Can energy be taken away from an object without touching it?

[GreenAce92]

The title isn't exactly accurate in describing what I am after.

There is a ball moving along the ground, it was given an initial impulse, and now it is moving following conservation of momentum, gravity, air-resistance, friction, etc...

If I wanted to take the energy from that rolling ball with say a gun-shaped device, the ball stops rolling and that energy is in my gun now. How could that be possible in real life?

Then the energy could be applied to other objects whether they are moving or not.

 

[Hepic]

Hmm,I am not physic, I am just student so maybe that which I will say is stupid.
I think that if you take the energy of an object,this object will lose whole his mass.
E=mc^2 => 0=mc^2 => m=0.
I am not sure about that I said,so please if someone knows more from to,to correct me.

 

[ZapperZ]

The title isn't exactly accurate in describing what I am after.

There is a ball moving along the ground, it was given an initial impulse, and now it is moving following conservation of momentum, gravity, air-resistance, friction, etc...

If I wanted to take the energy from that rolling ball with say a gun-shaped device, the ball stops rolling and that energy is in my gun now. How could that be possible in real life?

Then the energy could be applied to other objects whether they are moving or not.

It is rather unclear on what exactly you are asking here, especially this part: "If I wanted to take the energy from that rolling ball with say a gun-shaped device, the ball stops rolling and that energy is in my gun now. How could that be possible in real life?"

If you are asking how we can harness the energy of "moving" objects, then I'll show you a windmill.

Zz.

 

[adjacent]

I think he is asking thisow to take the energy(kinetic maybe.) from a (moving) object using a gunshaped device from a distance.Store it and shoot it to a non-moving object far away to make it move.

I think it's not possible in real life

 

[DennisN]

If I wanted to take the energy from that rolling ball with say a gun-shaped device [...]

What is a gun-shaped device, a gun (shooting projectiles) or a thing shaped like a gun? (this micrometer is shaped like a gun )

I assume you mean a gun-like device shooting some sort of projectiles, but it would be better if you are more specific.

Can energy be taken away from an object without touching it?

You could check out

• Laser cooling (wiki)
• Laser cooling (Sixty Symbols)

but I'm not sure what you exactly meant, so it would be better if you are more specific.

 

[claegreid]

Answer:
wormhole gun + 100% efficiency spring.
gun creates wormhole in front of ball ball runs into spring on other side of wormhole. kinetic energy stored in spring. use gun to create wormhole behind object with no motion, release spring, kinetic energy transferred to new object.

Note:
this is not possible with current technology.


[|||]D cheers

 

[B4ssHunter]

laser cooling is the answer !
you basically hit an atom with a blue shifted photon * the photon is blue shifted because the atom is moving closer to the source of the photon * ( the real photon is not blue , its has an energy less than that of the blue , but it appears blue due to the doppler shift )
the atom keeps releasing photons with energy higher than the energy of the photons that hit in the first place
thus it keeps losing energy , until its motion becomes close to absolute zero , where it's movement is really slow the doppler effect is not noticeable any more

 

[phinds]

laser cooling is the answer !
you basically hit an atom with a blue shifted photon * the photon is blue shifted because the atom is moving closer to the source of the photon * ( the real photon is not blue , its has an energy less than that of the blue , but it appears blue due to the doppler shift )
the atom keeps releasing photons with energy higher than the energy of the photons that hit in the first place
thus it keeps losing energy , until its motion becomes close to absolute zero , where it's movement is really slow the doppler effect is not noticeable any more

And how does this store the released energy in the gun/laser? That WAS the question, you know.

 

[Pythagorean]

I don't know how laser cooling would work on a macroscopic object like a ball...

And anyway, he wants the absorbed energy to be in his remote device now. Not possible with our current understanding.

 

[adjacent]

This makes me remember 'despicable me'.Making the moon go small by a gun-shaped device.

 

[Dale]

If I wanted to take the energy from that rolling ball with say a gun-shaped device, the ball stops rolling and that energy is in my gun now. How could that be possible in real life?

The ball would need to emit light in the direction of its travel to stop rolling. Then the gun would have to collect the light.

If the ball was a 1 kg object rolling at 100 m/s then it would have 5000 J of KE. But, more importantly, it would have 100 kg m/s of momentum. In order to stop it would need to emit light with 100 kg m/s of momentum, which corresponds to about 30 GJ of energy (~7 tons of TNT), or the complete conversion of .33 mg of mass into light.

 

[jbriggs444]

Load a greased midget with spiked shoes, a fishing pole, a wad of chewing gum and a long leash around his neck into a miniature gun-shaped catapult. Launch him behind the rolling ball. The midget jams his cleats into the ground, puts the chewing gum onto the lure and casts, hitting the ball. As the line pays out from the reel, it runs a tiny generator, charging a battery cleverly tucked into the shaft of the fishing pole. When the rolling ball has come to rest its kinetic energy is now stored in the battery. Give a sharp tug on the leash, jarring the midget's feet loose from the ground, harvest the charged battery and replace it with a drained one from your utility belt.

Or...

Shoot a hollow rubber ball attached to a thin hose under the leading edge of the rolling ball and harvest the resulting compressed air.

 

[CWatters]

I think the OP needs to define "without touching it"? Can you use magnetic fields?

If the moving object was a magnet and the gun contained a coil then as the object moved through the gun it's energy could be converted to electrical energy by the gun. Perhaps hard to make a gun with much range.

