Perpetual motion technology has attracted people at all times. Today it is considered more pseudoscientific and impossible than the other way around, but this does not stop people from creating more and more outlandish gizmos and gizmos in the hope of violating the laws of physics and making a world revolution. Here are ten historical and extremely entertaining attempts to create something that looks like a perpetual motion machine.
Karpen's battery
In the 1950s, the Romanian engineer Nicolae Vasilescu-Carpen invented the battery. Now located (albeit not on stands) at the National Technical Museum of Romania, this battery is still working, although scientists still disagree on how and why it continues to work at all.
The battery in the device remains the same single-voltage battery that Karpen installed in the 1950s. For a long time, the car was forgotten, until the museum was able to exhibit it with high quality and ensure the safety of such a strange contraption. The battery was recently discovered to work and still deliver a stable voltage - after 60 years.
Having successfully defended his doctorate on magnetic effects in moving bodies in 1904, Karpen surely could have created something out of the ordinary. By 1909, he was researching high-frequency currents and the transmission of telephone signals over long distances. He built telegraph stations, researched environmental heat and advanced fuel cell technology. However, modern scientists still have not come to common conclusions about the principles of the work of his strange battery.
Many guesses have been put forward, from the conversion of thermal energy into mechanical energy during a cycle, the thermodynamic principle of which we have not yet discovered. The mathematical apparatus of his invention seems incredibly complex, potentially including concepts like the thermosiphon effect and the temperature equations of the scalar field. Although we have not been able to create a perpetual motion machine capable of generating endless and free energy in huge quantities, nothing prevents us from rejoicing in a battery that has been working continuously for 60 years.
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Joe Newman's Power Machine
In 1911, the US Patent Office issued a huge decree. They will no longer issue patents for perpetual motion machines, since it seems scientifically impossible to create such a device. For some inventors, this meant that the battle to get their work recognized by legitimate science would now be a little more difficult.
In 1984, Joe Newman got on the CMS Evening Newsletter with Dan Rather and showed something incredible. People living during the oil crisis were delighted with the inventor's idea: he presented a perpetual motion machine that worked and produced more energy than it consumed.
Scientists, however, did not believe a single word of Newman.
The National Bureau of Standards tested the scientist's device, consisting mostly of batteries charged by a magnet rotating inside a coil of wire. During the tests, all of Newman's statements were empty, although some people continued to believe the scientist. So he decided to take his energy machine and go on tour, demonstrating how it works along the way. Newman claimed that his machine produces 10 times more energy than it absorbs, that is, it operates at an efficiency of over 100%. When his patent applications were rejected, and the scientific community literally threw his invention into a puddle, his grief knew no bounds.
As an amateur scientist who never even finished high school, Newman didn't give up even when no one supported his plan. Convinced that God sent him a machine that would change humanity for the better, Newman always believed that the true value of his machine was always hidden from the powers that be.
Water screw by Robert Fludd
Robert Fludd was a kind of symbol that could only appear at a certain time in history. Half scientist, half alchemist, Fludd described and invented things around the turn of the 17th century. He had some rather strange ideas: he believed that lightning was the earthly embodiment of the wrath of God, which strikes them if they do not run. At the same time, Fludd believed in a number of principles that we accepted today, even if most people did not accept them at that time.
His version of a perpetual motion machine was a water wheel that could grind grain while constantly spinning under the action of recirculated water. Fludd called it "water screw". In 1660, the first woodcuts appeared depicting such an idea (the origin of which is attributed to 1618).
Needless to say, the device didn't work. However, Fludd was not only trying to break the laws of physics in his machine. He also looked for a way to help the farmers. At that time, the processing of huge volumes of grain depended on flows. Those who lived far from a suitable source of flowing water were forced to load their crops, drag them to the mill, and then back to the farm. If this machine with a perpetual motion machine worked, it would greatly simplify the lives of countless farmers.
Bhaskara wheel
One of the earliest mentions of perpetual motion machines comes from the mathematician and astronomer Bhaskara, from his writings of 1150. Its concept was an unbalanced wheel with a series of curved spokes inside filled with mercury. As the wheel turned, the mercury began to move, providing the push needed to keep the wheel spinning.
Over the centuries, a huge number of variations of this idea have been invented. It is perfectly understandable why it must work: a wheel in a state of imbalance tries to bring itself to rest and, in theory, will continue to move. Some designers believed so strongly in the possibility of creating such a wheel that they even designed brakes in case the process got out of control.
