Perpetual Ferrofluid Fountain

I check if it would be possible to setup perpetual flow of ferrofluid using the ability of ferrofluid to climb a chain

[TheActionLab]

Now queue all the comments saying if I just changed a few things about the setup we could get it to work 😜

[DragonOfTheMortalKombat]

2:07 Ferrofluid decided at the last moment: 'Nope, gotta obey the law of conservation of energy. '

[Leon-olmr]

They where so thorough with the debugging. Really thought of everything.

[Sol-En]

Very cool! This is essentially the macroscopic capillary effect. In the usual capillary effect, there is also an electromagnetic attraction of the liquid, only at the level of atoms

[jehmarxx]

I can just imagine James cleaning all the ferrofluid mess after the recording, sighing: "For science! For content!"

[Jesse_Leyk]

I'm here for the "Big Brain Time" ! 😎

[Isaac-]

All things need to be actively sustained by ordered power/ formatted energy(light).

[mrxmry]

the most difficult thing when building a perpetual motion machine is deciding where to hide the battery.

[duprie]

I always plan to add Action Lab's clips to my Watch Later list but then end up watching them before I get around to doing so 😂

[LordElijah]

"Tha hardest thing with a perpetual motion machine is hiding the batteries"

[robinbrowne]

Cool. It reminds me of the colony of ants my sister used to have. She bought a 2nd ant container and connected them by a plastic tube. Eventually both containers were equally populated and we could see the ants going back and forth in 2 lines through the tube. PS - At some point some of the ants managed to escape and formed lines behind the containers to and from the wall. When my mother saw that, it was the end of the ant colony.

[Jamesssssssssssssss]

I was able to understand this concept a lot better now. Thanks!

[neologicalgamer]

speaking, perpetual motion is indeed theoretically possible. In fact, there is nothing at all that stops it. The issue is, however, that it's impossible to extract energy from that system without it losing energy. Perpetual motion can exist if it has no energy input and loss, but when you start taking out energy, shockingly, the energy starts depleting. You cannot have a gravity-mass-based perpetual motion machine, for example, as whatever force is pulling it up would require energy to let go. It takes energy to alter forces. If you could arrange the forces in such a way that it creates some mystical form of perpetual motion, then taking out energy would require introducing a force, creating an imbalance in the system, and the only way to resolve that is via generating a force to put it back, which requires energy.

In real life though, it's still not possible, because actually creating a 100% perfectly efficient system is practically impossible

[wedmunds]

Another way to think about it is to first ignore the horizontal section. You now have two vertical “magnetic capillaries” that both suck the ferrofluid upwards. All it will do is make ferrofluid pool at the horizontal section.

[Gemini-Lion]

I always think about it, and honestly the most realistic idea of a perpetual motion machine is just a battery that stores energy via motion.

[giftenjoyer]

Best explanation of the capillary force I have ever seen. I was always confused by it.

[omsingharjit]

I'm wondering how do you clean those magnets after that!!

[bugsbunny]

Great video, but what about if you had a flat piece of glass touching the end of the magnet chain like it was when it was in the other beaker?

[babayada]

I was rooting so hard for our Venom perpetual machine even tho I know about thermodynamics 😂

[IrocZIV]

Does the glass on the bottom of the empty beaker act kind of like a wick? If so, could you put a glass slide that touches the end of the magnets suspended above the cup?