This is a serious question, I did take college physics, but I cannot understand why this won't work??? Could someone enlighten me??? This is based on the siphon effect.
Take a tank of thin liquid, half full. Add a 1" tube up and over a given height above the fluid with both ends submerged in the liquid. On one side of the tube will also include a sealed (hollow) funnel like object to contain additional liquid. PE1 + KE1 = PE2 +KE2 Since there is much more PE on one side, won't this translate into a siphon effect? Perhaps I am misunderstanding the "siphon effect"....

 

About halfway down the main page it's explained.
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/museum/unwork.htm

 

Air is also a fluid. In a vacuum there would be no effect.

Siphon depends on air displacing the liquid to some extend, though if both tanks were in a vacuum it would still work.

With an inverted cup lifted out of water (the cup being full of water) the air pressure on the rest of the water keeps liquid in the cup.

 

Thanks for the quick and serious answers! After thinking about your responses, I realize that there is no PE as the mass cannot actually move, so therefore, there is only a vacuum present.

@ Blueroom, I am ashamed to admit my own version of the "magnet engine" that never made it past the drawing board....