Since the time when mechanisms appeared that facilitate manual labor, the idea of "free" energy has appeared.
At the dawn of the development of civilization, when there was still no reliable knowledge about the nature of things, a person could be guided only by his experience or observations of natural phenomena - the movement of rivers, wind, sea waves, ebb and flow. All this was called perpetuum mobile naturae - eternal natural movement. Then scientists of the past suggested that there is also a perpetuum mobile artificae - an eternal artificial movement. It seemed to man that since natural forces are eternal, why not tame some "small" natural force, or put some physical law at his service in order to receive energy for free? Particular interest in creating such a mechanism appeared in the 13th century in Europe, during the period of rapid development of handicraft production.
Perhaps the first such attempt was made in India in the 12th century by the great Indian scientist - Bhaskara (1114-1185).
This man is widely known in Asia as a mathematician and astronomer. According to his book "The Crown of Learning", children were taught for a very long time, in particular, "Lilavati" (Arithmetic) was published in Calcutta after another 700 years, in 1816!
In 1150 Bhaskara put forward the idea of an original mechanism - a perpetual motion machine.
Perhaps this is what Bhaskara and his manuscript looked like.
All the first ancient perpetual motion machines can be classified according to certain schemes, here they are:
- Archimedean way of raising water using a screw mechanism.
- The same water in the capillary structure.
- A common way, which includes the Bhaskara wheel, is a disc with unbalanced weights.
- Diverse magnetism, both electro and natural.
- Use of steam or air compression.
The first, mentioned in the annals, a perpetual motion machine that Bhaskara invented is an unbalanced wheel. Its design was not original. Glass tubes connected to each other were attached to the rim. They were filled with mercury. When the wheel was set in motion (i.e., jerk), the mercury flowed into subsequent vessels, and a centrifugal moment appeared, turning the wheel.
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Of course, at the time, the idea seemed like a good one. A religious factor was also added, because a circle in India is a kind of "sacred" figure, a circle of life. Perhaps that is why such a car was to the taste of the Indians and not only them. Subsequently, descriptions of such engines, based on a wheel, were found in many European and Muslim treatises. Some inventors even suggested to think over a brake device in advance, before launching.
This design, in the form of an unbalanced wheel, occupied the minds of inventors for many years, and even Leonardo da Vinci himself tried to do something similar, which almost ended in the discovery of the law of conservation of energy.
Possessing modern knowledge in physics and mathematics, we understand that the sum of the gravity vectors here is equal to zero, plus we must not forget about the friction force. The wheel will quickly stop.
Perhaps the mathematician himself intuitively understood this, since the wheel was still not made, but remained only in the form of a drawing on paper, like an abstract mathematical model.