I feel someone should make a long-form, James Burke Connections style piece on how mountain gravity was measured and how it fits in with history.
The label on the tin might say, "While surveying the Allegheny mountains in 1772, surveyors encountered a systematic error they could not explain, and took a side track into the developing theory of gravitation to resolve it." It ties together Newton, Cavendish, Mason and Dixon, the Royal Society, mountains on two continents, the mass of the Earth, and the fields of astronomy, geology, physics, and surveying.
Is it completely crazy to potentially harvest energy from gravity through the force of pressure on crystals sitting in between a mountain generating piezoelectricity and perhaps doing some form of computation or cymatics with it?
Thankfully, we already have a source of constantly changing pressure: the Moon! (Well, the Earth's rotation)
Since the Earth rotates around its own axis, you're oscillating closer to and further from the Moon every 24 hours. When you're "facing" the Moon, it's puling
you up (from the Earth). When you're away from the moon (on the opposite end of the Earth) it's pulling you down (toward the Earth).
This (along with other factors) causes tides. And tides are already used to generate power.[1] Including using the piezo-electric effect (not sure how with what efficiency, though).
A try I shall do! I’ve had some interesting ideas with it but I feel stupid and or silly reasoning about it. For the sake of experimentation and fun I’ll definitely play around soon.
I feel someone should make a long-form, James Burke Connections style piece on how mountain gravity was measured and how it fits in with history.
The label on the tin might say, "While surveying the Allegheny mountains in 1772, surveyors encountered a systematic error they could not explain, and took a side track into the developing theory of gravitation to resolve it." It ties together Newton, Cavendish, Mason and Dixon, the Royal Society, mountains on two continents, the mass of the Earth, and the fields of astronomy, geology, physics, and surveying.