Better than calling it a tinkle charger. I know I would be P'd off if my invention was called that without me leaking some horribly punny dad joke into it.
If someone wants to know why: The energy that comes from this generator comes from the kinetik energy of the water when it is slowed down by the eletromagnetic fields of the coils. The upper coil attracts the Ions and the lower coil repels them, they slow down and their kinetic energy is converted into electricity. I don't claim to have figured it out. I just looked it up since I wanted to know why this happens.
i thougt so too. because the only energies i can see is potential, kinetic and chemical. and nothing is reacting and i potential is already converted to kinetic so its the last thing standing^^
I wonder if the water had a thicker viscosity that it would make the electromagnet work harder to pull and push the water,and if that would cause a higher kenetic energy to create a higher voltage? That could be an entirely different experiment in itself. This is pretty cool stuff!
@@rickycarter6371 I could imagine that the ion exchange speed is depending on the viscosity of the fluid. At some level the Ions won't exchange fast enough to charge the coils.
@@m0ntezott In that case, would a lower viscosity fluid increase the ion exchange speed? Additionally, I would guess that scaling up this set up with more coils would produce a higher voltage but is there a theoretical way to increase the amperage?
@@onlineanonymity6153 I have no clue. I could imagine that the size of the coils is limited, because at some point the charge wouldn't be able to creat a field that is strong enough to have any effect. But maybe I'm wrong and you could just build a giant version of this.
I love the very apparent difference when this is filmed from the really expensive cameras with the professionally set lighting. Literally all of the clarity!
I tried to replicate this experiment in my barn for a middle school science fair project. Only produced a barely detectable charge and lost to a girl who showed that different colored dye absorbs into paper towels at a different rate. #christianschool
Jacqueline Wubbena dats fked up man，my mind was blown by this experiment .What were the judges thinking ，u created electricity using simply water droplets through coils and metal mesh.ur sch sucks bruh
Was the experiment setup still in the barn when presented? I'm assuming the contents of the barn may have an impact. HOWEVER producing an electric charge from water droplets falling through the air, should, be much more interesting then the different absorption rates of additives/solvents mixed in different colored dyes by some pedestrian sheets of paper.
catniss was from the coal mining district so the energy economy is part of the background for the book. the hunger games promo people are doing stunts with alternative energy because clean coal is a myth. pretty sure that's the logic. to quote c&c music factory, it's about "things that make you go 'hmmm'".
Unless you had a satellite phone it wouldn't do you any good. If there was a cell tower close enough, you could just swim the few km to it or build a raft. You'd be able to see it anyway. Just sayin...
I bet that even the sound energy it's producing is greater than the electrical energy ;) Answer/spoiler to the question: The energy is obviously from the potential energy of the water. So what ever lifted the water above, is the source of energy.
What if this apparatus is in an environment with no gravitational acceleration but has an initial velocity, and a non-adhesive tube that bring water back to the "top"?
Derek Leung This coverts a bit of the kinectic energy of the droplets into electrical energy. Thus the apparatus would lose its kinetic energy(by passing each droplet) over time and stop.
I've seen this using four metallic coffee cans (remember them?) with the bottoms cut out instead of coils. The one set of two diagonals were re-labeled as "Kelvin's Cup", and the other two were, of course... "Maxwell's House".
The energy comes from the kinetic energy of the water falling. As water falls through the charged rings it is not only deflected by the charge. The droplets are also slowed as the droplets themselves take on or give up electrons in their respective opposite fields. So kinetic energy from the droplets is lost to the processes of slowing and charge separation that becomes a self-reinforcing cycle. My own thoughts, I haven't explained it very well. I would be curious if the polarity of their system always evolves the same way. Ideally it should be random with each fresh start of the system, but in reality it would likely be skewed toward one polarity or the other, because of subtle electric field influences in the environment. It would be cool to keep stats on that and see what modifications to the environment are needed to bring it closer to statistically even.
is this anything like when you put a load on a car's alternator, it labours the engine - in principal and in relation to the drops being slowed down.... are they slowing down because they gave up or gained a charge?
Mostly correct, kinetic energy is only assisting the water to the metal, as the water passes the metal, it leaves electrons on one coil and protons on another coil until the charge in each coil builds up to arc.
The energy comes from the conversion of gravitational potential energy into kinetic energy in the water. This kinetic energy is transferred to the electrons in the tubing, as dictated by the motor effect, similar to how a magnet does. The way that the tubes are aligned creates a similar effect to a magnet being moved in and out of the tubes, and so current is generated.
***** Potential energy into kinetic is where I thought it was coming from too. A good point about magnets going in and out of tubes is that the tubes are lined with coils of wire, similar to the coils of metal in this experiment.
But the water isn't slowing down. The coils would have no effect on distilled water, so the energy is therefore being generated from the ions in the water. It is the conversion of the ions' kinetic energy into electrical energy.
The air in the earth is always electrically charged. Passing water and air across the coils. Increases the airflow. Intensifying the grounding effect. The electrical discharge comes from a buildup of static electricity.
This is why it's important to regularly replace the water or coolant in your cars radiator. After being cycled through the engine and cooling system hundreds of thousands of times the static charge becomes stronger and stronger increasing the electrolysis process essentially turning the antifreeze into battery acid which eats away at the inside of hoses, water pump impellers, gaskets, and temp. sensors.
Changing the name of a video can have drastic effects on how the algo spreads it (else how did either of us come across it recently?). I loathe the system, but I understand (most) of what is intended by the way it is set up. I cannot fault whomever at the channel made the title change for being effective at using the algo.
One point not emphasized in the video is that electrons have to flow through the common water pathway, partially backward against the physical flow of molecules. It's that electron flow that ultimately creates the difference in charge between left and right. Gravitational energy is inefficiently converted to electrochemical energy by induction, until electrons in the 'capacitor' jump the gap.
I know this is a 4 year old video and you're not likely to even see this comment of mine, but if by some slim chance you do, would you mind elaborating further? I don't understand how the stream becomes charged, which is really bugging me and I can't seem to find a fulfilling answer online. When you say that "electrons have to flow through the common water pathway" what pathway are you referring to and how does that allow the stream to become charged?
@@shadiester I think it is kind of like a feedback loop. He started off with the assumption that one stream had slightly negative and other has slightly positive charged water particles. These induce their charges to the mesh. Since one mesh is connected to the other stream's coil, it forces the the water in the other stream to take opposite charge. Because of this feedback system, the coils accumulate more and more charge. These coils are in turn connected to the metallic balls. When their is enough potential difference, there is a charge discharge and the coils become neutral. This repeats. This is my understanding.
@@nageenyerramsetty4954 I understand most of it but this one part is what I don't get: "Since one mesh is connected to the other stream's coil, it forces the the water in the other stream to take opposite charge." Why does it force the water in the other stream to take the opposite charge?
@@shadiester Let us say mesh 1 is negatively charged which makes coil2 also negatively charged. Because the coil 2 is negatively charged it attracts positively charged water particles and also repels the negatively charged water particles. So the negaticely charged water particles are forced to move upstream into the water tank. This happens against the gravity and that is what is mentioned in the original comment. Also what is not shown in ths video is that the two water tanks are connected through a metallic wire. So the negatively charged particles which were repelled by coil 2 flow back up and come through water stream 1 thus making the mesh 1 more negatively charged
@@nageenyerramsetty4954 Ah okay, that makes a lot more sense now! I didn't realise that the charges were actually moving into the water tank. Thank you for clearing that up!
no. not induction. I think it's more like a vandagraph generator where charges are scraped off or released into somthing else. idk what that's called but not induction.
I would assume that the energy comes from the movement of the water, which is powered by gravity. Water requires energy to move upwards, so that it can fall down. As to exactly how that kinetic energy is translated into electrical, I don't know.
The gravity is driving the separation of the charges. If it weren't for the gravity pulling the water down into two separate streams, any charge variations would just attract each other and almost instantly cancel out again. You'd constantly have tiny electrical fluctuations popping up and then going away. However, the gravity pulls the water down and overcomes the attraction of those charges and rips them apart from each other to drive the whole system. Look at how the upper coils attract the water streams due to the opposite charges. Those coils don't contribute much to the overall energy since they are pulling perpendicular to the water flow. However, the bottom screens have the same charge as the water and are directly in line with the direction of flow and will be repelling the falling water. If you were to carefully measure the speed of the falling water, you would find that the bottom screens reduce the falling speed of the water by approximately the same amount as the energy being built up before each spark.
***** I do know that electricity can be created by magnetic forces only when the magnetic force changes. That happens when (-) charged water falls nearer and then away from a (+) charged coil. There is a change between the magnetic interaction. How this happens though is beyond me.
EE Ehrenberg I have actually run across Kelvin's waterfall before. However, understanding it has less to do with raw knowledge and more to do with how you approach the problem. Derek loooves complicated looking problems. There's usually a lot of extra stuff that looks like it might possibly drive things but is actually just part of the process. A lot of real engineering problems tend to act like this as well. The key is to step back and not get bogged down with the details of all those coils of wire, etc. Instead, look at the overall process and try to figure out where the energy comes from. It can't be the metal coils or screens - there's no wires or radio waves putting energy into them. Therefore they *can't* be the source of the energy driving the system. instead, we do have a clear driving force, the gravity pulling the water downward. Now that we know that it's gravity driving the system, we can work through it step by step to figure out how that gravitational energy can possibly be converted into the electrical energy that's generating the sparks. The secret is that most physical systems are actually fairly simple if you step back and analyze them piecemeal like that. And since there always has to be some sort of energy input, that is a logical place to start.
Positive feedback system, with the energy input from the falling mass of the water. And the water acts as a charge carrier, moving charge, thus current. Now picture this occurring on a vast scale miles wide, and the thing filled with convection columns many feet across replacing the coils... And then you're basically outside during a thunderstorm.
Positive feedback. Yes. Mass of falling water -- doesn't play the slightest part. The CHARGE WITHIN the falling water is what makes it work. The amont of mass literally has nothing to do with it. Take another substance that's heavier and with a lower disassociation constant, and it will take substantially more mass to produce the same amount of charge at the electrodes.
Also, as for this being how thunderstorms happen. No.... the "static electricity caused by rising air currents" model of thunderstorms was always shaky at best; It has now been PROVEN that lightning is a result of charge in the UPPER atmosphere (like tens of miles above the cloud tops) caused by cosmic rays.
