@Kalle: Another machine that runs on gravity is an old-fashioned cuckoo clock. It uses a pendulum, yes, but that is to keep time. The energy comes from hanging weights which fall slowly (very slowly) as they deliver energy into the machine (mostly to overcome friction). When the weights reach the floor, somebody needs to come and pull them back up again, thus adding more (potential) energy to the system.

This guy has created an interesting sculpture, but it is not perpetual motion. He is certainly cheating--perhaps with weights hidden inside the central column; hopefully not with a hidden electric motor. He might know that he is cheating or he might just be fooling himself as a result of his stated ignorance of physics.

Perhaps this will shed some light on the subject:

"We posted the cut-from-real-life short drama Cicada a fortnight ago, and now we have the teaser trailer for Amiel Courtin-Wilson's feature follow up, simply titled Hail.

Hail is the evolved beast-cousin of Cicada, and is another docu-drama based on the real life stories of actor and ex-con Daniel P. Jones. The Hollywood Reporter describes it much better than I could:

Daniel P. Jones is an artistically inclined ex-convict playing a lightly fictionalized version of himself in Aussie auteur Amiel Courtin-Wilson's out-there docu-drama. Dissonant and brutal, but also unexpectedly tender, Hail melds coarse reality, extreme close-ups, nightmarish montages - including one featuring a dead horse falling from the sky - and a soundtrack that's alternately jarring and lovely.

Hail was the first Australian dramatic feature in nearly a decade to screen at the Venice International Film Festival and today we have word that the film has also been selected for Rotterdam, which starts later this month.

Now to that dead horse. As you can see in the teaser trailer below, the film features a sequence with a horse being dropped from a plane and falling slowly towards earth. It's pure madness, and 100% real. And I'm hoping makes sense in the final film. Tarsem eat your heart out!"
http://twitchfilm.com/news/2012/01/horses-rain-from-the-heavens-in-hail.php

>> ^Skeeve:
I can't show the work, but it's relatively easy to explain.
The forward velocity of an object does not affect the gravitational forces pulling on it. Therefore, two identical items dropped (or propelled) from the same height will hit the ground at the same time (if the experiment is in a vacuum and isn't effected by wind or lift or something of that sort).
What makes this counter-intuitive is probably partly the fact that we so rarely see, or hear of, a fired bullet hitting the ground before it hits some other object (ie. the target).

This is precisely correct. The experiment assumes a vacuum, wherein there are no effects of air resistance. In a vacuum, all objects fall at the same speed regardless of mass, surface area, or, as is pertinent in this case, velocity perpendicular to the gravitational force. This is similar to why it is counter-intuitive that a bowling ball and a feather fall at the same speed: the experiment assumes a vacuum. In our experience, we consider a feather to be "light", falling slowly to the ground. But if there is no air resistance, the feather simply falls.


Skeeve's explanation of why this seems counter-intutive is also correct. The horizontal velocity of a bullet is so much greater than the vertical force of gravity that we don't perceive it as being affected by gravity at all, let alone the same as a bullet that is dropped, where the only force acting upon it is gravity.

Niagara Falls! Slowly I turned ... step by step ... inch by inch ...

^Well, not all metals are magnetic. Aluminium, which was used in this experiment, is paramagnetic. Paramagnetic materials typically couple quite weakly to magnetic fields, so I don't think there was any chance of the block causing harm, as opposed to this ferromagnetic object.

The reason it falls slowly is that it moves through a magnetic field, which induces a current in the metal. This current sets up its own magnetic field with opposite polarity to the external field.

K0MMIE: A game score is not supposed to be seen as ever right. A game score tells you how good the game is when the review is made. The score falls slowly over time, when game development well evolves. Some things (gameplay) have a longer half-life than others (graphics), which is why some games last a very long time (Starcraft) and others last a very short time (Doom 3).

I'm looking forward to this game coming to PC, because consoles are only for fighting games and guitar hero.

Same performers as the song Falling Slowly.

I'm going to go on my old man rant. I sifted this a long time ago and got nothing. Note to self, keep title simple.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Falling-Slowly-Orginal-Award-Winning-Song-from-Once

Hands down the best musical of 2007.

like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxC-AEC0ROk

I would like to see what happens when the aluminum block (or copper since that would work better) is held completely off the tabe then dropped. Does it fall slowly through the air like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prNXC1A26Ig ?