Why can’t magnets make a perpetual motion machine? (Using magnets to propel a turbine the create energy)

Question

I get that the main reason perpetual motion isn’t possible is because energy loss due to friction, but that’s not the case with magnets (I think?). Why can’t perpetual motion be achieved with magnets? What can’t we make something that spins and creates energy using magnets to propel a turbine?

In: Physics

Answer 1

> but that’s not the case with magnets (I think?)

There is still friction with magnets, there’s just much less of it because the objects are effectively very smooth (because they only feel irregularities in each others’ magnetic fields, not in their surface shape). The two objects still interact in ways that transfer energy of motion into the random jiggling of higher temperature, just not as much as if they were in (what you normally think of as) physical contact.