I guess, if the water were purified H2O (or "distilled water"), it would not produce any charge, but in normal water, there are always other types of atoms present, which exist in a state of ionization, being partly bonded to the water molecules, like if you put salt into water. If I remember my school chemistry correctly, that becomes Na+ and Cl- molecules which bond to the according side of the water molecules. That can only happen because water is a dipole molecule, it has one end that is positively charged and an other end that is negatively charged. So these ions will cross the charged wire mesh and then lose their charge. Because the water has before flown through the metal rings with the opposite charge of the wire mesh, the effect increases itself.
Veritasium So the water molecules are not actually H+ on the one side and OH- on the other side, as I were told in school and made to imagine a "triangular" shape of the molecule?
MrB10N1CLE Yeah, but distilled water isn't electrically conductive, or at least it has a way higher resistance than normal water, so there should be less to none ions in it?
Seegal Galguntijak When people say pure water is not conductive, it is because there are no ionic pollutants. Stuff like table salt (NaCl) would dissolve and conduct electricity. As such, pure water wouldn't function as a wire in that sense. In this case, it is less electricity than it is electrostatics, as far as I can observe, so it functions based on the fact that water is bipolar so it can separate charges.
The electrical energy comes from the fact that water must flow from a high point to lower point. There must be movement in order for the apparatus to function. This gravitational potential energy is ultimately converted into electrical potential, which is the voltage.
Cool! It's like a Wimshurst machine but with falling water instead of a rotating disk. The energy comes out of the kinetic energy of the water, it's getting slightly pulled upwards by the coils when they are charged.
Instead of just making a spark, attach it to the Tate Ambient Power Module circuit (bridge-rectifier made from germanium diodes rated for high voltage). The module converts to DC and charges capacitors, thus smoothing the power. If the capacitors are say 1000MFD or higher, this can drive something conventional such as a battery charging circuit for a cell phone (voltage regulated to 5V). But, you have to have constant water flowing, and if you want the water to go in a circle, you need to pump it UP again. I suggest you use the Tesla Water Fountain patent number 1,113,716. The idea is to spin the water at low power, rather than pump it. Create a water vortex, the water level rises and spills over the edge. Now you have falling water that you can separate into two columns.
Big brain time! I think that the better option is to run a spark plug that can handle the voltage. Create a siphon that leads to the spark gap and tune the system to keep up with dripping water. If you hit a water droplet with the 10000v then the water droplet can ignite and explode. That energy splits the molecules so fast that it ignites the hydrogen and burns the oxygen. You could then run a piston chamber with that energy. The only issue is tuning the system to run an engine like this and power a generator. It's an idea that has been stewing in my head for a while. I don't have any resources to pull it off or the money to try it. One day maybe.
The system's electrical circuit is driven by the EMF created when electrically charged water falls from the top basket's voltage, to the bottom basket's voltage. This EMF induces current oppositely directed: up on one side and down on the other side of the apparatus, thereby charging the discharge balls capacitance untill they discharge ionically thru the air, completing the circuit.
Your explanation makes sense. Thank you!. I couldn't understand Derek's explanation that negative charge in the left shower attracts the positive charge in the other shower. It should neutralize and not result charge buildup.
i would assume,that the energy is coming from the potential energy that is stored in the water before it falls. you would need to add energy,to pump the water back up to where it's normally stored...this energy is partially turned into electric current,and the rest into heat.
I apologise if I'm wrong. But the potential energy isn't being used up, so it can't be getting it from there. And this set up could be used in conjunction with a waterfall or something so that the water wouldn't need to be pumped back.
The potential energy "released" by the falling droplet would normally be converted into movement, sound, and heat. This machine simply converts some of that into electricity as well. The water should actually fall slower, just like a magnet slides down a copper tube slowly as eddy currents are generated.
This is one of the coolest things I've seen in awhile. Its static like lightning. In the atmosphere is all sorts of different elements. In the raindrops also. Friction of air moving also.
The energy comes from whatever makes the water move. The electrical field of the two upper coils polarizes the water between them, but the positive and the negative part still attract each other and would stay together if it was not pushed apart by force. Under normal circumstances it would be gravity, or potential energy of the water in gravitational field which gets depleted as the water falls down. But the machine could be reproduced also upside down or in microgravity conditions such as on ISS - in that case other source of energy pushing the water through the machine would be the source.
Veritasium Is it the conversion of the kinetic energy of the ions to electrical energy in the coil? Assuming that you would generate no voltage if you used distilled water.
serggie3 This method actually orients the charged particles in the metal pipe by using the charged particles of the water. Difference in the amount of negatively charged particles through the pipe causes currency enough to make the spark.*flies away*
I asked my girlfriend about this in the same sort of way you ask people on the street about physics questions and we got into a big argument. She said I was trying to make her feel stupid by asking her a question I already knew the answer to - I told her that's the best way for her to learn about physics. I'll keep watching your videos but need to be more careful when I talk about your ideas cause people are sensitive when they are proven wrong.
Take notice that he never outright tells people "you're wrong" He gives them a question, asks what led them to the answer they gave and then tells/shows them WHY it's wrong.
Yes, he is very tactful in his delivery and certainly always smiling - however doesn't change the fact that people tend to get upset when proven wrong, specially when they've learned something and feel very confident in what they know even if its incorrect.
Enjoying - his theses is supporting what I just posted about learning not necessarily making people smarter but more confident in what they learned, correct or incorrect
Justin Belford While we are on toic, i was hoping he would ackknowledge Thunderfood debunking his vid about the bipolar nature of water not beeing the main cause for the affection of a flowing stream towards a charged object, cause the topics are related... but this vid seems to have had a long preptime and he might have not knowen it yet. Anyhow, the answer is electromagnetism, more precise induction. The randomly charged droplets induce a current inside the apperatus
"By a guy named Lord Kelvin" lol That sounded like you have no idea who Lord Kelvin was or what he did xD Thank you this was amazing. I had no idea about this :D
The effects demonstrated in this experiment are not directly related to potential/kinetic energy. Those aspects cannot be removed, but this experiment is more about magnets passing through conductive coils. Atoms in and of themselves are electromagnets. Chemistry calls it chemical or molecular bonding but at the root it has all of the same properties of electromagnetism. How you use particular atoms/molecules to affect other atoms/molecules is where the focus (rightly) lays within that field, but the root is still electromagnetism.
people keep on saying it comes from the gravity, which was my initial thought. But then I realized the only reason the water really needed to flowing was so that it could get more charges from new water. And so I thought a similar thing. I am pretty sure you are right.
The water starts out electrically neutral. There is no significant electrostatic potential in the water until there's charge separation, which is caused by the charge building up on the coils. That, in turn, can't happen without a source of energy, as like charges will tend to repel. The only available sources of energy here are gravitational potential energy and thermal energy. Given that the droplets are moving relatively fast when they hit the mesh, their overall kinetic energy, rather than internal kinetic energy (a.k.a. heat) should matter more. But, the motion comes from the conversion of gravitational potential energy as the drops fall. Thus, the only thing that could reasonably be the energy source here is gravity.
Ivan Navarro Kinectic energy is EASILY converted in to electrical energy, the energy it pumps out is so small you wouldnt be able to see the difference in the movement of the water.
But we use turbines to convert kinetic energy of water, or even steam into electrical energy and those work because of magnets inside of them. This set up doesn't have any of that so I'm not sure how the Kinetic energy could be this easily transformed, but I'm here to learn! Thanks for the reply!
E = IVt So the energy comes from the movement of charge, potential difference and the time the device runs for. So the energy comes from the movement of ions or gravity pulling the water down.
but if you ever happen to find yourself in a place with no electricity, and happen to have all the materials to build this, you can use a bucket to transfer the water back up to the top tank by hand, converting chemical energy (from eating food) to mechanical (moving the water yourself) to electical.
Instead of 2 streams, suppose you have either 3, 6, or 9 streams. Tesla seemed to like these numbers. With 3, arrange them in a circle. The bottom coil attaches to the top of the next going around. Three balls will be under each lower section coming to an upsidedown apex. The sparks should go in a circle. Instead of a spark, pulse thru a coil to make a temporary magnetic field in rotation. A motor. Attach a giant beater, and spin this in chocolate, like in Charlie and the Chocolate factory.
While there's not a lot of charge, this is a brilliant setup. I see potential (no pun intended) in this. Perhaps a large enough setup - or an array of rigs - could be used to drive LEDs as some sort of emergency storm lighting. Or... I don't know. But I'm sure there's greatness that could come from this.
The only change in the water at the beginning of the experiment and at the end is it's position. this means it is powered by the fall of the water. What i'm saying is that it needs to bring the water back up, so no energy generated. Also, you could also run a wheel under your faucet to generate energy which is much more effective.
The energy comes from the flow of electrons in the water through the metal coils, causing induction. The wiring up and cross connecting is a makeshift diode of sorts, as well. Great video.
MessiahNerves right, but the water starts with gravitational potential energy, and this is obviously converted into kinetic energy... if the electricity comes from somewhere, this would be the obvious potential source... but if you have another suggestion, please feel free to suggest it.
James Lewis the same molucules attrack while the ions pull the h30+ ions and the oh- to them aswell im guess this charge diffrence may cause but im not sure if i really wanted to know im sure a google search would give me the awnser but thats to fun.
MessiahNerves RIght, so obviously the positive coil attracts negative ions in the water, and visa-versa... and this creates a positive feedback loop because of the cross connection of the screen and the coils... but since this "sorting" process is essentially decreasing entropy, which can't happen unless there is an external source of energy, the question posed was... where does the energy /come/ from, and as I said, since I this is an electrostatic induction generator, the energy appears to me to come from the gravitational potential energy of the water... by slowing the water droplets a tiny amount.
Elevated water has stored potential energy, which is transformed into kinetic energy as it falls, whereas a less efficient conversion of electromagnetic energy from water molecules is absorbed by the water mesh, creating an initial electric charge, where the accumulation of charge is accelerated by your setup, until enough current is able to jump across the metal orbs, closing the circuit.
Friction causes the transfer of electrons as the falling droplets strike against each other (and against moisture in the air). Gain of electrons --> negatively charged water droplet. Loss of electrons --> positively charged water droplet.
Gravitational potential energy usually all becomes the kinetic energy of the water while this setup transforms a slice of the kinetic energy to electric potential energy.
Thanks for the recommendation youtube. This video from when "The Hunger Games" was relevant was actually really cool! I would love to see more videos about making similar setups more efficient.
