In the 1950s, Romanian engineer Nicolae Vasilescu-Carpen invented the battery. Now located (though not on display) at the National Technical Museum of Romania, this battery still works, although scientists still do not agree on how or why it continues to work at all.

The battery in the device remains the same single-voltage battery that Karpen installed in the 50s. For a long time the car was forgotten until the museum was able to properly display it and provide security for such a strange contraption. Recently it was discovered that the battery works and still produces a stable voltage - after 60 years.

Having successfully defended his doctorate on the topic of magnetic effects in moving bodies in 1904, Karpen certainly could have created something out of the ordinary. By 1909, he began researching high-frequency currents and the transmission of telephone signals over long distances. Built telegraph stations, researched environmental heat and advanced fuel cell technology. However, modern scientists have still not come to common conclusions about the operating principles of his strange battery.

Many conjectures have been put forward, from the conversion of thermal energy into mechanical energy in a cycle process, the thermodynamic principle of which we have not yet discovered. The mathematics behind his invention seem incredibly complex, potentially including concepts like the thermosiphon effect and scalar field temperature equations. Although we have not been able to create a perpetual motion machine capable of generating endless and free energy in huge quantities, nothing stops us from enjoying a battery that runs continuously for 60 years.

Joe Newman's Energy Machine

In 1911, the US Patent Office issued a huge decree. They will no longer issue patents for perpetual motion devices because it seems scientifically impossible to create such a device. For some inventors, this meant that the battle to have their work recognized as legitimate science would now be a little more difficult.

In 1984, Joe Newman went on the CMS Evening News with Dan Rather and revealed something incredible. People living during the oil crisis were delighted with the inventor's idea: he introduced a perpetual motion machine that worked and produced more energy than it consumed.

Scientists, however, did not believe a single word Newman said.

The National Bureau of Standards tested the scientist's device, which consists largely of batteries charged by a magnet rotating inside a coil of wire. During the tests, all of Newman's statements turned out to be empty, although some people continued to believe the scientist. So he decided to take his energy machine and go on tour, demonstrating its operation along the way. Newman claimed that his machine outputs 10 times more energy than it absorbs, meaning it operates at over 100% efficiency. When his patent applications were rejected and his invention was literally trashed by the scientific community, his grief knew no bounds.

An amateur scientist who didn't even graduate from high school, Newman didn't give up even when no one supported his plan. Convinced that God had given him a machine that would change humanity for the better, Newman always believed that the true value of his machine had always been hidden from the powers that be.

Robert Fludd's water screw


Robert Fludd was the kind of symbol that could only appear at a certain time in history. Part scientist, part alchemist, Fludd described and invented things at the turn of the 17th century. He had rather strange ideas: he believed that lightning was earthly incarnation the wrath of God that strikes them if they do not flee. That being said, Fludd believed in a number of principles that we accept today, even if most people did not accept them back then.

His version of a perpetual motion machine was water wheel, which can grind grain while constantly rotating under the influence of recirculating water. Fludd called it a "water screw." In 1660, the first woodcuts depicting such an idea appeared (the appearance of which is attributed to 1618).

Needless to say, the device did not work. However, Fludd wasn't just trying to break the laws of physics with his machine. He also looked for a way to help farmers. At that time, processing huge volumes of grain depended on flows. Those who lived far from a suitable source of running water were forced to load up their crops, haul them to the mill, and then back to the farm. If this perpetual motion machine were to work, it would make life much easier for countless farmers.

Wheel of Bhaskara

One of the earliest references to perpetual motion machines comes from the mathematician and astronomer Bhaskara, from his writings in 1150. His concept was an unbalanced wheel with a series of curved spokes inside filled with mercury. As the wheel rotated, the mercury began to move, providing the push needed to keep the wheel spinning.

Over many centuries, a huge number of variations of this idea have been invented. It is quite clear why it should work: a wheel that is in a state of imbalance is trying to bring itself to rest and, in theory, will continue to move. Some designers believed so strongly in the possibility of creating such a wheel that they even designed brakes in case the process got out of control.

With our modern understanding of force, friction and work, we know that an unbalanced wheel will not achieve the desired effect, since we will not be able to get all the energy back, nor will we be able to extract it much or forever. However, the idea itself was and remains intriguing to people unfamiliar with modern physics, especially in the Hindu religious context of reincarnation and the circle of life. The idea became so popular that wheeled perpetual motion machines later found their way into Islamic and European scriptures.

Cox watch


When the famous London clockmaker James Cox built his perpetual motion clock in 1774, it worked exactly as the accompanying documentation described, explaining why this clock did not need to be wound. The six-page document explained how watches were created based on "mechanical and philosophical principles».

According to Cox, the watch's diamond-powered perpetual motion machine and reduced internal friction to almost no friction ensured that the metals used to construct the watch would degrade much more slowly than anyone had ever seen. Besides this grandiose statement, then many presentations new technology included mystical elements.

