More Bizarre Attempts at Perpetual Motion Machines

Explore the weirdest attempts at creating perpetual motion machines, from quirky toys like the Drinking Bird to misguided inventions claiming divine power. Find out what really keeps these contraptions moving!

[agalah]

"Lisa! In this house we OBEY the laws of thermodynamics"

[etunimenisukunimeni]

There's that old saying: the hardest part of inventing a perpetual motion machine is to figure out where to hide the batteries

[CountJeffula]

What’s funny is that even if they made a perpetual motion machine, that isn’t enough. You need perpetual excess motion to extract usable energy from it. Just barely being able to reset itself means no energy left over to extract for usable ends. What a Sisyphean task. Lol

[Joseph-zsb]

Perpetual motion exists. It's Simon moving from channel to channel and subject to subject. Good God Simon. Don't just do something. Sit there.

[michaeldowson]

There already is a perpetual motion machine. It's generally referred to as a 'two year old'.

[johnlewan]

Up next, 50 channels you didn't know Simon narrates.

[ERIK-]

"So, dad, how does perpetual motion work?"
"That's the neat thing, it doesn't"

[Reegareth]

I have no idea why were so obsessed with the idea of a perpetual motion machine for energy when we have a massive fusion reactor that we're all literally floating around...

[micahfoley]

I discovered perpetual motion when I was a teenager. All you need is a bottle of hand lotion, an empty house, and unfettered access to the internet.

[ignitionfrn]

0:30 - Chapter 1 - The drinking bird
3:05 - Chapter 2 - Perpetual marble machine
5:25 - Chapter 3 - Magnetic fidget spinner motor
8:25 - Chapter 4 - Dreadco perpetual motion machine
12:00 - Chapter 5 - Perpetual energy from god

[eblkii]

I don't need perpetual motion; I just need something that will last 100 years, and then turn the crank again.

[prestonsingersoll]

Holy shit that last one hit way too close to home. When I was 13 my dad quit his teaching job and cashed out his retirement because he thought that god had told him the designs for an AC solid state battery. He drove my family to bankruptcy trying to put together an incoherent non-sensical mess of a battery that never worked.

[cursedcat]

I invented a perpetual motion machine, I did this by lighting a match, there is a wave of light that is perpetually moving through space forever in one direction

[velzekt]

Every machine can be a perpetual motion machine if you apply enough external energy to it

[damaddog]

As the universe is not subject to the laws of physics, time and space are basically magic, a perpetual motion machine is possible, until we figure out what makes it go, and then it is not.

[donaldasayers]

I'm a horologist and I'm familiar with one particular type of mystery clock. The clock in question has only one hand which can be spun feely, but it always comes to rest pointing to the correct time and left to itself, the hand rotates in 12 hours always indicating the correct time, with no obvious means of propulsion. I know how it works.
When I saw Jones' 'perpetual motion' machine I postulated a connection, so I made my own version at the school where I worked. It ran for many years, intriguing and annoying staff and pupils alike.
My youngest aged about three, dismissed it with the opinion the it 'had batteries in it.' He was correct.

[my_dear_friend_]

An 'almost perpetual' motion machine is just a very efficient machine.

[murrayscott]

I once tried to invent a perpetual motion machine. Piece of junk, I threw it away. Stupid thing kept going faster and faster !

[ArtUniverse]

The biggest challenge in making a perpetual motion machine is hiding the energy source.

[stephen]

The dollar store used to sell these tiny solar powered plastic trinkets that would “move back and forth”. Someone gave us a few and we put in the windowsill. Every morning when the sun came up, you could hear them clattering away until sunset.

Now had they made the solar panel twice as large and put a rechargeable battery in the base, it’s possible those things would last all night as well.

Of course this uses SOLAR POWER, so far from perpetual motion - but the concept to apply to a “perpetual motion” machine is clear: design a machine that uses Earth’s natural cycles to capture energy and convert to motion. The drinking bird is a close match to this - and if placed somewhere that either never ran out of water, or was placed somewhere the cooling effects could occur “naturally”, then it would appear as perpetual motion.

All this is really doing though is the same as wind or solar “renewable” power: taking unused energy from around us, and capturing it for use.