Trying to wrap my head around this..

[Btrflyl8e]

I haven't stored enough energy to read this entire thread.

 

[bmah]

I haven't stored enough energy to read this entire thread.

But you should, it's got such great potential!

Bruce.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

You do have tremendous potential energy due to your elevation above the sun. It's rendered irrelevant by the much greater gravitational attraction between you and the earth. Gravitational attraction increases as two objects get closer. If, however, you and the sun were the only two objects in a closed system you would immediately accelerate toward each other.

Right. So lets say I'm the only mass in the universe(there's plenty of energy zipping around but no other mass). Then, a large amount of energy is converted to mass somewhere in the distance. I suddenly have large amounts of potential energy that I didn't have before and that came about merely by my position in the universe.

With my explanation, everything is still OK. My acceleration and velocity vectors are exactly equal and opposite to those of the newly created object, so 1/2mv^2 always cancels.

 

[dgpcolorado]

You do have tremendous potential energy due to your elevation above the sun. It's rendered irrelevant by the much greater gravitational attraction between you and the earth. Gravitational attraction increases as two objects get closer. If, however, you and the sun were the only two objects in a closed system you would immediately accelerate toward each other.

Well, technically the Earth, and everything on it, IS falling toward the Sun at a large speed due to the gravitational attraction (or gravity well, if you prefer). Since our planet is moving fast enough (108,000 km/hr or 67,000 mph) in a perpendicular direction to the force of attraction (~3.57 x 10^22 newtons), it orbits the Sun in a stable manner. Falling toward the Sun the entire time.

What a fun thread; thanks to the OP!

 

[Mishakim]

I think there's another point being lost (or ignored) in the question about potential due to distance "above" the sun: yes, potential increases with elevation, but the usual formulas (i.e., high-school physics) neglect the decrease in gravitational force with distance. At the scale of "car on hill," that's a valid simplification. But when you're talking astronomical (literally) distances, you have to account for the decrease in gravity with distance, and the potential energy becomes less that what you are thinking. That is, PE=mgh, but when 'h' is 150M km, 'g' is near zero (per google, g due to sun at earth orbit is 5.9E-3 m/s^2, or 0.0006 earth-g)

 

[Zetopan]

Imagine there is a supercharger at the top of the hill. And a Tesla is charging there. So pushing current into the car, is electrons dropping from high to low (potential energy gain ~ gravity) The Tesla is now 50% charged, and starts rolling down the hill. And due to regen, it ends with 75% charge (lets say). Ignoring transmission losses, battery losses, did we just create energy?

Of course not! And so many of the other responses are so off the mark that I feel compelled to reply. Firstly, you appear to be assuming that more electrons are being pushed into the battery than extracted from the battery during the charging cycle. If you examine your battery and the charging cable you will find that there are two high current conductors. The electrons flowing into the battery through one of the conductors are exactly matched by an equal number of electrons flowing out through the other conductor. This is known as a electrical "circuit" (meaning an electrical "circle"). If electrons were only flowing into the battery you would not need that second conductor (see a Van de Graff generator or a particle accelerator for example, both can be used to "stuff" electrons). What the charging is doing is not adding electrons to the battery, but rather separating the already existing combined charges that are in the battery.

Likewise when you drive down the road your battery is not leaking electrons onto the roadway behind you (assuming that you actually drive forwards on highways ). The energy stored in separating the charges is being extracted by letting those separated charges in the battery recombine. This is why a fully depleted battery has shows zero volts across the terminals, while a fully charged battery shows the full voltage across the terminals. The total number of electrons are identical in both cases, but in one case they have recombined with the "holes", and in the other case they have been separated from the "holes". Capacitors work exactly the same way, excepting that no chemical reactions are required to charge or discharge them.

As a result whatever potential energy you gained in climbing up the hill will be converted into kinetic and thermal energy going down the hill, and the battery charging is irrelevant.

 

[Sir Guacamolaf]

@Zetopan Okay finally an explanation that makes SENSE! On to my next challenge, I'm trying to figure out wth these things are. I have 4 of them, and they are all electrically insulated.

 

[Zetopan]

@ZetopanI have 4 of them, and they are all electrically insulated.

Since they are so easily removable they appear to be solely decorative. There are four of them because three of them are apparently spares in case of damage.

 

[MarcusMaximus]

I think there's another point being lost (or ignored) in the question about potential due to distance "above" the sun: yes, potential increases with elevation, but the usual formulas (i.e., high-school physics) neglect the decrease in gravitational force with distance. At the scale of "car on hill," that's a valid simplification. But when you're talking astronomical (literally) distances, you have to account for the decrease in gravity with distance, and the potential energy becomes less that what you are thinking. That is, PE=mgh, but when 'h' is 150M km, 'g' is near zero (per google, g due to sun at earth orbit is 5.9E-3 m/s^2, or 0.0006 earth-g)

Taking into account decrease in acceleration due to gravity at extreme elevations changes the formula a bit more than that, I believe. At that point I'm pretty sure it'd become an integral over g as h goes from 0 to 1AU.

 

[Tangible]

Lets say the factory was at the top of the hill along with all resources needed to produce it. What about that one? Huh?

Statements that emanate from the factory, such as "should be released by the end of the month", are indicative of relativistic time distortions, so having this discussion in terms of Newtonian physics is clearly inadequate. I believe the company is providing full details on its plans to all owners, but they can only try to reach us through gravity waves. Do not take this thread lightly: It may be the path to enlightenment.

 

[HankLloydRight]

. I believe the company is providing full details on its plans to all owners, but they can only try to reach us through gravity waves.

This got me thinking. Maybe due to Quantum Tesla Entanglement, as the car in the OP is going down the hill, somewhere in another time or dimension, there's it's entangled partner going up a hill, and therefore the energy of both cancel each other out.


Hey, it could happen. At least it's not String Theory with four 10 11 26 dimensions.