WEBVTT - TechStuff Tidbits: Perpetual Motion and Thermodynamics 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.319 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:15.520 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:18.279 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the tech 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:21.880 are you? So I thought I would do a tech 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:28.560 stuff tidbits about perpetual motion and why that is based 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:31.840 upon our understanding of the universe. Impossible and the sad 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:36.000 fact of the matter is y'all. Originally I was thinking 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:41.800 about referencing a guilty Pleasure song I love Faith Hill's 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:44.760 This Kiss, because in my mind there was the line, 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:48.880 it's perpetual motion. Here's the thing that's not in that's 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:51.560 not in the song. The line is it's centrifugal motion, 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:57.440 It's perpetual bliss. And I conflated those two lines in 0:00:57.520 --> 0:00:59.080 my head. So I guess what I'm saying is that 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:03.760 I don't really have a reason for doing this episode. 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:08.440 You don't understand how distraught I am over this, Like 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:12.640 I build episodes around dad jokes and references, and I 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:16.880 just I feel all at sea. But I think it 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:22.640 is widely understood among most people that devices like perpetual 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:28.080 motion machines or the related concept of free energy devices 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:32.880 are based upon an understanding of the universe. Impossible, they 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:39.120 cannot work. But why can't they work? What fundamental obstacles 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:42.160 block such things from working? Why can't we have a 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:47.319 device that can continue to operate under its own power indefinitely, 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:51.560 or one that wants set in motion can actually generate 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:55.560 more energy than it requires to continue to run. Why 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:59.520 is that impossible? Well, on this show we often talk 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:02.440 about laws, and usually the laws I talk about are 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:06.160 the human made kind, the laws like in the EU 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:11.080 that protect personal data of citizens there, or the law 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:14.519 in the state of Montana that bans TikTok. But some 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:19.640 laws are greater than anything humans have put in their legislations. 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:24.000 Some laws are universal, or at least appear to be, 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:27.800 And among those are the laws of thermo dynamics. Now 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:31.560 there are four laws of thermo dynamics, the zero law, 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:34.480 the first, second, and third law. We don't even need 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:36.760 all four. We just need laws one and two to 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:41.080 squish perpetual motion machines. That is, assuming that we aren't 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:44.520 wrong about these basic laws of physics, or that there's 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:48.200 not some sort of like quantum exception out there, and 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:52.079 maybe there is. The quantum world is a very unusual 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:56.280 and strange place. Even without Bill Murray. That's an ant 0:02:56.320 --> 0:03:00.040 Man Quantumnia reference. I don't know how many of we 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:02.880 all saw it. Didn't do so well. Not a great 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:06.440 movie anyway. You can think of thermodynamics as the branch 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:10.239 of physics that pertains to different types of energy and 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:12.880 how those types of energy relate to one another, and 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:18.760 the concept of work within a system. Now, sometimes this 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:21.680 is a fairly easy concept to understand. If we're talking 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:26.120 about an isolated system, one that's a system unto itself, 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:28.639 it can actually be pretty easy to see how the 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:32.240 laws of thermodynamics apply. But if we're talking about the 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:35.600 real world, where systems can and do connect to other 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:40.840 systems or even be encompassed fully within another system, sometimes 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:43.160 those connections are a little bit harder at the spot, 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:47.760 and that ambiguity creates opportunity for mistakes or misunderstandings or 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:54.560 illusions or sometimes outright chicanery and rahap scalionism. But let's 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:58.760 start with those two laws. Law number one tells us 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:03.160 that energy can be nice either created nor destroyed. This 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:05.840 is also known as the law of conservation of energy. 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:11.720 So energy can convert from one form into another. That's 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:16.960 possible electricity could convert into heat, for example, but that 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:20.280 doesn't mean the energy was destroyed. It just changed from 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:23.760 one form to another. It's sort of like how potential 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:29.000 energy with maybe say a ball at the top of 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:32.360 a ramp, turns into kinetic energy when the ball is released, 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:37.000 but you don't lose energy. It's just been converted from 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:42.120 one form into another. And that explains why you might 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:45.760 notice that you're putting more electric juice, as it were, 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:48.479 into a system. Then you get out on the other end. 