Perpetual Motion

shut off the power of the museum and come back in 1 week, you will see the ball will not turn anymore ;)

Guys, Don't take the name of this thing so literally. It happens to be a provocative tittle for a very cool piece of moving sculpture in my estimation. Were we not surprised when The Never Ending Story did just that. Thanks  Steven Novak

I didn't mean to offend anyone but I am simply stating the laws that govern the universe. You cannot overcome friction unless in a vaccuum where no friction exists, and NOTHING is 100% efficient. Body cells are only 40% efficient, and they areone of the most efficient powerhouses that we know of. Let me restate that I have a Masters Degree in Astrophysics, and yes, many people that have degrees were proven wrong. Very few things in life are impossible, and perpetual motion happens to be one.

Sorry, Gravity and friction still works in a vacuum chamber. :( meaning any machine has forces acting to stop it, gravity will pull any free floating object into the base of the vacuum chamber.

Create a machine inside the vacuum chamber and the friction from the machine's moving parts touching together, no matter how well designed and well lubricated, saps energy, and will inevitably slow any motion to a stop.

Great answer! This kind of motion is also possible here, on Earth - in vacuum. in space is no such thing as gravity, so object will "fly" until all kinetic energy is "spent". On earth u have gravity, u can easily built vacuum chamber, put perpetuum machine inside and - voila. This is my theory though, but i am pretty shure that this will actually work. GrettingZ

You know i find this comment interesting... somebody with a fancy degree once said we cannot ever go past 60mph or we will burn up... Reaching the moon was also deemed impossible by the greatest scientists of the the time. Many things we today take for granted were once coined as impossible by somebody with a diploma, degree... or other form of large ego. My point? My friend... very few things in life are absolutely impossible... this is what we should be teaching our youth. Im 20yrs old...

Ignore everything except the ball, the rail, the pendulum wires that stick through the rails, and the three red cylindrical electromagnets suspended over the rail. The ball turns on the electromagnet when it contacts the pendulum wire completing a circuit between the pendulum and the rail. The electromagnets give the ball a little tug as it approaches, which is just enough to keep it moving. The power source is hidden. Check the video response.

Oh my god. This video is soooooo fake. It keeps repeating. Listen very closely and you can her a voice in the backround every time the ball passes around 2-4 o'clock on the circle. Even in the beginning when the camera pans up you can see it skip. What a dissappointment, and by the way perpetual motion is only possible in a vaccuum, and energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only transformed so it cannot create more energy than it uses. I would know, I have a Masters degree in astrophysics.

the amount of energy got out of the machine cannot exceed the amount of energy put into the machine, eg the amount of energy required to start the ball going around the track

as soon as you use the machine above to actually power anything, it would start to slow, and stop very quickly once all the energy is used.

There is no friction in space. Earth is not touching anything to slow it down. Perpetual motion IS possible in a space's vacuum; an object will continue to move at a constant rate indefinitely as no force is acting against it.

In our planet's environment the atmosphere has particles which act as a force upon any object moving within it. slowing them down.

Although this will not stop the object falling, every machine has friction within it, thus slowing movement to a stop. Questions? :)