H LV <[email protected]> wrote:
> A perpetual motion machine which is capable of generating enough energy to > keep itself in > motion despite the forces present, but not enough to perform any other > work, such as lifting a weight or propelling itself uphill. > Such a machine would still be useless in the sense of being incapable of > performing work on anything but itself. > It would still be working to overcome friction. As you say, to "work on itself." So, if you reduce friction, it would be able to do a little bit of work on something else. It seem to me it is impossible that the machine happens to produce ju-u-u-st enough energy to overcome friction in initial implementation, by coincidence. If it is balanced on the knife edge of not working at all, it probably *will not* work at all. It will fall right off that knife. Especially because initial implementations are usually suboptimal. It would be even stranger if it turns out there is no way increase efficiency or decrease friction so that it can do more than just self-sustain. That would mean the first implementation was 100% optimal, and cannot be improved. The first prototypes of machines such as airplanes, nuclear reactors and transistors were drastically suboptimal.
