Apparent Perpetual Motion Machines
Even though they fully respect the laws of thermodynamics, there are a few conceptual or real devices that appear to be in "perpetual motion." Closer analysis reveals that they actually "consume" some sort of natural resource or latent energy, such as the phase changes of water or other fluids or small natural temperature gradients. In general, extracting large amounts of work using these devices is difficult to impossible.
Read more about this topic: Perpetual Motion
Famous quotes containing the words apparent, perpetual, motion and/or machines:
“The apparent rulers of the English nation are like the imposing personages of a splendid procession: it is by them the mob are influenced; it is they whom the spectators cheer. The real rulers are secreted in second-rate carriages; no one cares for them or asks after them, but they are obeyed implicitly and unconsciously by reason of the splendour of those who eclipsed and preceded them.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“Who shall describe the inexpressable tenderness and immortal life of the grim forest, where Nature, though it be midwinter, is ever in her spring, where the moss-grown and decaying trees are not old, but seem to enjoy a perpetual youth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“As I walked on the glacis I heard the sound of a bagpipe from the soldiers’ dwellings in the rock, and was further soothed and affected by the sight of a soldier’s cat walking up a cleated plank in a high loophole designed for mus-catry, as serene as Wisdom herself, and with a gracefully waving motion of her tail, as if her ways were ways of pleasantness and all her paths were peace.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If men do not keep on speaking terms with children, they cease to be men, and become merely machines for eating and for earning money.”
—John Updike (b. 1932)