To the average man it is a self-evident fact that unless you put energy or force of some sort into a machine it won't work. Thus, a locomotive will not move unless you apply steam or electricity, nor a bicycle unless the muscular energy of your own body propels it. But, simple as this fact may seem, there have been, from early times, as we have indicated, men whose whole object in life has been to construct a machine that, once started, shall run for ever by its own momentum. There are such people to-day; and it is pathetic to think what an immense amount of inventive genius has been expended on projects that we may declare to be absolutely hopeless of achievement, even in these days of phonographs and wireless telegraphy.
"Why can't it be done?" says the Inventor. Many reasons to the contrary might be adduced, but the most cogent answer to the practical man lies in this great fact, that up to the present not a single perpetual motor has ever yet been seen at work—that is to say, no machine has ever yet been invented which, when once started, would work for an indefinite time without a corresponding amount of energy being given it.
Careful experiment and daily observation all point to one comprehensive principle—that you cannot get out of a machine more work than you put into it. In the locomotive, for example, the work given out when it is in operation is exactly equivalent to the energy stored up in the inert coal cast into the furnace. Although this principle in all its scientific exactitude is less than a century old, yet its truth is now so well settled, that nothing short of an actual working perpetual motor could demonstrate its falsity. The search for the Philosopher's Stone, the production of an Elixir of Life, have, like the hope of an El Dorado, been consigned to the limbo of forgotten things. Nevertheless, in spite of science, aspirations after the Perpetual Motor still burn fitfully.
ANOTHER INGENIOUS FAILURE.
Some, indeed the vast majority, of the chimerical methods for getting work for nothing, are being rediscovered day by day, and, as before, cast aside. An almost incredible amount of wasted labour and fruitless effort have been devoted to this subject. The quest, however, ever seems to be fresh and attractive, and year after year in wearying succession continues to allure, as the records of the Patent Office show, a never ending train of deluded enthusiasts.
A few of the typical methods that have been imagined for consummating the desired end are here introduced. One of the simplest methods consists in the use of a wheel, divided into a series of spoke-like boxes, each of which contains a rolling ball. Since the balls on the falling side of the wheel are farther from the centre, it is clearly seen (on paper) that the weights act with greater advantage on that side of the wheel than on the other, and, of course, will drag the wheel over, and this, as the balls roll (so far as anything is seen to the contrary by the designer), should continue indefinitely. An excellent theory—but, sad to relate, the most exquisitely constructed machine of this pattern ceases to turn after a few revolutions.
The propounder of perpetual motion theories does not always confine himself to diagrams, but sometimes deludes himself in a cloud of verbiage. Here is a sample. "Let us," says the theorist, "construct a wheel of immense dimensions. On one side of it, let there be hung a huge mass. On the opposite side suspend innumerable small weights. Then shall it be found that the wheel will continually revolve. For when the huge mass is at the top, its weight will cause it to descend. Why is this? The answer is obvious—because it is so heavy. In the meantime the innumerable small weights will reach the top, and thereupon they will descend. Why is this? The answer again is clear—because there are so many."
Most excellent word juggling perhaps, but it would scarcely impose on a child. We cannot, however, avoid a shrewd suspicion that the theorist in this instance has done no more than employ a method not altogether foreign to those sometimes utilised in much more serious, recondite, and difficult matters. Passing on, we reach an arrangement where the balls are secured to hinged arms, which, as the wheel turns round, fall open on the one side and close up on the other. Clearly the leverage is greater on one side, so that the wheel ought to revolve continually when once started, and to give out work which could be transmitted by driving bands or other devices to operate machinery.
