On Mon, May 27, 2019, 5:18 PM Jed Rothwell <[email protected] wrote:
> 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. > Instead of the friction being dissipative it would be generative, but the amount of friction would have to be in a "Goldilocks zone" - too little or too much and it dies. An empirical study of perpetual motion would consist of identifying the goldilocks zone, but it would require a new physics to explain it. Harry >
