An Idea for a Perpetual motion machine that obeys physics

[kongajinken]

Basically its just a machine that rests in motion. Or put another way, it wants to move by its very nature, and you have to apply an outside force to prevent it from moving. An example I could find of this is a molecule and gravity. If a molecule exists, than it has gravity, gravity is a force that has energy(or is?). So my idea would be to create something that works along the lines of this. Some how create something that by its very nature requires that it move. If you were to stop it, than it would start again on its own because it would rest in motion.

Ok it's not exactly a perpetual motion machine, and its mostly just an abstract idea, but I had a random thought and wondered if anyone has heard of such a thing. Has something like this been proven impossible to build?

 

[generals3]

Technically speaking anything with a mass generates a gravity field (and is affected by other gravity fields) so i wouldn't see why you'd restrict it to molecules. But, that's not how a perpetual motion machine works, gravity is a force and the idea of a perpetual motion machine is that you don't need to exercise any force on it.

And also, a force doesn't have energy. Energy is a property of an object, a force isn't an object.

 

[username sucks]

Perpetual motion goes against the laws of physics that we currently know of. Nobody here is just going to stumble onto a way to break physics.

Gravity as a force always has an origin, it can't just infinitely pull an object in one direction as you described. It would either pull the object into the mass that was creating the gravitational field or cause the object to go into orbit. Orbit is not perpetual motion, if you put energy in to slow down the speed of a revolution it will not speed up on its own afterwards.

 

[TheJesus89]

Nothing moves by it's very nature though. It moves because of a force. Gravity is a force, not an energy. It reacts with energy.

It's one of the four fundamental forces homeboy.

 

[Zen Bard]

I had to design a "Perpetual Motion Machine" when I was a wee lad in Engineering School.

My idea was to attach a bunch of photo voltaic cells to a motor/generator that powered a bank of light bulbs positioned directly above photo cells.

We'd initially power the lights with an external battery that would be removed once the motor got started.

The lights charge the photocells, the photocells power the motor and the generator charges the lights.

Of course, this is impossible.

To make our little machine work we employed such theoretical components as "lossless electrical wire" (where no current was lost through heat), "perfectly efficient photocells" which captured 100% of the light directed at it and "a frictionless, massless motor" which had no inertia to slow it down.

Oh, and we conveniently set entropy to a constant so we had a steady state closed thermodynamic system.

The point is these are fun thought experiments. So good for you for having some creativity and imagination! You may want to read up a little bit more on physics, mechanics and thermodynamics and take another crack at it.

You probably won't "break physics", but who knows? Maybe you'll discover something useful!

 

[Xeorm]

To go off what you're thinking, 2 things will attract each other, and you could presumably find some way to convert that attraction into a more usable force for sure. The problem comes in that the two objects will accelerate towards each other until they meet, and then your perpetual motion device stops.

 

[mrdude2010]

The biggest problem with perpetual motion machines is that even if you ever did get something to move in a perpetual cycle by ridiculously idealizing every step as Zen Bard said above in a good explanation of the whole thing, or even if you found a vaguely viable method that may not be perpetual, but very close to it (if you started a giant disk rotating in space, it would eventually be slowed by radiation pressure and collisions with space dust), you can't extract energy from it without ruining its perpetual nature.

For a perpetual motion machine to do anything other than repeat an endless cycle, it needs to not only perfectly conserve its energy into the system, but it also needs to produce extra. Otherwise, you're just taking energy out of a system you've already put energy into, sort of like a battery (obviously the mechanism is different).



The closest thing to what you're describing would be if you imagined that the Earth was a frictionless vacuum that you've drilled a giant hole through the center of. If you dropped an object down the hole, it would fall through to the other side, then fall back through to your side, and so on and so forth. Again, though, you can't get energy out of it without it not being perpetual anymore.

 

[Sian]

Perpetual motion isn't hard. You just need a closed system. This goes to Newton's first law of motion. An object in motion stays in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force.

The bigger issue with perpetual motion, is that even if we could take something and give it a push, and then isolate it from any other forces, it wouldn't be very useful. Because nothing could get in or out of the system within which it is contained.

 

[Varitel]

Nothing moves by it's very nature though. It moves because of a force. Gravity is a force, not an energy. It reacts with energy.

It's one of the four fundamental forces homeboy.

