The Impossible Machine
The idea of perpetual motion in its modern sense
has always divided people into two categories:
skeptics and aficionados.
While the original tinkerers with perpetual motion
(I'm thinking of da Vinci in particular) were in many
ways on the forefront of physics, the pursuit of
perpetual motion is today scorned by the core body
of scientists as naive and uninformed.
physics--such as fission and fusion--may be cited
as evidence of the vast complexity necessary to
achieve the most rudimentary of reactions in matter.
To the perpetual motion aficionados, fission and
fusion are gifts from a devil or god, like the
proverbial fire stolen by Prometheus. These aren't
things that could be built by one man in one
lifetime, and therefore are not essentially human in
The quest for perpetual motion becomes one in
which human intelligence is supposed to triumph
over the diabolical or god-given powers, powers
seen as relying on human labor and sacrifice.
When humans are free from labor and sacrifice,
they are free to live a life of mind, or focus on the
human problem, as something beyond material
To learn more about the perpetual vocabulary, read
on at DEFINITIONS.
For a peek into my thoughts about a mathematics
specific to perpetual motion, see PERPETUAL