PERPETUAL MOTION: The Inventors' Paradox.

Progress, Volume I, Issue 2, 1 December 1905, Page 35

PERPETUAL MOTION: The Inventors' Paradox.

By H. H. Rayward, M.E., Medallist, Techl. Assocn., London.

PART 11. Amongst those who have vainly pursued the "" Will o' the Wisp " Perpetual Motion, we find mci from all walks of life, including a bishop, several professors of Philosopy, barons, knights, doctors of medicine and science, barristers, smiths, saddlers, millers and engineers ; and the writer, m searching the musty records of the past, has been amazed to find that men of learning have been the propounders of contrivances which were more ■obviously ridiculous an 1 fore-doomed to failure than those emanating from less enlightened sources. Some of the scientists, who pursued their investigations a century or two ago, appear to have been so dominated by enthusiastic belief m the practicability of their schemes, that they succeeded in •deluding others as well as themselves into the belief that their machiaes not only could be made to work, but actually had kept m unaided motion for some considerable period. For instance, in the year 17 17, Orffyreus, a famous mathematician of his day, devised a gravity ball machine almost precisely similar to that of Dr. Conradus Schweirs, which was illustrated in the first part of this article, see Fig. 3. Although it is obviously impossible that Orffyreus' machine can have worked at all, yet the Landgrave of Wessenstem, on the 27th May, 1 718, certified to the alleged fact that the contrivance had worked continuously in an apartment in his castle near Bassil, for eight weeks, viz., from November 17 17 to January 1718 ! Such is the power of faith or the art of the conjurer !

Figure 7 represents another of Orffyreus' perpetual motion machines, one of the 300 odd contrivances having the same object which are said to have emanated from his fertile brain. The rim, 1, ■of a wheel was connected by tangential spokes, 2, to the hub, 3. Each spoke was fashioned to form a rolling way for one of a series of balls, 4, and it was supposed that when the wheel was set in motion, the balls upon one side of the axle would roll towards the rim, while those upon the other side ■would roll towards the hub. The ball weights upon one side of the wheel would therefore have mechanical advantage over those upon the other 4de, and would cause revolution of the wheel. It is said that this contrivance, as in the case of that by the same inventor previously referred to, fulfilled the object of the inventor, but one must hold the worthy doctor guilty of charlatanism, as the wheel certainly did not revolve by its inherent power, and means must have been brought to bear upon it other than those which have been communicated to posterity by the doctor, and writers of his period.

Figure 8 gives another illustration of a machine depending for its suppositious "motobihty" upon the projection of weights from the rim of a wheel upon one side of its axle. The weights, numbered from i to 8, were hinged at one end of the rim, B, of a wheel, while each weight was connected at its opposite end to a rod, X, operated upon by a pinion, H. As the wheel revolved (it must certainly have been impelled by some outside influence !) the pinions of all the rods, one after the other, came into gear with an eccentrically placed toothed sector, A, whereby the rods were pushed outwardly, and the weights turned upon their hinges, so that they became further from the centre of the wheel when upon one side, than when upon the other side of the axle. The inventor of this apparatus overlooked the element of friction, and the obvious fact that the expenditure of power involved in raising the weights and in turning them outwardly at the top, and m drawing them m at the bottom of the wheel, was considerably more than could be gamed by the leverage due to the projection of the weights.

Figure 9 illustrates appiratus which to the average reader will appear to possess greater promise of success than the arrangements hitherto described. The cylinder, 1, was mounted upon bearings, 2, and contained fluid in which were immersed the cork floats, 3. Each of these floats had a spindle, 4, passing diametrically through, and, projecting beyond the cylmder, and having weights, "5, one at each end. As the cylinder revolved the floats were supposed to rise one after the other through the fluid therein, with the result that the weights upon the float spindles were, one of them, drawn closer to the cylinder, while the other was simultaneously moved away from it. The hopes of the inventor that the cylinder would be constantly overbalanced upon one side of the axle, and therefore compelled to revolve, never reached fruition

Figure 10 shows a contrivance patented in England in 1882. The endless chain of buckets, B. is driven by water falling from a tank, P, and revolves a geared wheel and pinion, and by a cam sustains the vibra-

tion of a heavy pendulum, Q. To this pendulum is connected a sector beam having chains, H, which operate the pumps, X, whereby the water employed to drive the bucket chain is returned to the tank, P, from the lower tank, O.

Figure 1 1 illustrates a most ingenious contrivance known as the " Air-buoyed wheel." The tubular arms, i, projected from the boss, 2, which was revolvably mounted upon a fixed hollow axle, 3, through which was a passage, 4,. This passage was so placed that it came into correspon ence with the opsn end of each of the arms as the boss, 2, revolved. At the end of each arm was a bladder, 5, which, whe the arm reached its lower position, was inflated with air, forced into the hollow axle by a bellows, 6. The bellows was operated by a rod, 7, from a crank, 8, fix d upon a shaft, 9, which was revolved by the bevil wheels, 10, and 11, and rod, 12, from a crank, 13, upon the axle, 3. The arms revolved in a tank which contained water up to the level of line 14. Each bladder was fitted with a discharge valve, 15, having a projecting lever, operated, urmg the rotation of the arm, by the opening nd closing tappets, 16 and 7 respectively. The air bladders were supposed to be filled one after the other as their respective arms reached a vertical position at the bottom of their travel, the buoyancy of the bladders caused the boss to turn, and as each bladder reached the tappet, 16, the valve lever struck against it and opened the valve, 15 ; when the bladder commenced to descend the pressure of the water drove out the air ; the tappet, 17, then closed the valve to prevent the entrance of witer. It is quite evident that this chain of events would have gone on recurring with unerring regularity, but for one trifling fact that was overlooked by the inventor, viz., that the factional resistance and power required to compress the air were greater than the power generated by the buoys.

Figure 12 is particularly interesting as illustrating a contrivance devised by Sir W. Congreve, who subsequently attained distinction by his invention of the signal rocket. The rollers i, 2, and 3, are carried m a frame, 4, and around them runs a continuous band ,5, of sponge, a chain, 6, of weights surrounds the sponge and travels with it. Every part of the sponge band and chain is so accur. tely uniform in weight, that the perpendicular side will in all positions of the band and chain be in equilibrium with the hypotenuse upon the principle of the inclined plane. The frame is placed in a cistern, 7, containing water, in which the lower part of the apparatus is immersed. As the weights hang perpendicularly upon the vertical side of the frame the sponge band is not compressed by them, ard the pores being opei, the water, at the position where the band meets the surface, will rise to a certain height ? bove its level, and thereby create a load, which load will not exist upon the inclined side of the frame because upon that side the c am of weights compresses the band at the water's edge, and squeezes out the water, so that the band ascends the inclined side of the frame in a dry state.