If you type the phrase “do-it-yourself perpetual motion machine” in the Google search bar, the search engine will helpfully display a very impressive number (over 75,000) of various results, including pictures, detailed instructions and videos with working models in operation. And although attempts to repeat the “success” of many authors at home invariably end in complete failure, this once again confirms the stubbornness inherent in human nature, which in no way allows a person to come to terms with the immutable laws of nature and makes him look for inexhaustible sources of unlimited energy.
In history, a perpetual motion machine is first mentioned in a poem by the Indian astronomer, mathematician and poet Bhaskara, which dates back to about 1150. So India can rightfully be considered the ancestral home of the first perpetuum mobile models. This poem describes a perpetual motion machine in the form of a wheel with narrow, long vessels fixed obliquely along the rim, which are half filled with mercury. The difference in the moments of gravity, which was created by moving in the vesselsliquid, was supposed to make the wheel constantly rotate. But it was not possible to circumvent the laws of nature.
From that moment on, man's fantasy has constantly led to new ideas. However, instead of simple mechanics, modern inventors now offer
use electricity, magnet or gravity. For example, a magnetic perpetual motion involves placing small magnets in a circle and exposing them to the magnetic field of a separately located magnet. By design, the repulsion of the magnets of the same name and the attraction of the opposite poles of the magnets should make the wheel spin without any outside interference. But in reality this does not happen, otherwise everyone would have had a similar unit in their apartment for a long time.
It turns out that, no matter how much a person wishes, a perpetual motion machine of any, even the most complex design, contains flaws and does not work. And all because the principle of its operation violates the first or second law of thermodynamics.
In 1775, more than two centuries ago, in Western Europe, the most authoritative scientific tribunal of that time, the Paris Academy of Sciences, opposed the belief in the existence of a perpetual motion machine. Already at that time, many well-known scientists gave a lot of indisputable evidence of the impossibility of perpetual motion. Around the middle of the twentieth century, this fact was recognized by the United States Patent Office, exhausted by endless applications.
However, there are still people who say they inventedanother model of a perpetual motion machine. As a rule, these are scammers who try to make money on gullibility and ignorance of the laws of thermodynamics. However, it is possible that a new genius will appear among such people who will nevertheless come up with a compact, environmentally friendly engine capable of extracting energy from the world around us in such volumes and with such a long service life that it can be called "eternal".
