Waltzing hammers ... sounds like a mashup of Czarist Russia with the Reds; but in fact, it is art which relates to the possibility of a "really smart" Maxwell's Demon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXqG3npJgbk Of course, there is no greater heresy to standard Fizzix than the mechanical (or thermal) version of perpetual motion, as epitomized by the pendulum or "overbalanced wheel". These are "first kind" offenders and will not be tolerated... yet many of them are 99+% efficient and crazy inventors are always looking for that extra fractional percent. The multi-axis pendulum such as the one depicted in the video can be 99.5 % based on the start-up loss vs work accomplished, and the multi-axis version will actually accelerate for a period during the run time, but alas - it always runs down, in the end. "fonly" 06 % extra was available :-) The fact that there is a period of temporary acceleration give the hope (false hope?) that this feature can be optimized (as with singing bowls). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion We can generally agree that while this version of perpetual motion of the first kind has never been proven to happen in practice, except in the mind of a few deluded individuals - the possibility of a "smart" machine has always had its foot in the door. This generally comes under the classification of a "demon". The gist of the argument is that entropy can be overcome with intelligence, or else ... that adding another ingredient (as in SMOT) will close the loop. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon Now, in the context of waltzing hammers, let us consider the case of a "really smart demon"- and one which is able to transfer a bit of energy from one axis of rotation to another. As mentioned in this video, that does not happen normally. Never mind that the A.I. methodology to do this is not apparent (it has been proposed). This kind of demon can break through chaos, understand its present status and energy state and calculate all possible future attainable states in very complex evolving relationships, and do this on the fly ... plus it can then make adjustments to trajectories in a time frame of 10-100 nanoseconds by transferring momentum between arms with minimal loss. That will probably be done with magnetics. Yet in the end, we are still left with the problem that gravity must be converted into excess work for the device to sustain itself (not to mention a bit of electricity to power the demon). With waltzing hammers, most of us would strongly doubt that perpetual motion is possible, even with a micro-supercomputer, since free energy of some kind would need to be converted gainfully... but... the nature of both mechanical loss and the mental delusion (of a perpmo) - is that when things become chaotic, they become unpredictable... and this may be preferable to the alternative. Quien sabe?
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