Perpetuum mobile

“ As a result of numerous vain endeavors, as well as of much direct evidence of a positive character, the scientific world has, for many years, held the opinion that any sort of "perpetual motion machine" is impossible. Every one now admits that a machine which would be able to work continuously, without consuming energy, is an impossibility—that is, that a "perpetuum mobile of the first class," as it is called, is impossible (law of the conservation of energy or first law of thermodynamics) . ”

“ We have already compared the world to a mighty clock, or a machine which, as a whole, represents what can never be found in one of its parts, a perpetuum mobile. Let us however leave aside the idea of a perpetuum mobile, and dwell rather on the comparison with a machine. ”

“ To borrow a metaphor from life, it is as if the close approach and quick oscillation of the piece of soft iron fretted or tantalized the magnet, and sent a series of electrical shudders through the iron nerve.
We have here the fundamental principle of the telephone. No galvanic battery is employed to furnish an electrical current, as in the case of the telegraph; but the currents in the wires are produced by the motions of the piece of soft iron near the magnet. ”

“ As the original facility grows the transponder network also must be expanded. At the very minimum, a mobile robot should remain in communication with at least three noncollinear beacons to accurately fix its location. ”

“ If an electrical oscillation is sent through this exceedingly fine platinum wire it heats it and rapidly increases its resistance. The electrical oscillations produced in an aerial are sent through a number of these loops arranged in parallel, and the loops are short-circuited by a telephone, joined in series with a source of very small electromotive force produced by shunting a single cell or opposing to one another two cells of nearly equal electromotive force. ”

“ In wireless telegraphy it is absolutely necessary that the transmitter of the electro-magnetic waves should be brought into perfect harmony with the receiver—without [Pg 89] that condition it is impossible to communicate at a distance; again, a heavy pendulum or swing can, by a certain force, be pushed, say an inch, from its position of rest, and each successive push will augment the swing, but only on one condition, namely, that the force is applied in sympathy with the pendulum's mode of swing ”

“ It is easy to understand the wonders of wireless telegraphy when we consider that electric waves transverse space in exactly the same manner as light waves. When energy is transmitted with finite velocity we can think of its transference only in two ways: first by the actual transference of matter as when a stone is hurled from one place to another; second, by the propagation of energy from point to point through a medium which fills the space between two bodies. ”

“ If, therefore, the transmitting and receiving aerial have the same length, the minimum energy varies as the square of the electromotive force in the receiving aerial, and therefore as the fourth power of the length of either aerial, since the electromotive force varies as the product of the lengths of the aerials. ”

“ He demonstrated that when an electric current is sent into the earth it spreads from that point in waves in all directions, just as when a stone is cast into a pond the ripples widen out from that point, becoming fainter and fainter until they reach the shore. He further found that these currents could be detected by grounding the terminals of a telephone circuit. Telegraphy through the earth was thus possible. However, the farther the receiving station was from the sending station the wider must be the distance between the telephone terminals and the smaller the current received. ”

“ Considering the signaling apparatus of the telephones alone, therefore, each telephone was equipped with a power plant for generating currents used by that station in signaling other stations, the prime mover being the muscles of the user applied to the turning of a crank on the side of the instrument; and also with a current-consuming device in the form of a polarized electromagnetic bell adapted to receive the currents generated at other stations and to convert a portion of their energy into audible signals. ”

“ It is a familiar fact that if we time our blows, we can achieve that which no single blow, however powerful, can accomplish in throwing into vibration a body such as a pendulum, which is capable of oscillation under the action of a restoring force. Precisely the same is true of an electric circuit. We have already seen that the receiving aerial has an alternating electromotive force set up in it by the impact of the successive electric waves sent out from the transmitter. ”

“ The telephone that we generally use has a transmitter which permits but a small portion of the battery power to pass into the wires, owing to the resistance of the carbon diaphragm. The weakness of the current is to a great extent compensated by the exceedingly delicate nature of the receiver. ”

“ When the wheel revolves sparks are made only when the electrodes on the wheel and those that are fixed around it are exactly in a line. Now instead of a few big sparks taking place every second, a thousand smaller ones occur in a second and this makes a whistling sound which is heard by the operator who is listening in at the distant station. The high frequency currents set up by the spark-gap then surge through an oscillation transformer which increases its pressure and finally into and through the aerial wire system where they are damped out in long electric waves. ”

“ In the simplest form of telephone system—two magneto telephones on a private line—the power plant at each station consists of two elements: one, the magneto generator, which is a translating device for turning hand power into alternating current for ringing the bell of the distant station; and the other, a primary battery which furnishes current to energize the transmitter. In such a system, therefore, each telephone has its own power plant. ”

“ This coherer is connected in between the aerial and the earth, and is also in circuit with a battery and the electromagnet of a telegraphic relay. When this relay operates it closes the circuit of another battery which is placed in series with the telephone coil. The moment the current passes through the telephone coil it attracts, and therefore vibrates, the diaphragm and shakes up the metallic filings. If an observer, therefore, places the telephone to his ear, he hears a sound corresponding to every train of waves incident upon the aerial. ”