Technically I think you mean that nothing with mass moves by its very nature. Photons DO move by their very nature (as far as I know, anyway). We also get energy from them, but I wouldn't call a photovoltaic cell a perpetual motion machine.

 

[Vicarious Reality]

A wheel powered by angled magnets?

 

[ClockworkPenguin]

"rests in motion" is impossible because you can always find an inertial frame at which it isn't moving.

You could get something that appears to behave like you describe, by putting it in a non inertial frame. Ie, a puck on a rotating disc. In the reference frame of the puck, it will have a centrifugal force, and an equal and opposite force will be required to prevent it shooting away from the centre of the disc. However, this doesn't really work, the energy and force is coming from the rotating disc which will be slowed down, unless driven by an outside force.

 

[Happiness Assassin]

Perpetual motion isn't viable in any form as it assumes a 100% perfect system with no outside forces, in which all energy given into it are properly utilized. But there is no such thing as a perfect system, all systems break down at some point. Everything, no matter how well constructed, will trend toward disorder, something that perpetual motion cannot have.

The system you describe isn't even perpetual motion and even that wouldn't work. Gravity may be a universal force associated with all matter (and other things, but I don't want to deviate) but it is so incredibly weak that the idea of utilizing to any real degree is completely unfeasible. To put this in perspective, the relative strength between gravity to electromagnetism (another fundamental force) is about 1 to 10^36, or about 1 with 36 0's after it. Gravity is only really important on the macroscopic level, being virtually nonexistent at the molecular level.

There are however systems that exist that use forces that work to use things like changes in air pressure to power rather mundane devices, like clocks.

 

[TheSYLOH]

Technically what you described is a little thing we call Inertia.
Depending on your frame of reference everything is "resting in motion"
If you had a strong and long enough object you could extract energy by slowing down an orbiting object.

But something that "rest in motion" from all frames of reference is logically impossible.
It sitting still from somethings perspective.

But really that rest in motion thing seems to betray a misunder standings of even newtonian physics.
Newton's First Law of Motion:
"Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it."

This means object at rest stays at rest, and also OBJECT IN MOTION STAYS IN MOTION.
Unless you push it.

 

[Silvanus]

Perpetual motion isn't hard. You just need a closed system. This goes to Newton's first law of motion. An object in motion stays in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force.

Alas, friction occurs everywhere (even in space). Energy is lost by absolutely anything that travels. I'm afraid perpetual motion is pretty hard.

 

[Exterminas]

Oh, this thread will be going well.

There will be the usual pseudo-science-crowd, most of which don't have any scientific qualification beyond a freshman and they'll immediately shout down this idea. They will repeat the phrase "second law of thermodynamics" over and over, without actually being able to name the other laws of thermodynamics.

Aaand there will be the other pseudo-science-crowd who'll tell a bunch of things about sub atomic particles and magnets and thermodynamics who are convinced that this sort of thing can actually be humanity's hope for energy!

I honestly can't tell which side of this argument I want to be on.

 

[TheSYLOH]

Perpetual motion isn't hard. You just need a closed system. This goes to Newton's first law of motion. An object in motion stays in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force.

Alas, friction occurs everywhere (even in space). Energy is lost by absolutely anything that travels. I'm afraid perpetual motion is pretty hard.

Well from a theoretical stand point using only newtonian mechanics, a perfect vacuum = perpetual motion for a moving object.
Extracting endless energy from that... load of shit.

As for space friction, sure you get slowed down by interstellar hydrogen, but also recall you're space craft is getting pushed by radiation pressure and particles traveling in the same direction, just faster.
So the question becomes which will take longer.... your ship slowing down, or every atom in the ship decaying into hydrogen.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

A wheel powered by angled magnets?

Nope, good try though.

A wheel requires a baring or axle to rotate around. This would create friction and bleed energy from the system. Magnetic baring would minimize this but will still be an energy sink because of the interaction between the fields.

Now it's not perpetual motion but if we could somehow figure out how to extract zero-point energy from the universe then we are onto a limitless source of power.

 

[Kyber]

That's an easy one, just use some magic.

 

[Glongpre]

Orbit is not perpetual motion, if you put energy in to slow down the speed of a revolution it will not speed up on its own afterwards.

Lol, you just blew my mind. I began thinking of the possibilities, like if we slowed down the earth, or sped up the earth's orbit around the sun, and how that would effect life on the planet.

Or, if we did that to another planet and how that would effect it. Or if we slowed down the moon, omg.