perpetual motion machine?

Question

NO TIME WASTERS PLEASE
i am on my quest to create a perpetual motion machine
the critic says it cannot work but no one ever built a statue of a critic.

ive been thinking about this idea for a while now trying many various things and i feel i have invented a solution to do with pressure and electricity, perhaps you could think about this if your designing one

but has anyone else been or is trying to invent this system aswell?
do you have any tried and tested ideas?
do u have any ideas that might wor?

Answer 1

I enjoy the Perpetual Motion ideas...the honest ones. Attempting it provides the opportunity for learning.

The main reasons people will say that it cannot be done is because of the law that energy cannot be created nor destroyed. What this means is that if you are using just energy, it will be a balanced system, but since the machine will have friction, it will therefore always take more energy than it can produce. The other way to get energy is by destroying matter. But even the matter to energy conversion is balanced. So even if you could create a cycle to turn energy into matter, you'd still have the problem of a machine taking out energy.

HOWEVER, I believe it's possible to make a machine that might borrow energy from it's environment and thereby appear to be perpetual. The simple versions of this would be something like a water wheel. A big river seems to always supply an endless stream of power to a turning wheel. The more extreme end of this would be tapping into something called "zero point energy" which attempts to take energy from the fabric of space-time.

Pressure and electricity are tricky components to use for a perpetual motion machine because to create pressure or use electricity, there is significant losses of energy through heat and use of materials that just aren't that efficient. However, new materials, such as carbon nanotubes, have been shown to be nearly perfect conductors of electricity, which means you wouldn't have significant losses while the electricity is going through the device. However, the electric motors still have a long way to go.

I've explored using permanent magnets in different types of configurations and think I have some setups that might work. However, they are not perpetual in that the energy to create the magnet will weaken over time as the atoms in the magnet become misaligned. But it might be a really effiencient motor that could run for a "long" time.

Feel free to write me if you'd like to talk about it more.

Answer 2

I think you may be confused as to what the critics actually mean when they say perpetual motion. I can plug a motor into a wall socket and, given no wear and tear, the motor will run forever. What a perpetual motion device means is that no outside energy is introduced into the system, or if there is, there is a net output of energy from the system that equals the input.

Even those nifty little floaty magnetic tops that float eventually stop turning because of friction from the air. You could perhaps put the magnetic top in a vacuum, but even in an industrial "vacuum" there are still enough molecules of gas to interact with and eventually stop the machine.

And by the way, those critics for whom no staute has ever been built? One of them was Einstein. There are a few statues of him, actually.

Answer 3

All the answers here are very interesting but, one thing all have forgotten to point out (except one) is ENTROPY.

All is nice when you think of the 'conservation of energy' law, a scenario in which it's possible to make something 'go' forever...

But when you remember the law of entropy, which basically means that the energy will, over time, become less 'useful' (for current lack of a better word) and the system's overall energy will become disordered, therefore bringing even the most ingenious gadget, eventually to a halt.

on the other hand the greatest breakthroughs of history were made by people who didn't accept the given laws of the time and proved them WRONG! (from king Salomon and Galileo to Einstein and the Beatles)

I do wish you good luck and success (especially because I'm not completely convinced by the entropy law)

Answer 4

If you are thinking of gravity pressing a weight down on piezoelectric crystals, that will create a permanent electric charge, not a useable current. If the charge is connected to a circuit, it will drain away and dissipate the energy.

However, as far as practical perpetual motion machines go, they have already been invented. I am serious.

One is the tide, driven by the Moon. As the Earth-Moon system loses energy due to the tidal flow on Earth, Earth will eventually stop rotating and be tidally locked to the Moon. Like the Moon shows us only one face, we will only show one face to the Moon. But we do not have to worry about this running out for the entire time that we are likely to be left upon this Earth. Tidal generators can be used to generate hydroelectricity.

Another example of a (practically) perpetual-motion system is the cycle of precipitation. The Sun warms the seawater, it evaporates to form clouds, which rise high in the sky due to their thermal content. As they rain out onto the surface, they form rivers which can be used to generate hydroelectricity, The river then returns to the sea and the cycle repeats itself.

So, the first (practically) perpetual-motion system is driven by inertia and gravity, the initial spin and mutual atraction of the Earth and Moon. The other one is driven by the input of solar energy.

You will receive the accolades of a grateful world if you can develop more efficient hydroelectric generators that can be used with a limited amount of water head and similar hydroelectric generators that will work with a limited tidal bore and will withstand the corrosive effects of seawater.

There are already big monuments put up for the person that designed the Sun and the Moon; they are called churches.

Answer 5

Many have tried but no one has built a statue to a successful inventor of a perpetual motion machine. One problem is that many good ideas do not meet the harsh definition of a perpetual motion machine. One must thoroughly understand the concept(s) or rules to enter the real competition. Good luck.

Answer 6

Some of the greatest minds that have ever existed have tried to build a true perpetual motion machine. They've all failed. If you succeed you'll be greater than Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Einstein, et al.

The ONLY way a perpetual motion machine can be built is to discover some unknown force or property of the universe.

Answer 7

I'm sure if you looked somewhere in England you might find a statue of Dr Johnson, one of the best known critics of all time.

Australian patent legislation bans patents on a few things, perpetual motion and human beings are the first things that spring to mind. I'll bet the US office does as well. Applications are automatically rejected here No argument. .

Answer 8

If you can eliminate 100% of the mechanical friction in your machine you are on your way. Then eliminate all resistance, including electrical and air. If you are successful in all that you might be successful at a zero sum machine but it will die the second you attempt to extract any power.

I do wish you luck but I can't see any success in your future. And I certainly don't see any of my time or money being invested either.

Answer 9

You're optimism is admirable and it is indeed a worthwhile quest you are on in that you will learn a lot on your journey. You should of course realise though that you will never achieve your desire as any system you create will have losses such as friction and will therefore need external stimulation of some sort to continue.

I do howver wish you every luck.

Answer 10

My ideas are hard to describe but it is therotically possible. u need a series of conveyer belts to move something up and down in a circle. There would need to be 4 sets of conveyer belts, one set going up and the rest slanted down. they would need to be connected by gears and there would need to be some kind of weight on all 4 at a time so the conveyer belts slanted down can power the one that goes up. alll u would have to do is give it the first push and it would keep going. a machine with pressure and electricty wouldn't work because it doesn't power it self. I hope this is helpful