Perpetual Motion Machine

DURATION: 4 minutes

DIFFICULTY: Advanced

Perpetual Motion, the action of a device that, once set in motion, would continue in motion forever, with no additional energy required to maintain it. Such devices are impossible on grounds stated by the first and second laws of thermodynamics.

Perpetual motion, although impossible to produce, has fascinated both inventors and the general public for hundreds of years. The enormous appeal of perpetual motion resides in the promise of a virtually free and limitless source of power. The fact that perpetual-motion machines cannot work because they violate the laws of thermodynamics has not discouraged inventors and hucksters from attempting to break, circumvent, or ignore those laws.

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