 

[Vivek des]

Energy can only be transferred from one body to another by doing work on that system by some means.. So its not possible to transfer energy without work being done on that body.. In case of your theory of using guns is impossible to transfer energy i believe.

 

[JanEnClaesen]

Gravity does that, no?

 

[phinds]

Gravity does that, no?

No. Not in the way posited in this thread.

 

[B4ssHunter]

And how does this store the released energy in the gun/laser? That WAS the question, you know.

how about you use released photons from laser cooling and use it on somekind of photo cell ? where it turns light energy into chemical energy , but anyway i don't think laser cooling would work on macroscopic objects

 

[B4ssHunter]

there is also another way , you could make some sort of a gun like that batman uses to climb up buildings * no kidding *
and then shoot it at the ball such that it sticks to the ball , and the length of the wire is exactly equal to the distance between you and the ball . after the hook reaches the ball , the gun somehow clings to the wire , such that for the ball to move it has to pull the wire , as it pulls the wire , the wire generates heat due to friction with the gun , you now have " sucked " the energy from the ball , its not 100% because some energy is lost due to friction between the ball and the ground , and also due to the fact that storing heat energy is always a pain in the *** and leads to a loss of energy " specially if the energy is not great enough to boil water for instance "

 

[DennisN]

I mentioned laser cooling since 1) maybe the OP wasn't aware of that technology and it would be interesting to him/her and 2) to get the OP to be more specific - I did not mean it as an example of a way to harness any energy (only take away energy), I should probably have pointed that out more strongly .

Anyway, these two things are central IMO:

1. "touching" is a slippery word and it would be good if the OP defined what he meant (like CWatters said), and
2. you can not transfer any energy to/from an object without interacting with it

So it all depends on what kind of interactions the original poster would allow.

 

[DennisN]

There is a ball moving along the ground, it was given an initial impulse, and now it is moving following conservation of momentum, gravity, air-resistance, friction, etc...

If I wanted to take the energy from that rolling ball with say a gun-shaped device, the ball stops rolling and that energy is in my gun now. How could that be possible in real life?

Then the energy could be applied to other objects whether they are moving or not.

If you allow "intermediary" touching (which shooting projectiles would imply anyway) this setup would work:

Let's say your ball (A) is rolling to the right. Put an obstacle (B) in the path of ball A. Put another ball (C) to the right of obstacle B, touching it. Put something like a toy dart gun (with a spring, http://www.redthreadmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/darts.jpg) in position to collect ball C:

...(A).->...|B|(C)...->.Dart gun

When ball A hits the obstacle B, ball C will be put in motion to the right (and ball A would stop), due to conservation of momentum (like e.g. Newton's cradle). Let ball C roll into the dart gun, compressing the spring. Now you have energy stored in your gun, and your gun never touched ball A.

Not very useful I presume , but it is a solution to the problem (if the original poster allows it).

 

[GreenAce92]

Wow thank you guys/gals for the mostly serious answers.

Yes the conditions are not to touch the object physically. The three balls method isn't what I was after but is technically correct.

A moving body is a different kind of "energy" right? I mean, light is different than mass although if light can impart momentum then maybe they are similar?

"Gun-shaped" is merely for ease of operation, I imagine aiming a gun seems more "natural" than a pen-shaped device.

I don't even understand what gravity is, why does mass exist? Dumb question it seems but if particles attract each other regardless of the size then how is anti-gravity possible. (deviated, sorry)

To relate to original question : Motion energy harvesting via turbine is not what I'm after. That's why I asked if possible in real life.

Thanks for the responses

 

[DennisN]

Yes the conditions are not to touch the object physically. The three balls method isn't what I was after but is technically correct.

Ok.

A moving body is a different kind of "energy" right?

There are basically two types of energy: potential energy and kinetic energy. Kinetic energy is due to the motion of an object.

I mean, light is different than mass although if light can impart momentum then maybe they are similar?

I'd say yes and no. No: photons have no mass. Yes: massless particles (photons) and massive particles both obey the energy–momentum relation (the last equation).

"Gun-shaped" is merely for ease of operation, I imagine aiming a gun seems more "natural" than a pen-shaped device.

Ok.

I don't even understand what gravity is [...]

Gravitation (old Newton version) is the attractive forces between all massive objects. Gravitation (modern Einstein version) can loosely be described as the interaction between energy/momentum and spacetime (General relativity).

[...], why does mass exist?

There's no answer to that question, other than that it is a feature of the Universe .

Dumb question it seems but if particles attract each other regardless of the size then how is anti-gravity possible.

I'm not sure what you exactly mean by anti-gravity, but actual anti-gravity can not be achieved with any science/technology today. What I mean is we can't control spacetime directly.

To relate to original question : Motion energy harvesting via turbine is not what I'm after. That's why I asked if possible in real life.

Ok. Let's look at the facts and see where we land by elimination;

1. Energy can not be transferred to/from an object without some kind of interaction.
2. The fundamental interactions are electromagnetic, gravitational, strong nuclear and weak nuclear.

Strong nuclear and weak nuclear:
I don't see how any of these could be used in the problem.

Gravitational:
We can't control gravitation directly. Furthermore, the interaction is comparatively very, very weak. So I don't see gravitational interaction as feasible.

This leaves us with electromagnetic interaction. Which would mean electromagnetic radiation or manipulation of the electromagnetic field. At the moment I feel it would be hard to achieve a solution without modifying the ball itself, which DaleSpam and CWatters mentioned before in the thread.