I am just wondering if perpetual machines can replace battery dependence?
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The idea of a “perpetual motion machine” comes in two flavors. The “strong” and “weak” one. Both are ideas people have had since antiquity. “Strong” ones are impossible, “weak” ones are impractical.
A “strong” perpetual motion machine is one that provides an infinite source of energy without input. Typically this is imagined to be something that is eternally moving, and can do work with that movement (like spin a turbine) without ever stopping.
A “weak” perpetual motion machine is simply a machine that keeps moving forever, but doesn’t actually generate excess energy. This is imagined as something that moves forever when left alone, but would eventually stop if hooked up to a turbine or similar thing.
We know “strong” perpetual motion machines are impossible. They would break the laws of thermodynamics, which are among the most strongly experimentally-verified laws of science that we have seen anywhere, in any context.
We also know, because of the laws of thermodynamics, that “weak” ones are impractical. Even if a machine is floating in space billions of miles away from everything, it’s still losing energy by radiating it away. You can make a machine that goes for a *very long time* by very carefully isolating it from everything else, but you can’t make one that lasts literally forever (and in any case, you can’t actually pull useful energy *out* of it).
Of course, this doesn’t stop the concept from being attractive to all kinds of pseudoscience types. It’s probably the single most commonly faked “invention” in history, with all kinds of methods being used to hide the energy sources of thousands of different “prototypes”.
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