Besides the fact that Cox's watch was a perpetual motion machine, it was a brilliant watch. Encased in glass, which protected the internal working components from dust while also allowing them to be viewed, the clock operated from changes in atmospheric pressure. If the mercury rose or fell inside the hour barometer, the movement of the mercury would turn the internal wheels in the same direction, partially winding the clock. If the watch was wound continuously, the gears would come out of their grooves until the chain loosened to a certain point, after which everything would fall into place and the watch would begin to wind itself again.

The first widely accepted example of a perpetual motion clock was shown by Cox himself in the Spring Garden. He was later seen at week-long exhibitions at the Mechanical Museum, and then at the Clerkenville Institute. At that time, the display of these watches was such a miracle that they were depicted in countless works of art, and crowds regularly came to Cox wanting to gaze at his wonderful creation.

"Testatika" by Paul Baumann

Watchmaker Paul Baumann founded the spiritual society Meternitha in the 1950s. In addition to abstaining from alcohol, drugs and tobacco, members of this religious sect live in a self-sufficient, environmentally conscious atmosphere. To achieve this, they rely on a miraculous perpetual motion machine created by their founder.

A machine called Testatika can use supposedly unused electrical energy and turn it into energy for the community. Due to its secrecy, scientists were unable to fully examine the Testatica, although the machine became the subject of a short documentary in 1999. Not much was shown, but enough to understand that the sect almost idolizes this sacred machine.

The plans and features of Testatika were revealed to Baumann directly from God while he was serving a prison sentence for seducing a young girl. According to the official legend, he was saddened by the darkness of his cell and the lack of light for reading. Then he was visited by a mysterious mystical vision, which revealed to him the secret of perpetual motion and endless energy that can be drawn directly from the air. Members of the sect confirm that Testatika was sent to them by God, also noting that several attempts to photograph the car revealed a multi-colored halo around it.

In the 1990s, a Bulgarian physicist infiltrated the sect to learn the design of the machine, hoping to reveal the secret of this magical energy device to the world. But he failed to convince the sectarians. After committing suicide in 1997 by jumping out of a window, he left a suicide note: “I did what I could, let those who can do better.”

Bessler wheel

Johann Bessler began his research into perpetual motion with a simple concept, like the Bhaskara wheel: apply weight to the wheel on one side, and it will be constantly unbalanced and constantly moving. On November 12, 1717, Bessler sealed his invention in a room. The door was closed and the room was guarded. When it was opened two weeks later, the 3.7-meter wheel was still moving. The room was sealed again and the pattern was repeated. Opening the door in early January 1718, people discovered that the wheel was still turning.

Although a celebrity after all this, Bessler remained tight-lipped about how the wheel works, noting only that it relies on weights to keep it unbalanced. Moreover, Bessler was so secretive that when one engineer snuck a closer look at the engineer's creation, Bessler freaked out and destroyed the wheel. The engineer later said that he did not notice anything suspicious. However, he only saw the outer part of the wheel, so he could not understand how it worked. Even in those days, the idea of ​​a perpetual motion machine was met with some cynicism. Centuries earlier, Leonardo da Vinci himself scoffed at the idea of ​​such a machine.

Yet the concept of the Bessler wheel never completely went away. In 2014, Warwickshire engineer John Collins revealed that he had been studying Bessler's wheel design for years and was close to solving its mystery. Bessler once wrote that he had destroyed all the evidence, drawings and drawings about the principles of his wheel, but added that anyone who was smart and quick-witted enough could understand everything for sure.

Otis T. Carr UFO Engine

The objects included in the Copyright Register (third series, 1958: July-December) seem a little strange. Even though the US Patent Office long ago ruled that it would not issue any patents on perpetual motion devices because they could not exist, OTC Enterprises Inc. and its founder Otis Carr are listed as the owners of the "free energy system", "peaceful atom energy" and "gravitational engine".

In 1959, OTC Enterprises planned to carry out the first flight of its “fourth-dimensional space transport” powered by perpetual motion. And while at least one person got a brief look at the jumbled parts of the heavily guarded project, the device itself was never revealed or "off the ground." Carr himself was hospitalized with vague symptoms on the day the device was due to make its first journey.

His illness may have been a clever way to avoid the demonstration, but it was not enough to put Carr behind bars. By selling options on technology that did not exist, Carr interested investors in the project, as well as people who believed that his device would take them to other planets.

To get around the patent restrictions of his crazy designs, Carr patented the whole thing as an "entertainment device" that would simulate trips to outer space. It was US Patent #2,912,244 (November 10, 1959). Carr argued that his spacecraft worked because one had already flown away. The propulsion system was a "circular foil free energy", which provided an endless supply of energy necessary to deliver the device into space.

Of course, the strangeness of what was happening opened the door to conspiracy theories. Some people have suggested that Carr actually assembled his perpetual motion machine and flying machine. But, of course, he was quickly clamped down by the American government. The theorists could not agree: either the government does not want to disclose the technology, or it wants to use it independently.

