Perpetual Motion Machines Versus the Laws of Thermodynamics

With the skyrocketing costs of fossil fuel derived energy, are power sources modeled after perpetual motion and free energy experiments a viable solution?


By: Vanessa Uy


Visualize this scenario; A young person – assuming already knowledgeable about the workings of electric motors, dynamos, and rechargeable batteries – suddenly gets a “eureka” moment during a tinkering sessions. He or she proposes “What if I connect an electric motor to drive a dynamo to recharge a rechargeable battery which supplies power to the motor, wouldn’t this set up run forever?” Sure enough, the set-up did ran for awhile due to the charge left on the rechargeable battery, but inevitably grinds to a halt. Undaunted by this set back, our young and curious “explorer” devises other set-ups based on perpetual motion and free energy concepts. Like a light bulb surrounded by photovoltaic cells which are wired to power the light bulb – which logically would make the light bulb shine forever. After frequent and fruitless attempts of other similar devices, our young experimenter finally calls it quits.

Assuming our young person is fortunate enough to afford higher education – specifically Physics – he or she will look back at her days of folly undertaking the fool’s errand of the fruitless search of free energy and perpetual motion. Especially after enrolling in a class that focuses on the Laws of Thermodynamics the bane of perpetual motion and free energy’s existence. But are these laws really stifling our attempts to gain independence from money-hungry – not to mention environmentally polluting - multi-national energy conglomerates, or is it like what the great scientist and visionary R. Buckminster Fuller used to say: “There is no shortage of energy, only a shortage of imagination.” Before proceeding further, lets examine the three Laws of Thermodynamics and how they serve as the proverbial “glass ceiling” when it comes to pursuing our dreams of free energy.

The First Law of Thermodynamics revolves around this concept of conservation of energy, which many see as an axiom without proof. It states that energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be transformed from one form to another like work or heat. Also that work input should equal to work output – or unity in 100% efficient engine. Since 100% efficient engines don’t exist, power input is always less than power output. In short you can’t get something from nothing. So overunity machines, machines whose power output is greater that the power input - violates this law.

But is the First Law really that ironclad? Fortunately there’s a loophole in the first law: If energy can’t be created, can it be recaptured and used over and over. Perhaps the motion, the heat and the light can be converted back into energy to perform the work over again. This assumption lies behind our young experimenter’s first set-up previously discussed, and so does the next set-up discussed previously. The explanation on why our motor-dynamo-rechargeable battery set-up and the light bulb surrounded by photovoltaic cells set-up is due to its violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics – also termed as the “zeroth” principle of thermodynamics – which states that heat can’t be completely converted (or recycled) completely back to work because some energy is irrecoverable as waste heat. Just as water won’t run uphill naturally or under its own accord, heat won’t run “uphill” by going from a cooler body to a hotter body or environment. It goes only the other way. Physicists’ back in the 19th Century who studied such phenomena labeled it as the “Second Law” only because it is discovered after the first law. The term “zeroth principle” is more apt because The Second Law of Thermodynamics’ overall influence supersedes the first, the laws governing energy and heat flow – or the tendency towards maximum entropy - really is the death knell of perpetual motion machines and to our hopes for getting free energy.

The Third Law of Thermodynamics states that this one-way flow of heat and energy – the tendency towards maximum entropy – never ends. This increased entropy or randomness of a system even extends right down to the atomic level. Even further if you include Max Planck’s principles of one quanta at a time energy flow.

The three Laws of Thermodynamics has even been concisely summarized as: 1) you can’t win – free energy and overunity are a no-no 2) you can’t break even – sorry no perpetual motion; and 3) you can’t get out of this game. Science fiction writer and visionary Arthur C. Clarke said a few years back that the Laws’ of Thermodynamics – especially the zeroth principle – are a good thing. This is so because if everything around us would spontaneously become hotter because heat and energy no longer follow their one-way flow, our planet will slowly warm up to the temperature of the planet Venus. He even added that free energy would be a crime against humanity given the catastrophic outcome.