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:51.159 Let's say that you have a meter that tells you 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:54.440 how much electricity is moving through the system once it 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:56.640 gets to the end of it, and you realize, oh, 0:04:56.839 --> 0:04:59.240 it's lower than the amount of energy I put into it. 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:02.200 And that's because somewhere along the way, some of that 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:06.760 electricity was converted into something else, and therefore you don't 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:08.920 have as much electricity at the end. The system as 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:12.120 a whole still has the same amount of energy, it's 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:14.520 just some of that has been changed into a different form. 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:18.239 That's another important part of this, though, is that energy 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:20.760 can actually enter or leave a system if it's not 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:25.279 fully isolated from everything and nothing ever really is so 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:30.560 if we don't notice it that energy is coming into 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:33.880 a system, it may appear to us that the system 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:38.040 is running under its own power, or if the energy 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:40.680 is leaving the system, but we can't easily see it, 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:45.760 we might not understand why it winds down and stops working. Now, 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:49.360 that first law is a doozy when it comes to 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:53.640 perpetual motion machines and free energy devices, because that law 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:57.080 tells us you cannot get more energy out of a 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:01.560 system than already existed within it, or that you have 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:04.800 put into that system. So a perpetual motion machine, if 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:09.040 it were possible, would be unable to generate electricity and 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:12.160 continue to move indefinitely. It would have to operate under 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:16.400 a set of rules where you know, it was not 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:19.839 losing any energy, because if it did lose energy, ultimately 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:23.280 the system would break down. It would stop working. So 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:26.040 some of the energy the machine uses to move turns, 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:29.480 you know, maybe into electricity. Let's say it's a generator, 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:32.799 but that would mean that the energy that's being used 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:36.080 to keep the system going is leeching out of it, 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:38.080 and eventually you reach a point where there's not enough 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:41.400 energy left for the system to continue to operate. And 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:43.360 we're talking about basic machines here, so we'd be talking 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:47.200 about kinetic energy. Eventually, enough of the energy would be 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:49.160 leached out of the system that you wouldn't have the 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:53.680 kinetic energy necessary to keep the system moving. So let's 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:56.520 imagine an example. Let's say we have a wheel. Let's 0:06:56.520 --> 0:06:59.080 say we've got this wheel and we position it vertically right, 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:01.760 so the wheel it's like a bike tire with the 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:06.440 bike standing up. And we've mounted this wheel on an axle. 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:08.719 And let's say that when you turn the wheel, it 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:11.680 turns the axle, and the axle has on the end 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:14.200 of it a couple of permanent magnets attached to it, 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:17.720 and these magnets move past a conductive wire. Well. The 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:21.680 laws of electromagnetism tell us that a fluctuating magnetic field, 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:26.200 such as that created by rotating magnets, will induce electricity 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:30.000 to flow through a conductor if it's within range of 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:34.400 that magnetic field. And this is how basic electric generators work. Right, 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:38.720 some mechanical component causes magnets to move or causes conductors 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:42.680 to move relative to some magnets, and this induces electricity 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:44.680 to flow through the system. Now, we just have to 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:46.840 get the wheel to start turning right, and if we 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:48.680 can find a way to get it to turn and 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:53.200 keep turning by itself, well, it would then mean that 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:57.160 the axle would be rotating and would continue to generate electricity. Boom, 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:00.160 we've got our free energy. So maybe we would try 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:04.000 a really old idea. Bascara's wheel is what it's called. 