A sample of this motor:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXBYMiNH1nE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXBYMiNH1nE)
In: 87
Magnets don’t work when they’re hot. Running something like this will slowly build up heat in the magnets. They will eventually stop working.
Perpetual motion doesn’t exist. Full stop. That’s just how physics works. Nothing lasts forever. You could theoretically design a machine that moves for a very long time, but not forever. It also couldn’t do anything besides spin. If you tried to get it to actually do work it would just stop embarrassingly quick.
My dad was really into this sort of thing when I was younger. Despite how he thinks he’s a genius despite never getting *any* education, it never worked at all. Not even a little bit.
Magnets don’t work when they’re hot. Running something like this will slowly build up heat in the magnets. They will eventually stop working.
Perpetual motion doesn’t exist. Full stop. That’s just how physics works. Nothing lasts forever. You could theoretically design a machine that moves for a very long time, but not forever. It also couldn’t do anything besides spin. If you tried to get it to actually do work it would just stop embarrassingly quick.
My dad was really into this sort of thing when I was younger. Despite how he thinks he’s a genius despite never getting *any* education, it never worked at all. Not even a little bit.
The simplest answer is that there’s no way to *create* energy^0, only move it from one place / form to another, so a machine can only continue to move if you either *add* energy (like a motor with a power supply – not a “perpetual motion machine”) or have *zero* friction, which just isn’t possible^1.
If you don’t add energy to a “perpetual motion machine” then any energy *lost* will not be replaced, and the whole thing will eventually stop. There’s always going to be some form of friction that converts some of the kinetic energy (energy of movement) into heat, which is basically lost^2
Therefore, unless you either (a) break the rules of the game by adding energy into the machine, (b) break the laws of physics by *creating* energy, or (c) break the laws of physics by having no losses, the engine will stop and isn’t in “perpetual motion” even if it takes quite a long time to stop.
These principles are true no matter what form the mechanism takes, magnetic / electric / kinetic / whatever, the same fundamental limits always apply.
TL;DR: [Ginsberg’s Theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginsberg%27s_theorem) puts it succinctly:
0. There is a game. ([0th law of thermodynamics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeroth_law_of_thermodynamics))
1. You can’t win. ([1st law of thermodynamics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_law_of_thermodynamics))
2. You can’t break even. ([2nd law of thermodynamics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics))
3. You can’t even get out of the game. ([3rd law of thermodynamics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_law_of_thermodynamics))
^0 I’m going to slightly side-step the fact that energy and matter are interchangeable, as fusion / fission are never part of these discussions. Just counting “mass” as a form of energy means the logic ends up essentially the same, though.
^1 In practical terms, it’s just not possible to remove all sources of friction, but even *in principle* there’s no way to avoid *some* form of loss – the laws of thermodynamics are the most certain of all our physical laws.
^2 You can only make heat energy do work when there’s a *difference* in temperature, and even then [not all of it can be used](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot%27s_theorem_(thermodynamics)). To use the heat energy, you have to have something else with a lower temperature, which you will heat up in the process. The final state is that all the energy is in the form of heat^3, but with the entire universe at the same temperature, there’s nothing “cooler” to give a temperature difference that can be used to make the energy do work for you.
^3 Re-introducing the mass / energy equivalence, in the trillions-of-years-into-the-future version of the end state, even all the mass ends up decaying into photons, but it does admittedly take a [fair while](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_an_expanding_universe) and involve some physics we’ve not really had time to *witness* happening as such. The *general shape* of the end result is pretty certain, though.
The simplest answer is that there’s no way to *create* energy^0, only move it from one place / form to another, so a machine can only continue to move if you either *add* energy (like a motor with a power supply – not a “perpetual motion machine”) or have *zero* friction, which just isn’t possible^1.
If you don’t add energy to a “perpetual motion machine” then any energy *lost* will not be replaced, and the whole thing will eventually stop. There’s always going to be some form of friction that converts some of the kinetic energy (energy of movement) into heat, which is basically lost^2
Therefore, unless you either (a) break the rules of the game by adding energy into the machine, (b) break the laws of physics by *creating* energy, or (c) break the laws of physics by having no losses, the engine will stop and isn’t in “perpetual motion” even if it takes quite a long time to stop.
These principles are true no matter what form the mechanism takes, magnetic / electric / kinetic / whatever, the same fundamental limits always apply.
TL;DR: [Ginsberg’s Theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginsberg%27s_theorem) puts it succinctly:
0. There is a game. ([0th law of thermodynamics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeroth_law_of_thermodynamics))
1. You can’t win. ([1st law of thermodynamics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_law_of_thermodynamics))
2. You can’t break even. ([2nd law of thermodynamics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics))
3. You can’t even get out of the game. ([3rd law of thermodynamics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_law_of_thermodynamics))
^0 I’m going to slightly side-step the fact that energy and matter are interchangeable, as fusion / fission are never part of these discussions. Just counting “mass” as a form of energy means the logic ends up essentially the same, though.
^1 In practical terms, it’s just not possible to remove all sources of friction, but even *in principle* there’s no way to avoid *some* form of loss – the laws of thermodynamics are the most certain of all our physical laws.