I built a similar one of these. There were single drops and they didn't contact any of the rings. It builds up and yields charge like a van de Graaf generator. I had two coffee cans cross-connected to two small rings, all insulated. there was no friction, the droplets slow down as they go into the rings, give up charge due to faraday shield effect and thus turn kinetic energy into charge. Like a thunderstorm.
An engineer might explain this phenomenon via a concept called positive feedback. The apparatus is designed in such a way that the longer it runs, the better it works. In this scenario, a minuscule difference in the electrochemical potential in the water sets off a runaway effect that allows the apparatus to collect nearly all of the inherent electrochemical energy in the water. An interesting consequence of this design is that the "positive" or "negative" assignment on either water stream is essentially random. It could change every time the apparatus is turned on, and it will work in exactly the same way.
Great explanation describing its instability. but where does the energy come from. Short answer is gravity. Consider like and opposite charges. They respectively repel and attract. A closer look at the whole process reveals that for a short distance water is pulled towards or accelerated by the charge separator loop. After it passes the charge separator loop, water is slowed down because of its attraction to the separator loop, and slowed down again with the collector plate because like charges repel. It takes energy to slow falling water, and it has to go somewhere. It ended up stored as an electrostatic charge potential.
The stronger the field present, the more energy it is able to extract from the falling water droplets to feed that field. So voltage rises exponentially until the static forces interfere with the trajectory of the water droplets, or the system is discharged.
I'm an engineer (master of science EE no less) and my first thought in response to his question was that the energy was based in entropy. If the water molecules were orderly (low energy, cold) then they wouldn't be out of alignment and wouldn't build up charge through this positive feedback mechanism.
1:00 I think what you meant to say was there's little charge behind it, so it doesn't sustain the current long enough to do damage. Great video though!
wow, I wonder how much it costed to build all that to just make this video. I would think that the charge comes from the ions building up on the coils creating a small magnetic field , then when full saturation is reached, a small amount of ions start to ark across the electrodes, when that happens the magnetic field starts to collapse and then pushes the rest of the electrons across.
Calin Agotici No, it is the gravitational energy that is driving the whole thing. Here's the steps of what happens: 1) Random charge variations cause one loop set to gain a net charge. 2) The induced dipole causes a greater charge separation to start forming. However, without any external driving force, those charges would simple recombine due to electrostatic attraction. That's why putting the structure into stationary water wouldn't work. you'd constantly get tiny charge separations but they would almost instantly self correct and vanish. 3) Gravity pulls the water into two separate streams, preventing the separated charges from simply recombining. This takes energy out of the gravitational fall of the water. This is caused by the repulsion between each charged water stream and the bottom screen of the same charge. You see the same effect on the top coils. They visibly deflect the water in an attractive way but since the attraction is at a right angle to the direction of water flow, it has a minimal energy contribution to the whole system. You can't see the screen/water repulsion as easily but if you were to measure the speed of the falling water, you would find that it is decreased as it passes through the screens. You can never get energy for nothing. The electrostatic interactions cannot drive the system since there is no way for net energy input to occur. The only energy input is from gravity pulling the water down. (or more indirectly, the pump that is circulating the water back up to the top) When analyzing energy systems, you always have to step back away from the details and ask yourself, "Where is the energy driving the system coming from?" Once you figure that out, then you can work your way through the problem.
Dan Heidel Electrostatics are symmetrical, so any decrease in kinetic energy on the way toward the mesh due to repulsion would be exactly matched by an increase in kinetic energy after passing through the mesh and heading away.
BookofAeons You are correct. I was thinking that the relative deceleration and acceleration of the water on the top and bottom of the mesh would impart differing amounts of work on the falling water but that is not the case. The work must be performed when the water initially falls out of the upper reservoir. The separated charges have electrostatic attraction to each other and overcoming that attraction must be where the actual work is being done.
H2O by nature is a non-ionic compound meaning that it shares no overall charge despite its polarity. Hence, if this experiment were conducted using pure (distilled) water, I do not think a charge could be produced. The concept of 'hard water' (contains impurities) would suggest that the water falling past these coils contain ionic elements such as metal particles for example. Whilst most of the water travelling through these coils would be in fact, water, a small percentage could contain these ionic compounds or elements, hence the small charge produced. These ionic compounds being of different charges would then be attracted according to the overall charge of each coil producing static electricity until discharged.
It basically converts the kinetic energy of the water into electrical energy, and the kinetic energy comes from the potential energy of it being lifted further from the earth, by the pump pushing the water.
A charge is created by the dipoles within the water droplets. Each droplet has a fluctuating liquid diode preventing the water droplets from flowing upstream. This creates a positive flow in one direction. The mesh interaction creates a wave like function which is emulated in the adjoining coil. Having two separate coils receiving droplet harmonics from opposite streams increases the wave harmonics. The two metal balls resonate this harmonic and enable the wave function to collapse. When the wave function collapse or cancels out they annihilate the harmonics resulting in a micro-discharge. We see this as the little blue/white spark of electricity.
The way I understand water, it has a slight tendency to seperate in H+ and OH- ions which are constantly reassociating back into H2O and then disassociating back into H+ and OH- ions. The small percentage of water that is temporarily in these ionic forms are the charge carriers that are attracted to the corresponding oppositely charge coils through which the water is flowing. When enough of the positive and negative ions are attracted near the coils there is a small flow of current in the coils which results in the coils themselves taking on positive or negative charges. When the charges are sufficient to ionize the air between the balls, a spark jumps the gap and the charge is neutralized at which point the process starts over again.
The energy comes from the potential energy of the water. In essence, gravity is the source of charge. Potential, converted to kinetic converted to electric then released through the spark. Separating the two balls would allow for greater charge to build up, but would take longer to charge up enough to a voltage great enough to exceed the breakdown voltage of air.
as rain "shower" falls the air is rushing around each droplet this is causing a greater volume of air movement - as air rubs each drop it is charging it much like a balloon being rubbed causing our hair to stand up because of a static charge water drops are no different. hence the standing static field -this is why the drops are pulled to or from the rings at the time of discharge.
Induction! Water is a polar molocule and also acts as a polar solvent. When a molecule is said to be "polar," this means that the positive and negative electrical charges are unevenly distributed. The positive charge comes from the atomic nucleus, while the outer electrons supply the negative charge. It's the movement of the electrons that determines polarity. Therefore, induction is the source of electricity in the coils. The separation and direction of the coils creates a simple diode, and the energy can then be discharged through the arc once enough charge is built up. All things exert some form ambient electric or magnetic field, even "neutral" objects. Water is neutral, but that means it has BOTH positive and negative poles that are stable, with no one side being stronger than the other. Magnets are also neutral - having both a positively and a negatively charged pole. It works like moving a magnet through the coils - inducing a current. Anytime there are positive and negative poles, there are also electric and magnetic fields that interact and flow through those poles. When those fields interact with conductive, segmented objects, they induce an electrical current by attracting or repelling the free/shared electrons in the object. There may be a few other factors at work contributing to this, such as the limited particle interactions with air molecules, but the primary driver here is polarized water molecules inducing a current into the conductive coils. Much love.
It's just kinetic energy due to gravitational force dude. Polarity of water has nothing to do with this. When water droplets pases through the wire mesh, the friction between the molecules of water and wires generates positive and negative charges separately. Ever seen a Van de Graff generator? The working principle is the same, which is friction.
@@thunderboltcloud3675 You are saying that water displacing the air is generating enough friction to induce a high voltage current? This is mathematically impossible, given the conditions. If friction were the imparting force, then a lot more thermal energy would be generated, and in this environment I imagine that you would require some moving parts to convert the friction to useful energy, or else a material that can transform kinetic or thermal energy to electricity. The water particles are constantly attracting and repelling each other - and in free fall, this effect is more pronounced because the particles aren't as liquid bound as when at rest under gravity and surface tension forces. As the particles move in the air, their polarized electrical fields induce tiny currents into the coils, which then creates a positive feedback loop. The fact that there are two waterfalls with two sets of connected coils each electrically connects both waterfalls, and charge separation results from the induced fields in each segment of the coil. The negatively charged poles will be even more attracted to positively charged coil segments, and vice versa - which is why the water is physically attracted to the coils - until they are discharged. This is the law of induction at work, not friction.
The mesh strainer only separates the water for smaller particles and more even flow, which helps free up the polar action of individual droplets. The water going through the strainer cannot produce enough energy to induce an electric current on a coil situated a significant distance away, insulated by air. The goal of putting the water in a state of free fall is to eliminate both friction (which opposes the necessary motion for useful induction), and surface tension (which is why there is a mesh strainer - the smaller the particle, the less interference it will experience from air resistance and surface tension). I gather that the the action of the attracted particles is an important part of the experiment, and so the strainer was probably added to to help thin out the water to a smooth stream of small droplets, which helps maximize it's electrical potential while falling through coils.
One last thing: I'd bet money this experiment could be replicated in a 0-gravity vacuum tube - eliminating particle resistance and gravity. If a jet were used to propel a spray of water particles through coils like these in a frictionless and weightless environment - the electromagnetic action on the coils would still happen. This is why it is wrong to say that this is "gravitational" energy. Gravity is being used only incidentally - to feed water through the coil. Assuming you have water in motion already, this effect can occur. This is not generating any usable energy on its own. The generation of current happens because of electromagnetic induction. If we could replicate this experiment in 0-G, it would support my theory that this is electromagnetic action, and that it is not dependants on gravity or friction to occur.
In the end it has to be gravity right? The whole system is just a positive feedback loop, that relies on the charges on drops along with the need of drops to be small enough for this positive feedback to work (as in bending the stream of drops you want), and so we get to the mechanism that creates these drops, which uses just small holes, where water goes through and there is some force that is overcoming it's surface tension, thus supplying required energy to break it into the drops we need. This force is gravity, so the energy is coming from grav. pot. energy. Yes?
Calin Agotici I checked out your answer, but you're wrong because you're not explaining where this net electrostatic energy is coming from. We all understood that these ions are causing the metallic bobs to get charged and everything, but without gravity doing the work of dividing the water into these droplets, the net charge built up on the sieve would not be substantial to produce this phenomenon (because of zero net charge). The energy used to produce these droplets is the crucial factor.
