Two "Certain" Plans for (Not) Producing Perpetual Motion
In 1834, the following article was contributed to "Mechanics' Magazine." The contributor was very frank, and presents some splendid suggestions for Perpetual Motion workers. His article is as follows:
Very few young mechanicians escape being seduced into an attempt to produce a perpetual movement, by making gravitation counteract itself. They are not contented with being told by older men, that a cause can never be made to exceed its own power; yet gravitation is expected by them to lift up on one side more weight than sinks on the other, with some percentage of friction into the bargain. Nature, however, is too true to itself to be so taken in by all or any of the multitudes of various ways the inventive genius of man has contrived, and still keeps contriving, to circumvent her immutable laws, with no other effect than to render the case so complicated as to puzzle the judgment of the inventors, which ends usually in their firm belief that they have outwitted nature instead of themselves. I acknowledge that in my youth I was one of this class, and, for the benefit of the young, I beg to present you with two certain plans for producing perpetual motion, and compelling gravity to be frolicsome, and do more work than she ought.
Let A (Fig. 1) be a cistern full of oil or water, above 4 feet deep. Let B be a wheel; freely suspended within it, on its axle, let there be four wide glass tubes, 40 inches long, c c c c, having large bulbs, holding, say a pint, blown at the closed end. Fill these tubes with mercury, fix on an Indian-rubber ball or bladder, that will hold a pint, to each of them at the open end, and let them be attached round the wheel, as exhibited in the figure. As the pressure of 40 inches of mercury will exceed the atmospheric pressure, and also that of the four-foot column of water, when the Indian-rubber bottle is lowest, and the tube erect, at D, the mercury will fill it, leaving a vacuum in the glass bulb above. On the opposite side the mercury will fill the glass bulb, and the Indian-rubber bottle will be pressed flat, as will also be the case in the two horizontal tubes. Now, it is evident that the two horizontal tubes exactly balance each other; but the tube D, with its bulb swelled out, displaces a pint of water more than its opposite tube, and hence will attempt to rise with the force of about one pound; and each tube, when it arrives at the same position, must produce the same result, the wheel must have a continual power, equal to about one pound, with a radius of two feet.—Q. E. D.
Let Fig. 2 represent a light drum of wood—one-half of which is inserted into a cleft in a water-cistern A, which fits it, and from which the water is prevented from escaping by a strip of leather, which the water presses against the drum, and which thus operates as a valve, without much friction (especially if oil be substituted for water in the cistern). Now, as this drum is much lighter than water, it must ever attempt to swim, and thus, in perpetually rising, cause the drum to revolve forcibly round its axle.—Q. E. D.
I tried this last method thirty years ago, but it was so obstinate as not to move one inch at my bidding, though it obviously is proved, to demonstration, that it ought to have gone on swimmingly. I have just heard that an Italian gentleman has hit upon the same plan; so it seems that the mania is not confined to England.
The article above quoted elicited a varied correspondence on the subject of self-motive power. The editor finally made the following apt and happy remark concerning the two "Certain" plans:
We think our correspondent, S. F., has entirely misconceived the scope of the playful account, given in our last number, of two plans of perpetual motion. The object of the writer seems to have been, to impress on the minds of young mechanicians the folly of wasting their time in vain endeavors to render the effects of causes greater than the causes themselves; or, in other words, to gain power out of nothing—a process without limit or value, were it not cut short by the want of all limit to its folly; and this he could not, perhaps, have done in any way so well, as by exhibiting a couple of infallible perpetual movers that would not stir at all, though they bade as fair for it as any of their kindred.