Jennifer Coopersmith
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198716747
- eISBN:
- 9780191800955
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198716747.003.0002
- Subject:
- Physics, Particle Physics / Astrophysics / Cosmology, History of Physics
Perpetual motion—a perpetually acting machine— had been attempted for so many years, and in so many ways, but was never successful (the French Royal Academy of Sciences said ‘Non’, no more ...
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Perpetual motion—a perpetually acting machine— had been attempted for so many years, and in so many ways, but was never successful (the French Royal Academy of Sciences said ‘Non’, no more submissions). But did this mean that something was being conserved? This was a question that could barely be put—let alone answered—and was not finally resolved until the riddle of energy was solved in the middle of the nineteenth century. However, the sheer variety of ways in which perpetual motion was sought, and was failing, was in itself illuminating (overbalancing wheels, perpetually cycling water or air, chemical, magnetic, and adhesive attractions, gravity shields, and so on). Stevin famously used the impossibility of perpetual motion in a reductio ad absurdum proof (using his ‘wreath of spheres’).Less
Perpetual motion—a perpetually acting machine— had been attempted for so many years, and in so many ways, but was never successful (the French Royal Academy of Sciences said ‘Non’, no more submissions). But did this mean that something was being conserved? This was a question that could barely be put—let alone answered—and was not finally resolved until the riddle of energy was solved in the middle of the nineteenth century. However, the sheer variety of ways in which perpetual motion was sought, and was failing, was in itself illuminating (overbalancing wheels, perpetually cycling water or air, chemical, magnetic, and adhesive attractions, gravity shields, and so on). Stevin famously used the impossibility of perpetual motion in a reductio ad absurdum proof (using his ‘wreath of spheres’).