With our modern understanding of force, friction and work, we know that an unbalanced wheel will not achieve the desired effect, since we cannot get all the energy back, we cannot extract it either much or forever. However, the idea itself was and remains intriguing for people unfamiliar with modern physics, especially in the Hindu religious context of reincarnation and the circle of life. The idea became so popular that wheel-shaped perpetual motion machines were later included in Islamic and European scriptures.
Cox's watch
When famed London watchmaker James Cox built his perpetual motion watch in 1774, it worked exactly as the accompanying documentation explained why the watch did not need to be wound up. A six-page document explained how the watch was created based on "mechanical and philosophical principles."
According to Cox, the diamond-powered perpetual motion machine of the watch and the reduced internal friction to almost no friction ensured that the metals of which the watch was constructed would decay much more slowly than anyone had ever seen. In addition to this grand announcement, many of the presentations of the new technology included mystical elements.
Besides being a perpetual motion machine, Cox's watch was a watch of genius. Enclosed in glass, which protected the internal working components from dust, allowing them to be viewed as well, the watch was operated by changes in atmospheric pressure. If the column of mercury rose or fell inside the hour barometer, the movement of the mercury turned the inner wheels in the same direction, partially winding the watch. If the watch was wound up constantly, the gears came out of the grooves until the chain was loosened to a certain point, after which everything fell into place and the watch began to wind itself again.
The first widely accepted example of a perpetual motion clock was shown by Cox himself in the Spring Garden. He was later seen at weekly exhibitions at the Mechanical Museum, and later at the Clerkenville Institute. At that time, the display of these watches was such a miracle that they were captured in countless works of art, and crowds regularly came to Cox wishing to gaze at his wonderful creation.
"Testatika" by Paul Baumann
The watchmaker Paul Baumann founded the spiritual society Meternitha in the 1950s. In addition to abstaining from alcohol, drugs and tobacco, members of this religious sect live in a self-sufficient, environmentally conscious atmosphere. To achieve this, they rely on the wonderful perpetual motion machine created by their founder.
A machine called the Testatika can harness supposedly unused electrical energy and convert it into energy for the community. Due to its closed nature, "Testatik" was not fully and completely investigated by scientists, although the machine became the subject of a short documentary in 1999. Little has been shown, but enough to understand that the sect almost idolizes this sacred machine.
The plans and features of "Testatika" were revealed to Baumann directly by God while he was serving a prison sentence for seducing a young girl. According to official legend, he was saddened by the darkness of his cell and the lack of light for reading. Then he was visited by a mysterious mystical vision, which revealed to him the secret of perpetual motion and endless energy that can be drawn directly from the air. Members of the sect confirm that the Testatika was sent by God, noting also that several attempts to photograph the car revealed a multi-colored halo around it.
In the 1990s, a Bulgarian physicist infiltrated the sect to ferret out the design of the machine, hoping to reveal the secret of this magical energy device to the world. But he failed to convince the sectarians. Having committed suicide in 1997, jumping out of the window, he left a suicide note: "I did what I could, let those who can do better."
Bessler's wheel
Johann Bessler began his research in the field of perpetual motion with a simple concept, like the wheel of Bhaskara: apply weight to the wheel on one side, and it will be constantly unbalanced and constantly moving. On November 12, 1717, Bessler sealed his invention in a room. The door was closed and the room was guarded. When it was opened two weeks later, the 3.7-meter wheel was still moving. The room was sealed again, the scheme was repeated. Upon opening the door in early January 1718, people found that the wheel was still turning.
Although becoming a celebrity after all this, Bessler did not expand on the principles of the wheel, noting only that it relies on weights to keep it unbalanced. Moreover, Bessler was so secretive that when one engineer crept in to get a closer look at the engineer's creation, Bessler freaked out and destroyed the wheel. The engineer later said that he had not noticed anything suspicious. However, he saw only the outer part of the wheel, so he could not understand how it works. Even in those days, the idea of a perpetual motion machine was met with some cynicism. Centuries earlier, Leonardo da Vinci himself scoffed at the idea of such a machine.
Yet the concept of the Bessler wheel has never completely disappeared from sight. In 2014, Warwickshire engineer John Collins revealed that he had studied the design of the Bessler wheel for years and was close to unraveling its mystery. Bessler once wrote that he destroyed all the evidence, blueprints and drawings about the principles of his wheel, but added that anyone who is smart enough and quick-witted can understand everything for sure.
