About a hundred years have passed since the moment when his first perpetual motion machine appeared within the walls of Orfyreus' dwelling in Hera. At this time, in the small Swiss town of Chaux-de-Fonds, rumors began to spread about an extraordinary pendulum clock, the mechanism of which was allegedly driven by a perpetual motion machine. These conversations aroused great interest among the inhabitants of the town, since at that time even an ordinary clockwork, according to the layman, was, if not a miracle of technology, then at least something incredibly complex and amazing. In the same watch, in addition to showing hours and minutes, there was even a second scale on the dial, as well as a special mechanism for visualizing the course of the so-called "hour equation", which described the relationship between mean and true solar time (In XVI-XVIII centuriessundials were still widely used in everyday life, hence the desire to adapt the counting of time to the true sun. To facilitate the translation of the average into true solar time, special devices or tables of the clock equation were used.)
The self-propelled mechanism, supposedly driving the chronometric device, was a large brass wheel 45.8 cm in diameter, rotating on a horizontal shaft. Along the perimeter of the wheel at equal distances from each other, 39 identical hollow cylinders were reinforced, which, when the wheel rotated, could swing back, as shown in the diagram of this device.
On each pin, around which the corresponding cylinder rotated, two long levers with a smooth bend at the upper end were simultaneously fixed. The curved edges of the levers were equipped with three finger teeth. There were also 39 such outwardly very intricate elements around the circumference of the wheel.
Detail of a complex mechanism that Gaiser mounted on each of the 39 weights. This device was supposed to control the tilting of the cylinders, which played the role of unbalanced weights.
All of them were intended to ensure timely folding and return movement to the rim of the brass cylinders, which here performed the same function as the hammers in the Villard d'Onecourt machine. In the racks, which carried the bearings of the impeller shaft, steel studs were fixed above and below, the number of which corresponded to the number of teeth on the arms of the arms. When rotating, the teeth of the lever in the horizontal position of the cylinder bumped into the upper pins and set the cylinder vertically. In addition, another cogwheel was attached to the steel shaft of the main wheel, which, like a conventional watch powered by a spring or counterweight, was a component of a transmission link that transferred "propulsion" from the self-propelled device directly to the watch wheel mechanism. The pendulum clock itself,used by Gaizer, the author of this perpetuum mobile, had an anchor stroke and a second lattice pendulum with an oscillation amplitude of about 1 ° 30 ′ (A lattice pendulum is a device for temperature compensation of a pendulum, consisting of rods with different coefficients of thermal expansion, fastened by crossbars, and resembling a lattice.) … At the same time, nowhere was the slightest trace of any hidden mechanism visible that could secretly set in motion the driving element, i.e. the wheel of this perpetual motion machine. However, it was indeed completely impossible to hide in the thin brass posts any kind of drive mechanism that would allow maintaining the continuous rotation of such a large and relatively heavy wheel. That is why none of those around him doubted at all the authenticity of Gaizer's perpetuum mobile.
Nevertheless, Gaizer's watch has been carefully examined several times. Finally, in 1817, the inventor, together with his watch, took a trip to Frankfurt am Main, where, being in extremely strained circumstances, he soon died. After Gaiser's death, his car was dismantled in the presence of members of the "Frankfurt Industrial Society". Since this time nothing suspicious was found, it was reassembled. The mechanic Tabor, who analyzed the forces at work in the mechanism of Gaiser's wheel, believed that the resulting driving force of this perpetuum mobile was sufficient to keep the eternal clock running continuously for an arbitrarily long time.
The secret of Gaizer's perpetual motion machine was completely accidentally revealed by a participant in another inspection and dismantling of the machine, already familiar to us N. von Poppe, who described this event as follows:
“… And then my colleagues and I had the opportunity to get hold of this car, disassemble it and inspect everything in the most thorough way. While studying its individual parts, we did not at first find anything hidden; then, fully convinced of the originality of the machine, we began to assemble it again and finally reached the point where we only had to put the hands of the clock on the axis. And then, when we accidentally slightly turned the second axis, our attention was attracted by one suspicious circumstance, which greatly surprised us; subsequently, it was this that led to the discovery of the mechanism hidden inside.
