Perpetual motion machine

“ But of what use are all the perpetual motion machines, if they can perform no other work than that of keeping themselves in motion? For it is evident, in the case of my machine, that if I wish to increase the power of the wheel, fixed as it is in size, radius, etc., I must increase the jet of92 water, and consequently the pumps must be made of corresponding dimensions, or exert a corresponding increase of force or velocity to replace the water ”

“ They did not know that force is eternal, that it can neither be created nor destroyed. They did not know that a machine having perpetual motion would necessarily be a universe within itself, or independent of this, and in which the force called friction would be necessarily changed, without loss, into the force that propelled,—the machine itself causing or creating the original force that put it in motion. And yet in spite of all the absurdities involved, for many centuries men, regarded by their fellows as intelligent and learned, tried to discover the great principle of "perpetual motion." ”

“ A mechanical device, however ingenious may be the construction, or however accurate the workmanship, can never possess what is called perpetual motion. It is needless to enter into details of any proposed contrivance of wheels, of pumps, of pulleys; it is sufficient to say that nothing in the shape of mechanism can work without friction, that friction produces heat, that heat is a form of energy, and that to replace the energy consumed in producing the heat there must be some source from which the machine is replenished if its motion is to be continued indefinitely. ”

“ The discovery of a perpetual motion, says De la Hire, would be to discover a body at once heavier and lighter than itself. But this is not a fair state of the question. It is not necessary that all the parts of a perpetually-moving machine should be attached to, and inseparable from each other; which they must be, to constitute one gravitating body of a determinate weight. ”

“ Against this hopeless wall the crowd of paradoxers will doubtless continue to break their heads until the millennium dawns.
Sometimes, however, our crank has a practical end in view, as in the numerous attempts to discover "perpetual motion," or, in other words, to invent a machine out of which you can get indefinitely more energy than you put in. ”

“ Another machine is the oscillating balance. This consists of weights at each end of a beam balanced in the middle and so governed by an automatic shunting apparatus, that one of the weights is under the influence of attraction while the other is under that of repulsion. When the former has reached the bottom of its oscillation and the latter the top, the force is reversed in each and so the motion is perpetual. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is the power of gravity. If one of your perpetual motion cranks understood the secret of the use of the repulsion of gravitation, he could contrive a perpetual motion in an hour and a half. We have many forms of such machines that [35] have been in use for ages. One of these is the pendulum machine. ”

“ The most satisfactory confutation of the notion of the possibility of a perpetual motion is derived from the consideration of the properties of the center of gravity; it is only necessary to examine whether it will begin to descend or ascend when the machine moves, or whether it will remain at rest. ”

“ It therefore follows axiomatically that Perpetual Motion is possible only if and when a machine be produced that runs absolutely without friction and absolutely without atmospheric resistance, or the resistance of bending of cords, or other like mechanical resistance. If there be such resistance, then the energy imparted to the machine will be diminished by that resistance, with the result that the machine can only yield the amount of energy imparted, less the energy required to overcome such resistance. ”

“ I transmit you, therefore, a detail of the most particular circumstances observable on an exterior view of a machine, concerning which the sentiments of most people are greatly divided, while almost all the mathematicians are against it. The majority maintain the impossibility of a perpetual motion, and hence it is that so little attention has been paid to Orffyreus and his invention. ”

“ If such reasoners were well convinced that the power of a machine is to be estimated by the excess of motion referred to the perpendicular, without any regard to the apparent center of the machine, and that in machines very little compounded it is possible to produce effects directly contrary to the rule which is true of the simple lever, they would probably renounce many flattering projects, grounded only on the supposition of its universality. ”

“ There, he asserts further, and we know this to be true for we beheld it ourselves, the problem of supplying energy is not a problem at all; for as a result of the magnetic force, so strong everywhere there, perpetual motion machines are used entirely for mechanical purposes. ”

“ But the velocity will be accelerated in the descent after the first second of time, and retarded in the upward cast by gravity. So we have two terms—accelerated and retarded velocity—used to express an increased or decreased force of attraction.
Perpetual motion has often been sought, but never discovered, nor will it ever be till the elixir of life has been found. It is quite impossible to construct any machine that will work without friction ”

“ If we considered wear and tear the question would be settled at once, but this is allowed as the single exception, and therefore any machine constantly renewing the means that first moved it might be deservedly called a perpetual motion. ”

“ Inventions of this kind might be multiplied indefinitely, but none of these devices can be called a perpetual motion because they all depend for their action upon energy derived from external sources other than gravity. But the authors of these inventions are not to be classed with the regular perpetual-motion-mongers. The purposes for which these arrangements were invented were legitimate, and the contrivances answered fully the ends for which they were intended. The real perpetual-motion-seekers are men of a different stamp, and their schemes readily fall into one of these three classes: 1. ”

“ Urban: Being an admirer of improvements in mechanics and desirous of seeing the perpetual motion discovered, I was much pleased on reading, some time ago, an account of the automaton constructed by Orffyreus in two letters, one from Professor 's Gravesande to Sir Isaac Newton, the other from Baron Fischer to Dr. Desaguliers, with the testimonial of the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel (who had seen the inside of it) in favor of its construction. ”