Perpetuum Mobile by Cornelius Drebbel


The weird thing about Cornelius Drebbel's perpetual motion machine is that while we don't know how or why it worked, you've definitely seen it more often than you think.

Drebbel first demonstrated his machine in 1604 and amazed everyone, including the English royal family. The machine was something like a chronometer; it never needed winding and showed the date and moon phase. Driven by changes in temperature or weather, Drebbel's machine also used a thermoscope or barometer, similar to Cox's clock.

No one knows what provided the movement and energy for Drebbel’s device, since he spoke of curbing the “fiery spirit of the air,” like a real alchemist. At that time, the world still thought in terms of the four elements, and Drebbel himself experimented with sulfur and saltpeter.

As stated in a letter from 1604, the earliest known representation of the device showed a central ball surrounded by a glass tube filled with liquid. Gold arrows and markings tracked the phases of the moon. Other images were more elaborate, showing a car adorned with mythological creatures and gold embellishments. Drebbel's Perpetuum mobile also appeared in some paintings, particularly by Albrecht and Rubens. In these paintings, the strange toroidal shape of the machine does not resemble a sphere at all.

In his self-proclaimed "incredibly true life story," David Hamel claims to be an ordinary carpenter with no formal training who was chosen to become the guardian of the eternal energy machine and the spacecraft that would operate it. After an encounter with aliens from the planet Kladen, Hamel claimed to have received information that would change the world - if only people would believe him.

While this is all a bit disconcerting, Hamel said his perpetual motion machine uses the same energies as spiders jumping from one web to another. These scalar forces nullify the pull of gravity and make it possible to create a device that will allow us to reunite with our Kladensky relatives, who provided Hamel with the necessary information.

According to Hamel, he has already built such a device. Unfortunately, it flew away.

After working for 20 years to build his interstellar device and engine using a series of magnets, he finally turned it on and this is what happened. Filled with the glow of colorful ions, his anti-gravity machine rose into the air and flew over Pacific Ocean. To avoid a repeat of this tragic event, Hamel is building his next car from heavier materials, like granite.

To understand the principles behind this technology, Hamel says you need to look at the pyramids, study some forbidden books, accept the presence of invisible energy, and think of scalars and the ionosphere much like milk and cheese.

Introduction........................................................ ........................................................ ........................................................ .................... 3

1. Historical attempts to create a perpetual motion machine.................................................... ... 4

2. Design of a perpetual motion machine.................................................... ........................................................ ..... 6

3. First projects of perpetual motion machines................................................... ............................................. 10

4. The paradox of the existence of a perpetual motion machine.................................................. 14

Conclusion................................................. ........................................................ ........................................................ ............. 16

List of used literature......................................................... ........................................... 17

Introduction

They often talk about “perpetual motion”, “perpetual motion” both in the literal and figurative sense of the word, but not everyone is aware of what, in fact, should be meant by this expression. A perpetual motion machine is an imaginary mechanism that continuously moves itself and, in addition, performs some other useful work. No one has been able to build such a mechanism, although attempts to invent it have been made for a long time. The futility of these attempts led to a firm conviction in the impossibility of perpetual motion and to the establishment of the law of conservation of energy - a fundamental statement modern science. As for perpetual motion, this expression means continuous movement without doing work.

WITH psychological point From our point of view, the idea of ​​perpetual motion has always been extremely tempting: after all, the practical implementation of an artificially created closed energy cycle would undoubtedly lead to an epoch-making revolution in science and technology with profound socio-economic consequences. In addition to denying the essence of modern physical theories, this would mean that the constructed perpetual motion machine would be the world's first machine with an ideal working cycle. Its perfection and maximum operational efficiency would have a huge impact on the development of the world economy. Humanity would be freed forever from the fear of energy shortages that inexorably haunts it today. Thus, the development of such a real perpetual motion machine would eclipse all inventions and discoveries made so far.

1. Historical attempts to create a perpetual motion machine

If you believe historical documents, the ancient Greeks and Romans were indifferent to the idea of ​​a perpetual motion machine. The Romans had plenty of slaves, and the Greeks were too good at mechanics.

European mechanics were infected with the idea of ​​a perpetual motion machine from the Indians. In the 12th century, the Indian mathematician and astronomer Bhaskara “invented” the first famous history perpetual motion machine - a wheel around the circumference of which containers partially filled with mercury were attached at a certain angle. As the wheel rotated, mercury flowed from one end of the container to the other, forcing the wheel to make another revolution. It is obvious that Bhaskara borrowed the design of his perpetual motion machine from the famous circle of eternal recurrence and never attempted to build the device he described. Perhaps he did not even think about how real his design was - for Bhaskara it was just a convenient mathematical abstraction.

