My favorite shelf in the home library is where Raymond Roussel, the Comte de Lautréamont, E.T. A. Hoffmann, Leonora Carrington and other writers form a brilliant phalanx of eccentricity and marvel. I ...

Let's start with a water wheel in still water with an electric generator hooked up to it. Let's say it has a ratchet wheel so it can only turn in one direction. I want to calculate the probability ...

Many other attempts would follow, some to prove and some to disprove the possibility of such an invention. Friction and other forces inevitably win out, but the idea of the mythical machine has ...

To the eccentric inventor, perpetual motion probably seems a low-hanging fruit. Sure, those pesky Laws of Thermodynamics tell us that no machine can do work forever without some sort of energy input, ...

A wheel weighted with swinging mallets. A cylinder rotating in a sealed, water-filled container. A siphon that transfers liquid back and forth in a seemingly endless loop. These may sound like the ...

Perpetual motion—it's fun to say that. For some people, perpetual motion machines hold the secret to everlasting free energy that will save the world. To them, it's a machine that is just beyond our ...

The search for a perpetual motion machine has been the chupacabra of physics for centuries. Multiple designs have been made, tested and, ultimately, found lacking. Perpetual motion machines are ...

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 ...