George Chrystal

“ Most of the perpetual motionists, however, had more practical views, and explicitly declared the object of their inventions to be the doing of useful work, such as raising water, grinding corn, and so on. Like the exact quadrature of the circle, the transmutation of metals and other famous problems of antiquity, the perpetual motion has now become a venerable paradox. ”

“ PERPETUAL MOTION, or Perpetuum Mobile, in its usual significance, not simply a machine which will go on moving for ever, but a machine which, once set in motion, will go on doing useful work without drawing on any external source of energy, or a machine which in every complete cycle of its operation will give forth more energy than it has absorbed. Briefly, a perpetual motion usually means a machine which will create energy. ”

“ The student of dynamics at once convinces himself that no machinery can effect any such result; because if we give the wheel a complete turn, so that each ball returns to its original position, the whole work done by the ball will, at the most, equal that done on it. ”

“ No such spirit has ever existed, save in the imagination of his describer, and no such machine has ever been known to act, save in the fancy of its inventor.
The principle of the conservation of energy, which in one sense is simply denial of the possibility of a perpetual motion, rests on facts drawn from every branch of physical science ”

“ Just as some of the most interesting branches of modern pure mathematics sprang from the problem of squaring the circle, as the researches of the alchemists developed into the science of modern chemistry, so, as the result of the vain search after the perpetual motion, there grew up the greatest of all the generalizations of physical science, the principle of the conservation of energy. ”

“ If a man likes to indulge the notion that, after all, an exception to the law of the conservation of energy may be found, and, provided he submits his idea to the test of experiment at his own charges without annoying his neighbours, all that can be said is that he is engaged in an unpromising enterprise. ”

“ As a body perpetual-motion seekers are ambitious, lovers of the short path to wealth and fame, but wholly superficial. Their inventions are very rarely characterized even by mechanical ingenuity. Sometimes indeed the inventor has simply bewildered himself by the complexity of his device; but in most cases the machines of the perpetual motionist are of child-like simplicity, remarkable only for the extraordinary assertions of the inventor concerning them. Wealth of ideas there is none ”

“ We know that if the laws of motion be true, in each step the kinetic energy given to the whole system of wheel and balls is equal to that taken from the potential energy of the balls less what is dissipated in the form of heat by frictional forces, or vice versa, if the wheel and balls be losing kinetic energy—save that the friction in both cases leads to dissipation. ”

“ One really is at a loss with Bernoulli's wonderful theory, whether to admire most the conscientious statement of the hypothesis, the prim logic of the demonstration, so carefully cut according to the pattern of the ancients, or the weighty superstructure built on so frail a foundation. Most of our perpetual motions were clearly the result of too little learning ”

“ The case is otherwise with the projector who comes forward with some machine which claims by the mere ingenuity of its contrivance to multiply the energy supplied to it from some of the ordinary sources of nature and sets to work to pester scientific men to examine his supposed discovery, or attempts therewith to induce the credulous to waste their money. This is by far the largest class of perpetual-motion-mongers nowadays. The interest of such cases is that attaching to the morbid anatomy of the human mind. ”

“ The fact that screens do exist whereby electrical and magnetic action can be cut off would seem to open a door for the perpetual-motion seeker. Unfortunately the bringing up and removing of these screens involves in all cases just that gain or loss of work which is demanded by the law of the conservation of energy. ”

“ If this could be had, then, by introducing a plate of it underneath a body while it was raised, we could elevate the body without doing work; then, removing the plate, we could allow the body to fall and do work; eccentrics or other imposing device being added to move the gravitation intercepter, behold a perpetual motion complete! The great difficulty is that no one has found the proper material for an intercepter. ”

“ There was a time when wise men believed that a spirit, whose maintenance would cost nothing, could by magic art be summoned from the deep to do his master’s work; and it was just as reasonable to suppose that a structure of wood, brass and iron could be found to work under like conditions. ”

“ By far the most numerous class of perpetual motions is that which seeks to utilize the action of gravity upon rigid solids. We have not read of any actual proposal of the kind, but the most obvious thing to imagine in this way would be to procure some substance which intercepts gravitational attraction. ”

“ The overbalancing wheel perpetual motion seems to be as old as the 13th century. Dircks quotes an account of an invention by Wilars de Honecort, an architect whose sketchbook is still preserved in the Écoles des Chartes at Paris. De Honecort says, “Many a time have skilful workmen tried to contrive a wheel that shall turn of itself ”

“ Wherefore, if AC be to EF in a greater ratio than L to G, the liquid in the tube will ascend; or if the tube be not sufficiently long the liquid will overflow at the orifice E (this follows from hydrostatic principles) . (4) it is possible to have two liquids of different density that will mix. (5) It is possible to have a filter, colander, or other separator, by means of which the lighter liquid mixed with the heavier may be separated again therefrom.
Construction.—These things being presupposed (says Bernoulli) , I thus construct a perpetual motion. ”