Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the tech
Speaker 1: are you? So I thought I would do a tech
Speaker 1: stuff tidbits about perpetual motion and why that is based
Speaker 1: upon our understanding of the universe. Impossible and the sad
Speaker 1: fact of the matter is y'all. Originally I was thinking
Speaker 1: about referencing a guilty Pleasure song I love Faith Hill's
Speaker 1: This Kiss, because in my mind there was the line,
Speaker 1: it's perpetual motion. Here's the thing that's not in that's
Speaker 1: not in the song. The line is it's centrifugal motion,
Speaker 1: It's perpetual bliss. And I conflated those two lines in
Speaker 1: my head. So I guess what I'm saying is that
Speaker 1: I don't really have a reason for doing this episode.
Speaker 1: You don't understand how distraught I am over this, Like
Speaker 1: I build episodes around dad jokes and references, and I
Speaker 1: just I feel all at sea. But I think it
Speaker 1: is widely understood among most people that devices like perpetual
Speaker 1: motion machines or the related concept of free energy devices
Speaker 1: are based upon an understanding of the universe. Impossible, they
Speaker 1: cannot work. But why can't they work? What fundamental obstacles
Speaker 1: block such things from working? Why can't we have a
Speaker 1: device that can continue to operate under its own power indefinitely,
Speaker 1: or one that wants set in motion can actually generate
Speaker 1: more energy than it requires to continue to run. Why
Speaker 1: is that impossible? Well, on this show we often talk
Speaker 1: about laws, and usually the laws I talk about are
Speaker 1: the human made kind, the laws like in the EU
Speaker 1: that protect personal data of citizens there, or the law
Speaker 1: in the state of Montana that bans TikTok. But some
Speaker 1: laws are greater than anything humans have put in their legislations.
Speaker 1: Some laws are universal, or at least appear to be,
Speaker 1: And among those are the laws of thermo dynamics. Now
Speaker 1: there are four laws of thermo dynamics, the zero law,
Speaker 1: the first, second, and third law. We don't even need
Speaker 1: all four. We just need laws one and two to
Speaker 1: squish perpetual motion machines. That is, assuming that we aren't
Speaker 1: wrong about these basic laws of physics, or that there's
Speaker 1: not some sort of like quantum exception out there, and
Speaker 1: maybe there is. The quantum world is a very unusual
Speaker 1: and strange place. Even without Bill Murray. That's an ant
Speaker 1: Man Quantumnia reference. I don't know how many of we
Speaker 1: all saw it. Didn't do so well. Not a great
Speaker 1: movie anyway. You can think of thermodynamics as the branch
Speaker 1: of physics that pertains to different types of energy and
Speaker 1: how those types of energy relate to one another, and
Speaker 1: the concept of work within a system. Now, sometimes this
Speaker 1: is a fairly easy concept to understand. If we're talking
Speaker 1: about an isolated system, one that's a system unto itself,
Speaker 1: it can actually be pretty easy to see how the
Speaker 1: laws of thermodynamics apply. But if we're talking about the
Speaker 1: real world, where systems can and do connect to other
Speaker 1: systems or even be encompassed fully within another system, sometimes
Speaker 1: those connections are a little bit harder at the spot,
Speaker 1: and that ambiguity creates opportunity for mistakes or misunderstandings or
Speaker 1: illusions or sometimes outright chicanery and rahap scalionism. But let's
Speaker 1: start with those two laws. Law number one tells us
Speaker 1: that energy can be nice either created nor destroyed. This
Speaker 1: is also known as the law of conservation of energy.
Speaker 1: So energy can convert from one form into another. That's
Speaker 1: possible electricity could convert into heat, for example, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean the energy was destroyed. It just changed from
Speaker 1: one form to another. It's sort of like how potential
Speaker 1: energy with maybe say a ball at the top of
Speaker 1: a ramp, turns into kinetic energy when the ball is released,
Speaker 1: but you don't lose energy. It's just been converted from
Speaker 1: one form into another. And that explains why you might
Speaker 1: notice that you're putting more electric juice, as it were,
Speaker 1: into a system. Then you get out on the other end.
