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Talk:Perpetual motion machine (view source)
Revision as of 13:44, January 2, 2007
, 13:44, January 2, 2007no edit summary
Really think so? If you doubt it, then maybe you can discovery a way to prove it is impossible. I don't think anyone has proven that yet, and no one else seems to be trying at this time either. But it would be worth proving.
Really think so? If you doubt it, then maybe you can discovery a way to prove it is impossible. I don't think anyone has proven that yet, and no one else seems to be trying at this time either. But it would be worth proving.
--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:53, 1 January 2007 (EST)
--[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 23:53, 1 January 2007 (EST)
[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]]: you said "But everyone agrees that a machine that does work without energy is impossible." Well, no. Historically the whole debate arose because for centuries people have believed that they ''have'' found a way to build a machine that does work without energy, something for nothing. There are still people who believe it. They tend to use the terms "free energy" and "overunity" to avoid the onus of the term "perpetual motion." An example of a modern machine claimed by its inventor to generate more power than it consumes is the Adams Motor[http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/1287/adams/adamsall.htm], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adams_motor]. A classic fraud was the Keely motor.
My point is that the phrase "perpetuum mobile" goes back to the days before thermodynamics and refers to innumerable attempts to produce simple mechanical arrangements, typically involving shifting or pivoting weights, that on paper look as if they might really do work without an external input.
You seem to be interested in a different philosophical question, one which I don't know much about or whether there is any established name for it. I'm arguing strongly that you should either find out what that name might be, or invent something that doesn't use the phrase "perpetual motion" at all.
Here is my ''guess'' at what an answer to ''your'' question might be. If you use the best modern techniques, e.g. suspending a spinning object in vacuum via superconductive magnetism, you can get something that will move without additional energy input for a really long time. You can measure the rate at which it slows down very carefully or predict it theoretically.
My guess is that it may well be possible today to build a system in which the rate of energy loss is so slow that it can be predicted continue to run for hundreds of thousands of years if the apparatus remains intact; thus the limiting factor in how long it runs is not the apparatus itself, but unrelated external catastrophes (an asteroid hits it, the building it is in collapses in an earthquake, funding runs out and someone pitches the apparatus in the trash, breaking it, etc. etc.)
If the word "forever" is taken ''literally,'' then I don't know how you answer the question, because beliefs about the future lifetime of the universe change every generation or so. If the word "forever" means something like a mathematical limit—then I think the answer is: according to current understanding, it is possible to build a machine that will run ''indefinitely'' long, or as long as you like, receiving no external energy and performing no external work, where the actual limit on the running time is set not by the construction of the machine itself, but by the probability of external catastrophe.
I think. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 08:44, 2 January 2007 (EST)