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The discussion of using clean and reusable energy is extremely prevalent nowadays as scientists and experts work around the clock to find new strategies to prevent the spread of global warming—but what if the solution lay in a machine that’s already been around for centuries?
Since the 13th century, efforts to build a perpetual motion machine have failed, leading experts to consider it an unsolvable mystery. Yet, some theorize this mystery may solve reusable energy challenges.
Even though the concept of perpetual motion breaks the laws of thermodynamics, it is possible to build a machine that looks as if it is in perpetual motion. One such perpetual motion machine was built by David Jones.
Jones was an inventor for Dreadco, where he made many different designs for various machines, one of which was his perpetual motion machine, which resembles a bicycle wheel. After Jones died in 2017, he left the machine to a friend who donated it to the royal society. Currently, only the few people who perform maintenance work on the machine know how the machine works.
An overbalanced wheel, which Jones had created, is a machine that looks similar to a ferris wheel. As the wheel spins, there is liquid inside of containers that sit where someone riding a ferris wheel would sit, and this constant shift of weight forces the wheel to spin nonstop.
The machine must be maintained or it will stop moving, since true perpetual motion is impossible. The machine can last up to three years without stopping, but, eventually, the machine will need a boost.
A machine must have more energy created than used in order to be “perpetual” and create harvestable electricity. This breaks the first law of thermodynamics, as you cannot create or destroy energy.
Also, energy transfer through heat always results in some loss. This would diminish the production of energy, which would again not allow for the energy created to be more than the energy used.
So perpetual motion itself is impossible, since an object can only be in motion for a period of time. How efficient it is will determine how well it produces energy.
I believe the machine is possible with years of innovation. Though perpetual motion may be impossible, the design concepts are crucial for developing reusable energy.
Niel deGrasse Tyson, an astronomer, said there can never be an isolated “perpetual motion machine” unless you feed it energy. In this case, it would simply be a battery-operated “temporary motion machine.”