if you pushed a frictionless metal ball and a magnet...?

Question

if you pushed a frictionless metal object and a magnet near it pulls it of course, the metal object would temporarily increase speed right? and, if you had many magnets, say in a circle, the ball would continue to increase speed because of the magnetic pulls, given that each magnet it spaced far enough away from each other that it wont pull the ball backwars, etc.

Answer 1

Several points to spoil your perpetual motion idea .. sorry an' all that !



• if the magnet and object are close enough to produce significant attraction .. then the object is close enough to be retarded as it passes by the magnet.



• If the ball gains speed it ends up closer to the magnet than before ... and soon it would end up stuck to a magnet - in circular motion the centripetal (inward) force doesn't change the objects speed or it's radial distance- it changes the object's direction so that it goes in a circle.



• If the speed did increase there would be a continual gain in KE without a continual energy input ... the law of conservation of energy says no !



• If the speed increased the object would require a stronger .. and stronger magnetic force to hold it in orbit .... where would this stronger force come from ?



.. .. back to the drawing board!

Answer 2

I own a magnet shaped like a horse.

Answer 3

one would imagine, but i believe everything has some type of friction