Fig. 120a. A perpetual motion machine. (impractical of course)
But whether you have or have not the quick capital of your own to draw on there are some things you should not try to invent—that is if you are an inventor for the financial profits you expect to accrue from your work. If you are doing it purely as a scientist that is a horse of quite another color and some scientific society may present you with a medal in a plush lined case and its Transactions will laud you for your unselfish work.
Such schemes as extracting gold from the salt water of the sea, milking electricity directly from the ether, blowing up ships at a distance by means of invisible waves, making a phonotypograph which will, when spoken into, print what you have said on a sheet of paper, printing without type by means of the X-rays, sending wireless messages to Mars and the wireless transmission of power, see Fig. 119, are all good things to let alone.
Fig. 120b. PERPETUAL MOTION AS SEEN BY A PATENT-ATTORNEY (HYPER-THEORETICAL)
Not because these innovations are impossible to invent—they will all come into general use some day—but because it is not given to any inventor to work a single one of them out alone and so I say don’t try to unless you are a real Simon pure scientist.
And as a last piece of advice don’t try to invent that monstrous impossibility—perpetual motion.