Speaker 1: Let's say that you have a meter that tells you
Speaker 1: how much electricity is moving through the system once it
Speaker 1: gets to the end of it, and you realize, oh,
Speaker 1: it's lower than the amount of energy I put into it.
Speaker 1: And that's because somewhere along the way, some of that
Speaker 1: electricity was converted into something else, and therefore you don't
Speaker 1: have as much electricity at the end. The system as
Speaker 1: a whole still has the same amount of energy, it's
Speaker 1: just some of that has been changed into a different form.
Speaker 1: That's another important part of this, though, is that energy
Speaker 1: can actually enter or leave a system if it's not
Speaker 1: fully isolated from everything and nothing ever really is so
Speaker 1: if we don't notice it that energy is coming into
Speaker 1: a system, it may appear to us that the system
Speaker 1: is running under its own power, or if the energy
Speaker 1: is leaving the system, but we can't easily see it,
Speaker 1: we might not understand why it winds down and stops working. Now,
Speaker 1: that first law is a doozy when it comes to
Speaker 1: perpetual motion machines and free energy devices, because that law
Speaker 1: tells us you cannot get more energy out of a
Speaker 1: system than already existed within it, or that you have
Speaker 1: put into that system. So a perpetual motion machine, if
Speaker 1: it were possible, would be unable to generate electricity and
Speaker 1: continue to move indefinitely. It would have to operate under
Speaker 1: a set of rules where you know, it was not
Speaker 1: losing any energy, because if it did lose energy, ultimately
Speaker 1: the system would break down. It would stop working. So
Speaker 1: some of the energy the machine uses to move turns,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe into electricity. Let's say it's a generator,
Speaker 1: but that would mean that the energy that's being used
Speaker 1: to keep the system going is leeching out of it,
Speaker 1: and eventually you reach a point where there's not enough
Speaker 1: energy left for the system to continue to operate. And
Speaker 1: we're talking about basic machines here, so we'd be talking
Speaker 1: about kinetic energy. Eventually, enough of the energy would be
Speaker 1: leached out of the system that you wouldn't have the
Speaker 1: kinetic energy necessary to keep the system moving. So let's
Speaker 1: imagine an example. Let's say we have a wheel. Let's
Speaker 1: say we've got this wheel and we position it vertically right,
Speaker 1: so the wheel it's like a bike tire with the
Speaker 1: bike standing up. And we've mounted this wheel on an axle.
Speaker 1: And let's say that when you turn the wheel, it
Speaker 1: turns the axle, and the axle has on the end
Speaker 1: of it a couple of permanent magnets attached to it,
Speaker 1: and these magnets move past a conductive wire. Well. The
Speaker 1: laws of electromagnetism tell us that a fluctuating magnetic field,
Speaker 1: such as that created by rotating magnets, will induce electricity
Speaker 1: to flow through a conductor if it's within range of
Speaker 1: that magnetic field. And this is how basic electric generators work. Right,
Speaker 1: some mechanical component causes magnets to move or causes conductors
Speaker 1: to move relative to some magnets, and this induces electricity
Speaker 1: to flow through the system. Now, we just have to
Speaker 1: get the wheel to start turning right, and if we
Speaker 1: can find a way to get it to turn and
Speaker 1: keep turning by itself, well, it would then mean that
Speaker 1: the axle would be rotating and would continue to generate electricity. Boom,
Speaker 1: we've got our free energy. So maybe we would try
Speaker 1: a really old idea. Bascara's wheel is what it's called.
