Do you think a pertpetual-motion machine is possible?

Answer 1

Hmmm...I'd like to say no....s2ndreal is correct in saying this violates the second law of thermodynamics and is therefore impossible. Essentially you would be creating more energy/mass than you started with. However...this has apparently happened once already in our universe, either in the Big Bang or through a Divine Being, so the answer is ....well...very confusing..

Answer 2

Yes Bill, it certainly is, however it requires a certain amount of cheating. For something to be considered perpetual motion, the total amount of energy put into the system has to be less than zero. The system has to output more energy than was input. This is not possible.

What is possible is to draw on a source of energy to provide the appearance of perpetual motion. Take for example a motor with a wheel attached. Once I unplug the motor, the wheel will stop. If however I used a cord to the motor that was, say 2,000 feet long and suspended 50-100 feet off the ground, the motor would keep running. Long wires suspended high in the air tend to pick up extra electrons as the air passes over them, just like you pick up electrons by rubbing your feet on the carpet.

Some of the reported perpetual motion machines have done this sort of thing accidentaly.

Perpetual motion -naw. Free energy - yup.

Answer 3

Scientists and engineers accept the possibility that the current understanding of the laws of physics may be incomplete or incorrect; a perpetual motion device may not be impossible, but overwhelming evidence would be required to justify rewriting the laws of physics. Any proposed perpetual motion design offers a potentially instructive challenge to physicists: we know it can't work (because of the laws of thermodynamics), so explain how it fails to work. The difficulty (and the value) of such an exercise depends on the subtlety of the proposal; the best ones tend to arise from physicists' own thought experiments. The principles of thermodynamics are so well established that proposals for perpetual motion machines are often met with disbelief on the part of physicists.

“ The law that entropy always increases, holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation. ”

--Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1927)

Answer 4

Such a system implies the violation of the second law of thermodynamics by suggesting the possibility of collecting energy from nothing and concentrating it in a way allowing energy to move the machine.

The difficulty of such a machine is entropy.

My opinion is no.

Answer 5

Yes.

Answer 6

As my grandfather used to say, "you can;t get something from nothing."

Answer 7

No.

Answer 8

NO