Otis T. Carr's UFO engine
The objects included in the Register of Copyright Objects (third series, 1958: July-December) seem a little strange. Despite the fact that the US Patent Office long ago ruled that it would not grant any patents for perpetual motion devices because they could not exist, OTC Enterprises Inc. and its founder, Otis Carr, are listed as the owners of the "free energy system", the "peaceful atom energy" and the "gravity drive".
In 1959, OTC Enterprises planned to make the maiden voyage of its "space transport of the fourth dimension", powered by a perpetual motion machine. Although at least one person briefly became familiar with the messy parts of the well-guarded project, the device itself was never opened or "lifted off the ground." Carr himself was hospitalized with vague symptoms on the day the device was to set off on its first journey.
Perhaps his illness was a clever way to get away from the demonstration, but it wasn't enough to keep Carr behind bars. By selling options on a technology that did not exist, Carr got the investors interested in the project, as well as people who believed that his apparatus would take them to other planets.
To get around the patent restrictions of his crazy projects, Carr patented the whole thing as an "entertainment device" that simulates trips into outer space. It was U. S. Patent # 2,912,244 (November 10, 1959). Carr claimed that his spacecraft was working because one had already taken off. The propulsion system was a "circular foil of free energy" that provided an endless supply of energy needed to propel the craft into space.
Of course, the strangeness of what was happening opened the way for conspiracy theories. Some people have suggested that Carr actually assembled his perpetual motion machine and flying machine. But, of course, he was quickly pinned down by the American government. Theorists could not agree, either the government does not want to disclose the technology, or it wants to use it on its own.
"Perpetuum Mobile" by Cornelius Drebbel
The strangest thing about Cornelius Drebbel's perpetual motion machine is that while we don't know how or why it worked, you've definitely seen it more often than you think.
Drebbel first demonstrated his car in 1604 and amazed everyone, including the English royal family. The machine was a kind of chronometer; it never needed to be set and showed the date and phase of the moon. Driven by changes in temperature or weather, Drebbel's machine also used a thermoscope or barometer, much like a Cox watch.
No one knows what provided movement and energy to Drebbel's device, since he spoke of curbing the "fiery spirit of the air" like a real alchemist. At the time, the world was still thinking in terms of the four elements, and Drebbel himself experimented with sulfur and saltpeter.
As stated in a letter from 1604, the earliest known representation of the device showed a central sphere surrounded by a glass tube filled with liquid. Golden arrows and markers tracked the phases of the moon. Other images were more complex, showing the car adorned with mythological creatures and ornaments in gold. Drebbel's perpetuum mobile also appeared in some paintings, in particular in the brushes of Albrecht and Rubens. In these pictures, the strange toroidal shape of the machine does not resemble a sphere at all.
Drebbel's work attracted the attention of royal courts across Europe, and he toured the continent for some time. And, as often happens, he died in poverty. As an uneducated son of a farmer, he received the patronage of Buckingham Palace, invented one of the first submarines, became a regular in pubs closer to old age, and eventually embarked on several projects that spoiled his reputation.
David Hamel's anti-gravity machine
In his self-proclaimed "Incredibly True Life Story," David Hamel claims to be an ordinary carpenter with no formal education who was chosen to be the custodian of the machine of eternal energy and the spacecraft that must be powered by it. After meeting with aliens from the planet Kladen, Khamel stated that he received information that should change the world - if only people believe him.
While all this is a little discouraging, Khamel said that his perpetual motion machine uses the same energies as spiders jumping from one web to another. These scalar forces cancel out the attraction of gravity and allow us to create an apparatus that will allow us to reunite with our Kladen relatives, who provided Khamel with the necessary information.
According to Khamel, he has already built such a device. Unfortunately, it flew away.
After working 20 years to build his interstellar device and engine using a series of magnets, he finally turned it on, and this is what happened. Filled with the glow of colorful ions, his anti-gravity machine took off and flew over the Pacific Ocean. To avoid a repeat of this tragic event, Khamel builds his next car out of heavier materials like granite.
To understand the principles behind this technology, Hamel says that you need to look at the pyramids, study some forbidden books, accept the presence of invisible energy and imagine scalars and the ionosphere almost like milk and cheese.
Ilya Khel