Le monickous It's also kind of a mix. The energy comes from the ions in the end (the spark), but you need potential energy of gravity to run what's basically a sorting machine into two containers with different charges (then the spark) but it's using very very little (why the machine is so inefficient). But if you had zero ions, even with gravity the system doesn't work But once you start getting very specific, it comes down to definitions. As in the energy created in hydro dams and turbines doesn't come from the potential energy of water, but the heat of the sun. As it's the heat of the sun that evaporated the water which then turned into rain at higher altitude that filled the dam that has the potential energy to run the turbines.
Yes, viewed from the point of view of the metallic contacts, the source of energy might be the charged droplets transferring this charge to the metal. But the charged droplets existed -because- work was done in pushing them through a mechanism that converted them into drops. Otherwise, if it was kept as a bulk of water, it would not have had an appreciable charge to it. Now, this work, was done by gravity. If you're gonna attribute sun for energy, you might as well do that for 90% of things happening on earth. As to why the mechanism is so inefficient, it's because due to firstly, not all charged droplets have same charge, so literally most of them are wasted by cancelling each other out, that creates the inefficiency.
Le monickous Also ignoring the hydraulic head, which could be used to run a turbine, contributes to the inefficiency of the system if we are concerned about how the water got up there in the first place.
The energy stems from the potential energy of the dropping water maybe? The gravitational force pulls water droplets effectively moving charged particles, which in turn generates charge separation
This may be how we will eventually travel through space with disk-shaped craft built like a parallel plate capacitor and using the research done by Brown. If instead of the two balls shorting out adjustable insulating distance between the plates it would continue to charge to a high voltage and work like the lifters. You would just have to stop on a planet with water and refill your tanks.
The energy is coming from the gravitational potential energy of pumping the water up. And then the kinetic energy the water molecules gain during descent. A moving charge such as that of the slightly charged water droplets creates a magnetic field, this field will in turn induce an EMF voltage in the coil which creates the build up of charge at the terminals. Some of the water droplets kinetic energy is lost in the process.
see, thats what I thought he was explaining at the start of the video, so at the end when he asked 'where does the electricity come from' i was like "wut? Didnt you just answer that?"
The Tech Pony you have a point... Can you give me an example, I am new at trolling people on internet. Weirdly I never imagined such talks on Veritasium O.o
That is why all the valves in a refinery are anti-static, unless you want to see sparks jumping from the valve lever to the adjacent valve structure, in the dark, in a place where an explosive atmosphere may be present. Fluid flowing in pipes can build up static, and a ball valve ball, sitting insulated in ptfe seals or similar, with the valve stem equally insulated, can be an outlet to such static buildup, unless the ball and valve stem are electrically continuous through the valve.
Gravity is the source of energy. Gravity by way of its pull on the water causes the electrical imbalances to form. No gravity, no fall, no electrical imbalances, no flow of electrical energy, and no sparks when the charges rebalance. Gravity, my dear Watson. Gravity.
Not even close. This same configuration would work in zero gravity as long as there is enough water pressure to move the droplets through the air. The energy comes from the breaking of hydrogen bonds as the water is forced through the shower head into droplets.
I don't know maybe making it the size of the Pyramid of Giza..... That's right somebody already did that only it was a different more understood Superior model plan, but it has the same concept and don't let me get into the electromagnetic pulse it creates as well
Your power source is gravity. Static charge is created by the attraction of moving water molecules through the air, past the coil, which also creates an electrostatic drag. Acceleration differences between top LR coil connected to bottom RL in a circuit creates a flow of current. Notice the electrode placement. It is how we harvest the energy. You can make a ladder from it, as the water must keep falling.
Roughly 271,240 years, a 2000 mAH phone battery holds around 29 kilojoules of energy, divide that by 6.5 to get 4.461 KJ per year divide 1210000 by 4.461 to get answer. Your better off time traveling the normal way.
Forever. Watts is a unit of power. Power is energy discharged per unit of time. In this case, 1.21 GigaJoules/second. Your question is the equivalent of asking someone to calculate how long the turtle will take to go 200 mph. The turtle doesn't produce that kind of displacement/second, regardless of how much time you give it. and likewise, the device, at the scale shown, will not produce that much energy/second REGARDLESS of how much time you give it. The turtle maxes out at about 1/4 mile/hour and this devices maxes out at about 1 femtojoule/second = 1 femtowatt. This thing produces about 1 femto-watt (about 10^-12 watt) You literally get more kinetic energy from the falling water than you do from the electricity produced.
@@Squidbillies1000 He's wrong. See my comments. I'm an electrical engineer. Believe me, I know this stuff inside and out. I also got 399 out of 400 points possible in the most difficult Electromagnetics course in the School of Physics at Purdue University.
@@klazarovful Think again - if you aren't using gravity to move the water, don't you need to provide some other energy to move it? Replacing gravity with some other force doesn't change the basic point -- energy is provided from the "outside."
Very cool video! Gravity. The energy comes from the potential energy stored in the water as it falls. There are high pressure ballistic water droplet versions of this as well as microfluidic oil and water dropper versions. Super cool technology that could soon be used for energy harvesting as it boasts a relatively high efficiency.
The energy is harvested by creating order and separation out of what would be randomly (somewhat evenly) distributed ions or charges in the environment, mostly in the water I'd think. The energy isn't created, but moved around in the system. Using a passive system with just conductors and nothing else, to magnify biases in charge, is what makes this setup so cool.
Cause and effect, the movement of the water through the air creates changes in the molecular placement of molecules which result in the excitement of various other particles which then get trapped in their usual escape routes.
Kelvin's Thunderstorm has to be the coolest name for any experiment I've ever seen
Does rain not aid in the lightning of a thunderstorm? Mhos?
Lord Kelvins Thunderstorm sound like a 7th or 8th level D&D spell!
it almost sounds like a comics superhero ability
It's more catchy than "William Thomson's Water-dropper with electric effect" for sure.
Better than Kevin's Thunderstorm! xD
This video has so much 'wow' to it. Especially in the internet address...
wow
it is the wow signal!!!
wow
ua-cam.com/video/rv4MjaF_wow/v-deo.html
so video
much wow
One might say it’s a trickle charge for the phone
Damn son
good one:
ua-cam.com/video/8eXj97stbG8/v-deo.html
This is how Reganomics works
Shame on you.
Better than calling it a tinkle charger. I know I would be P'd off if my invention was called that without me leaking some horribly punny dad joke into it.
If someone wants to know why:
The energy that comes from this generator comes from the kinetik energy of the water when it is slowed down by the eletromagnetic fields of the coils. The upper coil attracts the Ions and the lower coil repels them, they slow down and their kinetic energy is converted into electricity.
I don't claim to have figured it out. I just looked it up since I wanted to know why this happens.
i thougt so too. because the only energies i can see is potential, kinetic and chemical. and nothing is reacting and i potential is already converted to kinetic so its the last thing standing^^
I wonder if the water had a thicker viscosity that it would make the electromagnet work harder to pull and push the water,and if that would cause a higher kenetic energy to create a higher voltage? That could be an entirely different experiment in itself. This is pretty cool stuff!
@@rickycarter6371 I could imagine that the ion exchange speed is depending on the viscosity of the fluid. At some level the Ions won't exchange fast enough to charge the coils.
@@m0ntezott In that case, would a lower viscosity fluid increase the ion exchange speed? Additionally, I would guess that scaling up this set up with more coils would produce a higher voltage but is there a theoretical way to increase the amperage?
@@onlineanonymity6153 I have no clue. I could imagine that the size of the coils is limited, because at some point the charge wouldn't be able to creat a field that is strong enough to have any effect. But maybe I'm wrong and you could just build a giant version of this.
Don't cross the streams.
Don’t pee on the transformer
@@mikecorleone6797 Unless you're an electrician, because it doesn't bite of its own
Joona Korhonen you’ve never seen tommy boy?
UA-cam be like
2014:
2015:
2016:
2017:
2018:
2019: Let's recommend this video
I, had the exact same
same here
True
Comments be like: unoriginal
People: like
same also
I am here because of ElectroBOOM, where he dissed (a little bit) Derek about the "current" that kills you.
mee too :)
Me toooo 😌
Me too🤣
Me too!
And what a shocking video...
@@Jet-Pack tell me a single video of EB that is not shocking 😉
I love the very apparent difference when this is filmed from the really expensive cameras with the professionally set lighting. Literally all of the clarity!
I tried to replicate this experiment in my barn for a middle school science fair project. Only produced a barely detectable charge and lost to a girl who showed that different colored dye absorbs into paper towels at a different rate. #christianschool
Jacqueline Wubbena dats fked up man，my mind was blown by this experiment .What were the judges thinking ，u created electricity using simply water droplets through coils and metal mesh.ur sch sucks bruh
The big yellow one is the sun!
Was the experiment setup still in the barn when presented? I'm assuming the contents of the barn may have an impact.
HOWEVER producing an electric charge from water droplets falling through the air, should, be much more interesting then the different absorption rates of additives/solvents mixed in different colored dyes by some pedestrian sheets of paper.
No way that beat this experiment!
TheSunExpress ikr that s pure bs
What does this have to do with the hunger games exactly?
catniss was from the coal mining district so the energy economy is part of the background for the book. the hunger games promo people are doing stunts with alternative energy because clean coal is a myth. pretty sure that's the logic. to quote c&c music factory, it's about "things that make you go 'hmmm'".
Marketing ;)
@@edstirling is jon tickle involved?
corny brain high fructose syrup
He tells you at the beginning lmao it's called listening
Stranded on a deserted island with a dead cell phone, some metal coils, a stream, and 6-7 years, I got this!
you can simply get a larger water supply and you don't need full charge to make a phone call.
Unless you had a satellite phone it wouldn't do you any good. If there was a cell tower close enough, you could just swim the few km to it or build a raft. You'd be able to see it anyway. Just sayin...
Don't listen to these guys :D
You got this!
Many city people dream they owed their own little island paradise.. Embrace being stranded and live the dream....
"Make me a video response!" Oh, 2014 Derek! If only you knew that UA-cam was going to kill that functionality!
Except it appears that YT discontinued video responses already in 2013. Hmmm.
@@Graham_Wideman Except we are responding in comments in 2021 almost 2022 soon lol
@@agentstona New here, heh? That's video responses. Not comment responses.
@@DimaZheludko hehe he check the join date . here since 2007 .
@@agentstona so, what was your point then?
I bet that even the sound energy it's producing is greater than the electrical energy ;)
Answer/spoiler to the question:
The energy is obviously from the potential energy of the water. So what ever lifted the water above, is the source of energy.
