John Phin

“ So confident are they in the soundness of their views and so sure of the success of their schemes that they do not even take the trouble to test their plans but announce them as accomplished facts, and publish their sketches and descriptions as if the machine was already working without a hitch. Indeed, so far was one inventor carried away with this feeling of confidence in the success of his machine that he no longer allowed himself to be troubled with any doubts as to the machine's going but was greatly puzzled as to what means he should take to stop it after it had been set in motion! ”

“ And really those who have followed carefully the history of the men who have claimed that they had solved these famous problems, will be almost inclined to accept De Morgan's ingenious explanation as something more than a mere "skit." The whole history of the philosopher's stone, of machines and contrivances for obtaining perpetual motion, and of circle-squaring, is permeated with accounts of the most gross and obvious frauds. ”

“ We may use the word alchemist as a term of reproach, and apply it to these early workers because their theories appear to us to be absurd, but how do we know that the chemists of the twenty-second century will not regard us in a similar light, and set at naught the theories we so fondly cherish?
Only seven out of the large number of metals now catalogued by us were known to the ancients; these were gold, silver, mercury, copper, tin, lead, and iron. ”

“ THE SEVEN FOLLIES OF SCIENCE
he difficult, the dangerous, and the impossible have always had a strange fascination for the human mind. We see this every day in the acts of boys who risk life and limb in the performance of useless but dangerous feats, and amongst children of larger growth we find loop-the-loopers, bridge-jumpers, and all sorts of venture-seekers to whom much of the attraction of these performances is undoubtedly the mere risk that is involved, although, perhaps, to some extent, notoriety and money-making may contribute their share. ”

“ So that while it is true that Archimedes could move the world, the space through which he could have moved it, during his whole life, from infancy to old age, is so small that even if multiplied two hundred million times it could not be measured by even the most delicate of our modern measuring instruments. ”

“ In these days of almost miraculous progress it is difficult to realize that there may be such a thing as a scientific impossibility. I have therefore endeavored to point out where the line must be drawn, and by way of illustration I have added a few curious paradoxes and marvels, some of which show apparent contradictions to known laws of nature, but which are all simply and easily explained when we understand the fundamental principles which govern each case. ”

“ It is true that we occasionally find a very elaborate and apparently complicated machine, but in such cases it will be found, on close examination, to owe its apparent complexity to a mere multiplication of parts; no real inventive ingenuity is exhibited in any case.
Another singular characteristic of almost all those who have devoted themselves to the search for a perpetual motion is their absolute confidence in the success of the plans which they have brought forth. ”

“ But at the same time we must remember that since the ordinary mechanic and the school-boy who has studied geometry, find no difficulty in conceiving of points without magnitude, lines without breadth, and surfaces without thickness—conceptions which seem to have been impossible to Buckle, a man of acknowledged ability—it may be possible that minds constituted slightly differently from that of myself and some others, might, perhaps, be able to form a conception of a fourth dimension. ”

“ No new theory of electricity can ever take away from the voltaic battery its power, or change it in any respect, and no new discovery in regard to the constitution [5] of matter can ever lessen the eagerness with which carbon and oxygen combine together. Every little while we hear of some discovery that is going to upset all our preconceived notions and entirely change those laws which long experience has proved to be invariable, but in every case these alleged discoveries have turned out to be fallacies. ”

“ And since the law of the conservation of energy makes it positive that no more power can be given out by a machine than was originally supplied to it, it seems as certain as anything can be that the construction of a perpetual-motion machine is one of the impossibilities. ”

“ Now, we know, by the laws of mechanics, that, whatever be the construction of a machine, the space passed over by the weight, is to that passed over by the moving power, in the reciprocal ratio of the latter to the former. It is known also, that a man can act with an effort equal only to about 30 pounds for eight or ten hours, without intermission, and with a velocity of about 10,000 feet per hour. ”

