The Most Incredible Attempts at Perpetual Motion Machines

Those pesky "law of physics" haven't stopped us from trying to invent perpetual motion machines for hundreds of years. Most attempts may be laughable, but these designs are quite impressive.

#PerpetualMotionMachines #sideprojects

[h.a.]

It is said that the hardest part about building a perpetual motion machine is figuring out where to hide the battery.

[mikeg]

While definitely not a perpetual motion machine, the Elektro Dumper (45 ton dump truck with a 600 kWh battery), is an interesting parallel technology. It is the world's largest EV and it recharges itself during operations. Its designers identified a use case that leveraged the EVs regenerative braking. The dump truck, at 45 tons empty, ascends a 13-percent grade and takes on 65 tons of ore. With more than double the weight going back down the hill, the regenerative braking system recaptures more than enough energy to refill the charge the eDumper used going up.

[chrisb.]

I see perpetual motion machines as lessons in efficiency rather than sources of energy. The closer you get to 100% efficiency the more convincing your perpetual motion machine becomes.

[Roguescienceguy]

Simon himself is a prime example of something perpetual. The perpetual creation of channels😂

[natebardwell]

I love the fact that a potential huge discovery in battery technology is hindered by the simple fact that nobody wants to stop the record run.

[devanman]

I think it's more impressive how this guy can perpetually keep hosting new channels.

[CeriusDeluge]

I have been working on a perpetual motion machine since I was 11. The funny thing is I can't seem to stop.

[DonLee]

one of my favorite engineering works is the Jaeger LeCoutre table clock, which uses the difference in temperatures to wind up tension for the clock. just 1 degree difference is enough for it to run for a day. That means the difference of night and day temperatures is enough to make it run in perpetual... until years down the road it needs a service.

[lazylazerrsp]

I think the most fascinating thing about perpetual motion machines is that although impossible, anything that comes close eventually reveals itself to be running on some sort of external source. Meaning eventually someone will make one again and again until we discover what energy is being inputted. If we go far enough we'd probably create a machine that runs on the ever increasingly obscure forms of energy. A radiometer runs on infared radiation but it was still an amazing discovery from a seemingly perpetual machine, one by accident. Basically any perpetual machine ends up as a measuring device for energy.

[inthefade]

I feel like attempting a perpetual motion machine is a rite of passage for any nerd. My friends and I did when we were 11, and it was based on siphoning water into a series of sealed containers and then trying to have the final container refill the first one. It was actually a really great lesson in the futility of the exercise for us. We worked so hard on it all weekend trying to solve all the issues we encountered, but each solution created a new problem of course. We gave up and played video games.

[ThatKnife]

My favorite things about perpetual motion machine attempts is it just shows how much you can conserve energy or use what you have to create as much energy as possible and is really powerful in that way.

[balrog]

I one hundred percent thought you were vsauce

[GamerGuyplays]

In high School, my friend had this calculator that worked for a few months without batterys. In early march, the batterys accidentaly fell out of the device, and we ended up throwing them out due to rust, surprisingly though, it kept running. It didn't have a solar power cell, like many calculators do, my guess is that it had a weird slow capacitor, but even then, it would be incredible, considering it was allways powered on up until late december.

[Morbazan]

It's always more beneficial when things are physically explained than the typical "it won't work because physics"

[Thesnakerox]

I think it'd be cool to see more attempts at "Near-perpetual" motion machines. Even though perpetual motion is physically impossible, I still wonder what people could do to squeeze as much efficiency as possible out of a system...

[deividasb]

Very similar to the Beverly clock, well established swiss watch maker jaeger lecoultre made a table clock in the 1970s called the atmos vendome. It was said that the perpetual movement worked with a difference of about 1 degree Celsius and that the gas on the inside would Last for about 300 years. Pretty incredible stuff!

[b-lt]

You can buy the first type of clock in Switzerland. A compressible chamber holds a temperature sensitive gas resting against a large spring, winding the clock. 1c in temp difference makes them run for a day. An indoor solar and gravity powered clock. Genius, especially for 1850s.

[USonuMabeaCh]

In 9th grade I tried to design a perpetual energy electricity generator lol. It was based around heating coils that would heat and evaporate water up to a cooling area, on the way up the gases would spin turbines to generate electricity for the heating coils, and once the vapor cooled and turned back into water it would run down back to the heating coils at the bottom, also spinning turbines on the way down to also generate electricity for the coils. Ideally it would've produced an electricity surplus to charge a battery to draw power from. Ah to be that naive again

[robotman]

You forgot to start the video with “ hey Micheal here”

[adamhixon]

Turns out the "dry piles" in the oxford bell are actually gifts from friendly alien visitors. They contain two small fusion reactors and detailed instructions about their operation and construction. The aliens are very confused as to why we have failed to unwrap their gifts and usher in a new era for humanity.