What if this apparatus is in an environment with no gravitational acceleration but has an initial velocity, and a non-adhesive tube that bring water back to the "top"?
This is the only answer that hasn't made me facepalm going through the comments..
Derek Leung
This coverts a bit of the kinectic energy of the droplets into electrical energy.
Thus the apparatus would lose its kinetic energy(by passing each droplet) over time and stop.
Derek Leung I've seen you before... 2spooky4me
***** f: Z+ -> String
f(n)=nspookyn^2me
I've seen this using four metallic coffee cans (remember them?) with the bottoms cut out instead of coils. The one set of two diagonals were re-labeled as "Kelvin's Cup", and the other two were, of course...
"Maxwell's House".
Humour wasted on this smartarse clickbaiter
The energy comes from the kinetic energy of the water falling. As water falls through the charged rings it is not only deflected by the charge. The droplets are also slowed as the droplets themselves take on or give up electrons in their respective opposite fields. So kinetic energy from the droplets is lost to the processes of slowing and charge separation that becomes a self-reinforcing cycle. My own thoughts, I haven't explained it very well.
I would be curious if the polarity of their system always evolves the same way. Ideally it should be random with each fresh start of the system, but in reality it would likely be skewed toward one polarity or the other, because of subtle electric field influences in the environment. It would be cool to keep stats on that and see what modifications to the environment are needed to bring it closer to statistically even.
Try installing a diode to eliminate charge toggling and a capacitor for larger sparks.
see my post...
is this anything like when you put a load on a car's alternator, it labours the engine - in principal and in relation to the drops being slowed down.... are they slowing down because they gave up or gained a charge?
Mostly correct, kinetic energy is only assisting the water to the metal, as the water passes the metal, it leaves electrons on one coil and protons on another coil until the charge in each coil builds up to arc.
@@TheSlimyFreak Thanks
The energy comes from the conversion of gravitational potential energy into kinetic energy in the water. This kinetic energy is transferred to the electrons in the tubing, as dictated by the motor effect, similar to how a magnet does. The way that the tubes are aligned creates a similar effect to a magnet being moved in and out of the tubes, and so current is generated.
Yhe streams being polarised is what makes the magnet-like effect.
***** Potential energy into kinetic is where I thought it was coming from too. A good point about magnets going in and out of tubes is that the tubes are lined with coils of wire, similar to the coils of metal in this experiment.
Rather about electric potential than gravitational.
oR3Io Isn't electric potential the end result that is derived from the gravitational potential energy?
But the water isn't slowing down. The coils would have no effect on distilled water, so the energy is therefore being generated from the ions in the water. It is the conversion of the ions' kinetic energy into electrical energy.
The air in the earth is always electrically charged.
Passing water and air across the coils.
Increases the airflow. Intensifying the grounding effect. The electrical discharge comes from a buildup of static electricity.
It isn't just the air. Every atom is an electromagnet. Some are just better at it than others.
This is why it's important to regularly replace the water or coolant in your cars radiator. After being cycled through the engine and cooling system hundreds of thousands of times the static charge becomes stronger and stronger increasing the electrolysis process essentially turning the antifreeze into battery acid which eats away at the inside of hoses, water pump impellers, gaskets, and temp. sensors.
"So it's often called Lord Kelvin's Waterdropper or Lord Kelvin's Rainstorm." and then proceeds to call the youtube video Kelvin's Thunderstorm
Relax.
That's probably 2021 Derek using "click bait" titles as was covered in his video.
Changing the name of a video can have drastic effects on how the algo spreads it (else how did either of us come across it recently?). I loathe the system, but I understand (most) of what is intended by the way it is set up. I cannot fault whomever at the channel made the title change for being effective at using the algo.
One point not emphasized in the video is that electrons have to flow through the common water pathway, partially backward against the physical flow of molecules. It's that electron flow that ultimately creates the difference in charge between left and right. Gravitational energy is inefficiently converted to electrochemical energy by induction, until electrons in the 'capacitor' jump the gap.
I know this is a 4 year old video and you're not likely to even see this comment of mine, but if by some slim chance you do, would you mind elaborating further? I don't understand how the stream becomes charged, which is really bugging me and I can't seem to find a fulfilling answer online.
When you say that "electrons have to flow through the common water pathway" what pathway are you referring to and how does that allow the stream to become charged?
@@shadiester I think it is kind of like a feedback loop. He started off with the assumption that one stream had slightly negative and other has slightly positive charged water particles. These induce their charges to the mesh. Since one mesh is connected to the other stream's coil, it forces the the water in the other stream to take opposite charge. Because of this feedback system, the coils accumulate more and more charge. These coils are in turn connected to the metallic balls. When their is enough potential difference, there is a charge discharge and the coils become neutral. This repeats. This is my understanding.
@@nageenyerramsetty4954 I understand most of it but this one part is what I don't get: "Since one mesh is connected to the other stream's coil, it forces the the water in the other stream to take opposite charge."
Why does it force the water in the other stream to take the opposite charge?
@@shadiester Let us say mesh 1 is negatively charged which makes coil2 also negatively charged. Because the coil 2 is negatively charged it attracts positively charged water particles and also repels the negatively charged water particles. So the negaticely charged water particles are forced to move upstream into the water tank. This happens against the gravity and that is what is mentioned in the original comment. Also what is not shown in ths video is that the two water tanks are connected through a metallic wire. So the negatively charged particles which were repelled by coil 2 flow back up and come through water stream 1 thus making the mesh 1 more negatively charged
@@nageenyerramsetty4954 Ah okay, that makes a lot more sense now! I didn't realise that the charges were actually moving into the water tank. Thank you for clearing that up!
I love how the URL for this vid ends with "wow"
:D
Tim, from Grand Illusions would appreciate this video
The potential energy of the water falling is converted into electrical charge through induction. Faraday's law.
+
gravity
no. not induction. I think it's more like a vandagraph generator where charges are scraped off or released into somthing else. idk what that's called but not induction.
@@Wtfinc i think thats called static induction, may be wrong tho
Kelvin - Thunderstorm
Drop the math!
Hendrik Werner drop drop drop the math *dubstep sounds*
I would assume that the energy comes from the movement of the water, which is powered by gravity. Water requires energy to move upwards, so that it can fall down. As to exactly how that kinetic energy is translated into electrical, I don't know.
Friction, static...?
The gravity is driving the separation of the charges. If it weren't for the gravity pulling the water down into two separate streams, any charge variations would just attract each other and almost instantly cancel out again. You'd constantly have tiny electrical fluctuations popping up and then going away.
However, the gravity pulls the water down and overcomes the attraction of those charges and rips them apart from each other to drive the whole system. Look at how the upper coils attract the water streams due to the opposite charges. Those coils don't contribute much to the overall energy since they are pulling perpendicular to the water flow. However, the bottom screens have the same charge as the water and are directly in line with the direction of flow and will be repelling the falling water. If you were to carefully measure the speed of the falling water, you would find that the bottom screens reduce the falling speed of the water by approximately the same amount as the energy being built up before each spark.
***** I do know that electricity can be created by magnetic forces only when the magnetic force changes. That happens when (-) charged water falls nearer and then away from a (+) charged coil. There is a change between the magnetic interaction. How this happens though is beyond me.
Dan Heidel You clearly know more about this them I do. :) Thanks for the explanation.
EE Ehrenberg
I have actually run across Kelvin's waterfall before. However, understanding it has less to do with raw knowledge and more to do with how you approach the problem.
Derek loooves complicated looking problems. There's usually a lot of extra stuff that looks like it might possibly drive things but is actually just part of the process. A lot of real engineering problems tend to act like this as well.
The key is to step back and not get bogged down with the details of all those coils of wire, etc. Instead, look at the overall process and try to figure out where the energy comes from. It can't be the metal coils or screens - there's no wires or radio waves putting energy into them. Therefore they *can't* be the source of the energy driving the system.
instead, we do have a clear driving force, the gravity pulling the water downward. Now that we know that it's gravity driving the system, we can work through it step by step to figure out how that gravitational energy can possibly be converted into the electrical energy that's generating the sparks.
The secret is that most physical systems are actually fairly simple if you step back and analyze them piecemeal like that. And since there always has to be some sort of energy input, that is a logical place to start.
Positive feedback system, with the energy input from the falling mass of the water. And the water acts as a charge carrier, moving charge, thus current.
Now picture this occurring on a vast scale miles wide, and the thing filled with convection columns many feet across replacing the coils... And then you're basically outside during a thunderstorm.
right what i was thinking the guy must have got idea from storm humans learn from nature
Except that the current theory for thunderstorms is ice crystals
Positive feedback. Yes.
Mass of falling water -- doesn't play the slightest part.
The CHARGE WITHIN the falling water is what makes it work. The amont of mass literally has nothing to do with it. Take another substance that's heavier and with a lower disassociation constant, and it will take substantially more mass to produce the same amount of charge at the electrodes.
Also, as for this being how thunderstorms happen. No.... the "static electricity caused by rising air currents" model of thunderstorms was always shaky at best; It has now been PROVEN that lightning is a result of charge in the UPPER atmosphere (like tens of miles above the cloud tops) caused by cosmic rays.
I guess, if the water were purified H2O (or "distilled water"), it would not produce any charge, but in normal water, there are always other types of atoms present, which exist in a state of ionization, being partly bonded to the water molecules, like if you put salt into water. If I remember my school chemistry correctly, that becomes Na+ and Cl- molecules which bond to the according side of the water molecules. That can only happen because water is a dipole molecule, it has one end that is positively charged and an other end that is negatively charged. So these ions will cross the charged wire mesh and then lose their charge. Because the water has before flown through the metal rings with the opposite charge of the wire mesh, the effect increases itself.
distilled water still contains ions because it dissociates into H+ and OH- so even pure water would work in this apparatus.
Veritasium So the water molecules are not actually H+ on the one side and OH- on the other side, as I were told in school and made to imagine a "triangular" shape of the molecule?
Ions, remember?
MrB10N1CLE Yeah, but distilled water isn't electrically conductive, or at least it has a way higher resistance than normal water, so there should be less to none ions in it?
Seegal Galguntijak When people say pure water is not conductive, it is because there are no ionic pollutants. Stuff like table salt (NaCl) would dissolve and conduct electricity. As such, pure water wouldn't function as a wire in that sense. In this case, it is less electricity than it is electrostatics, as far as I can observe, so it functions based on the fact that water is bipolar so it can separate charges.