However, European mechanics who became familiar with Bhaskara’s works accepted good design. One of them was Villard de Honnecourt (XIII century). During his life he did a lot of useful things, but he went down in history as another inventor of the perpetuum mobile. Its design almost completely repeated Bhaskara’s version, but along with the use of mercury, Honnecourt proposed another method. In his opinion, the effect of perpetual motion could be achieved by placing an odd number of hammers around the circumference of the wheel. When the wheel rotates, the hammers will hit it, preventing it from stopping, Honnecourt believed.

Leonardo da Vinci also showed remarkable interest in this problem. He was very skeptical about perpetual motion machines, but did not spare time both for a detailed criticism of variations on the theme of the Bhaskara wheel, and for detailed analysis mistakes of his compatriot Francesco di Georgio. Complex systems of pumps and mill wheels looked very plausible on paper and even worked, but, alas, they were not perpetual motion machines. The fundamental impossibility of building such a system became commonplace two hundred years after Leonardo, but in the 1950s. The idea of ​​using water as a source of eternal energy was reborn in the works of Viktor Schauberger.

Robert Fludd (1574–1637) - a famous philosopher, mystic and, possibly, a member of the semi-mythical brotherhood of the Rosicrucians - in the treatise "De Simila Naturae", citing an unnamed Italian inventor, gives a sketch of a water engine, but doubts that this engine will be work. Ironically, Fludd is usually considered a proponent of the idea of ​​perpetual motion, sometimes credited with the authorship of the drawings that he included in his books.

2. Design of a perpetual motion machine

The interest of European science in magnets could not but be reflected in the design of perpetual motion machines. The famous scientist, first secretary of the British Royal Society, Bishop John Wilkins of Chester, 1614–72, defended for many years the possibility of building a perpetual motion machine based on magnets. As proof of the correctness of his ideas, Wilkins used a sketch of an engine consisting of a magnet, an iron ball and special tracks along which the ball first fell down under the influence of gravity and then was pulled up to the magnet. And although it was never possible to build a successful prototype, Wilkins believed until his death that it was still possible to build a perpetual motion machine based on his favorite design. Just need to work on it a little more.

Mechanical perpetual motion machines reached their highest point of development thanks to Johann Ernst Elias Bessler (1680–1745), also known as Orffyreus (Latinized cryptogram Bessler). The life of Bessler, who was notoriously ill-tempered, is a good illustration of the usefulness of patent law. The inventor wanted to sell his perpetual motion machine for one hundred thousand thalers (about two and a half million dollars at today's exchange rate) and did not agree to reveal the secret of the invention to anyone before the sale. At the slightest suspicion, at the slightest hint that they wanted to steal the secret, Johann Bessler destroyed the drawings and prototypes and moved to another city.

In 1719, Bessler, under the pseudonym Orffyreus, published the treatise "Perpetuum Mobile Triumphans", in which, in particular, he claims that he was able to create "dead matter, which not only moves itself, but can be used to lift weights and do work."

Two years earlier, the most impressive demonstration of Bessler's invention took place. A perpetual motion machine with a shaft diameter of more than 3.5 m was put into operation on November 17, 1717. On the same day, the room in which he was located was locked, and it was opened only on January 4, 1718. The engine was still running: the wheel was spinning at the same speed as a month and a half ago.

During seven years of active experimentation (1712–19), Bessler built more than three hundred prototypes of two models of perpetual motion machines. In the first prototypes, the wheel rotated only in one direction, and significant effort was required to stop it; in later prototypes, the shaft could rotate in any direction and stopped quite easily. Any of Bessler’s designs were not just energy self-sufficient. There was also enough energy to do some work: for example, lifting weights.

But neither numerous certificates issued by independent commissions nor public demonstrations brought Bessler the money with which he planned to build a school for engineers. The maximum that he could get from those in power was four thousand thalers at a time and a house as a gift from Landgrave Karl, the owner of Weissenstein Castle.

The principles of operation of Bessler engines are not precisely known. Today we only know that he did not directly use the ideas of Bhaskara, as well as the “water principle”. Bessler was an experienced watchmaker, and in terms of the number of parts his engines could easily be compared with mechanical watches. He may have come up with a complex system of counterweights to keep the system unstable, coupled with spring mechanisms to occasionally catalyze the rotation of the wheel.

Before the law of conservation of energy was discovered, for centuries attempts had been persistently made to create a machine that would allow more work to be done than the energy expended. It was previously called “perpetuum mobele”.

A perpetual motion machine is an imaginary but unrealizable engine that, after being put into operation, performs work for an unlimited period of time.

This is how the remarkable French engineer Sadi Carnot wrote about the importance of a perpetual motion machine for humanity: “The general and philosophical concept of “perpetuum mobile” contains not only the idea of ​​motion, which after the first shock continues forever, but the action of a device or some collection of such, capable of developing an unlimited amount of driving force, capable of consistently bringing all bodies of nature from rest, if they were in it, breaking the principle of inertia in them, capable, finally, of drawing from itself the necessary forces to set the entire Universe in motion, support and continuously accelerate its movement. This would really be the creation of a driving force. If this were possible, then it would become useless to look for driving force in flows of water and air, in combustible material; we would have an endless source from which we could endlessly draw.”

