>>82113681
>>82113839
>>82113896
The reason it doesn't work is because the balls have to enter the water from the bottom which doesn't introduce any potential energy.
Think of it this way, since the balls have to enter from the underside they push up water when they do and that costs energy, as it stands, exactly the same amount of energy if we remove all friction that is gained from their floating up again due to the weight of the water pushing up.
Essentially, a ball lighter than water is pushed up in water because the weight of the water above it is pushing down, when the ball finally emerges above the surface, the surface level of the water is dropped a tiny bit and this is what provides the energy for the lift.
This is the exact same drop of surface level that is increased by pushing in the ball from the bottom which by a small amount raises the surface level of the water pushing all the water upwards, thus taking energy to do so.
In an ideal world without any friction or any water loss through the seal, this would thus take the exact same amount of energy, so nothing would move at all. In practice friction and water loss is of course introduced so it's negative.