The electrical energy comes from the fact that water must flow from a high point to lower point. There must be movement in order for the apparatus to function. This gravitational potential energy is ultimately converted into electrical potential, which is the voltage.
One of the best physics channel till now on UA-cam...thanks for the great content derek.
Cool! It's like a Wimshurst machine but with falling water instead of a rotating disk. The energy comes out of the kinetic energy of the water, it's getting slightly pulled upwards by the coils when they are charged.
1:03 "So you can't get that much current flowing and the current is what really does damage"
ElectroBOOM: "OBJECTION!"
Instead of just making a spark, attach it to the Tate Ambient Power Module circuit (bridge-rectifier made from germanium diodes rated for high voltage). The module converts to DC and charges capacitors, thus smoothing the power. If the capacitors are say 1000MFD or higher, this can drive something conventional such as a battery charging circuit for a cell phone (voltage regulated to 5V). But, you have to have constant water flowing, and if you want the water to go in a circle, you need to pump it UP again. I suggest you use the Tesla Water Fountain patent number 1,113,716. The idea is to spin the water at low power, rather than pump it. Create a water vortex, the water level rises and spills over the edge. Now you have falling water that you can separate into two columns.
Big brain time! I think that the better option is to run a spark plug that can handle the voltage. Create a siphon that leads to the spark gap and tune the system to keep up with dripping water. If you hit a water droplet with the 10000v then the water droplet can ignite and explode. That energy splits the molecules so fast that it ignites the hydrogen and burns the oxygen. You could then run a piston chamber with that energy. The only issue is tuning the system to run an engine like this and power a generator. It's an idea that has been stewing in my head for a while. I don't have any resources to pull it off or the money to try it. One day maybe.
The system's electrical circuit is driven by the EMF created when electrically charged water falls from the top basket's voltage, to the bottom basket's voltage. This EMF induces current oppositely directed: up on one side and down on the other side of the apparatus, thereby charging the discharge balls capacitance untill they discharge ionically thru the air, completing the circuit.
Your explanation makes sense. Thank you!.
I couldn't understand Derek's explanation that negative charge in the left shower attracts the positive charge in the other shower. It should neutralize and not result charge buildup.
i would assume,that the energy is coming from the potential energy that is stored in the water before it falls.
you would need to add energy,to pump the water back up to where it's normally stored...this energy is partially turned into electric current,and the rest into heat.
I apologise if I'm wrong. But the potential energy isn't being used up, so it can't be getting it from there. And this set up could be used in conjunction with a waterfall or something so that the water wouldn't need to be pumped back.
it is being used up.
otherwise water-turbines would be producing "free" energy.
FractalMachine Even in this case? Can potential energy be used up without contact?
well it doesn't need physical contact.
interacting is enough.
and in this case the water does interact with the metal coils.
The potential energy "released" by the falling droplet would normally be converted into movement, sound, and heat. This machine simply converts some of that into electricity as well. The water should actually fall slower, just like a magnet slides down a copper tube slowly as eddy currents are generated.
This is one of the coolest things I've seen in awhile. Its static like lightning. In the atmosphere is all sorts of different elements. In the raindrops also. Friction of air moving also.
The energy comes from whatever makes the water move. The electrical field of the two upper coils polarizes the water between them, but the positive and the negative part still attract each other and would stay together if it was not pushed apart by force.
Under normal circumstances it would be gravity, or potential energy of the water in gravitational field which gets depleted as the water falls down. But the machine could be reproduced also upside down or in microgravity conditions such as on ISS - in that case other source of energy pushing the water through the machine would be the source.
Agreed, the energy is coming from the pump in the buckets.
I want to know the answer, not learn from the comments. I hate when you do this.
"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." - William Butler Yeats
Veritasium
Stop being smarter than me dammit
Veritasium This kills the students.
Veritasium Is it the conversion of the kinetic energy of the ions to electrical energy in the coil? Assuming that you would generate no voltage if you used distilled water.
serggie3 This method actually orients the charged particles in the metal pipe by using the charged particles of the water. Difference in the amount of negatively charged particles through the pipe causes currency enough to make the spark.*flies away*
The energy comes from the potential and kinetic energy of the water. The rings pull on the water and slow it’s fall
I asked my girlfriend about this in the same sort of way you ask people on the street about physics questions and we got into a big argument. She said I was trying to make her feel stupid by asking her a question I already knew the answer to - I told her that's the best way for her to learn about physics. I'll keep watching your videos but need to be more careful when I talk about your ideas cause people are sensitive when they are proven wrong.
Lol, that' was not very nice! hahah
Take notice that he never outright tells people "you're wrong" He gives them a question, asks what led them to the answer they gave and then tells/shows them WHY it's wrong.
Yes, he is very tactful in his delivery and certainly always smiling - however doesn't change the fact that people tend to get upset when proven wrong, specially when they've learned something and feel very confident in what they know even if its incorrect.
Enjoying - his theses is supporting what I just posted about learning not necessarily making people smarter but more confident in what they learned, correct or incorrect
Justin Belford
While we are on toic, i was hoping he would ackknowledge Thunderfood debunking his vid about the bipolar nature of water not beeing the main cause for the affection of a flowing stream towards a charged object, cause the topics are related... but this vid seems to have had a long preptime and he might have not knowen it yet.
Anyhow, the answer is electromagnetism, more precise induction. The randomly charged droplets induce a current inside the apperatus
"By a guy named Lord Kelvin" lol That sounded like you have no idea who Lord Kelvin was or what he did xD
Thank you this was amazing. I had no idea about this :D
William Thomson renamed himself "Lord Kelvin" so being a little cheeky with the name is warranted.
From the potential energy of water stored in that tank.
The effects demonstrated in this experiment are not directly related to potential/kinetic energy. Those aspects cannot be removed, but this experiment is more about magnets passing through conductive coils. Atoms in and of themselves are electromagnets. Chemistry calls it chemical or molecular bonding but at the root it has all of the same properties of electromagnetism. How you use particular atoms/molecules to affect other atoms/molecules is where the focus (rightly) lays within that field, but the root is still electromagnetism.
The energy comes from electrostatic potential of the stream of water.
Hence, it cannot be used again
bassisku No, gravitational potential energy is not the source, the ions are....
if we did this to all water before we used it in traditional hydroelectric power stations we would make the whole system more efficient though. right?
Reggie land For the added cost, being able to charge an extra phone every six and a half years wouldn't be worth it.
people keep on saying it comes from the gravity, which was my initial thought. But then I realized the only reason the water really needed to flowing was so that it could get more charges from new water. And so I thought a similar thing. I am pretty sure you are right.
The water starts out electrically neutral. There is no significant electrostatic potential in the water until there's charge separation, which is caused by the charge building up on the coils. That, in turn, can't happen without a source of energy, as like charges will tend to repel. The only available sources of energy here are gravitational potential energy and thermal energy. Given that the droplets are moving relatively fast when they hit the mesh, their overall kinetic energy, rather than internal kinetic energy (a.k.a. heat) should matter more. But, the motion comes from the conversion of gravitational potential energy as the drops fall. Thus, the only thing that could reasonably be the energy source here is gravity.
Thunderfoot gave me the answer by showing me how wrong you were about static charge in water.
hahaha
thunderfoot > veritasium
he wasn't wrong, watch thunderfoot's video again and really understand it.
Then answer it
Seraph from the Matrix just called, he wants his tunic back.....
Nice....
It comes from potentiel energy. Gravity does all the work. The speed of the water is slightly reduced as if it was falling freely.
that's kinetic energy
Joaquin Pirotto Which is converted from potential energy.
Kinetic energy is not easily converted into electrical energy, and it doesn't look like the water is slower than it otherwise would be
Ivan Navarro Kinectic energy is EASILY converted in to electrical energy, the energy it pumps out is so small you wouldnt be able to see the difference in the movement of the water.
But we use turbines to convert kinetic energy of water, or even steam into electrical energy and those work because of magnets inside of them. This set up doesn't have any of that so I'm not sure how the Kinetic energy could be this easily transformed, but I'm here to learn! Thanks for the reply!
E = IVt So the energy comes from the movement of charge, potential difference and the time the device runs for. So the energy comes from the movement of ions or gravity pulling the water down.
don't moving charges produce magnetic fields?
how to turn few hundred watts of pumping power into few milliwatts of high voltage.
Could be done using natural water flows. Still, better ways of converting the energy exist.
@@JBinero waterfall
but if you ever happen to find yourself in a place with no electricity, and happen to have all the materials to build this, you can use a bucket to transfer the water back up to the top tank by hand, converting chemical energy (from eating food) to mechanical (moving the water yourself) to electical.
Well said
@@SurgStriker you could create a dynamo, a lot more power efficient
Instead of 2 streams, suppose you have either 3, 6, or 9 streams. Tesla seemed to like these numbers. With 3, arrange them in a circle. The bottom coil attaches to the top of the next going around. Three balls will be under each lower section coming to an upsidedown apex. The sparks should go in a circle. Instead of a spark, pulse thru a coil to make a temporary magnetic field in rotation. A motor. Attach a giant beater, and spin this in chocolate, like in Charlie and the Chocolate factory.
Sadly the 3,6,9 quote is not a real Tesla quote.
@@CharlieSolisAwe! But I really like those numbers!
While there's not a lot of charge, this is a brilliant setup. I see potential (no pun intended) in this. Perhaps a large enough setup - or an array of rigs - could be used to drive LEDs as some sort of emergency storm lighting. Or... I don't know. But I'm sure there's greatness that could come from this.
The only change in the water at the beginning of the experiment and at the end is it's position. this means it is powered by the fall of the water. What i'm saying is that it needs to bring the water back up, so no energy generated. Also, you could also run a wheel under your faucet to generate energy which is much more effective.
Correct me if I'm wrong, But I think this is how Waterfall generators work...
Brilliant application of a Lord Kelvin Thunderstorm, that's a great piece of engineering. Well presented, very succinct and practical. Thanks
The energy comes from the flow of electrons in the water through the metal coils, causing induction. The wiring up and cross connecting is a makeshift diode of sorts, as well. Great video.
Sorry but this comment is nonsense
I liked this real Derek version 10 times better than the fake Hollywood version :)
The other video was well made, but it was just not you.
yeah that was kind of the point. I prefer being real as well.
Veritasium Derek, the answer to your spinning disk trick is STABILITY. Friction is only a requirement.
Contact me for the explanation.
James.
From the potential difference created the electrostatic energy comes
Well, the only obvious energy in the system is gravitational potential energy... probably the water is slowed very slightly.