“ Further experiments followed, and the galvanic battery resulted. Years later, our own Professor Henry discovered that if an insulated wire carrying a current of electricity was wrapped around a piece of soft iron, the latter became a magnet. Out of these simple discoveries, came the electric telegraph, and, still more wonderful, the telephone, by which the human voice may be instantly projected hundreds of miles, not only intelligibly, but with every tone and inflection reproduced. In an age of wonders, this is surely one of the greatest. ”

“ Each change or movement of a semi-loop of electric strain above ground has its equivalent below ground in inter-atomic exchanges or movements of the electrons, on which the ends of these semi-loops of electric strain terminate. The earth must play, therefore, a very important part in so-called "wireless telegraphy," and we might also say the earth does as much as the ether in its production. ”

“ Recent discoveries in what is called electrical science, demonstrating the wide range of application of electric vibrations and suggesting almost unlimited possibilities as to its future adaptation to the purposes of mankind, indicate that man has at last harnessed the primary force or energy of the universe to become his willing servant. With the discovery of the wireless telegraph, and wireless telephone—by means of which conversation has been carried on at a distance of four hundred miles—the scientific nature and possibilities of telepathy is understood. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In outlining the necessary mechanism, as he conceived it, he was gradually led to consider the general and more fascinating problem of perpetual motion itself, with the result that he waxed somewhat enthusiastic when he thought that he saw the possibility of constructing an ever-turning wheel in which the motive power would be magnetic attraction, the attraction of a lodestone for a number of iron teeth arranged at equal distances on the periphery of a wheel. ”

“ Therefore at every receiving station we have devices that will intercept the waves as they come in; retransform them into electrical oscillations; and catching the weak oscillations make them strong enough to be read. Hence we use some type of induction coil by means of which a battery current of such low pressure and diffused flow as scarcely to be felt will be transformed or concentrated into a pressure that is very powerful. In order to form wireless waves we must have a frequency of at least one hundred thousand vibrations a second ”

“ In [Pg 67] order to understand the capabilities of wireless telegraphy we must turn to the scientific study of the electric spark; for its practical employment resides largely in its strength, in its frequency in its position, and in its power to make the air a conductor for electricity. All these points are involved in wireless telegraphy. How, then, shall we study the electric spark? The eye sees only an instantaneous flash following a devious path. It can not tell in what direction a spark flies (a flash of lightning, for instance) , or indeed whether it has a direction. ”

“ Then, when motor-unicycles are presently propelled by force transmitted (in the same way as Marconi’s telegrams) from a fixed power-house, the difficulty of flight will be within sight of an easy solution. Any competent mechanician of the present day could design a flying-machine if the mere weight of the motive appliance could be overcome. When the motor is fixed on terra firma, and the vehicle only needs to carry [57] a device for utilising the ætheric waves which the source of power wirelessly transmits, flight will be at least as simple a matter as wireless telegraphy is to-day. ”

“ He knew, for he had witnessed it years before, that by means of a battery and an electro-magnet reciprocal motion could be produced. He knew that the force which produced it could be transmitted along a wire. He believed that the battery current could be made, through an electro-magnet, to produce physical effects at a distance. He saw in his mind's eye the existence of an agent and a medium by which reciprocal motion could be not only produced, but controlled, at a distance. ”

“ If, instead of sending a message, he wants to hold a conversation at a distance, he invents the telephone, by which sound-vibrations of air are transformed into vibrations of a disc, then into electric currents, then into vibrations of a distant disc, and finally back again to spoken words. Or, if he wants light, he turns electricity into it by tipping the poles of his battery with carbon and bringing them close together. ”

“ While in telephonic arrangements, based upon the principle of magnetic induction, a relatively considerable expenditure of force is required in order to set the tightly stretched membrane in vibration, in the so-called carbon telephones only a very feeble impulse is required to produce the differences in the current necessary for the transmission of sounds. ”

“ I find all the usual attractions and repulsions of the magnetic needle by the conjunctive wire are deceptions, the motions being, not attractions or repulsions, nor the result of any attractive or repulsive forces, but the result of a force in the wire, which, instead of bringing the pole of the needle nearer to or further from the wire, endeavours to make it move round it in a never-ending circle and motion whilst the battery remains in action. ”

“ So that if a person laughs or talks or sings to the diaphragm, the sunbeam laughs, talks and sings and tells its story to the electric current, which impresses itself upon the telephone as audible sounds—articulate or otherwise. Instead of the telephone, battery and selenium cell, a block of vulcanite or certain other substances may be used as a receiver; as a light-ray thrown into vibration [Pg 173] has the power to produce sound or sympathetic vibration in certain substances. ”

“ We provide a dynamo with mechanical motion and it gives us electric current, and by sending this current through an electric motor we get mechanical motion back again. In the transmitter of the telephone just described, the mechanical motion is in the form of vibrations of the metal diaphragm, which set up currents of electricity in the coil of wire round the magnet, so that the transmitter is really a tiny dynamo driven by the voice. ”

“ The action of the transmitter is to send from the battery a series of currents through the coils, which transmit them, greatly intensified, to the earth by means of a wire connected with a buried wire-screen. The electric disturbances set up in the earth travel in all directions, and strike a similar screen buried beneath the receiving instrument, where the currents affect the delicate diaphragm of the telephone earpiece. ”