
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ah damn...liquid resistance.... In principle tho if there were a gravity differential between the ends of the gearbox, are we doing something interesting or am I misunderstanding something other than basic laws of thermodynamics?
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Gravity is kinda irrelevant here. Inertia is rotational. I don’t see what you’re getting at tbh. Something like a space elevator arbitrages gravity in a way.
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I was assuming that it takes lesser energy to drive the last gear in that 65,000:1 gearbox in a low gravity environment in order to drive the first gear and generate energy. perpetual motion zanyness....
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I see / Thank you. Yeah i was under a false impression that 2nd law could be cheated by using energy generated by a 1:n gear ratio by operating the nth gear in 0 gravity.
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