James Lewis a dick energy
James Lewis just because a force is pulling on it doesnt nessesairly mean it give it energy
MessiahNerves right, but the water starts with gravitational potential energy, and this is obviously converted into kinetic energy... if the electricity comes from somewhere, this would be the obvious potential source... but if you have another suggestion, please feel free to suggest it.
James Lewis the same molucules attrack while the ions pull the h30+ ions and the oh- to them aswell im guess this charge diffrence may cause but im not sure if i really wanted to know im sure a google search would give me the awnser but thats to fun.
MessiahNerves RIght, so obviously the positive coil attracts negative ions in the water, and visa-versa... and this creates a positive feedback loop because of the cross connection of the screen and the coils... but since this "sorting" process is essentially decreasing entropy, which can't happen unless there is an external source of energy, the question posed was... where does the energy /come/ from, and as I said, since I this is an electrostatic induction generator, the energy appears to me to come from the gravitational potential energy of the water... by slowing the water droplets a tiny amount.
Elevated water has stored potential energy, which is transformed into kinetic energy as it falls, whereas a less efficient conversion of electromagnetic energy from water molecules is absorbed by the water mesh, creating an initial electric charge, where the accumulation of charge is accelerated by your setup, until enough current is able to jump across the metal orbs, closing the circuit.
Friction causes the transfer of electrons as the falling droplets strike against each other (and against moisture in the air).
Gain of electrons --> negatively charged water droplet.
Loss of electrons --> positively charged water droplet.
1:04 A man with a masters in failure once said: This boils his blood
Gravitational potential energy usually all becomes the kinetic energy of the water while this setup transforms a slice of the kinetic energy to electric potential energy.
Thanks for the recommendation youtube. This video from when "The Hunger Games" was relevant was actually really cool! I would love to see more videos about making similar setups more efficient.
Veritasium, I wish we could test this in NASA's vacuum chamber with less than 50 torr (
I built a similar one of these. There were single drops and they didn't contact any of the rings. It builds up and yields charge like a van de Graaf generator. I had two coffee cans cross-connected to two small rings, all insulated. there was no friction, the droplets slow down as they go into the rings, give up charge due to faraday shield effect and thus turn kinetic energy into charge. Like a thunderstorm.
An engineer might explain this phenomenon via a concept called positive feedback. The apparatus is designed in such a way that the longer it runs, the better it works. In this scenario, a minuscule difference in the electrochemical potential in the water sets off a runaway effect that allows the apparatus to collect nearly all of the inherent electrochemical energy in the water. An interesting consequence of this design is that the "positive" or "negative" assignment on either water stream is essentially random. It could change every time the apparatus is turned on, and it will work in exactly the same way.
Great explanation describing its instability. but where does the energy come from. Short answer is gravity.
Consider like and opposite charges. They respectively repel and attract. A closer look at the whole process reveals that for a short distance water is pulled towards or accelerated by the charge separator loop. After it passes the charge separator loop, water is slowed down because of its attraction to the separator loop, and slowed down again with the collector plate because like charges repel. It takes energy to slow falling water, and it has to go somewhere. It ended up stored as an electrostatic charge potential.
Most likely can charge a phone faster with a water wheel hooked up to a small generator, then just let the falling water spin the generator.
The stronger the field present, the more energy it is able to extract from the falling water droplets to feed that field. So voltage rises exponentially until the static forces interfere with the trajectory of the water droplets, or the system is discharged.
I'm an engineer (master of science EE no less) and my first thought in response to his question was that the energy was based in entropy. If the water molecules were orderly (low energy, cold) then they wouldn't be out of alignment and wouldn't build up charge through this positive feedback mechanism.
I believe the energy comes from Gravitational potential energy of the falling water.
1:00 I think what you meant to say was there's little charge behind it, so it doesn't sustain the current long enough to do damage. Great video though!
ON A REALLY BIG SCALE this would make something like...Oh...I don't know...LIGHTNING!?
Can’t believe more people haven’t gotten the importance of this post!
@@daryljohnson6333 maybe its because there isnt giant coils sitting around too. this isnt how lightning is produced
wow, I wonder how much it costed to build all that to just make this video. I would think that the charge comes from the ions building up on the coils creating a small magnetic field , then when full saturation is reached, a small amount of ions start to ark across the electrodes, when that happens the magnetic field starts to collapse and then pushes the rest of the electrons across.
Calin Agotici No, it is the gravitational energy that is driving the whole thing.
Here's the steps of what happens:
1) Random charge variations cause one loop set to gain a net charge.
2) The induced dipole causes a greater charge separation to start forming. However, without any external driving force, those charges would simple recombine due to electrostatic attraction. That's why putting the structure into stationary water wouldn't work. you'd constantly get tiny charge separations but they would almost instantly self correct and vanish.
3) Gravity pulls the water into two separate streams, preventing the separated charges from simply recombining. This takes energy out of the gravitational fall of the water. This is caused by the repulsion between each charged water stream and the bottom screen of the same charge. You see the same effect on the top coils. They visibly deflect the water in an attractive way but since the attraction is at a right angle to the direction of water flow, it has a minimal energy contribution to the whole system. You can't see the screen/water repulsion as easily but if you were to measure the speed of the falling water, you would find that it is decreased as it passes through the screens.
You can never get energy for nothing. The electrostatic interactions cannot drive the system since there is no way for net energy input to occur. The only energy input is from gravity pulling the water down. (or more indirectly, the pump that is circulating the water back up to the top) When analyzing energy systems, you always have to step back away from the details and ask yourself, "Where is the energy driving the system coming from?" Once you figure that out, then you can work your way through the problem.
2 videos + the next one
Dan Heidel Electrostatics are symmetrical, so any decrease in kinetic energy on the way toward the mesh due to repulsion would be exactly matched by an increase in kinetic energy after passing through the mesh and heading away.
BookofAeons
You are correct. I was thinking that the relative deceleration and acceleration of the water on the top and bottom of the mesh would impart differing amounts of work on the falling water but that is not the case.
The work must be performed when the water initially falls out of the upper reservoir. The separated charges have electrostatic attraction to each other and overcoming that attraction must be where the actual work is being done.
This is cool
H2O by nature is a non-ionic compound meaning that it shares no overall charge despite its polarity. Hence, if this experiment were conducted using pure (distilled) water, I do not think a charge could be produced. The concept of 'hard water' (contains impurities) would suggest that the water falling past these coils contain ionic elements such as metal particles for example. Whilst most of the water travelling through these coils would be in fact, water, a small percentage could contain these ionic compounds or elements, hence the small charge produced. These ionic compounds being of different charges would then be attracted according to the overall charge of each coil producing static electricity until discharged.
Lightning, as fascinating as it is, just became 10.000v more interesting to me then it had been previously.
It is really annoying that he did not put the two balls more apart in order to create a higher charge and make the visuals a lot more interesting.
Chances are that by increasing the spark-gap you're never going to reach enough charge to bridge the gap.
Very impressed by the set and camera equipment.
It basically converts the kinetic energy of the water into electrical energy, and the kinetic energy comes from the potential energy of it being lifted further from the earth, by the pump pushing the water.
Where is the energy coming from? The grid.
The grid supplies the power to the water pump, that lifts the water against the force of gravity. ;)
Well actually it's coming from coal, oil, gas or whatever.
Well they could have bucketed the water into the tank by hand...
how about setting it up in rain or sth
A charge is created by the dipoles within the water droplets. Each droplet has a fluctuating liquid diode preventing the water droplets from flowing upstream. This creates a positive flow in one direction. The mesh interaction creates a wave like function which is emulated in the adjoining coil. Having two separate coils receiving droplet harmonics from opposite streams increases the wave harmonics. The two metal balls resonate this harmonic and enable the wave function to collapse. When the wave function collapse or cancels out they annihilate the harmonics resulting in a micro-discharge.
We see this as the little blue/white spark of electricity.
You would generate more power from the kinetic energy stored in the water if you ran it through a small turbine attached to a alternator. Very cool
I read the title as Kevin's Thunderstorm and I just said "Dammit, Kevin"
Patrick sorry 😐 🤷🏼♂️
I too, am sorry for this.
The way I understand water, it has a slight tendency to seperate in H+ and OH- ions which are constantly reassociating back into H2O and then disassociating back into H+ and OH- ions. The small percentage of water that is temporarily in these ionic forms are the charge carriers that are attracted to the corresponding oppositely charge coils through which the water is flowing. When enough of the positive and negative ions are attracted near the coils there is a small flow of current in the coils which results in the coils themselves taking on positive or negative charges. When the charges are sufficient to ionize the air between the balls, a spark jumps the gap and the charge is neutralized at which point the process starts over again.
The energy comes from the potential energy of the water. In essence, gravity is the source of charge. Potential, converted to kinetic converted to electric then released through the spark. Separating the two balls would allow for greater charge to build up, but would take longer to charge up enough to a voltage great enough to exceed the breakdown voltage of air.
The answer to your question is gravitational energy.
as rain "shower" falls the air is rushing around each droplet this is causing a greater volume of air movement - as air rubs each drop it is charging it much like a balloon being rubbed causing our hair to stand up because of a static charge water drops are no different. hence the standing static field -this is why the drops are pulled to or from the rings at the time of discharge.
The energy comes from the gravitational potential energy as the waterfalls. Gravitational potential energy --> Electrical potential energy.
You even look like a mad scientist. WTG!
Induction! Water is a polar molocule and also acts as a polar solvent. When a molecule is said to be "polar," this means that the positive and negative electrical charges are unevenly distributed. The positive charge comes from the atomic nucleus, while the outer electrons supply the negative charge. It's the movement of the electrons that determines polarity. Therefore, induction is the source of electricity in the coils. The separation and direction of the coils creates a simple diode, and the energy can then be discharged through the arc once enough charge is built up. All things exert some form ambient electric or magnetic field, even "neutral" objects. Water is neutral, but that means it has BOTH positive and negative poles that are stable, with no one side being stronger than the other. Magnets are also neutral - having both a positively and a negatively charged pole. It works like moving a magnet through the coils - inducing a current.
Anytime there are positive and negative poles, there are also electric and magnetic fields that interact and flow through those poles. When those fields interact with conductive, segmented objects, they induce an electrical current by attracting or repelling the free/shared electrons in the object.
There may be a few other factors at work contributing to this, such as the limited particle interactions with air molecules, but the primary driver here is polarized water molecules inducing a current into the conductive coils.
