Back in your boxes gentlemen. I have said many times that we only have half the mechanism drawn, not only that but it is drawn for the static case (i.e. the situation changes once moving).
Shy,
In your engine all the forces can be held in balance by the fact that opposite to the piston force is a force acting on the cylinder head. By the way, why do you need any form of balancing if a rotating mass can't create lateral force at any particular instant in time?
Nick,
I responded to Graviman's intuition that says that Kinetic Energy appears to be created from nowhere. Quite rightly Graviman has looked at the machine and sees that no energy can get transferred as everything is symmetrical. Yet apparently the kinetic energy of the body increases (to a stationary observer). What I have attempted to illustrate by analogy is that the asymmetry is created by the movement (change in velocity) of the body itself. I suggest that you yourself go back and consider your application of frames of reference, they must be of constant velocity in order to be inertial. If the body is in constant velocity then there is no change in KE.
Graviman,
Waspy, a lot of folks here think you have some fundamental misunderstanding.
But nobody can actually tell me what it is. They can make belittlling comments, they can talk about intuition, but they can't show me where I have applied incorrect physics, or made an assumption or ommission. That's all I'm asking for, is a technical answer to a technical problem.
I will state my fundamental intuition simply.
If a rotating mass cannot create a lateral force, why do we bother worrying about vibration?
If a rotating mass can create a lateral force, then if we can vary the rotation, then we can vary the force. If we can vary the force cyclically, we create a net force.
I also maintain that the impracticality is not in what Jiff has drawn, but in the creation of the torque, and the managing of the reaction of the forces through the point that creates the torque.