my cousin wants to know what powers water wheels or mills
A vertically rotating wheel is set with a continuous series of fixedbuckets." Water flows across the wheel: (1) Undershot - the water flows directly beneath and turns the wheel -- kinetic energy turns it (2) Overshot - the water flows from a long weir and drops onto the wheel from above -- this is much more powerful because it harnesses much more potential energy which is turned into kinetic energy to turn the wheel In a flour mill, there will be some gearing to convert the vertical rotation into horizontal rotation to crush the wheat into flour. In other cases, the vertical rotation can be converted into linear motion (up-down, or forward-back, or side-to-side) to power something like an old-time plate saw (as opposed to a circular saw).
