Perpetual MotionAn illustrated overview of perpetualmotion machines and their inventors. The deceptively simple task of making a mechanism which would turn forever has fascinated many famous men and physicists throughout the centuries. In fact, the basic tenets of engineering grew from the failures of these perpetual motion machine designers. And, despite the naivete and even the blatant trickery of many inventors, there still exist a handful of mechanisms which defy explanation: * a vast canvascovered wheel which turned by itself was erected in the Tower of London * another wheel turned endlessly in Germany and was discussed by philosophers and scientists throughout Europe, including Sir Isaac Newton |
Contents
The Astonishing Case of the Garabed Project | 160 |
EverRinging Bells and Radium Perpetual Motion | 166 |
Perpetual Motion Inventors Barred from the US Patent Office | 176 |
Rolling Ball Clocks | 186 |
Perpetual Lamps | 194 |
Philosophical Perpetual Motion and Atomic Energy | 200 |
The Perpetuity of the Perpetual Motion Inventor | 207 |
A Summing Up | 219 |
The Redheffer Perpetual Motion | 125 |
Keely and his Amazing Motor | 139 |
Odd Ideas about Vaporisation and Liquefaction | 151 |
Bibliography | 224 |
Index | 229 |
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Common terms and phrases
6X9 PAPERBACK ancient anti-gravity appeared Archimedean screw Atlantis atoms ball Böckler Bruce Cathie centre century claims clock clockwork CODE compressed air continue Cox's crank cylinder David Hatcher Childress descending device discs drive dry pile electricity engine experiments flywheel force Franklin Institute free energy friction Giragossian gravity heat Illuminati ILLUSTRATED impossible inclined plane invention inventor Keely Motor Keely's Knights Templar lamp ley lines liquid lodestone London magnets means mechanism mercury move Museum natural Nikola Tesla operation Orffyreus PAGES Patent Office pendulum perpetual motion machine perpetual motion seekers perpetual motionists Perpetuum Mobile petual motion Philadelphia physicist piece piston possible pressure principle produce pulley pump radium Redheffer rotation saucer scientists Second Law secret self-moving wheel shaft shown in Fig side strange Templar tion tube turn uranium uranium 235 valve waterwheel weights wind Zero-Point Energy Zimara
Popular passages
Page 34 - Unquestionably in the assumption from which Stevinus starts, that the endless chain does not move, there is contained primarily only a purely instinctive cognition. He feels at once, and we with him, that we have never observed anything like a motion of the kind referred to, that a thing of such a character does not exist.
Page 105 - The round figures represent hollow balls, which will sink one-fourth of their bulk in water (of course will fall in air) ; the weight therefore of three balls resting upon one ball in water, as at E, will just bring its top even with the water's edge ; the weight of four balls will sink it under the surface until the ball immediately over it is one-fourth its bulk in water, when the under ball will escape round the corner at C, and begin to ascend. "The machine is supposed (in the figure) to be in...
Page 45 - Uikcth it in, though it be an hundred fathom high. 21. How to raise water constantly with two buckets only, day and night, without any other force than its own motion, using not so much as any force, wheel, or sucker, nor more pulleys than one, on which the cord or chain rolleth with a bucket fastened at each end.
Page 106 - No. 5, strike and open the small valve in its center, then open the large one, and pass through ; this valve will then, by appropriate weights or springs, close; the ball will roll on through the bent tube (which is made in that form to gain time as well as to exhibit motion) to the next valve (No. 6), where it will perform the same operation, and then, falling upon the four balls at E, force the bottom one round the corner at C. This ball will proceed as did No. 8, and the rest in the same manner...
Page 186 - I was showed a table-clock whose balance was only a crystal ball, sliding on parallel wires, without being at all fixed, but rolling from stage to stage till falling on a spring concealed from sight, it was thrown up to the utmost channel again, made with an imperceptible declivity, in this continual vicissitude of motion prettily entertaining the eye every half minute, and the next half giving progress to the hand that showed the hour, and giving notice by a small bell, so...
Page 37 - If there could exist a power having the property ascribed to it by the hypothesis, namely, that of giving continual impulse to a fluid in one constant direction, without being exhausted by its own action, it would differ essentially from all the known powers in nature.
Page 111 - ... are exposed), still the primary cause of its motion being constant, and the friction upon every part extremely insignificant, it will continue its action for a longer duration than any mechanical performance has ever been known to do.
Page 55 - E, fixed at right angles to the center [axis] of the screw, and furnished at its circumference with ridges or floats to intercept the mercury, the moment and weight of which will cause the float-board and screw to revolve, until, by the proper inclination of the floats, the mercury falls into the receiver F, from whence it again falls by its spout into the cistern G, where the constant revolution of the screw takes it up again as before.
Page 180 - The model was in our office yesterday, and attached to some clockwork, which it turned without once stopping to breathe. We see no reason, why it should not go until worn out ! After a careful examination, we can safely say, in all seriousness, that the propelling power is self-contained and selfadjusting, and gives a sufficient active force to carry ordinary clockwork, and all without any winding up or replenishing.
Page 45 - A double water-screw, the innermost to mount the water, and the outermost for it to descend more in number of threads, and consequently in quantity of water, though much shorter than the innermost screw, by which the water ascendeth, a most extraordinary help for the turning of the screw to make the water rise.