>>793813642This. It saddens me too, because my father was one of the most creative and sharp people I have ever known. He taught me a fuck of a lot of critical thinking, improvising, and troubleshooting skills. (He grew up during the Depression and his family had to make due under extraordinary bad circumstances.)
But one of his pet projects over the decades, and one I had a lot of hope for was his magnetic motor. I believed in it. The way he explained it made sense. He built all kinds of different prototypes. He used the relatively low-power magnets he had, and constructed some very clever models with low friction bearings that would run for minutes at a time.
But that's the thing. They all always eventually stopped. Every single time.
When I went into IT, I started having access to dead harddrives. Harddrives have two really cool features that he took great interest in: Really good bearings and really powerful rare earth magnets.
He passed away almost 4 years ago. He didn't get out to his shop much in later years. I visited my mom a couple weeks ago. There was still a massive stack of old harddrives I had given him probably 10 or more years ago. Got a little emo.
I don't know how many of those magnets he ever actually used. And it's not like he wasted his life on it or anything. He had other shit going on that actually paid the bills and such.
But I had thoughts of millions of dollars based on his revolutionary magnetic motor when I was a child. He (and I at the time) didn't understand how truly limited the "unlimited" power of permanent magnets really is, and how eventually they would have worn themselves out.
This is a road I've not been down, but walked parallel to. By all means, if someone can prove me wrong, have at it!