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:07.800 It was proposed by a twelfth century mathematician named Bascara 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:11.000 the Second in India what is modern day India. He 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:15.920 suggested a wheel that would include some curved spokes in 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:19.280 the wheel, sort of like ribs on the inside, and 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:22.760 they kind of curve so they create little cups. And 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:26.240 this means that you have different chambers within the wheel, 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:30.600 and you would fill those chambers partially anyway with a liquid. 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:35.480 He proposed liquid mercury, which of course is liquid at 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:42.240 room temperature. And he proposed that as the wheel would spin, 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:46.640 the mercury inside these chambers would naturally flow to the 0:08:46.679 --> 0:08:50.760 lowest point of that chamber, which means your wheel would 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:54.000 be unbalanced. You would have a heavier side on one 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:56.679 side of the wheel. It would be overbalanced. And Bascara 0:08:56.679 --> 0:08:59.680 thought that if you started such a wheel spinning, the 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:03.959 flowing mercury would create the torque that would allow the 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:06.600 wheel to continuously spin. You would just have to get 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:10.360 it going, and then once it was going, it would 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:13.560 just keep going forever. That was his thought. But here's 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:16.800 the thing. If you actually were to build Bestcars wheel 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:20.160 in reality and try it out, you would notice that 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:22.920 that doesn't happen. It actually kind of swings a little bit. 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:24.920 And there are a couple of reasons for this. One 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:27.120 is that the wheel ends up weighing a bit more 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:29.040 on one side than the other. But that also changes 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:32.079 the center of mass, so the center of mass of 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:35.240 the wheel would no longer be the center point of 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:38.240 the wheel itself would actually be off a little bit, 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:41.120 and it would mean the wheel would act more like 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:45.000 a pendulum than it would a wheel. Also, in order 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:48.960 to keep the wheel to continue to spin, you would 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:52.120 really need a way to change those spokes dynamically, to 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:56.520 essentially change the radius of the spokes, And to do that, 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:59.079 it would mean that you would have to impart some 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:02.560 energy to make those spokes change, right, You'd have to 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.160 have some mechanism to do that, and that would require 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:08.920 energy to do which means you would be inserting more 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:11.360 energy into the system, and that means that's not a 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:14.440 perpetual motion machine. I mean, that's essentially the equivalent of 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:17.120 the wheel starts to slow down, so you give it 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:21.000 another push. There's no real difference here. It's just that 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:24.319 occasionally you would have to inject energy into the system 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:26.240 to keep it going, which means it's not a perpetual 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:31.520 motion machine at all. Okay, So with our hypothetical example 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:33.440 with that electro magnet, we would see that while you 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:37.120 could start the wheel spinning, it would ultimately slow down 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:40.240 and stop and stop generating electricity. As a result, if 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:42.959 you could somehow continue its spinning and generate electricity in 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:46.560 the process, then it would violate that first law of thermodynamics. 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:50.000 It would be creating energy and you can't do that. Okay, 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:51.600 we're gonna take a quick break. When we come back, 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:54.320 we're gonna talk about law number two and why that 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:59.000 also has a part to play with the impossibility of 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:12.360 perpetual motion machines. But first let's think our sponsors. We're back, 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:16.160 so we're up to law number two of thermodynamics. Like 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:18.320 I said, these are the two laws that actually really 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:22.000 pertain to what we're talking about here. So the second 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:25.480 law of thermodynamics gets into the concept of entropy, which 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:29.160 gets a little bit complicated. Also, like entropy can mean 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:32.720 different things in different contexts, which makes it a little confusing. 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:35.840 If one person is thinking of one definition while another 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:39.640 person is thinking of another, they can create a difficulty there. 