Speaker 1: It was proposed by a twelfth century mathematician named Bascara
Speaker 1: the Second in India what is modern day India. He
Speaker 1: suggested a wheel that would include some curved spokes in
Speaker 1: the wheel, sort of like ribs on the inside, and
Speaker 1: they kind of curve so they create little cups. And
Speaker 1: this means that you have different chambers within the wheel,
Speaker 1: and you would fill those chambers partially anyway with a liquid.
Speaker 1: He proposed liquid mercury, which of course is liquid at
Speaker 1: room temperature. And he proposed that as the wheel would spin,
Speaker 1: the mercury inside these chambers would naturally flow to the
Speaker 1: lowest point of that chamber, which means your wheel would
Speaker 1: be unbalanced. You would have a heavier side on one
Speaker 1: side of the wheel. It would be overbalanced. And Bascara
Speaker 1: thought that if you started such a wheel spinning, the
Speaker 1: flowing mercury would create the torque that would allow the
Speaker 1: wheel to continuously spin. You would just have to get
Speaker 1: it going, and then once it was going, it would
Speaker 1: just keep going forever. That was his thought. But here's
Speaker 1: the thing. If you actually were to build Bestcars wheel
Speaker 1: in reality and try it out, you would notice that
Speaker 1: that doesn't happen. It actually kind of swings a little bit.
Speaker 1: And there are a couple of reasons for this. One
Speaker 1: is that the wheel ends up weighing a bit more
Speaker 1: on one side than the other. But that also changes
Speaker 1: the center of mass, so the center of mass of
Speaker 1: the wheel would no longer be the center point of
Speaker 1: the wheel itself would actually be off a little bit,
Speaker 1: and it would mean the wheel would act more like
Speaker 1: a pendulum than it would a wheel. Also, in order
Speaker 1: to keep the wheel to continue to spin, you would
Speaker 1: really need a way to change those spokes dynamically, to
Speaker 1: essentially change the radius of the spokes, And to do that,
Speaker 1: it would mean that you would have to impart some
Speaker 1: energy to make those spokes change, right, You'd have to
Speaker 1: have some mechanism to do that, and that would require
Speaker 1: energy to do which means you would be inserting more
Speaker 1: energy into the system, and that means that's not a
Speaker 1: perpetual motion machine. I mean, that's essentially the equivalent of
Speaker 1: the wheel starts to slow down, so you give it
Speaker 1: another push. There's no real difference here. It's just that
Speaker 1: occasionally you would have to inject energy into the system
Speaker 1: to keep it going, which means it's not a perpetual
Speaker 1: motion machine at all. Okay, So with our hypothetical example
Speaker 1: with that electro magnet, we would see that while you
Speaker 1: could start the wheel spinning, it would ultimately slow down
Speaker 1: and stop and stop generating electricity. As a result, if
Speaker 1: you could somehow continue its spinning and generate electricity in
Speaker 1: the process, then it would violate that first law of thermodynamics.
Speaker 1: It would be creating energy and you can't do that. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a quick break. When we come back,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about law number two and why that
Speaker 1: also has a part to play with the impossibility of
Speaker 1: perpetual motion machines. But first let's think our sponsors. We're back,
Speaker 1: so we're up to law number two of thermodynamics. Like
Speaker 1: I said, these are the two laws that actually really
Speaker 1: pertain to what we're talking about here. So the second
Speaker 1: law of thermodynamics gets into the concept of entropy, which
Speaker 1: gets a little bit complicated. Also, like entropy can mean
Speaker 1: different things in different contexts, which makes it a little confusing.
Speaker 1: If one person is thinking of one definition while another
Speaker 1: person is thinking of another, they can create a difficulty there.