Perpetual motion machines are usually constructed using the following techniques or combinations thereof:

Lifting water using an Archimedean screw;

Rise of water using capillaries;

Using a wheel with unbalanced loads;

Natural thermal energy is firmly fenced off from practice by the inviolable Law of Conservation of Energy and the notorious First and Second Principles of Thermodynamics. I will not touch upon the Lomonosov interpretation of the Law of Conservation of Energy and Matter: by the way, it is the first in the world: It says: “ All changes that occur in nature are of such a state that if something is added to something, then the same amount will be subtracted somewhere." Simply put, what you put in is what you take out. And no increase! This is sacred. But the truth of the Beginnings is in doubt. Why did you dare call them notorious? "Second Law of Thermodynamics" R Udolf Clausius, being a follower of Sadi Carnot, formulated in 1850, when modern physics was in its infancy and many discoveries were yet to come.

However, the second Beginning immediately became a classic. Clausius proceeds from the fact that energy is converted from one type to another, with losses, and, in the end, the remaining heat is irretrievably dissipated in the surrounding space. “Even more terrible, even more wonderful”: according to him, heat cannot be converted into mechanical work with a coefficient close to unity, and therefore “ A process is impossible, the only result of which would be the transfer of heat from a colder body to a hotter one.” Moreover, Clausius generally vetoed the perpetual motion machine. Didn't it prompt him to commit this blasphemy? Aristotle? Several hundred years BC he came to the conclusion that “Continuous movement can only be allowed among the celestial bodies, but in the sublunary world it is unthinkable.”.

perpetual motion machine (from English - perpetual motion machine)

The postulates of the Second Principle were supported by the great scientist William Thomson (Lord Kelvin). In his opinion, “It is impossible to produce work by cooling and using up all internal energy systems. Note that in all cases a closed, isolated system without heat exchange with the environment is implied. But we exist in an open system, where energy reserves are inexhaustible. And why is it necessary to use all the energy? In the first case, even a small fraction of it will be enough. It is more difficult not to take into account the denial of the possibility of spontaneous transfer of heat from colder bodies to hotter bodies. And, after all, this is precisely where the ban on the creation of a thermal perpetual motion machine automatically stems. When statistical thermodynamics, based on molecular concepts, was created, an amendment was made to the Second Principle. Turns out " The transfer of heat from a cold body to a hotter one is in principle possible, but this is a devastatingly unlikely event.

And in nature the most probable events are realized" Either in the forehead or in the forehead! As if to confirm this thesis, no one has yet managed to make the energy transfer from a colder body to a hotter one. But a perpetual motion machine needs to still do work. Don't consider this statement "Napoleonic". But I dare say that I succeeded. He came up with his first perpetual motion machine, naturally inoperable, back in 1934, when he was in the 6th grade of a Ukrainian school in the city of Pryluky. He returned to this hobby fifty years later, under somewhat unusual circumstances. In August 1986, Vice-Rector of the Peoples' Friendship University. Patrice Lumumba V. Shkadikov invited me to conduct an inventive seminar with a group of students. But between me and a dozen “volunteers” - immigrants from African countries - there turned out to be a difficult obstacle to overcome - a complete misunderstanding of the language. But the translator was far from technical and could not help with anything. But communication took place.

As a warm-up, I suggested that young people create an air humidifier. This topic interested them. Of course, we visited several stores household appliances, we looked at humidifiers of various types. They were all electric. It is not interesting to invent on this basis. What if we use the idea Johann Signer, I suggested. He created the world's first hydraulic turbine - Segner wheel. It is located in a horizontal plane, and instead of knitting needles there are tubes with curved ends. The fluid flowing out of them has a reactive force and causes the wheel to rotate. But in our case it would not be a humidifier, but a “flooder” of the room.

We decided to create an evaporative air humidifier. We didn't find this in stores. They organized something like a competition of ideas. The simplest and most fundamental proposal was to keep the wheel, but rotate it 90 degrees and “plant” it on a horizontal axis. The wheel is made of separate sectors, as in the ancient Indian perpetual motion machine. Thus, the evaporating surface was in a vertical plane. The humidifier became overgrown with other parts like a snow woman: the tubes were replaced with sectors isolated from each other. Covered them up cotton fabric, and instead of bent knees, appendages were attached to the sectors. Once again we discussed everything, made drawings and made a model.

