Gauss Linear Accelerator

A Gauss Linear Accelerator is my project and it simply promotes the Gaussian principles (Gauss's Law) in a simple way to both see and understand. Because to normally represent a Gaussian linear accelerator you would have to take oh lets say the particle accelerator in Switzerland. No this is easy and effective as it shows a few simple magnets preforming magnetic flux that causes the absence of friction (mostly in this model as air resistance is taken into effect) and mainly the application of force. However this technically is the distribution of electric charge to the resulting electric field which can be seen in the following electromagnetic example of how a solenoid (basically a magnet) works.

This is a great example of the force being taken in though one end and pressure together increasing the acceleration of the forces and shot out the other in a general field style. The principle is characterized by this formula which I got from wikipedia and have confirmed on other sources:

"Integral form

Gauss's law may be expressed as:

where Φ_E is the electric flux through a closed surface S enclosing any volume V, Q is the total charge enclosed within S, and ε₀ is the electric constant. The electric flux Φ_E is defined as a surface integral of the electric field:

where E is the electric field, dA is a vector representing an infinitesimal element of area, and • represents the dot product of two vectors.Since the flux is defined as an integral of the electric field, this expression of Gauss's law is called the integral form."

Don't worry you don't need this really to see the effects this is more or less when taking the magnetic field (though it should be) into account. Instead you can think of an initial force like say the finger giving the magnet a push. Now what happens is the force boost causes the magnet to begin to roll. As it rolls its potential energy is converted into kinetic and when it makes contact with the series of steel balls, its force is transferred to the end ball causing a launch. But wouldn't this just cause the ball to go up a bit but not fly off the ramp? The answer is generally yes but we are using a magnet. The magnets attraction force causes the ball to accelerate and get a nice kinetic force boost causing the ball at the end of the series to have higher kinetic energy than the initial potential energy of the magnet. Now in the principal of magnetism there is flux, to simply put it the field and various differentiations in its current. It is because of this flux that the magnet doesn't attract the last ball. The flux at impact is slightly disturbed therefore causing the kinetic energy of the last ball to escape the magnetic attraction of the magnet because the flux pattern was disturbed by the impact.

Physics Behind It

Velocity: This is basically speed and because both initial force causes acceleration which increases speed it only makes sense that this would be in this project.

Acceleration: As is the projects namesake. Why? Because as the magnet gathers speed upon going down the ramp. The added acceleration from the magnetic attraction is what causes the last marble in the series to launch by increasing its velocity beyond the normal potential of the system.

Friction: Though not major, this force starts to take its toll in larger systems, because both air resistance and electrostatic friction generated against the surface which the object is being propelled on. Though keep in mind most VERY large systems are particle accelerators and shoot in a vacuum that has no air resistance and generally no electrons to travel around causing electrostatic friction.

Magnitude: This is because the magnetic marble has both speed and direction as you could make it go in any direction you wanted while speeding up!

Displacement: How far did it go from start to finish? Measure it that simple.

Weight: Weight is taken into account because of the larger the object the more mass it has and the more it will accelerate due to it, along with a larger air resistance (friction) taken into account, not to mention the fact that the object may have less of a terminal velocity limit due to this compared to objects of higher weight or lower.

And that is about it, the basics of physics (though there are more in the advanced magnetic physics part).

Materials

1 Magnet

4 Steel Balls(both the balls and magnet look very similar.

*Piece of wooden track

Yup that is all, pretty simple.

Procedure

Step 1. Set up the desired amount of steel balls at track mid-point.

Step 2. Place magnetic Ball on one of the top ramps(if using ramp) or just roll from one side.

Step 3. Roll the magnet down the line and enjoy!

This is my own Video

3 simple steps of course considering you have all the right materials, this may only take a under minutes to complete! But possibilities are very wide as different more complex setups can be made and tested (Quantum distortion is a kind of similar setup though no automatic accelerators are in that system though they could be added......).

Results

Should be apparent from the video above but to simply put it, once the magnet makes contact with the steel balls the last is launched from the series and over the end ramp. This is because its kinetic energy is greater than the potential energy of the magnet when starting at the beginning of the system.