Speaker 1: But really, one of the things the second law explains
Speaker 1: is that if you bring two systems together so that
Speaker 1: they interact with one another, eventually they will reach a
Speaker 1: thermodynamic equilibrium. So the easiest way I can think of
Speaker 1: to explain this is by talking about temperature. That's just
Speaker 1: one example, but we can it's it's easy enough one
Speaker 1: to think about. So let's say we've got two things
Speaker 1: of different temperatures. Let's say we've got a giant block
Speaker 1: of ice and it's at freezing so it's at zero celsius,
Speaker 1: and we've got a vat of boiling water that's at
Speaker 1: one hundred degrees celsius in isolation. These systems are in
Speaker 1: thermodynamic equilibrium with themselves, right. They are at equilibrium as
Speaker 1: far as temperature goes anyway throughout the material, but they
Speaker 1: are not an equilibrium with one another. And so if
Speaker 1: we then combine these two systems, we I don't know,
Speaker 1: pour the boiling water on top of the block of ice.
Speaker 1: That boiling water would transfer heat to the block of ice,
Speaker 1: until eventually you would end up with a pool of
Speaker 1: water that's at a single temperature somewhere between freezing and boiling.
Speaker 1: The two systems have entered acted with one another and
Speaker 1: have reached thermodynamic equilibrium. You would not continue to have
Speaker 1: one section that's freezing in one section that's boiling. Moreover,
Speaker 1: you cannot have a situation in which a colder body
Speaker 1: spontaneously transfers heat to a warmer body. That's just not
Speaker 1: the direction that heat will transfer. It has to go
Speaker 1: from warmer to colder. It can't go colder to warmer,
Speaker 1: so the block of ice can't make the boiling water
Speaker 1: even hotter. That's not possible with perpetual motion machines. This
Speaker 1: really comes into play when we start talking about stuff
Speaker 1: like friction. Any machine with moving parts is going to
Speaker 1: generate friction, that resistance of one body moving against another.
Speaker 1: Friction converts kinetic energy into heat, and that heat will
Speaker 1: dissipate from the source. So that means you're always losing
Speaker 1: energy from your system. You're not destroying the energy but
Speaker 1: you are losing it. It is leeching out of your
Speaker 1: system into the surrounding environment. So as the system continues
Speaker 1: in motion, it generates friction. The friction is lost in
Speaker 1: the form of heat, or rather energy is lost in
Speaker 1: the form of heat because of friction, and you just
Speaker 1: gradually see the energy meter of your device decrease till
Speaker 1: it can no longer have enough energy to operate, so
Speaker 1: it will come to a stop. Now, all that being said,
Speaker 1: it has not stopped people from trying to find a
Speaker 1: way around these laws of physics to create a perpetual
Speaker 1: motion or free energy device. They're all sorts of examples,
Speaker 1: some of which were well intentioned and sincere attempts to
Speaker 1: create perpetual motion devices or free energy devices, some of
Speaker 1: which were scams from the very beginning. There are countless
Speaker 1: videos on sites like YouTube where you can see devices
Speaker 1: that appear at first glance to be perpetual motion. But
Speaker 1: I guarantee you that in every single case that there's
Speaker 1: either a limitation where the device will eventually stop working
Speaker 1: on its own, or there's an external source of energy
Speaker 1: that's powering the device that is not in easy view.
Speaker 1: I'm reminded there was a sort of a teeter totter
Speaker 1: perpetual motion video that went viral a few years ago.
Speaker 1: I remember I had a couple of like golf balls
Speaker 1: on it, as I recall, and the golf balls were
Speaker 1: supposedly providing the energy to tilt the teeter totter from
Speaker 1: one side to the other and that would continue to
Speaker 1: go forever. But it was clear that there was some
Speaker 1: other mechanism operating on the teeter totter, because the whole
Speaker 1: thing would tilt at different points even if the balls
Speaker 1: weren't where they needed to be to impart the energy
Speaker 1: that the inventor claimed it was doing. So in other words,
Speaker 1: it was not a real perpetual motion machine. It was
Speaker 1: a trick. But you know, sometimes people just create something
Speaker 1: that's really remarkable that on a casual glance, looks like
Speaker 1: it could be perpetual motion, but upon further investigation, it isn't.
Speaker 1: And it's not that they were trying to trick you.
