School of Chemistry, UNSW

Professor Hibbert's Perpetual Motion Pages

The first law violators

Mark Anthony Zimara

Italian philosopher, physician, astrologer and alchemist (1460 - 1523), invented the most magic perpetual motion machine - the self blowing windmill.
This was published in:

Directions for constructing a Perpetual Motion Machine without the Use of Water or a Weight

Robert Fludd

Robert Fludd in 1618 proposed a water mill in which an overshot water wheel both ground corn and turned an Archimedes screw to return the water to the top of the wheel.

John Wilkins, Bishop of Chester

In the 1670's the Bishop of Chester suggested a number of perpetual motion machines, including a number that relied on "The Natural Affection of Gravity". These are some of the earliest overbalancing wheels, wheels that are always heavier on one side than the other.

Johan Ernst Elias Bessler ("Orffyreus")

300 perpetual motion machines invented in the early 18th century, eventually making a wheel that rotated for forty days in a locked room in the Landgrave of Hesse's castle. No one was allowed to study it closely, simply observe the results of its action on a rope which passed through a hole in the wall. After a noted Professor of Leiden had inspected the machine and pronounced it true, the inventor flew into a rage and destroyed it! As Bessler was a clockmaker, it is surmised that he secreted a clockwork mechanism in the large axle of the wheel.

Georg Andreas Boekler

German alchemist who published Theatricum Machinarum Novum in 1686. Lots of Archimedian screws, with cogs etc. often with overbalanced wheels.

Robert Boyle

Yes even reputable scientists have had a fascination with perpetual motion. (As indeed with spiritualism &etc - but this is another story). Boyle (1627-91) believed in the power of capillary action to draw up the water and cause a perpetual fountain.
Others could not believe that the weight of the water in the wider part of the tube would not be sufficient to force out the water in the narrower.

W. Leaton

In 1866 W Leaton proposed an oscillating pendulum which used a clock-like mechanism to provide power.

E.P. Willis

A Connecticut machinist built a device with an overbalancing wheel, weights that moved back and forward and a flywheel that apparently rotated endlessly. The enitire assembly was housed in a glass case. Willis charged admission to see it and was always careful not to claim it was a perpetual motion machine. He moved to New York in 1856 and set up shop again. Eventually it was found that compressed air from one of the struts in the case drove the flywheel, which drove the overbalanced wheel (not the other way round)

J. E. W. Keely

1875 saw the unveiling of Keely's engine and generator. This was a complex apparatus with reservoirs, pipes, valves and gauges. Water was poured into it and vast pressures demonstrated. He had produced "etheric vapour" via "vibratory energy". The Keely Motor Company was formed with a capitalisation of $1 million. When he died in 1898, it was discovered that, as with Willis, the real motive power of his device was compressed air.

D. B. Hibbert

Not to be outdone by these cranks and charlatans here is my variant on the overbalancing wheels. The inner part of the wheel is made of rubber, causing the ball at the top of the traverse to bounce back along the rod to provide enough moment to maintain the movement of the wheel. Et voila!
By the way, please do not write and tell me why it will not work - I know.

Magnetic chums

I have been fortunate to have been contacted by a number of people who ask about their pet ideas. Many of them use magnets repelling each other. They mostly are analogues of my bouncing wheel above. The interaction between opposite poles of magnets, is really the same as the bounce of the rubber balls. While is is possible to cause motion (like in magnetic levitation vehicles), it is not possible to arrange magnets to sustain motion without the input of energy.

Back to 'Perpetual Motion.'

Diversions