Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 May 1882 — Perpetual Motion. [ARTICLE]

Perpetual Motion.

WILL IT EVEB BE ACCOMPLISHED. Many ingenious and learned minds have given thought to this problem, in times past, and have found very approximate methods of accomplishing some kind of “perpetual motion.” These soon gave up their schemes as not practical; but there are thousands of others, having some mechanical ingenuity but no learning—especially in the higher problems of mathematics and mechanics —who are literally “possessed” or haunted by this problem of “perpetual motion.” It is an irritant in their brains that will not let them rest. The history of the search for perpetual motion does not afford a single instance of ascertained success ; all that wears any appearance of probability remains secret, an<Mike other secrets, cannot be defended in any satisfactory way against the opinions of the skeptical, who have in their favor in this instance, an appeal to learned authorities 'against the principle of all such machines, and the total want of operativeness in all known pratical results. Published statements afford sorry examples of talents and ingenuity strangely misapplied. Some, but very few, are slightly redeemed from contempt by a glimpse of novelty. Of genius, all are deficient; and the reproduction of known fallacies shows a remarkable ignorance of first principles on one side, and of the most ordinary sources of information on the other. One of the grossest fallacies of the mind is that of taking for granted that ideas of mechanical constructions, apparently the result of accident, must of necessity be quite original. The history of all invention fairly leads to the conclusion that, were all that is known to be swept from the face of the earth, the whole would be reinvented in coming ages. The most doubtful “originality” is that which an inventor attributes to his ignorance of all previous plans, coupled with an isblated position in life. It has been attempted to .effect perpetual motion by water, mercury, sand, levers, inclined planes, Archimedean screws, Barker’s mills, water wheels, single wheels, drum wheels, multiplied wheels, and other mechanical means. One might almost desire to know what has not been put on trial to make wheelwork continually turn itself. A thousand failures do not prove the thing impossible, because a thousand persons may have taken *a wrong direction. But it proves this: that something, however trifling, is wanting; so small, it may be, perhaps, that no one has hitherto taken the trouble to look for it! Suppose it may be something to act as a lubricator, or something as a detent at a particular point. Does not this at once suggest the weakness and feebleness of such a machine for any utilitarian purpose? It must be plain that it would, at best, be little more than an exquisitely curious toy. —Illustrated News.