The Next Great Invention?

No no no no. Actually, gravity will eventually pull itself intowards itself and explode. As it did trillions of years ago. (big bang?) . And we're not talkign anything philosophical, its more mathamatical.

But there is some work , a magnetic shield engine. Magnetic shielding materials are available. They aren't perfect shields, but for the purposes of this motor they don't need to be perfect.

A freely rotatable armature in the center consists of a permanent magnet partly covered with a magnetic shield (solid black). The shield has openings at the right, near the poles. An outer ring has magnets in a radial array with their north poles inside, firmly fastened to a rigid frame. These magnets are long, so the south poles are at a considerably greater radius than the north poles. The magnetic field from a magnet pole decreases in strength with distance.

The shield apertures permit each armature pole to "see" only a couple of the magnets of the outer ring. Each armature pole is affected primarily by the north poles of the ring, those being nearest. Therefore, in the position shown in the picture, the N pole of the armature is repelled, experiencing a force to the left. The S pole of the armature is attracted, experiencing a force to the right. These two forces make a couple, which rotates the armature clockwise.

Classic simplicity! If you wanted to improve it, those outer magnets could be swung up or down so they were in a cylindrical array of magnets with their axes parallel. Then a similar armature could be placed in the plane of the S poles, operating on the same axle as the armature in the plane of the N poles. This should double the power output!