So my air stone pump died and I don’t like running a long extension cord into the garden anyway… I stumbled upon the heron’s fountain, a phenomenon of pumping water without any pumps it seems. It seemed like a cool idea. Just prime the system with water and the air in the system will push the water back to the top reservoir. I was playing around with building a heron’s fountain out of random laboratory glass, rubber stoppers and silicone tubing. It worked! Until it didnt… maybe I’m mistaken but it seems like the pump will no longer work once the air is displaced. Anyone ever build one? Is this just a short lived trick?
If it could it would be perpetual motion and the world would have free energy but that goes against physics and isnt gonna happen with the current laws of physics.
i feel you, at some point the equation balances and it runs outta gas. especially if it’s employed to perform any kind of ‘work’ ie actual power generation and such.
even though that’s clear my brain wants to make it work, like maybe its a scale thing, maybe if the momentum of the water downward is strong enough, something?
i’m certain my brain is no better at trying to make this work than the thousands of more experienced brains trying to make it work for years now of course
I’m just thinking out loud here, but what if there was a way to send more energy downwards than needed to push up? Basically draining some of the water and harvesting that energy with an impeller, and using this created energy to move a smaller amount of water back up the heron’s fountain. Am I dumb or really really smart
First law of thermodynamics, also known as the law of conservation of energy, states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but it can be changed from one form to another.
Second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy in an isolated system always increases. Any isolated system spontaneously evolves towards thermal equilibrium—the state of maximum entropy of the system.
I’ve played with these a bit. They work until they reach equilibrium. The best version we made had 2 chambers at equal height and one vertical.
We took a variation of a heron’s fountain to scale and used a 55-gallon drum as a siphon over a hill. It can suck from the lower side as long as the drum in the middle keeps on draining towards the other side. Eventually, it reaches equilibrium, but it is easier than hauling all that water to the other side.
Not quite the same thing but my friend uses his 4 water tanks to power pelton wheels the first 3 store power the last pumps back to the first to start all over again.
Sort of… If you look at the Experiments section of that wiki, every time one was created it required a significant amount of outside energy to establish and maintain.
Not to say they aren’t incredibly interesting and may some day violate our current understanding of physical “laws”
Powered by liquid, use these to pump a second liquid or to produce emulsions, elevate water, and transport grains and other small particles. When high-pressure liquid enters the intake, it creates suction that draws a second liquid into the pump body and discharges a pressurized blend of the two. The discharge pressure is greater than the suction flow but lower than the intake pressure. They have no moving parts or seals, eliminating downtime for lubrication and repairs. They’re also known as eductors, ejectors, and injectors.
Note: Liquid suction flow rate is calculated using water at 100 psi with no feet of discharge head.
I’ve read about these, they’re used (among other things) to create enormous vacuum in larger industrial applications. never used one but i love how they work, no moving parts, so cool
