Would this reduce the magnetic field stength allowing more cosmic rays to reach the surface.
Can Earth's rotation generate power? Physicists divided over controversial claim
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Re: Can Earth's rotation generate power? Physicists divided over controversial claim
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
0.44 picowatts = 4.4e-13 watts so not in a detectable fashion before the sun consumes the earth billions of years from now.
Well, the watts that come out of the rotational energy must match the ones we need, for energy conservation.
Sure, but there’s no “eventually” it happens instantly.
The only way you’ll care about what happens eventually is if you’re concerned about some detectable result. Meanwhile individual rocket launches to Mars extract like 10^18+ times as much energy as this will over it’s lifespan and those still aren’t detectable.
Re: Can Earth's rotation generate power? Physicists divided over controversial claim
#33My Stupid Question, please don't laugh: If you did this on a massive enough scale, to generate serious amounts of power, would that accidentally slow the Earth's rotation down over time?
It isn't a stupid question, it is a good one. The answer would depend on how the field is generated in the first place. Given a field generated by asymmetric rotation of the molten core at the center of the Earth, 'shorting it' (apply a load) would presumably affect the core's rotation. In terms of relative energy however, the poor coupling at the surface would suggest that this would be a very challenging way to div…
If one needs location, then the magnetic field can be measured directly. It is already considered as a potential alternative for GPS, https://www.electronicdesign.com/markets/automation/article/...
The main problem is that locally measured Earth magnetic field varies on a daily basis and is strongly influenced by solar storms.
A better alternative is to use variations in Earth gravity to improve inertial navigation. That vastly more stable.
Re: Can Earth's rotation generate power? Physicists divided over controversial claim
#34Would this reduce the magnetic field stength allowing more cosmic rays to reach the surface.
I, for one, look forward to ground-level auroras.
Re: Can Earth's rotation generate power? Physicists divided over controversial claim
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
No because of conservation of angular momentum. Maybe it would cool the Earth's interior faster than otherwise though. It's heat flow from the inside to the outside that drives the fluid flows in the mantle and generates the magnetic field.
Earth's rotation has been slowing down despite principle of conservation of angular momentum, at about 2 mille-sec/century. Dinos had an hour shorter days than we do now. I'm not an EE, but isn't this related to Tesla's last invention which bankrupted him - I believe he was working on electricity generation from thin air.
I once read a book (Signalz, by F. Paul Wilson), where someone got transmitted power working, and it was part of ushering in eldritch dimension-dwellers. In that book, Tesla was part of some kind of dark wizard cabal.
Don’t remember, exactly. It was a while ago.
Re: Can Earth's rotation generate power? Physicists divided over controversial claim
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
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The part about FM sounds like BS, but much more than 1V at the antenna is definitely possible if you're close to an AM station, enough to cause unintentional receivers to emit sounds.
Well, I'm expecting an average case, not "playing AM radio with grass", because in the vast majority of the cases, antennas won't be situated within a few meters of the radio tower:
Re: Can Earth's rotation generate power? Physicists divided over controversial claim
#37[deleted]
Re: Can Earth's rotation generate power? Physicists divided over controversial claim
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Earth's rotation has been slowing down despite principle of conservation of angular momentum, at about 2 mille-sec/century. Dinos had an hour shorter days than we do now. I'm not an EE, but isn't this related to Tesla's last invention which bankrupted him - I believe he was working on electricity generation from thin air.
It's slowing down mostly because of drag induced by tides, which involve the sun and the moon. The total system including the earth, moon, sun and everything else does conserve angular momentum. But this paper seems to imply that Earth, isolated from evening else in the solar system, could be made to slow down. This does seem like a violation of conservation of angular momentum...
This is poorly discussed in the article and AFAICS it reaches wrong conclusion.
I think the energy comes from weakening of the magnetic field and the energy stored within it, not from slowing down earth rotation. Earth as the result may rotate faster as the moment stored in the field will be transferred back to Earth as in the example with a sphere from the article.
Re: Can Earth's rotation generate power? Physicists divided over controversial claim
#39The paper is here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.15790
(via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43520716, but we merged that thread hither)