“ It is now more than seven years since I conceived I discovered the paralogism of those demonstrations, in that, though true in themselves, they were not applicable to all possible machines; and have ever since remained perfectly persuaded it might be demonstrated that a perpetual motion involved no contradiction; it appearing to me that Leibnitz was wrong in laying down the impossibility of the perpetual motion as an axiom. ”

“ If it be so placed that it must either remain at rest or ascend, it is clear, from the laws of equilibrium, that no motion derived from gravitation can take place; if it may descend, it must either continue to descend forever with a finite velocity, which is impossible,334 or it must first descend and then ascend with a vibratory motion, and then the case will be reducible to that of a pendulum, where it is obvious that no new motion is generated, and that the friction and resistance of the air must soon destroy the original motion. ”

“ B B are blocks of wood to keep off the attraction of the magnets from that part of the wheel which has passed them.
Mackintosh's Experiment
F. S. Mackintosh, of England, in 1823, sought to accomplish Perpetual Motion, and made the attempt here described. It was not made public until 1836, when it was published in "Mechanics' Magazine." In the meantime, the inventor had become convinced of the impossibility of perpetual motion, as his comments on his own alleged invention discloses. ”

“ One of the most common fallacies by which the superficial projectors of machines for obtaining a perpetual motion have been deluded, has arisen from imagining that any number of weights ascending by a certain path on one side of the center of motion, and descending on the other at a greater distance, must cause a constant preponderance on the side of the descent ”

“ But since the impetus remains unaltered, it is evident that the utmost which the body B could effect in return would be the reproduction of A's velocity, and restitution of its entire mechanic force neither increased nor diminished, excepting by the necessary imperfection of machinery. The possibility of perpetual motion is consequently inconsistent with those principles which measure the quantity of force by the quantity of its extended effect, or by the square of the velocity which it can produce. ”

“ In the only machine we employ today, save for the manufacture of the skydome, and our laboratory equipment. With absolute zero stopping motion, there is neither time nor space. You know that. Well, the first contact, creating new motion, brings one to the time in which he is revived. ”

“ By such an engine it seems very probable that a man may produce perpetual motion; the distance of the plummets from the center increasing with weight on one side, and their being tied to one another, causing a constant succession in their falling. ”

“ Thus we learn that wherever we have a current constantly circulating round a magnet, there we have the conditions by which, according to Professor Lodge, perpetual motion may be obtained, that is to say, the two will revolve round each other as long as the current is maintained. Here then we find in space those very conditions by which perpetual motion may be obtained. ”

“ The wheel at Hesse-Cassel, made by Monsieur Orffyreus, and by him called a perpetual motion, has, of late, been so much talked of on account of its wonderful phenomena, that a great many people have believed it to be actually a self-moving engine ”

“ We shall then note that in the kosmical system the mutual motions of the bodies, both as to their paths and their velocities, are entirely dependent on the influence of sensible forces, while in the machine system the paths of motion are absolutely determined, and at the same time no point can alter its velocity without the velocities of all other points being correspondingly altered; that in the latter case, therefore, disturbing sensible forces are without influence,—they are everywhere balanced by the latent forces. Not less is it these last which carry the moving forces from body to body. ”

“ That this hypothesis of ours may arouse no scruples, we will state that it simply imports, what no one has ever denied, that heavy bodies do not move upwards.—And truly if the devisers of the new machines who make such futile attempts to construct a perpetual motion would acquaint themselves with this principle, they could easily be brought to see their errors and to understand that the thing is utterly impossible by mechanical means. ”

“ You cannot, by any combination of mechanism, get increased force and increased speed at the same time, or increased force without diminished speed; and it is from the ignorance of this inexorable condition, that such myriads of schemes for the realization of perpetual motion, by combinations of levers, weights, wheels, quicksilver, cranks, and other mere pieces of inert matter, have been propounded. ”

“ But the fact that it will not run permanently, and that the motion is the result of energy supplied by the radio-active substance, and is not supplied by the mechanism itself, deprives it of any right to be called a solution of the problem of self-motive power. ”

“ Those who may still believe in the possibility of Perpetual Motion devices admit, as they must, that had either of these discoveries actually been made it would have supplanted steam, electricity, wind, water and all other forms of power for driving machinery, and, indeed, for furnishing heat. ”

“ A man on a bicycle can coast forever along level ground. Ships at sea can shut off steam and coast [pg 50] clear across the ocean. No machinery needs oiling. The clothes on your body feel smoother and softer than the finest silk. Perpetual motion is an established fact instead of an absolute impossibility; everything that is not going against gravity will keep right on moving forever or until it bumps into something else.
But, if there is no friction and you want to stop, you cannot. Suppose you are in an automobile when all friction stops. ”

“ The foregoing illustration of the idiosyncrasies of mechanical construction offer a good example of why perpetual motion is not possible, viz., that no mechanism was ever made that would not consume a certain per cent of the power delivered to it, through friction and inertia. Of course, expert knowledge of the physical laws of mechanics allow of the application of force along the lines of least resistance, and it is with this feature that the new improvements in the Comptometer have to do. ”