| "Leaving people ignorant about the most elementary principles of physics is the major reason why so many a noble-born and universally educated persons make the most primitive errors and nourish the most ridiculous fears and thus become victims to charlatans and frauds." Abbé Nollet, 18th cty. |
It is easy to say "perpetual motion machines cannot be built, because physics disallows it." This sums up an empirical result, but the statement is of no help if you want to find out exactly why a specific machine will not work in the expected way. This collection of examples and explanations shall provide an insight how concepts are analyzed and flaws in machines (not necessarily perpetual) can be identified.
The arguments of PMM constructors are almost always almost the same. Typically they do not or only partially understand the physical basics behind their machines. Here you will find some information how to analyze perpetual motion machines. In order to keep things simple, mathematics will be used only on a very basic level. Honestly spoken, math is not needed as long as we can explain the non-workability of a machine by using elementary principles.
As we have a closer look at technical concepts and machines, this collection of pages, although labelled "Physics", contains a good deal of engineering aspects. You will find many aspects and descriptions of the history of machine elements. By this you may get a better impression of the technical potential inventors of perpetual motion machines had at their hands. We should keep in mind that early technical devices could not be build to the degree of precision which is available today.
This physics section is work in progress.