“ It makes it conceivable that apparently separate objects, e. g., distinct people, are really physically united; that things apparently sundered by enormous distances of space are really quite together; that a person or other object might pass in and out of a closed room without disturbance of walls, doors or windows, etc., and if this fourth dimension were to become a factor of our consciousness it is obvious that we should have means of knowledge which, to the ordinary sense, would appear simply miraculous. ”

“ Those on the list that we have given are the ones that have become famous in history and they still engage the attention of a certain class of minds. It is only a few months since a man who claims to be a professional architect and technical writer put forth an alleged method of "squaring the circle," which he claims to be "exact"; and the results of an attempt to make liquid air a pathway to perpetual motion are still in evidence, as a minus quantity, in the pockets of many who believed that all things are possible to modern science. ”

“ For the benefit of those who discuss the subjects of population, war, pestilence, famine, etc., it may be as well to mention that the number of human beings living at the end of the hundredth generation, commencing from a single pair, doubling at each generation (say in thirty years) , and allowing for each man, woman, and child, an average space of four feet in height and one foot square, would form a vertical column, having for its base the whole surface of the earth and sea spread out into a plane, and for its height 3,674 times the sun's distance from the earth! ”

“ In this connection the words of De Morgan have a deep significance. Alluding to the difficulty of preventing men of no authority from setting up false pretensions and the impossibility of destroying the assertions of fancy speculation, he says: "Many an error of thought and learning has fallen before a gradual growth of thoughtful and learned opposition. But such things as the quadrature of the circle, etc., are never put down. And why? Because thought can influence thought, but thought cannot influence self-conceit; learning can annihilate learning; but learning cannot annihilate ignorance. ”

“ These masses being saturated, in process of time become the sources of springs and the heads of rivers; and thus by an endless round of ascending and descending waters, form, on the great scale of nature, an incessant cause of perpetual motion, in the purest acceptance of the term, and precisely on the principle that was contemplated by Boyle. It is probable, however, that any imitation of this process on the limited scale practicable by human art would not be of sufficient magnitude to be effective. ”

“ It could no longer hold true that "the whole is equal to all its parts taken together," for if we divide a square or a circle into two parts by means of a line which has breadth, the two parts cannot be equal to the whole as it formerly was. As a matter of fact, Mr. Buckle's lines are saw-cuts, not geometrical lines. Geometrical points, lines, and surfaces, have no material existence and can have none. An ideal conception and a material existence are two very different things. ”

“ The goldsmith was called in by the Italian and requested to make a rigid examination of the smallest of these ingots. The goldsmith not content with the touch-stone and the application of aquafortis, exposed the metal on the cupel with lead and fused it with antimony, but it sustained no loss. He found it possessed of the ductility and specific gravity of gold; and full of admiration, he exclaimed that he had never worked before upon gold so perfectly pure. ”

“ It is certain that no development of the physical or mathematical sciences could give them any idea whatever of the sensations which sound, in its various modifications, imparts to us, and neither can any progress in that direction enable us to acquire any idea of the revelations which a new sense might open up to us. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the development of new senses and new sense organs is not only more likely to be possible, but that it is actually more probable, than any revelation in regard to a fourth dimension. ”

“ In this class may be included those inventions which have been made or suggested by honest but ignorant persons in direct violation of the fundamental principles of mechanics and physics. Such inventions if presented to any expert mechanic or student of science, would be at once condemned as impracticable, but as a general rule, the inventors of these absurd contrivances have been so confident of success, that they have published descriptions and sketches of them, and even gone so far as to take out patents before they have tested their inventions by constructing a working machine. ”

“ That which the unaided eye can see to write, the unaided eye can see to read, but the hand, without the assistance or guidance of the eye, can produce writing so minute that the best eyes cannot see to read it, and yet, when viewed under a microscope, it is found to compare favorably with the best writing of ordinary size. And those who are conversant with the more delicate operations of practical mechanics, know that this is no exceptional [138] case. ”