Humanity has sought the dream of creating a perpetual motion machine. A way to get limitless and nearly free energy.
There have been three major types of perpetual motion machines “invented”. None work forever thanks to the Laws of Thermodynamics. But here are the three:
- Devices that receive more energy by falling or turning than they use. The overbalanced wheel is the most famous. Little weights contract on the way down and extend on the way up.
Since the weights are further away from the wheel’s center when falling, that should create more force and energy on the way down. Various wheels of this type have run for a long time but not forever.
- A closed-cyle water wheel is another attempt. The wheel would keep recycling the water. But there’s always energy lost from things like friction in the wheel.
- The final type seeks to eliminate friction and electrical resistance. Superconductive metals at a very low temperature have little friction or resistance, but there’s always some.
The only way I see a perpetual motion machine existing is after “free energy” is discovered and harnessed.
Whether the energy is free isn’t important. Some huge energy source could fuel a device with a tiny energy need. This would make it seem to be perpetual.
But over a long enough time, the energy would go to zero.