What is Perpetual Motion?
A perpetual motion machine is (as the name
implies) a machine that moves perpetually; it never stops. Ever. So if you
created one today and set it going, it would keep on going until the Big Freeze.
Calling that “a long time” is an understatement of epic proportions.
If you aren’t aware, the Big Freeze is the
theoretical end of, well, everything. It is the point at which the
universe has expanded so much that it reaches a state of zero
thermodynamic free energy. In other words, it is the point at
which the cosmos, as a whole, will be unable to sustain motion. All of
spacetime will be at absolute zero (the coldest known temperature, where
all movement stops).
There
are many designs on the internet that claim
to be working designs for perpetual motion machines. If you look at those
designs, it’s not too farfetched
to think that some of those machines could (if engineered correctly) move
without stopping. And if we could do this, the implications would be
staggering. We would essentially have an eternal source of energy. More
than that, it would be free energy.
Unfortunately, thanks to the fundamental
physics of our universe, perpetual motion machines are impossible.
Now, I know that there are probably a lot
of people who are saying, “You should never say ‘never’ in science.” And fair
enough. I admit that new knowledge could come along; however, in order for
perpetual motion machines to be possible, this new knowledge would have to
break physics as we know it. We’d be wrong about simply everything, and nearly
none of our observations would make any sense.