^2 You can only make heat energy do work when there’s a *difference* in temperature, and even then [not all of it can be used](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot%27s_theorem_(thermodynamics)). To use the heat energy, you have to have something else with a lower temperature, which you will heat up in the process. The final state is that all the energy is in the form of heat^3, but with the entire universe at the same temperature, there’s nothing “cooler” to give a temperature difference that can be used to make the energy do work for you.
^3 Re-introducing the mass / energy equivalence, in the trillions-of-years-into-the-future version of the end state, even all the mass ends up decaying into photons, but it does admittedly take a [fair while](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_an_expanding_universe) and involve some physics we’ve not really had time to *witness* happening as such. The *general shape* of the end result is pretty certain, though.
The simplest answer is that there’s no way to *create* energy^0, only move it from one place / form to another, so a machine can only continue to move if you either *add* energy (like a motor with a power supply – not a “perpetual motion machine”) or have *zero* friction, which just isn’t possible^1.
If you don’t add energy to a “perpetual motion machine” then any energy *lost* will not be replaced, and the whole thing will eventually stop. There’s always going to be some form of friction that converts some of the kinetic energy (energy of movement) into heat, which is basically lost^2
Therefore, unless you either (a) break the rules of the game by adding energy into the machine, (b) break the laws of physics by *creating* energy, or (c) break the laws of physics by having no losses, the engine will stop and isn’t in “perpetual motion” even if it takes quite a long time to stop.
These principles are true no matter what form the mechanism takes, magnetic / electric / kinetic / whatever, the same fundamental limits always apply.
TL;DR: [Ginsberg’s Theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginsberg%27s_theorem) puts it succinctly:
0. There is a game. ([0th law of thermodynamics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeroth_law_of_thermodynamics))
1. You can’t win. ([1st law of thermodynamics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_law_of_thermodynamics))
2. You can’t break even. ([2nd law of thermodynamics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics))
3. You can’t even get out of the game. ([3rd law of thermodynamics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_law_of_thermodynamics))
^0 I’m going to slightly side-step the fact that energy and matter are interchangeable, as fusion / fission are never part of these discussions. Just counting “mass” as a form of energy means the logic ends up essentially the same, though.
^1 In practical terms, it’s just not possible to remove all sources of friction, but even *in principle* there’s no way to avoid *some* form of loss – the laws of thermodynamics are the most certain of all our physical laws.
^2 You can only make heat energy do work when there’s a *difference* in temperature, and even then [not all of it can be used](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot%27s_theorem_(thermodynamics)). To use the heat energy, you have to have something else with a lower temperature, which you will heat up in the process. The final state is that all the energy is in the form of heat^3, but with the entire universe at the same temperature, there’s nothing “cooler” to give a temperature difference that can be used to make the energy do work for you.
^3 Re-introducing the mass / energy equivalence, in the trillions-of-years-into-the-future version of the end state, even all the mass ends up decaying into photons, but it does admittedly take a [fair while](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_an_expanding_universe) and involve some physics we’ve not really had time to *witness* happening as such. The *general shape* of the end result is pretty certain, though.
They “work” but they are pointless…
—
Putting aside that there is no 100% efficient machine….
We could make a motor that could run forever. But why?
There would be no reason to do so. We but in the energy to make it spin and it would store that energy forever. But as soon as we want that energy back it would stop.
There are some kinetic batteries that store energy in flywheels with very good lubrication. Or pumping water up into a reservoir with excess energy and letting the water flow down when we need that energy back.
—
As for efficiency, there can be no 100% efficient machine, there is always some energy lost when you convert types of energies. The closest would be a flywheel in space in a vacuum spinning accelerated with electro-magnets
They “work” but they are pointless…
—
Putting aside that there is no 100% efficient machine….
We could make a motor that could run forever. But why?
There would be no reason to do so. We but in the energy to make it spin and it would store that energy forever. But as soon as we want that energy back it would stop.
There are some kinetic batteries that store energy in flywheels with very good lubrication. Or pumping water up into a reservoir with excess energy and letting the water flow down when we need that energy back.
—
As for efficiency, there can be no 100% efficient machine, there is always some energy lost when you convert types of energies. The closest would be a flywheel in space in a vacuum spinning accelerated with electro-magnets
They “work” but they are pointless…
—
Putting aside that there is no 100% efficient machine….
We could make a motor that could run forever. But why?
There would be no reason to do so. We but in the energy to make it spin and it would store that energy forever. But as soon as we want that energy back it would stop.
There are some kinetic batteries that store energy in flywheels with very good lubrication. Or pumping water up into a reservoir with excess energy and letting the water flow down when we need that energy back.
—
As for efficiency, there can be no 100% efficient machine, there is always some energy lost when you convert types of energies. The closest would be a flywheel in space in a vacuum spinning accelerated with electro-magnets
What if we don’t need a perpetual motion machine but one that lasts 50 years and then reset it again for another 50 years
What if we don’t need a perpetual motion machine but one that lasts 50 years and then reset it again for another 50 years
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