With this “title”, on October 1, 1988, it was entered into the State Register of Inventions under number 1455040. Structurally, the engine is not complicated: a disk rotor rotates on a horizontal axis, consisting of 6 sectors isolated from each other, covered with cotton fabric. As the engine becomes saturated with moisture, the lower sector, the balance of the rotor is disturbed, and due to the imbalance, the system begins to rotate. The sector emerging from the water is replaced by the neighboring one, and the rotation becomes continuous. Thus, the engine directly converts the heat of the surrounding air into mechanical work. In other words, there is a spontaneous concentration of thermal energy dissipated in environment. True, due to my lack of competence, I cannot justify the principle of operation of the engine: On one side, the rotor surface evaporates moisture, and therefore cools. Ambient air, having more high temperature, has the right to “legally” transfer heat to the rotor. It's clear as day. But, on the other hand, by giving off heat, the air itself cools.

Therefore, it has no right to transfer heat to a cooled rotor. An obvious contradiction. How to resolve it? To the author of these lines - a correspondent for the magazine " Inventor and innovator"I was lucky to communicate with Pavel Kondratyevich Oshchepkov, an outstanding scientist, and a wonderful person.

Let me briefly tell you about one of my meetings with Pavel Kondratievich, which left a noticeable mark on my heart and memory. Somewhere in the late 80s of the last century, I somehow dared to bring him and show him my “perpetual” (thermal) engine in action. Pavel Kondratyevich did not consider it an example of a typical energy inversion, because the transition of thermal energy in it occurs with relative equality of the thermal state of the surrounding air and the engine rotor. However, he noted: “The example of the concentration of scattered energy is not without interest.”

He devoted his entire life, with the exception of many years of undeserved prisons and camps, to the formation and study of energy inversion (concentration and practical use of the scattered energy of nature). Oshchepkov also invented and brought to practice a new direction in science and technology - introscopy (intravision) and, most importantly, he invented, developed and practically implemented radar (systems and devices for detecting remote objects, including aircraft). This is one of the greatest inventions of our time, recognized throughout the world.

His electric imagers were mass-produced and they were adopted by the Red Army. At the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War, more precisely, on July 21, 1941, at 17.00, Air Defense troops, using devices invented by Oshchepkov, discovered two hundred fascist aircraft in the air at a distance of 200 km from Moscow. According to the calculations of the pedantic German warriors, this armada was supposed to destroy the city not even to ruins, but to the ashes of Pompeii. After all, Moscow at that time occupied a small territory and fit within the ring railway.

The forewarned defenders of the capital managed to put anti-aircraft artillery on alert, fighter planes took to the air, and having lost two dozen aircraft in the air battle, the Nazis shamefully turned back. The capital and its inhabitants were saved from imminent disaster. I won’t hide it and say in advance: The main purpose of this publication is to initiate the presentation of P.K. Oshchepkov at Nobel Prize(posthumously). He deserved it. Unfortunately, a few years later, in 1992, Pavel Kondratyevich left the world that was unkind to him. Eternal memory to him! But let's return to the beginning of our conversation. Talking about inventions and not touching on the perpetual motion machine is as absurd as conducting a wedding without music. If only because the inventors of the perpetual motion machine were essentially the first power engineers who were centuries ahead of official science, if not in knowledge, then in the search for new sources of energy. Perpetual motion, for eight centuries now, has been an incurable disease and a scare for all mankind.

Hypothetically, one can imagine that humanity was divided into three “orders” - those who, at least once in their lives, were surprised by the manifestation of the powerful forces of nature and thought about them practical use. Those who tried to build a perpetual motion machine, and, finally, those who devoted their entire conscious life or a considerable part of it to it. Fortunately, such patients are in the minority. But in all times and peoples, next to the creators of the propeller engine there have always been spies and overseers who directly or indirectly condemned and even persecuted them for this activity. Deniers of perpetual motion are active and aggressive. They exist even now - both in the bureaucratic environment and in science. And, what is especially dangerous, they have penetrated the education system, and also condemn and hinder.

Moreover, this is a monster, as he once put it Vasily Trediakovsky, « oblo, mischievous, huge, snarling and barking" The trouble is that classical thermodynamics is objective and based on the inviolable laws of nature. Its postulates are set out in university textbooks and are professed by official science. This is an immutable truth that cannot be disputed. However, it is possible and necessary to change its understanding, interpretation and make some adjustments. Especially in terms of perpetual motion. We are, of course, talking about those that are based on the use of natural energy. However, not all builders of perpetual motion machines adhered to this restriction. For eight centuries now, this has been an incurable disease and a frightening disease for all mankind.

Hypothetically, all the inhabitants of the planet can be divided into three “orders.” Some, at least once in their lives, were surprised by the manifestation of powerful free natural energy, the origin of which is not always obvious. And they thought: “Take it - I don’t want it!” Regardless of the result, always negative, this work was not useless. Let's not forget that the creators of the perpetual motion machine were essentially the first power engineers who were centuries ahead of official science, if not in knowledge, then in the search for new sources of energy.

