Perpetual motion

[Mercator]

(don't laugh just yet)

Wessel di Wesseli, some Belgian artist/inventor came up with an idea for a perpetual motion machine...

He was on a Dutch TV show (Barend & Van Dorp) this week and tried to explain the idea. I only came in about halfway through, and physics isn't my best anyway... But it's always interesting anyway, seeing people propose the solution to all energy problems at negligible costs. But well, he said he had been in discussion with plenty of scientists and was still convinced, so it's always nice to think he might actually be right.

Anyway, first visit his site:

http://www.perpetuummobile.info

It's in Dutch, but the only interesting content is right at the top anyway. 1 picture and 5 animations to show the principle of the idea.

If the pictures don't make it quite clear enough, I believe this is the idea:
A bunch of accordeon-like "floats" are attached to two "circular" rails in a basin of water. At the top of the basin the rails come closer to eachother to contract the "accordeons" at the bottom of the basin they expand.

So the accordeons go under water when contracted, presumably with the right weight etc. to sink down. When they reach the bottom, the accordeons expand, increasing buoyancy and floating back to the surface... repeat.

Bash away...

[Dauphin]

Has he reached the "My prototype almost works!" stage?

The error seems to be that he has ignored the fact that energy is needed to expand the ballasts at the bottom and/or to compress them at the top.

[SlowwHand]

There should be a means of bottling children.
Prime examples of perpetual motion.

[Mercator]

Originally posted by Big Crunch
Has he reached the "My prototype almost works!" stage?

I don't think he has gone beyond the "Wow! These animations look really cool!" stage... He did mention some formulas on TV, but he lost me there.

The error seems to be that he has ignored the fact that energy is needed to expand the ballasts at the bottom and/or to compress them at the top.

But that's done automatically by the distance between the rails? Although possibly at least the expanding at the bottom would take more energy than the sinking ballast has...
Giving it enough momentum to "push it open" would require a heavier ballast, but the heavier the ballast, the more it needs to expand to be able to get enough buoyancy to be able to go up again, requiring more momentum etc... Not to mention it needs to have enough energy to be contracted again.
(Wow, I might actually be making some sense there)

So then in all likelihood a model would have the ballasts sink on one side, and rise on the other, until the ballasts actually reach the top/bottom and then it would just stop dead. Right?

[Rogan Josh]

It is no different from a 'frictionless' ball rolling in a valley between two hills. If you start some way up one hill and let it go, it will roll down into the valley and up the other hill where it will stop and then roll back to its starting place.

Weeee Perpetual Motion!!

In fact it IS perpetual motion (if you can keep the energy loss to zero) but it is absolutely useless, because all the energy in the system has been added by you to get the ball up the hill and as soon as you start taking energy out of the system, the ball will stop (and you will only get the energy back that you put in, minus any energy loss on the way).

It is the same thing here - if you can remove all energy loss from the system it will be in perfect balance and go on forever, converting potential energy into kinetic and back again. In principle it could osscilate forever. But it is absolutely useless since you will only be able to take out the energy that you put in before the thing stops.

[Mercator]

Right... He says if you can scientifically disprove it you'll win the "WESSEL Dl WESSELLI DYNERGY AWARD", 100,000 euros (in kind) and eternal glory.
(His e-mail address is also on that page)

Oh well, I bet it would look really nice for a piece of art though. And if you hide the plug well enough you might even convince some visitors.

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
There should be a means of bottling children.
Prime examples of perpetual motion.

no, i once did this expirimnet with a kid. apparently, if you stop feeding them even they run out of energy eventually.

damn entropy.

[Wraith]

Did he call it PEG?

Damn... can't choose taglines for this one. I'll have to use both.

Wraith
"Lisa! In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"
-- Homer ("The Simpsons")

"Very funny. Okay, if you people don't want to take perpetual energy seriously, then fine. No power for you."
-- Professor Membrane ("Invader Zim")

[Lincoln]

I have always wondered how those little toy ducks work that continually get a drink of water and bob up and down. I don't think that perpetual motion is the problem but making the motion useful. As soon as you take something from the motion it stops until you give it back!

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Mercator
Right... He says if you can scientifically disprove it you'll win the "WESSEL Dl WESSELLI DYNERGY AWARD", 100,000 euros (in kind) and eternal glory.
(His e-mail address is also on that page)

Is this sort of like Ken Hovind's "contest?"

[Mercator]

I'd never heard of that guy, but I searched a little on the web...

I guess it is sort of like that, although not nearly as ridiculous. It's only about disproving his construction rather than an entire theory about the origin of the universe, after all.

He must surely have some twisted conditions to it, though, since he says he's gone in debate with scientists already and is still sure he's right.