Much love.
It's just kinetic energy due to gravitational force dude. Polarity of water has nothing to do with this. When water droplets pases through the wire mesh, the friction between the molecules of water and wires generates positive and negative charges separately. Ever seen a Van de Graff generator? The working principle is the same, which is friction.
@@thunderboltcloud3675
You are saying that water displacing the air is generating enough friction to induce a high voltage current? This is mathematically impossible, given the conditions. If friction were the imparting force, then a lot more thermal energy would be generated, and in this environment I imagine that you would require some moving parts to convert the friction to useful energy, or else a material that can transform kinetic or thermal energy to electricity.
The water particles are constantly attracting and repelling each other - and in free fall, this effect is more pronounced because the particles aren't as liquid bound as when at rest under gravity and surface tension forces. As the particles move in the air, their polarized electrical fields induce tiny currents into the coils, which then creates a positive feedback loop. The fact that there are two waterfalls with two sets of connected coils each electrically connects both waterfalls, and charge separation results from the induced fields in each segment of the coil. The negatively charged poles will be even more attracted to positively charged coil segments, and vice versa - which is why the water is physically attracted to the coils - until they are discharged. This is the law of induction at work, not friction.
The mesh strainer only separates the water for smaller particles and more even flow, which helps free up the polar action of individual droplets. The water going through the strainer cannot produce enough energy to induce an electric current on a coil situated a significant distance away, insulated by air. The goal of putting the water in a state of free fall is to eliminate both friction (which opposes the necessary motion for useful induction), and surface tension (which is why there is a mesh strainer - the smaller the particle, the less interference it will experience from air resistance and surface tension). I gather that the the action of the attracted particles is an important part of the experiment, and so the strainer was probably added to to help thin out the water to a smooth stream of small droplets, which helps maximize it's electrical potential while falling through coils.
One last thing: I'd bet money this experiment could be replicated in a 0-gravity vacuum tube - eliminating particle resistance and gravity. If a jet were used to propel a spray of water particles through coils like these in a frictionless and weightless environment - the electromagnetic action on the coils would still happen. This is why it is wrong to say that this is "gravitational" energy. Gravity is being used only incidentally - to feed water through the coil. Assuming you have water in motion already, this effect can occur. This is not generating any usable energy on its own. The generation of current happens because of electromagnetic induction.
If we could replicate this experiment in 0-G, it would support my theory that this is electromagnetic action, and that it is not dependants on gravity or friction to occur.
In the end it has to be gravity right? The whole system is just a positive feedback loop, that relies on the charges on drops along with the need of drops to be small enough for this positive feedback to work (as in bending the stream of drops you want), and so we get to the mechanism that creates these drops, which uses just small holes, where water goes through and there is some force that is overcoming it's surface tension, thus supplying required energy to break it into the drops we need. This force is gravity, so the energy is coming from grav. pot. energy. Yes?
Calin Agotici
I checked out your answer, but you're wrong because you're not explaining where this net electrostatic energy is coming from. We all understood that these ions are causing the metallic bobs to get charged and everything, but without gravity doing the work of dividing the water into these droplets, the net charge built up on the sieve would not be substantial to produce this phenomenon (because of zero net charge). The energy used to produce these droplets is the crucial factor.
Le monickous It's also kind of a mix. The energy comes from the ions in the end (the spark), but you need potential energy of gravity to run what's basically a sorting machine into two containers with different charges (then the spark) but it's using very very little (why the machine is so inefficient). But if you had zero ions, even with gravity the system doesn't work
But once you start getting very specific, it comes down to definitions. As in the energy created in hydro dams and turbines doesn't come from the potential energy of water, but the heat of the sun. As it's the heat of the sun that evaporated the water which then turned into rain at higher altitude that filled the dam that has the potential energy to run the turbines.
Yes, viewed from the point of view of the metallic contacts, the source of energy might be the charged droplets transferring this charge to the metal. But the charged droplets existed -because- work was done in pushing them through a mechanism that converted them into drops. Otherwise, if it was kept as a bulk of water, it would not have had an appreciable charge to it. Now, this work, was done by gravity.
If you're gonna attribute sun for energy, you might as well do that for 90% of things happening on earth.
As to why the mechanism is so inefficient, it's because due to firstly, not all charged droplets have same charge, so literally most of them are wasted by cancelling each other out, that creates the inefficiency.
Le monickous Also ignoring the hydraulic head, which could be used to run a turbine, contributes to the inefficiency of the system if we are concerned about how the water got up there in the first place.
you look like the bad guy crazy scientist in movies
haha Yeah I was thinking the same thing
The energy stems from the potential energy of the dropping water maybe? The gravitational force pulls water droplets effectively moving charged particles, which in turn generates charge separation
This may be how we will eventually travel through space with disk-shaped craft built like a parallel plate capacitor and using the research done by Brown. If instead of the two balls shorting out adjustable insulating distance between the plates it would continue to charge to a high voltage and work like the lifters. You would just have to stop on a planet with water and refill your tanks.
the energy has something to do with the surface tension and a differential created as the droplets form
The energy is coming from the gravitational potential energy of pumping the water up. And then the kinetic energy the water molecules gain during descent. A moving charge such as that of the slightly charged water droplets creates a magnetic field, this field will in turn induce an EMF voltage in the coil which creates the build up of charge at the terminals. Some of the water droplets kinetic energy is lost in the process.
see, thats what I thought he was explaining at the start of the video, so at the end when he asked 'where does the electricity come from' i was like "wut? Didnt you just answer that?"
Did i made you wiı̸̸̸̸̸̸̸̸pe your screen?
nope this is already overused enough that everyone knows
except you of course
Arthur Dutra Damn it... :(
You need to put it further to the front. I read the word and then noticed the smudge thus ruining it.
The Tech Pony you have a point... Can you give me an example, I am new at trolling people on internet. Weirdly I never imagined such talks on Veritasium O.o
Top kek
Electrostatic potential energy at the expense of gravitational potential energy ?
That is why all the valves in a refinery are anti-static, unless you want to see sparks jumping from the valve lever to the adjacent valve structure, in the dark, in a place where an explosive atmosphere may be present. Fluid flowing in pipes can build up static, and a ball valve ball, sitting insulated in ptfe seals or similar, with the valve stem equally insulated, can be an outlet to such static buildup, unless the ball and valve stem are electrically continuous through the valve.
Gravity is the source of energy. Gravity by way of its pull on the water causes the electrical imbalances to form. No gravity, no fall, no electrical imbalances, no flow of electrical energy, and no sparks when the charges rebalance.
Gravity, my dear Watson. Gravity.
Not even close. This same configuration would work in zero gravity as long as there is enough water pressure to move the droplets through the air.
The energy comes from the breaking of hydrogen bonds as the water is forced through the shower head into droplets.
I'm just wandering what would it take to make it a viable power source.
Running the water through a turbine is always going to be orders of magnitude more efficient for power generation.
I don't know maybe making it the size of the Pyramid of Giza..... That's right somebody already did that only it was a different more understood Superior model plan, but it has the same concept and don't let me get into the electromagnetic pulse it creates as well
Your power source is gravity. Static charge is created by the attraction of moving water molecules through the air, past the coil, which also creates an electrostatic drag. Acceleration differences between top LR coil connected to bottom RL in a circuit creates a flow of current. Notice the electrode placement. It is how we harvest the energy. You can make a ladder from it, as the water must keep falling.
Can someone calculate how long this contraption would have to run to generate 1.21 Gigawatts.
Roughly 271,240 years, a 2000 mAH phone battery holds around 29 kilojoules of energy, divide that by 6.5 to get 4.461 KJ per year divide 1210000 by 4.461 to get answer.
Your better off time traveling the normal way.
@@RockGeek00 Thank you Sir!
Forever.
Watts is a unit of power.
Power is energy discharged per unit of time.
In this case, 1.21 GigaJoules/second.
Your question is the equivalent of asking someone to calculate how long the turtle will take to go 200 mph.
The turtle doesn't produce that kind of displacement/second, regardless of how much time you give it. and likewise, the device, at the scale shown, will not produce that much energy/second REGARDLESS of how much time you give it. The turtle maxes out at about 1/4 mile/hour and this devices maxes out at about 1 femtojoule/second = 1 femtowatt.
This thing produces about 1 femto-watt (about 10^-12 watt) You literally get more kinetic energy from the falling water than you do from the electricity produced.
@@RockGeek00 Wrong.
You're calculating the accumulation of energy, not the RATE of energy production, which is what *any* WATTAGE rating requires.
@@Squidbillies1000 He's wrong. See my comments.
I'm an electrical engineer. Believe me, I know this stuff inside and out.
I also got 399 out of 400 points possible in the most difficult Electromagnetics course in the School of Physics at Purdue University.
The energy comes from gravitational potential
Think again - shall it work if the water move thru the coils sideways, not by gravity, but by pressure nozzles?
@@klazarovful Think again - if you aren't using gravity to move the water, don't you need to provide some other energy to move it? Replacing gravity with some other force doesn't change the basic point -- energy is provided from the "outside."
Very cool video! Gravity. The energy comes from the potential energy stored in the water as it falls. There are high pressure ballistic water droplet versions of this as well as microfluidic oil and water dropper versions. Super cool technology that could soon be used for energy harvesting as it boasts a relatively high efficiency.
It's not the current that kills you, it's the ENERGY. :)
True... So current multiplied by voltage, right?
@@danielpapp5901 That's power, not energy. To get energy from power you must multiply it by time.
@@greg77389 ohh, yes. You right! What kills you is actually the ”work” that has been done by the electricity in you body.
im going to name my rock band Lord Kelvins Lightning storm.
The energy is harvested by creating order and separation out of what would be randomly (somewhat evenly) distributed ions or charges in the environment, mostly in the water I'd think. The energy isn't created, but moved around in the system. Using a passive system with just conductors and nothing else, to magnify biases in charge, is what makes this setup so cool.
Charge on the metal
Hydronium ion of water
And induction responsible for this effect.. I hv seen this experiment at MIT
I made one of those for my 8th grade science project..got 3rd place ...in1969
@Fucketh Thou I would not say you are "boring" you just sufer from low self-esteem.
Cause and effect, the movement of the water through the air creates changes in the molecular placement of molecules which result in the excitement of various other particles which then get trapped in their usual escape routes.
I'm going to charge my phone with this setup
See you guys later in 6 and a half years...