Not only poorly educated and random people passed through this school of sophisticated thought, virtuoso skill and selfless work. Attempts creating a perpetual motion machine Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Ivan Kulibin, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and many other great and not so notable personalities were not missed. Their legacy is priceless and can serve a clear example creation of structures operating principles that are still applicable today in a variety of fields of technology. Moreover, let us pay attention that many “perpetomobilists” went down in the history of technology as the creators of original and useful machines and mechanisms.

Needless to say, this is not accidental, but in connection... It is appropriate to refer to an interesting confession Leonardo da Vinci: « What a pity that smart people They waste so much good energy on such empty attempts! I was able to create my machines only because I realized the hopelessness of the idea of ​​perpetual motion". As you know, in the manuscripts of the great encyclopedist there are many incomprehensible unsaid thoughts. Let's try to understand the meaning of the last phrase. Is there any special subtext to it? Isn't Da Vinci hinting that it was this hobby that contributed to success in his diverse technical creativity? The fact is that the construction of a perpetual motion machine of the feasible or fantastic “impossible” is inevitably associated with knowledge of technology, the ability to design, the ability to mentally build models, and, as it were, “climb into their insides in order to virtually “test” them in action.


Drawings of a perpetual motion machine by Leonardo da Vinci

This may be inherent in an intelligent person initially or acquired by a beginner during the creation of a perpetual motion machine. I am sure that someone who has attempted to create a perpetual motion machine is more likely to become a real engineer, designer, inventor than someone who has never been interested in this. Even the construction of simple mechanisms and, even more so, combining them into more complex ones is in itself impossible without basic knowledge of mechanics and the laws of nature. In addition, this activity develops creativity, the ability to create various devices in the mind and transfer them to paper or another storage medium in a form understandable to others. The moral of “this fable” is this: Let’s open the way to the perpetual motion machine. Let’s provide the youth with the opportunity to create it, the creators. We will help and encourage you in this.

Maybe we’ll even include a free competitive lesson on this topic in the school physics curriculum. Well, at least once a week or once a month. This will undoubtedly have a multilateral positive effect. " You, my friend, have gone overboard“, another education official will say. " Who needs a perpetual motion machine in the current crisis and troublesome times?" Ah, here it is, necessary and useful! Firstly, economically, because it can serve as a real technical means of modernizing the economy and mastering the energy of nature. And, what is much more significant, this is an effective reason and incentive for the polytechnic education of young people and the cultivation of innovative thinking and action.

What do you think about this?

Author

Basil

Artist, architect of consciousness, thinker comprehending new horizons of information space

According to historical records, the first person to propose building such a machine was a scientist who lived in the 12th century. It was at this time that they began Crusades Europeans to the Holy Land. The development of crafts, farming and technology required the development of new energy sources. The popularity of the idea of ​​a perpetual motion machine began to grow rapidly. Scientists tried to build it, but their attempts were unsuccessful.

This idea became even more popular in the 15th and 16th centuries with the development of manufacturing. Projects for perpetual motion were proposed by everyone and everything: from simple artisans who dreamed of setting up their own small factory, to major scientists. Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo Galilei and other great researchers, after numerous attempts to create a perpetual motion machine, came to the general opinion that this was impossible in principle.

Scientists who lived in the 19th century came to the same opinion. Among them were Hermann Helmholtz and James Joule. They independently formulated the law of conservation of energy, which characterizes the course of all processes in the Universe.

Perpetual motion machine of the first kind

From this fundamental law it follows that it is impossible to create a perpetual motion machine of the first kind. The law of conservation of energy states that energy does not appear from anywhere and does not disappear anywhere without a trace, but only takes on new forms.

A perpetual motion machine of the first kind is an imaginary system capable of doing work (i.e. producing energy) for an unlimited time without access to energy from the outside. Real similar system can do work only using its internal energy. But this work will be limited, since the reserves of internal energy of the system are not infinite.

To produce energy, a heat engine must perform a certain cycle, which means it must return to its initial state each time. The first law of thermodynamics states that an engine must receive energy from outside to perform work. That is why it is impossible to build a perpetual motion machine of the first kind.

Perpetual motion machine of the second kind

The principle of operation of a perpetual motion machine of the second kind was as follows: to take energy away from the ocean, while lowering its temperature. This does not contradict the law of conservation of energy, but building such an engine is also impossible.

The thing is that this contradicts the second law of thermodynamics. It lies in the fact that energy from a colder body cannot be transferred to a hotter one in the general case. The probability of such an event tends to zero, since it is irrational.

Today everyone knows that a perpetual motion machine is impossible. But the question arises as to how scientists reached this understanding. It was necessary to formulate the concept of energy, the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and the laws of conservation of energy. But in the beginning there was nothing like that, and the inventors of perpetuum mobile grew like mushrooms after rain.

