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From: gjk@talcott.UUCP (Greg Kuperberg)
Newsgroups: net.misc,net.physics
Subject: Re: perpetual motion
Message-ID: <368@talcott.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 19-Mar-85 01:06:11 EST
Article-I.D.: talcott.368
Posted: Tue Mar 19 01:06:11 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 22-Mar-85 02:55:05 EST
References: <608@vortex.UUCP>
Organization: Harvard
Lines: 27
Xref: watmath net.misc:7594 net.physics:2270

> All these stories about miracle inventions being suppressed are usually
> just so much rot.  I've heard the same story for years about broadcast
> power and Tesla.  I have yet to see any evidence that it is other than
> a fairy tale.
> 
> --Lauren--

While it is certainly true that there is no concrete evidence for perpetual
motion machines, the problem with them is really more fundamental.  Since a
PMM displaces air currents (and to the best of my knowledge, no one has
tried to invent a PMM that works only in a vacuum), it must actually create
energy instead of simply conserving it.  According to Einstein, if you
can create energy, you can also create *momentum*.  The conservation of
momentum is so fundamental (and easy to verify) that even most laymen be-
lieve it; this is why there have been so few "momentum creating" machines.
Unfortunately, most of the public doesn't know about this implication.
Thus these "inventors" are trying to devise a machine which would break a
law of physics which *they themselves* accept, although they don't know it.
Therefore you don't have to wait to "see some evidence";  you can be almost
certain that such people don't know what they are talking about from the
moment they mention PMM's.
---
			Greg Kuperberg
		     harvard!talcott!gjk

"No Marxist can deny that the interests of socialism are higher than the
interests of the right of nations to self-determination." -Lenin, 1918