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:42.880 But really, one of the things the second law explains 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:46.000 is that if you bring two systems together so that 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:50.200 they interact with one another, eventually they will reach a 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:54.160 thermodynamic equilibrium. So the easiest way I can think of 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:57.280 to explain this is by talking about temperature. That's just 0:11:57.320 --> 0:11:59.959 one example, but we can it's it's easy enough one 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:03.559 to think about. So let's say we've got two things 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:06.600 of different temperatures. Let's say we've got a giant block 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:10.040 of ice and it's at freezing so it's at zero celsius, 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:14.160 and we've got a vat of boiling water that's at 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:17.680 one hundred degrees celsius in isolation. These systems are in 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:23.040 thermodynamic equilibrium with themselves, right. They are at equilibrium as 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:26.920 far as temperature goes anyway throughout the material, but they 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:29.560 are not an equilibrium with one another. And so if 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:32.120 we then combine these two systems, we I don't know, 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:35.480 pour the boiling water on top of the block of ice. 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:39.280 That boiling water would transfer heat to the block of ice, 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:43.200 until eventually you would end up with a pool of 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:47.559 water that's at a single temperature somewhere between freezing and boiling. 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:52.120 The two systems have entered acted with one another and 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:56.560 have reached thermodynamic equilibrium. You would not continue to have 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:00.840 one section that's freezing in one section that's boiling. Moreover, 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:04.440 you cannot have a situation in which a colder body 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:09.800 spontaneously transfers heat to a warmer body. That's just not 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:12.000 the direction that heat will transfer. It has to go 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:15.640 from warmer to colder. It can't go colder to warmer, 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:18.600 so the block of ice can't make the boiling water 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:24.880 even hotter. That's not possible with perpetual motion machines. This 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:28.120 really comes into play when we start talking about stuff 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:32.400 like friction. Any machine with moving parts is going to 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:36.320 generate friction, that resistance of one body moving against another. 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:41.200 Friction converts kinetic energy into heat, and that heat will 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:46.400 dissipate from the source. So that means you're always losing 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:49.480 energy from your system. You're not destroying the energy but 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:52.079 you are losing it. It is leeching out of your 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:56.640 system into the surrounding environment. So as the system continues 0:13:56.640 --> 0:14:00.560 in motion, it generates friction. The friction is lost in 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:03.000 the form of heat, or rather energy is lost in 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:07.040 the form of heat because of friction, and you just 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:10.200 gradually see the energy meter of your device decrease till 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:13.520 it can no longer have enough energy to operate, so 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:17.120 it will come to a stop. Now, all that being said, 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:20.560 it has not stopped people from trying to find a 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:23.320 way around these laws of physics to create a perpetual 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:26.400 motion or free energy device. They're all sorts of examples, 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:32.040 some of which were well intentioned and sincere attempts to 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:35.920 create perpetual motion devices or free energy devices, some of 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:40.680 which were scams from the very beginning. There are countless 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:45.080 videos on sites like YouTube where you can see devices 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:48.680 that appear at first glance to be perpetual motion. But 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:53.280 I guarantee you that in every single case that there's 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:58.720 either a limitation where the device will eventually stop working 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:02.960 on its own, or there's an external source of energy 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:06.280 that's powering the device that is not in easy view. 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:09.360 I'm reminded there was a sort of a teeter totter 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:14.680 perpetual motion video that went viral a few years ago. 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:17.040 I remember I had a couple of like golf balls 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:19.800 on it, as I recall, and the golf balls were 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:22.560 supposedly providing the energy to tilt the teeter totter from 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:24.720 one side to the other and that would continue to 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:27.520 go forever. But it was clear that there was some 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:33.080 other mechanism operating on the teeter totter, because the whole 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:37.440 thing would tilt at different points even if the balls 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:40.760 weren't where they needed to be to impart the energy 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:45.520 that the inventor claimed it was doing. So in other words, 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:49.520 it was not a real perpetual motion machine. It was 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:54.160 a trick. But you know, sometimes people just create something 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:57.600 that's really remarkable that on a casual glance, looks like 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:02.080 it could be perpetual motion, but upon further investigation, it isn't. 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:03.720 And it's not that they were trying to trick you. 