Checkmate, science

Because it makes the vehicle too long to park in the average garage or driveway.

Finally, an answer that makes sense.

What cracks me up is the piece of metal, labeled metal, attached to the one metric ton of... Metal

It's to differentiate from the trucks where the front is entirely made of very bring LEDs
Cars these days are like 80% plastic crumble zone
- Doesn’t the Cyber Truck have no crumple zone? It might apply to that.
metric
You sure about that?
Well, the metal sees the magnet and wants to eat it so it move toward it. It's the ol' Magnet on a Stick trick and metal is easily fooled.
Also since they'd want iron specifically
- Well, nickel or cobalt should work too, if middle school science memory doesn't fail me.

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.

what if you just attach a second magnet to the car so that it pulls the first magnet forwards?
- Then you have the same mechanism used in toy wood trains.
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.
- It needs to rotate unless it's a superconductor.
  Also a magnet that size would mess up navigation equipment for miles
gee, you must be fun at parties (/s if it weren't obvious enough)
Would that be at the hing of the arm? Where would the event horizon or epicenter be of that?

It will, but why do you want the truck to attract the magnet? Are you going to drive backwards everywhere?

This guy gets it

This illustration does not imply that the car is moving. There are no "speed lines" or arrows that would indicate that.

So the illustrated setup would 100% work.

Try pulling yourself by the nose.

I hit 60mph and am like 20 miles from my house. Why would you tell me to do that?
- At least you didn't pull upwards like I did. Glad the ceiling was there or it could've been much worse.
Or picking yourself up by your bootstraps.
- Or using your bootstraps to pick your nose.
It's working! I'm moving!
Ow. Now what?
- Does it move you?

Good old troll physics.

W...wait, why is the troll head missing?!?

Looks like people are (re)discovering troll physics
Tinted windows.

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.

Could we fix it by constantly increasing the (electro)magnets strength?

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.

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...

What's funny is this would actually work if you just pointed the magnet at other people's cars.

"this would work if you did something completely different" lmao
- Am I wrong? ;)
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
- Being stuck to the car in front of you is more efficient for traffic anyways
Use two magnets of opposing polarity, the stronger magnet should be on the bumper to push the boom forward, and drag the truck with it. /s
- Genius

Because both of the magnet's poles are pointed at the car and the attraction and repulsion are canceling each other out.

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.

The difference is, that the rotor is allowed to move, and they’re switching coils in the stator to keep it going.
In this system, the force pulling the magnet towards the truck is being negated by the arm fixed to the truck.
If you placed a bunch of electromagnets on the guard rail, that would be more like a motor (technically, a linear motor,)
- thatsthejoke.jpg

The mount is holding the truck back. You need a wireless magnet.

Well, you used aluminum. Good work.

The CIA puts backdoor code in all the magnets to prevent this from working. Source: trust me bro.

It's because the magnet is in the vertical position, it needs to be in the horizontal position to properly complete the circuit

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.

Some guy got hit by an apple and went on to ruin the fun for everyone, jerk.

the car already has metal in it, so the metal block is unnecessary

Adding more metal makes it go faster
- Speed holes you say?
- This person understands science.

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.

- Science is trying to find a way, but for now you need a witch/wizard to recharge it.

easy: the metal is pulling the magnet backwards and the magnet moving backwards is pushing the whole truck backwards through the arm.

(explaining things wrong is a fun hobby)

Magnets don't do work

It's cuz they got wet, isn't it?

Wile E Coyote has entered Lemmy.

Obviously you used a non ferrous metal.

Go (back) to school

Why not just use rope instead of a magnet? You wouldn't need the extra metal on the front if you did that and would save weight.

The large array of third party lighting fixtures exert photon pressure enough to cancel out the magnetic pull

After hitting too many children the tires will get stuck.

He knows too much

Cuz Newton invented conservation of energy /s

Damn newton. He also invented gravity. Thats why we can't fly now!

It will work fine of your intention is to secure the arm so that it won't dangle when you drive

For the same reason why this device does not go left by the metal slab pulling the magnet to the left

Mythbusters did a similar one using a fan and a sailboat. The boat moved. Backwards.

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".

Magneto was right!

Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer (Jim Button and Lukas the Engine Driver) dit it first:

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)
- There are magnetic monopoles, but only in quantum physics.
- I also find it funny how i got introduced to the troll physics meme 20 years before it was called that, as a small child back in the 90s

It's basically the same problem as the sailboat with a fan.

What are you trying to imply?
- That this silly magnet won’t work, you need a sail and a fan.
- Just my observation that it's the same kind of problem and that the effects cancel each other out.

I think that only works on steam trains

Obviously, because they don't want us to know this. Duh.

Me sighing as people akshually comment explaining the obvious in a meme sub. 😅

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 realize these are all incorrect right?
- Please explain the correct answer
- You realize I responded when there was only one comment, right? Please look at the timestamps if you're gonna accuse anybody like that.
There are no stupid questions
- It's a troll post in a meme sub. Idk what to tell you... Sure, I guess?

You moron, that would make the car flip, you need to attach it to the back of your car horizontally

The magnet and the metal plate pull each other, so all the pull forwards is cancelled out by the pull backwards.

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.