The first major inventor was Bessler, or under his creative pseudonym Orffireus. It took place in Germany in the 18th century. They say that this mysterious gentleman appeared in 1712 in the town of Gera. He had a strange toy with him: a thick wooden wheel, one and a half meters in diameter, wrapped in an oiled piece of leather. A massive axle protruded in the center of the wheel and a strong rope was tied to it. Standing in front of the public, Bessler gave a slight push and the wheel began to spin, the creaks of rolling wheels could be heard balls. The wheel pumped water using a small pump and also lifted weights.

The only surviving drawing of the Bessler wheel.

In total, the inventor created 4 machines. But he was very eccentric and suffered from a strong form of paranoia. Unfortunately, he left no records of the internal structure of the mechanism. In each of the devices, there was a part that he never showed, when he tried to open it, a wave of paranoia covered him, and he destroyed his machine in order to build an even bigger one in the future. At some point he was favored by Landgrave Karl of Hesse-Kassel. But the patron wanted to make sure that Bessler really invented a perpetual motion machine. Karl invited Leibniz, one of the greatest scientists in Europe at that time. Until the end, Leibniz could not be convinced that this was truly a perpetual motion machine, but he was very impressed and recommended the machine. They say that Leibniz was so impressed that he tried to attract Newton to the machine. But Newton did not answer the letter, or he generally disdained attempts to create a perpetual motion machine.

Then the Landgrave decided to conduct an additional check. Bessler was given a large room, in the center of which he built another machine. Two guards were posted at the door of the room. At the end of the work, the room was sealed and a month later they opened it and made sure that the wheel was still spinning. But as always, Bessler’s condition was that part of the device was closed, that is, it was impossible to be completely sure of the authenticity of the discovery.
At some point, the maid's testimony appeared that she helped run the wheel. But there is an opinion that this is perjury, because of the small salary.

Apart from the drawing, nothing has survived from that invention. Most likely, the mechanism worked on the principle of a gear wheel, in the recesses of which weights that hinged were attached. The geometry of the teeth is such that the weights on the left side of the wheel are always closer to the axle than on the right. According to the author, this, in accordance with the law of the lever, should cause the wheel to constantly rotate. When rotating, the weights would swing out to the right and maintain the driving force.

However, if such a wheel is made, it will remain motionless. The reason for this fact is that although the weights on the right have a longer lever, on the left there are more in number. As a result, the moments of forces on the right and left are equal.

Later in the 19th century, Thomas Young formulated the concept of energy as the ability to do work. Julius von Meyer, a physician and physicist, comes to the conclusion that energy is conserved, it simply changes its form. James Joule came to the same conclusion. And the third scientist who came up with the idea of ​​energy conservation was Hermann von Helmholtz, also a doctor and physicist. In his article, Helmholtz formulated the impossibility of a perpetual motion machine of the first kind, that is, a mechanism that violates the law of conservation of energy. Energy doesn't come from nowhere.

Keely in his laboratory. 1889

The next major “inventor” of a perpetual motion machine was the American Keely with his Keely engine. He lived in Philadelphia. For the time being, he was a completely unknown person; he made small toys and sold them at the local market. Around 1874, rumors began to spread around Philadelphia about a new invention using a new, unknown force. We must remember that these were the times of Edison, with his light bulb, Nobel and dynamite, Maxwell and the theory of electromagnetism. Quite quickly, many investors were found who were willing to invest a lot of money in this device. Investors were from Philadelphia and New York. The Keely Motor Company was founded.


Keely and the board of directors of the Keely Motor Company.
But you need to understand that Kili could speak beautifully, but very incomprehensibly. Nobody could understand him. He loved to make beautiful demonstrations, explained a lot, but did not show the structure of the mechanism. And all the time he promised that a new engine design would be invented soon. And so it went on for almost 10 years. Investors went to court twice, expert witnesses were invited, but nothing helped. The problem was that the company was named after him and everything depended on the inventor. And investors didn’t really have any rights. And to prevent Keeley from running away, investors had to make compromises with him. There was even a joke saying that Keeley-powered ships would sail through the Panama Canal.

At the most difficult moment, Keely found a sponsor: the widow Clara Bloomfield-Mohr. She helped him with money and PR. Because of strong criticism, she wanted to conduct a check. Alexander Scott, an electrical engineer, was invited.

One of Keely's demonstration mechanisms was the so-called levitation experiment, or chord-mass.

Killy played a couple of chords and a heavy weight, defying the force of gravity, floated inside the glass tube. A “repeater” was connected to the tube using an electrical cord. And Scott suspected that it was a hollow tube and the mechanism worked from compressed air. And he suggested that Keely conduct an experiment without a wire. To which Kili refused.

After Keely's death, in the basement of the house, investors discovered a large vessel with compressed air, with which he launched one of his mechanisms.

They say that before his death he was asked how he would like to be remembered. To which he replied that he was the biggest schemer of the 19th century.

Discovery of the second law of thermodynamics, entropy, Sadi Carnot...

I'll continue later because the post is getting too long.