Already been done! www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8yW5cyXXRc
This keeps me up at night
Submitted 2 months ago by Trex202@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/4ec51ca1-16b9-4f6c-a1dd-345c20a4b9a5.png
Comments
EveningPancakes@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
cogitase@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
It was posted on Usenet in 1992;
FiniteBanjo@feddit.online 2 months ago
Theres actually a video version of this meme: YouTube Link
bearoftheisle@europe.pub 2 months ago
I think my grandpa saw this meme in his youth
Agent641@lemmy.world 2 months ago
This meme is so old it could vote. For Regan.
teslekova@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Apart from the problems pointed out by my esteemed colleagues in the comments elsewhere, I am sorry to say that this project, upon which our country has spent so many dollars, is fundamentally flawed. I know that this will be a major disappointment, but we are scientists! We must face the truth!
The entire principle that causes a piece of bread to fall butter side down depends on, as we know, the fundamental law of inconvenience. Butter, touching the floor and getting icky dust and germs on it, is rendered useless, and taints the very bread upon which it is installed. Furthermore, one must clean up the butter from the ground.
Such concentrated inconvenience, combined with Murphy’s law, ensures that the buttery bread will indeed fall down and touch that floor.
Touch, gentlemen! For it to be inconvenient, it must make contact with the floor! But if we, in our ambition and satisfied self-regard, ensure that the bread is securely strapped to the back of one of our many, many brave feline test subjects, then the bread can never touch the floor!
Inconvenience then has no mechanism of action, and Murphy smiles upon us no more! This project’s delays, long thought to be merely an issue of getting the balance right, of baking the perfect slice of bread, of securing sufficient butter, of scaling up using cheetahs, etc… They are all explained by the tragic and incontrovertible truth that we have been wasting our time on a doomed errand that could never work, even in principle! We must shut down, and stop wasting our time on this foolishness!
I personally have already applied, and been accepted, at the Corpse-Spinning Turbine Project, where I can only hope there is no similar fundamental misunderstanding. I suggest you all do the same.
Trex202@lemmy.world 2 months ago
So it keeps you up, too, eh?
teslekova@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
I spend hours every night frustrated by the problem. Perhaps being so associated with Murphy’s Law doomed it from the beginning? But then again, perhaps that doom itself can be harnessed?
Perhaps, indeed, we must use a constant stream of cats and bread, letting enough buttery catastrophes happen to sate the fickle spirit, while still maintaining positive energy production.
unmagical@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
The rotation is partly actively maintained by muscular action from the cat. This is a chemical process that requires fuel and releases heat. This also eventually tires the cat.
Given the relatively low mass involved this really doesn’t have much potential for large scale generation. An Ox mill would be more practical in most cases.
Emotional_Engi@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
2010s called, they want their jokes back.
nathanjent@programming.dev 2 months ago
No.
justme@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
There was a video about it, which was hilarious. Just to lazy to look it up
grranibal@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Where is the boiling water?
yermaw@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Its not boiling because you’re watching it. This is basically stuff people.
fox2263@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Or instead of bread, two cats.
Agent641@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Are U mad they would fight, or mate
fox2263@lemmy.world 2 months ago
That leads to more motion!
Sadbutdru@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
Purrpetual motion machine!
grainfed@quokk.au 2 months ago
This is classically called a “buttered cat array”. I first remember it in New Scientist sometime last century. Oh, and you need an array, because a single cat will not produce much power on its own.
ThePyroPython@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Surely one only needs to increase the number of buttered cats attached to the generator axel to increase the torque and therefore the energy generated?
I can only speak from the generator side, is there a mechanical engineer specialising in buttered cats amongst us that can confirm/correct this hypothesis?
SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip 2 months ago
So then why do we have the idiom, “dead cat bounce”? Seems this would only work until the cat dies. (Entropy is a bastard.)
teslekova@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Cat maintenance is a well-understood field.
SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip 2 months ago
Can’t fool me, I saw that post about re-charging your cat from a plasma globe…
JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Check out Cato on PSN. Its a puzzle platformer based on this concept!
sompreno@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
The cats not falling if its attached to a generator
OwOarchist@pawb.social 2 months ago
Exactly. This only works while falling.
So, no, you’re not creating infinite energy, you’re just converting gravitational potential energy to electricity (for a short time).
Mac@mander.xyz 2 months ago
And cats don’t weigh anything so this wont have enough torque to produce a meaningful amount of power.