Adam Savage vs The 'Perpetual Motion' Machine!

Among the artifacts housed at The Royal Society is a curious device purporting to be a perpetual motion machine. The creation of the late British scientist and author David Jones (aka Daedalus), the secret of how this machine gives the illusion of perpetual motion has yet to be revealed. Archivist Virginia Mills shares the backstory of this mystery and Adam takes a crack at uncovering how this implausible invention actually works!

Shot and edited by Joey Fameli
Music by Jinglepunks

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[brennanruiz]

The hardest part of making a perpetual motion machine is always figuring out where to hide the batteries

[TangerineTravels]

It’s a perpetual motion machine that every two years we have to send in to replace the batteries.

[thethoughtemporium]

I'm 95% sure it's electrostatic. The boxes and the "U"s aren't magnetic. There's another video where they test it with a magnetometer. Note the pointy electrode, and the series of cups. It's an inverted wimshurst machine. Normally you turn it to generate electric potential and big sparks. But if you do it backwards and apply a high voltage, it'll spin. The fun thing is, it takes a ridiculously tiny amount of energy to move electrostatic motors. Which makes it perfect for something that needs to run for ages. Big chunky battery in the box, and something to hold a charge, and step up the voltage. Some sort of joule thief thingy to make sure it keeps on chooching, and a super well balanced wheel. Tiny electric field keeps the wheel going until the system runs out. The boxes are there so he can easily balance the wheel. 3 points is the number of weights needed to balance a wheel without needing to carefully find the exact point to put weights. Either everything else is a decoy, or he snuck some sort of passive energy harvesting mechanism to help keep the thing charged, but I doubt it if it needs to be "serviced". Serviced means recharged.

[zackv]

Girl: "No one knows how it works, except 2 people."

Adam: "You sure about that?"

[chrisnotap]

Another perpetual motion machine that runs for about 2 years is basically a wall clock motor. Swap out the 1.5v pile and your good to go for another 2-3 years.

[DnX]

Great machine, I have one of these hanged on the wall, every 2-3 years I do some servicing, throw a double A in and it keeps on going. It also tells time with incredible precision. Marvelous.

[JohnKobel-hdvp]

Geniuses that create machinery that defies the impossible usually start with a bike rim from a garage sale

[Thomas_Deering_King]

She pointed right at the tricky part, and gave Adam every necessary piece of info. My hero whiffed it.

[londontrada]

I love that the envelope with the secret is barely sealed due to being opened by everyone that's ever been in a room with it on their own. 😂

[Moon_Metty]

Quite the accomplishment, to keep a hamster alive for two years in such a small box.

[raymorgan]

A while back I made a wooden gear pendulum clock that is electrically powered, but takes very little electricity to run (think servicing every two years of this machine). The way the clock keeps running is that in the base is a dual electromagnetic coil, and a transistor for switching. In the bottom of the wooden pendulum is a permanent neodymium magnet. As the magnet passes over the outer dual coil, it picks up enough of a slight charge from the moving magnet passing over a coil to allow the transistor to briefly switch on the inner battery powered coil which is wrapped around an iron nail. This very briefly creates an electromagnet opposite polarity of the magnet in the pendulum that repels the magnet in the pendulum and gives it just enough of a little push to keep it swinging. The cycle repeats each time the pendulum passes over the coil hidden in the wood base, which keeps it swinging back and forth.

Now my clock, is not an impossible perpetual motion machine, it's just a clock, however, it demonstrates how easily something can be hidden and keep something moving for a long time with very little power.

[ifly]

Its no shocker that "Mr. Ive got to touch and tap everything with vigor" punched the Lexan outer frame lol. Great videos Adam as always you rule! She grabbed that envelope back like she didnt trust his curiosity.

[bigknocker]

When I was studying mechanical engineering at Cornell in the late 70s, my thermodynamics prof told a story about a guy who built a boat that appeared to be a perpetual motion machine, confounding all the experts. Later it was discovered that the boat's hull in the saltwater was acting like a giant battery, and the hull was being dissolved.

[gremlinman]

a perpetual motion machine that only works if you send it back to the creator once every few months is like a magic trick that's really impressive as long as the entire audience closes their eyes when the trick happens

[irontemplar]

I see alot of people getting really angry over something that is supposed to be fun. No one was trying to decive anyone here. Someone made it and told them "Hey guess how I did that." In other words. Figure out the trick.

[philipholman]

As a kid I was at the Smithsonian Science museum. They had this small glass lightbulb looking thing a radiometer they called it. It had a small windmill, four blades arranged horizontally. One side of each blade was black, the other white. When you put it in light it spun. And would spin if forever if it had a constant light source. That's the science for dummies version as I'm a dummy for the most part.

[salt-emoji]

Adam just whipping out a flashlight is the daddest thing I've seen in a while

[blackpowderfist]

I like the idea that he was a wizard who cast a spell of perpetual motion on this wheel and then just put a bunch of nonsense mechanisms around it to keep everyone guessing for years after he was gone

[RollTide-]

I love how Adam tore this thing apart and knew how it worked in no time!

[Tazzquilizer]

These ultra low powere and ultra low friction motors are so fun to build. There is also an awesome guy that has a few of these motors build on his channel "lasersaber". He calls them EZ spin motors. With 3D printing, a little bit of wire, and a long lasting battery it is actually pretty easy to build yourself something that spins for a few years or a decade without intervention.