Magnetic Orbit?

[Teamwork]

Hm, what does bremsstrahlung have to do with this?

Yeah sorry, I meant braking radiation, it's almost the same thing anyways:blush:.

But to the OP, the only way I could imagine an electric orbit would be one where you could continuously add energy to the the thing orbiting as to counter act the losses from changing the direction of the velocity. It would be weird and complex and it would be far easier to just attach a string to the thing and swing it around.

[tomf]

Gravitational orbits are thought to radiate energy as gravitation waves though aren't they? So the energy loss is just a matter of the timescalse.

[henryrasia]

That's what I thought too. So the question is what is the timescale for macro scale (pellets) magnetic orbits? And what variables affect this (air pressure, pellet electric isolation, etc)?

By the way I found a video of it being done in a Vomit Comet:

[-Velocity-]

That's what I thought too. So the question is what is the timescale for macro scale (pellets) magnetic orbits? And what variables affect this (air pressure, pellet electric isolation, etc)?

By the way I found a video of it being done in a Vomit Comet: https://youtu.be/EZiu9Qnz2Rc?t=1m48s

Those are electrostatic orbits, which work fine, because electrostatic attraction has the same form as gravitational attraction (at least in the Newtonian limit where almost all phenomenon occur). Those are not "magnetic orbits". As I said the last time this came up, I doubt "magnetic orbits" will work. Magnets are dipoles. To make a gravitational equivalent of a magnet, you need to concentrate negative gravitational charges (which do not exist) at one end of an object and positive gravitational charges (which do exist, as mass) at the other end of an object. In order for an object to be attracted as it moves around a magnet, it needs to be a dipole itself and orient the correct end towards the magnet. There will be zones in the field where there is no attraction at all (along the "equator" of the magnet).

It might be interesting to create a simulation in MATLAB to predict what an "orbit" could look like, assuming that the object that "orbits" the magnet maintains a constant magnetic dipole moment and faces the correct face towards the fixed magnet all the time.

In the far field, the attraction to a magnet by another magnetic object decreases by 1/r^3, the extra 1/r coming from the two poles cancelling each other out, which is also unlike gravity. Additionally, the field is not spherically symmetrical.

Electrostatic orbits, on the other hand, again, work just fine, again, as Coulombic attraction has the same form as gravitational attraction.

Edited March 31, 2015 by |Velocity|