Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. FRIDAY, JULY 6, 1923. PERPETUAL MOTION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLIV, Issue 9860, 6 July 1923, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. FRIDAY, JULY 6, 1923. PERPETUAL MOTION.

There are many people who believe perpetual motion is unattainable. Therefore a little paragraph cabled out from America two days ago which claimed that this prize of ages had been ‘“discovered,” was not to be taken too seriously, even though the inventor bore a Scotch name. Further news published today, giving a rather vague outline of the application of the new principle, confirms such earlier hesitation to accept the first outburst of enthusiasm at its face value. The invention now claims nothing more than a lessening of the frictional loss of the cog wheel and an immensely rapid gearing down, enabling a lowpowered engine to lift a gigantic weight. In principle there is nothing new there. In application there is something worth considering, else the Carnegie technologists would not have witnessed the trial with amazement.” So far as science has been able to ascertain, there is no inexhaustible source of perpetual motion discoverable anywhere except in the rotations of the stars and planets. They rotate because there is nothing to stop them —the thing we call “space” being assumed to have no resistance. Having been once started, they cannot stop. We dare not think back to the beginnings of infinity to ask what started the stars to move or wliat created the power which started them, because that would befog us, and it is not essential to our present theme. When we leave the starry firmament, with its freedom from' resistance, and confront the problems of terra firma we find that energy is resisted by gravitation, friction, of the engine parts, pressure of' atmosphere, and the dead-weight resistance of the task attempted. A saw meets resistance because the fibres of the wood cling tenaciously together. The winch over a well of water meets resistance because gravitation is

pulling at the bucket. A motorcar takes power to drive because it lias to resist tbe effort of gravitation to bold it where it is, also tbe friction on tbe axles and other parts, and tbe air pressure I which increases with speed. In ! order to overcome these resistlances there is necessary a constant output of energy- —“elbow- ! grease” at the well winch, coal and steam in the sawmill, petrol combustion in the motor cylinder. So long- as the labour uses up fuel and necessitates a replenishment at the source of energy, we are missing perpetual motion as understood. It is not foolish to try to discover the secret, for the great George Stephenson and others tried hard |at the search; and it is sometimes a young man who ignores ; other people’s conservatism who really reveals a new principle. We believe electricians have abandoned hope of being able to convert fuel consumption into electrical energy and reapply that energy at greater power than the energy by which it was created. Hence, until a genius comes along, it seems that the inventive mechanic will most, successfully approach the benefits of inexhaustible perpetual motion by finding how to reduce resistance, how to get energy from cheaper and more abundant fuels, or how to harness more

easily the enormous waste energy of the blazing sun and the moving waters. The American inventor, Mr Morrison, is apparently working on the first of these hopes, but one needs further information before deciding whether, in lifting a 12-ton weight by gearing down from a 5-n.p. engine, he has accomplished anything that is impossible to the mechanics of Ashburton.