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:07.360 It's just they came up with a really clever kind 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:10.920 of mechanism. So I would say that the Beverly clock 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:16.560 falls into that category. It looks like it's a perpetual 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:20.040 motion machine, but it isn't. A man named Arthur Beverly 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:23.440 designed this clock in the nineteenth century. It looks a 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:26.720 little bit like a grandfather clock. And here's the remarkable thing. 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:29.760 It only needed to be wound once. It was wound 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:32.200 in the nineteenth century, and it hasn't been wound since, 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:34.640 at least not by people. So if you were to 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:37.960 visit the University of Otago in New Zealand, you could 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:39.920 see for yourself the clock is still ticking, or at 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:42.280 least it would likely still be ticking. It would depend 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:45.520 upon the day you were there. And it certainly sounds 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:47.960 like if you only ever needed to wind the clock once, 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:51.320 that there must be some sort of perpetual motion thing 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:54.480 going on here. But no, it actually relies on an 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:58.880 external source of energy to replenish what it expends mechanically. Now, 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:01.640 in this case, that energy takes on the form of 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:07.640 atmospheric temperature and to a lesser extent pressure. So inside 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:11.280 this clock there is an air tight box, and as 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:14.159 the box warms up, it expands, and as it cools 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:18.200 down it contracts. So the expansion of this box puts 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:22.080 pressure on a diaphragm that in turn will lift a 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:24.840 one pound weight, and if that one pound weight is 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:33.040 lifted by an inch, that creates enough of well potential energy, 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:37.119 and then as the weight drops, kinetic energy to power 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:40.359 the mechanism of the clock itself. So in other words, 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:44.280 as long as there are changes in temperature sufficient enough 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:47.840 to lift this weight up by an inch, the clock 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:50.280 will stay wound by itself and you don't have to 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:53.720 touch it. It doesn't need a six degree change in 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:56.320 temperature in celsius in order for this to work, and 0:17:56.400 --> 0:17:59.119 most days that's fine, Like the coldest part of the 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:03.760 day is usually at least six degrees celsius off from 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:05.879 the warmest part of the day. But every now and 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:08.280 then you get days where there isn't that big of 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:12.680 a difference, and then the clock doesn't get reset properly. 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:16.200 So the clock actually has stopped a few times since 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:20.200 it was first wound, but it's never been rewound because 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:24.479 the temperature does that for the clock. So again, at 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:27.119 a casual glance, you'd say, oh, this is perpetual energy. 0:18:27.160 --> 0:18:29.959 It was, it was a perpetual motion. It was wound 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:33.080 once and it keeps on going. But in fact it's 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:36.119 dependent upon this external source. So just as if you 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:38.439 were to have a device that looks like it works 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:40.600 on its own, but it turns out you've got it 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:43.040 plugged into the wall. Well, the wall is clearly the 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:45.639 external source of energy. You don't have a perpetual motion machine, 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:48.280 then you just have a machine. Same sort of thing 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:51.240 with the Beverly clock, except it uses temperature, not electricity 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:54.920 from the wall. Still a very clever device. And again 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:57.919 I'm not suggesting that Arthur Beverly was trying to hoodwink anyone. 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:00.720 He just created a really interesting clock and I think 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:05.960 it's neat. But yeah, just a quick reminder, perpetual motion 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:11.440 probably not possible if our understanding of the universe is flawed, 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:13.520 and we know there are gaps in it. If it's 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:17.360 flawed enough, then maybe one day we will break through 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:21.920 and find a way to crack that. But it's highly unlikely. 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:25.560 So whenever you see any claims about perpetual motion or 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:31.760 free energy, be incredibly skeptical. It would require phenomenal evidence 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:35.560 to prove that in fact it did qualify. And that 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:38.600 is a text of tidbits on perpetual motion and the 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:42.239 first two laws of thermodynamics. I guess I hope you 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:45.960 are all well, and I'll talk to you again really soon. 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:56.800 Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, 0:19:57.119 --> 0:20:00.919 visit the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts, wherever you listen to 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:01.919 your favorite shows.