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Friday, June 13, 2003
A Professor's Online Museum Explores the Hidden History of
Perpetual-Motion Schemes
By BROCK READ
A wheel weighted with swinging mallets. A cylinder rotating in
a sealed, water-filled container. A siphon that transfers
liquid back in forth in a seemingly endless loop. These may
sound like the contents of a mad scientist's lab, but they're
all real devices created over the centuries by scientists
searching for a machine that can sustain perpetual motion.
To most physicists, the quest for a perpetual-motion machine
is a historical aside, an example of pseudo-science at its
worst. But to Donald E. Simanek, an emeritus professor of
physics at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania, it's a
fascinating and rich field of study. On his Web site, the
Museum of Unworkable Devices, Mr. Simanek traces the history
of perpetual-motion theory through treatises, images of
bizarre contraptions, and paradoxes physical and mathematical.
The allure of the perpetual-motion machine is simple: If one
could be created, it could act as its own source of constant
energy. The idea captivated Leonardo da Vinci, who sketched
several machine models in his famed notebooks, and it
continues to strike a chord with optimistic inventors and
opportunistic amateurs. Serious physicists, however, have all
but completely discredited perpetual-motion theory, arguing
that it ignores basic rules of kinematics, dynamics, and
gravity.
Mr. Simanek agrees that perpetual motion is, as da Vinci
ultimately came to call it, a chimera. But he argues that
students should nevertheless examine the history of
perpetual-motion machines because it offers a lesson in how
the minutiae of physics must be incorporated into theory and
research. "Usually, textbooks discuss [perpetual motion] and
just say, 'Well, the laws of thermodynamics say that won't
work.' I found this didn't help students understand how the
thermodynamics were a problem, or how they were tied
inextricably to other laws of physics."
On the Web site, Mr. Simanek offers detailed debunkings of
specific devices, from weighted wheels designed in the 12th
and 13th centuries to a "magnetic shield" that an Australian
high-school student recently developed as an intellectual
exercise. In addition to its galleries of unworkable objects,
the museum includes essays on the most common mistakes
inventors make, as well as details about con men like John
Worrell Keely, a 19th-century mechanic who claimed he could
generate power from the "luminiferous ether" that many
physicists thought filled space.
"The museum is a beautiful site," according to Hans-Peter
Gramatke, a German expert who runs a site of his own on
perpetual motion. "There are classical concepts and modern
drafts, and they are all adeptly analyzed."
Mr. Simanek says the site was a natural outgrowth of his
interest in "the interface between science and
pseudo-science." It also allows him to treat physics with an
element of whimsy -- as he does on some of his other Web
sites. Among them are a page on which he posts links to
pseudo-science documents and a site featuring scientific
satire and parody.
Most important, according to Mr. Simanek, the online museum
has helped him keep in touch with perpetual motion's modern
practitioners -- or would-be practitioners. While some
professors have told him that they use his Web site in class,
he says the lion's share of the e-mail messages he receives
come from hopeful inventors who think they have unlocked
secrets necessary to create working buoyancy motors and
overbalanced wheels.
Mr. Simanek says he tries to steer the would-be inventors
toward mistakes in their mathematics and theory, but many
won't take no for an answer. "I've learned a lot about the
psychology of the inventor," he says. "It's not pretty."