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A 3/4 inch long and about 1.5 dashes (hour measure) thick tube, concentric with a second axis, led to one of the racks of the machine frame, with the second hand completely blocking access to this tube. In the same frame post, a hidden drive was connected to the tube, connected on both opposite sides with small star wheels. With the help of each such wheel, it was possible to wind a small narrow spring, similar to a clock, but with a large number of turns. However, in order to start these springs, it was necessary to first remove the second hand; only under it could one notice a small square shank, on which a special winding key was put on. All these details, i.e. the gear train, sprockets and springs were very skillfully hidden in special cavities inside the frame rack. Required spring forcewhich a narrow and thin spring could not provide, was created by increasing the number of its turns.
Just as is the case in a pocket watch mechanism without a spring compensator of the driving force, a cogwheel (winding wheel) was connected to each specified spring, which rotated under the action of a wound spring and set the entire device in motion. With the help of two other gear wheels and a transmission located on the shaft of a large cylindrical wheel, which was well accessible to observation and which, as we mistakenly believed, should have been directly related to the driving mechanism of the watch, Gaiser transferred the driving force from the hidden springs directly to the axle main wheel. The force of these springs was added to the resultant of the reclining elements, reinforced along the rim of the wheel of the perpetual motion machine, and thereby set both mechanisms in constant motion, i.e. the perpetuum mobile itself and the clock mechanism. After uncoiling the springs, the imbalance of forces on the wheel of the perpetual motion machine was insufficient to set the entire installation in motion, and the machine stopped. (The author of the passage mistakenly believes that an imbalance of forces due to weights in such engines still exists; in fact, the sum of the moments of the weights of all cylinders about the central axis will be zero, so that the wheel will still remain stationary.)
The inventor of this extremely ingenious and carefully crafted device, probably until the very last moment, hoped that the resulting force of the cylinders reclining around the perimeter of the wheel would be enough to drive both the perpetual motion machine itself and the clock. As well as those who later admired his car, he would probably have been sorely disappointed by the failure. In addition, the manufacture of this device undoubtedly cost him a lot of work and required significant funds. Therefore, so that all the efforts expended did not go to waste, the author turned to a skillfully hidden mechanism with the help of which he was able, albeit fraudulently, to extricate himself from his predicament. As a result, everyone who had a chance to see Gaizer's watch took it for a real perpetuum mobile."
The principle used by Gaizer in his “eternal” watch was never completely forgotten. Much later, some watchmakers returned to him, engaged in experiments with fundamentally new schemes of watch mechanisms. So, the unknown author of the "perpetual" clock shown in the figure below, in essence, used the idea of a perpetual motion machine by Gaiser, with the only difference that he placed 24 reclining weights around the circumference of the impeller.
A modern version of the eternal clock, constructed by an unknown author. Their creator followed Gaiser's perpetuum mobile idea, which he used in his perpetual watch.
In addition, a hidden spring drive also had a slightly different device. The perpetuum mobile mechanism and the watch itself were operated here by means of a 2.5 m long flat steel spring, artfully hidden in a bronze wheel hub. This spring was wound on a daily basis by means of a special key that was put on the tetrahedral shank of the impeller shaft; at the same time, 25 turns of the key were required to fully wind the spring.
The two inventors of these fake perpetual motion machines, Orfireus and Gaiser, were almost a century apart. True, Orfireus, as a result of his scandalous deception throughout Europe, which went far beyond the usual scandalous chronicles, remained a very striking figure in the history of perpetuum mobile - a figure in which cunning and remarkable intelligence, primitive deception and subtle ingenuity were surprisingly combined. At the same time, Gaizer, although he was undoubtedly a talented and ambitious artisan, did not manage to achieve Orfireus' position and success. Despite this, he also turned out to be one of those who, with his works and inventions, ultimately convinced society of the main thing - that the idea of a perpetuum mobile will forever remain only a utopia, the implementation of which can only be achieved by fraudulent means.
Villard d'Onnecourt (-), a French architect who lived in the 13th century. He took an active part in the construction of cathedrals in Cambrai, Vincennes, San Quentin and Toledo. His drawings, drawings and manuscripts, stored in the Paris National Library, are essentially the only reliable source of information about the level of artistic and technical thinking of the late Gothic period.
Gaiser David Robert (died c. 1817) is a French mechanic and watchmaker from Chaux-de-Fonds (Switzerland). A detailed description of the design and operation of his perpetual motion machine is given by Johann von Poppe in the book “Das Perpetuum Mobile und die Kunst zu fliegen” (“Perpetuum mobile and the art of management”) (Tübingen, 1832).