Fun at partys guy: While the car will actually experience a force torwards the magnet, so will the magnet experience an equal amount of force torwards tha car. Given the connection between the car and the magnet is stiff, these opposing forces will stress the connection and create a reactive force in there according to Newtens 3rd law, ultimatly canseling the forces out and neither the car nor the magnet will move.
If you however remove the stiff connection, the car and the magnet will move torwards each other untill they meet.
How about if you launch a huge magnet well above escape velocity and remotely anchor a space elevator made from a ferromagnetic material to it but the space elevator’s weight counteracts its inertia exactly and holds it in place perpetually. Would that work?
Edit: I swear I’m not dumb, I just didn’t think this one through.
I built a scale model to prove the haters wrong. I had to tilt the platform a little for it to overcome friction, but once I did, the car rolled forward until it hit a wall.
So this would work actually but only for a brief second as the electrical current generated by the frame of the vehicle passing through the magnetic field would disrupt the flux conduction in the magnet. This is mostly due to being the way that it is.
Less fun at parties guy: While the diagram leaves it somewhat unclear as to what precise effect that mechanism is intended to achieve, clearly it involves electromagnetism and thus any proper explanation must begin with a full description of quantum field theory...
It would only work if you manage to keep the car at an extremely precise distance from the car in front. If you're off by tiny tiny amounts, you'll either lose the magnetic attraction, and stop, or you'd started getting closer fast until you'd be stuck to the car in front of you
This is actually kind of how electric motors work as the rotor chases a magnetic field forever kept out of reach by the stator, and you can't tell me otherwise.
It's actually a common misconception that magnets always attract metal. This misconception was popularized by people joking that magnets are magic. In reality, magnets attract because they have magnetions in them. These magnetions allow them to attract things like metal but a little bit is used up each time. Eventually once the magnet's magnetions have been depleted, the magnet turns back into a newt and goes home to recharge.
because the truck is self-propelled, and it can only go as fast as it takes itself. Therefore the magnet, which is attached to the truck, can only go as fast as the truck takes itself.
That one worked because it was just an inneficient way of pointing the fan backwards, the center of mass, as the average of the position of all the mass doesn't move from inside forces, just outside ones, so for the car to move the mass of the magnet and arm would meet to move in relation to the car, because they can't, the car doesn't move too.
Wich is basically just a long way of saying "Newton laws".
They even got one step behound: The two rocks you see in the drawing are actually a broken up magnet into it's north pole and south pole, so it's only magnetic when they connect the both with a metal rod. Genius. (ofc that's EXACTLY how magnets work)
Hey now, I'm not an engineer So the first time I saw this a few weeks ago it kinda blew my mind and I really had to think it through. Please don't shame people when they need to take a moment to think things through.
Hold up, I'm not shaming anybody who wants to think things through. You're more than welcome to, as you do in your regular day to day. I just think it's funny that people feel the need to over explain anything and everything on Lemmy even the troll stuff they see in a shitpost, which is very different. Don't overload my comment with a take, please, that's not what I'm doing.
You need a magnetic personality to make this work. No personality, no movement. And if you have a personality that pushes things away, the car might explode.