Image source: http://www.basfeijen.nl/evolution/pic/perpetualmotion.jpg
According to Wikipedia,perpetual motion is (quoted) " motion that continues indefinitely without any external source of energy" or "the motion of a hypothetical machine which,once activated,would run forever unless subject to an external force or to wear".Therefor I find a big difference between perpetual motion and changing one form of energy to another form of energy.
The laws of energy is simple."energy cannot be created or destroyed,but only be transformed from one form to another."It is constantly happening all around us.For example,think of a household electrical kettle.You put water in it and switch it on.After a while it turn cold water to boiling water.This will not be possible if the kettle is not using electrical energy.So it converts electrical energy to heat.Any object that is in motion while in contact with another object will generate heat due to friction.It is the by- product of changing one form of energy to another form of energy.
I wanted to experiment with magnets to see if I can create a kinetic device that would keep on moving once it started.I started making designs using a CAD(computer aided drawing) program on my computer.It looked good and I was convinced that I have found an design that will work.After buying magnets and having parts made by an precision engineering shop,it was time to put it all together and see if it works.
To my surprise,it did not work due to one factor that I did not think about.That is balance.Not the type that people use to walk on ropes using balancing poles,but magnetic balance.I call it nature`s balance.No matter what I tried, the magnets always balances each other out by ending in an state of equilibrium.That meant it was back to my CAD program. After a few,long nights in front of the my computer and many different designs,I finally had a design that looked promising.
The next day I went back to the engineering shop with my new design.During the next few days,while waiting for the parts,I went on to the Internet to see if someone had made something that is similar to my design.What a shock it was when I found out that not only was my design already build,but it had a name.It was called a V-gate.
One thing that I had noticed was that a lot of people called it an perpetual motion device.In some cases people even called it a "free energy device".I disagree with this,because it is still an device that converts one form of energy to another form of energy.In this case magnetic energy is used to create kinetic energy.Therefor I see it the same as an car`s engine which uses fuel to create motion.
So what about perpetual motion?The word "motion" means that what ever is used to proof the existence of perpetual motion is going to move,therefor it will have kinetic energy.To create kinetic energy without using any other form of energy some laws of the universe will have to be broken.
One should take in consideration the laws of thermodynamics,which is basically the following:
First law: "Energy is always conserved, it cannot be created or destroyed. That means energy can be converted from one form into another".
Second law: "In all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state." This is also referred to as entropy."
Third law: "As temperature approaches absolute zero, the entropy of a system approaches a minimum."
Fourth law: "When body A is in thermal equilibrium with body B and body B is in thermal equilibrium with body C, then body A is in thermal equilibrium with body C."
That facts is simple.Perpetual motion will always stay at an theory level unless an way is found to break the laws of thermodynamics.Therefor designing an device that converts magnetic energy to kinetic energy is definitely not perpetual motion,but an interesting thing to do.It would not have been so interesting to design,if I did not have a CAD program and a computer,for all the research,to design it on.