Speaker 1: It's just they came up with a really clever kind
Speaker 1: of mechanism. So I would say that the Beverly clock
Speaker 1: falls into that category. It looks like it's a perpetual
Speaker 1: motion machine, but it isn't. A man named Arthur Beverly
Speaker 1: designed this clock in the nineteenth century. It looks a
Speaker 1: little bit like a grandfather clock. And here's the remarkable thing.
Speaker 1: It only needed to be wound once. It was wound
Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century, and it hasn't been wound since,
Speaker 1: at least not by people. So if you were to
Speaker 1: visit the University of Otago in New Zealand, you could
Speaker 1: see for yourself the clock is still ticking, or at
Speaker 1: least it would likely still be ticking. It would depend
Speaker 1: upon the day you were there. And it certainly sounds
Speaker 1: like if you only ever needed to wind the clock once,
Speaker 1: that there must be some sort of perpetual motion thing
Speaker 1: going on here. But no, it actually relies on an
Speaker 1: external source of energy to replenish what it expends mechanically. Now,
Speaker 1: in this case, that energy takes on the form of
Speaker 1: atmospheric temperature and to a lesser extent pressure. So inside
Speaker 1: this clock there is an air tight box, and as
Speaker 1: the box warms up, it expands, and as it cools
Speaker 1: down it contracts. So the expansion of this box puts
Speaker 1: pressure on a diaphragm that in turn will lift a
Speaker 1: one pound weight, and if that one pound weight is
Speaker 1: lifted by an inch, that creates enough of well potential energy,
Speaker 1: and then as the weight drops, kinetic energy to power
Speaker 1: the mechanism of the clock itself. So in other words,
Speaker 1: as long as there are changes in temperature sufficient enough
Speaker 1: to lift this weight up by an inch, the clock
Speaker 1: will stay wound by itself and you don't have to
Speaker 1: touch it. It doesn't need a six degree change in
Speaker 1: temperature in celsius in order for this to work, and
Speaker 1: most days that's fine, Like the coldest part of the
Speaker 1: day is usually at least six degrees celsius off from
Speaker 1: the warmest part of the day. But every now and
Speaker 1: then you get days where there isn't that big of
Speaker 1: a difference, and then the clock doesn't get reset properly.
Speaker 1: So the clock actually has stopped a few times since
Speaker 1: it was first wound, but it's never been rewound because
Speaker 1: the temperature does that for the clock. So again, at
Speaker 1: a casual glance, you'd say, oh, this is perpetual energy.
Speaker 1: It was, it was a perpetual motion. It was wound
Speaker 1: once and it keeps on going. But in fact it's
Speaker 1: dependent upon this external source. So just as if you
Speaker 1: were to have a device that looks like it works
Speaker 1: on its own, but it turns out you've got it
Speaker 1: plugged into the wall. Well, the wall is clearly the
Speaker 1: external source of energy. You don't have a perpetual motion machine,
Speaker 1: then you just have a machine. Same sort of thing
Speaker 1: with the Beverly clock, except it uses temperature, not electricity
Speaker 1: from the wall. Still a very clever device. And again
Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting that Arthur Beverly was trying to hoodwink anyone.
Speaker 1: He just created a really interesting clock and I think
Speaker 1: it's neat. But yeah, just a quick reminder, perpetual motion
Speaker 1: probably not possible if our understanding of the universe is flawed,
Speaker 1: and we know there are gaps in it. If it's
Speaker 1: flawed enough, then maybe one day we will break through
Speaker 1: and find a way to crack that. But it's highly unlikely.
Speaker 1: So whenever you see any claims about perpetual motion or
Speaker 1: free energy, be incredibly skeptical. It would require phenomenal evidence
Speaker 1: to prove that in fact it did qualify. And that
Speaker 1: is a text of tidbits on perpetual motion and the
Speaker 1: first two laws of thermodynamics. I guess I hope you
Speaker 1: are all well, and I'll talk to you again really soon.
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