Is Perpetual Motion Machine possible ?

In Isaac Asimov’s novel “The God Themselves”, in the year 2070 one scientist accidentally stumbles upon the greatest discovery of all time, The Electron Pump, which produces unlimited energy for free. For his achievement, he becomes the greatest scientist of all time for satisfying the thirst for energy. Asimov wrote “It was the Santa Claus and Aladdin’s Lamp of the whole World”. Soon the world is full with free energy and pushes aside all the oil, gas, nuclear companies. “Where is all this free energy coming from?” he asks himself. Eventually, he uncovers the secret that the free energy comes with a terrible price. The energy is coming from a hole in space which connect the current universe to parallel universe. Later the influx of the energy into the current universe started a chain reaction and eventually destroyed the stars, galaxies, creating a supernova and destroying the Earth with it.

The popularity of perpetual motion machine is widespread. On an episode of “The Simpsons”, Lisa builds her own perpetual motion machine during a teachers strike. This prompts Homer to declare sternly, “Lisa, get in here… in this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics.”

Since recorded history, the holy grail of the inventors, scientists has been fabled “Perpetual Motion Machine”, a device that runs forever without any loss of energy or a device that can create more energy than it consumes. In the coming years, as our world runs out of the Oil, Gas, there will be enourmous pressure to find new sources of energy. Soaring gas prices, falling production, increased pollution – all are fueling a renewed intense interest in energy. And soon scientist will be looking towards in making of “Perpetual Motion Machine”.

But is energy is so precious, then what is the likelihood of our creating a perpetual motion machine? Are these devices really impossible or would their creation require a revision in the laws of physics ?

Perpetual Motion Machines through History

Building a perpetual motion machine is not a new concept, its an ancient one and lots of scientists tried hard in building one. The first recorded attempt was in the eighth century in Bavaria. It was based on the series of small magnets attached to a wheel, like a Ferris wheel. The wheel was places on the top of bigger magnet on the floor. As each magnet on the wheel passed over the bigger stationary magnet, it was supposed to attaract and replled by the bigger magnet and therefore, pushing the wheel and creating a perpetual motion.

Another attempt design was invented by Indian Philsopher “Bhaskara” in 1150 AD, who proposed a wheel that would run forever by adding a weight to the rim, causing the wheel to spin. Work would be done by the weight as it made a revolution and returns back to its original position. By iterating this over and over again, Bhaskara claimed that one could extract unlimited work for free.

In 1635 AD, the first patent was granted for the perpetual motion machine. By 1712AD “Johann Bessler” had analysed some 300 different models and proposed a design of his own (which later exposed as fraud). The great renaissance painter and scientist “Leonardo Da Vinci” also made ingenious sketches in his notebook of self propelling perpetual motion machine, including a centrifugal pump and a chimney jack used to turn a roasting skewer over a fire.

Laws of Thermodynamics and Boltzmann

1. The total amount of matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed.

2. The total amount of Entropy always increases.

3. You can never reach Absolute Zero.

These laws are the core and basic of thermodynamics and are marked as the tragedy as well as triumph. One of the key figures in formulating these laws, the great German physicist “Ludwig Boltzmann”, committed suicide, in part because of the controversy he created in formulating these laws.

Although Newtonian physics was firmly established in 19th century, Boltzmann knew that these laws has never been rigorously applied to the controversial concept of Atoms ( concept that was not accepted by many scientist at that time ). Newton showed that mechanical forces were sufficient to determine the motion of all objects. Boltzmann derived many laws of gases by a simple assumption that gases are made of tiny atoms. In one of the greatest masterpieces in physics, Boltzmann ( and independently “James Clerk Maxwell” ) mathematically showed how this simple assumption could result in dazzling new laws and open up a new branch of physics called Statistical Mechanics.

Total Entropy always increases

The work of Boltzman and other physicist helped to clarify the nature of perpetual motion machines, sorting them into two types. Perpetual motion machines of the first type which violates the First Law of Thermodynamics. It means that machine can produce more energy than it consumes. In every case of this kind of machine, there is always a hidden outside source of energy ( like the energy from the parallel universe in Asimov novel ).

Perpetual motion machines of second kind obey the First Law of Thermodynamics, hence conserve the energy but violate the Second Law. It means that this type of machine produces no waste heat and has 100% efficiency. Yet, the second law says that such a machine is impossible and no matter how efficient a machine might be, waste heat must always be produced, hence disorder, chaos in the universe or the entropy always increases.

Remarking on the profound nature of the Second Law, astronomer “Arthur Eddington” once said “The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nauture. If your theory is found to be against the second law, I can give you no hope. There is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.”

The Three Laws and Symmetries

But all this raises a deeper question : Why do the iron laws of thermodynamics hold in the first place? It is a mystery that has intrigued scientist since the laws were first proposed. If we could answer that question, perhaps me might find the loopholes in the laws and the implications would be earth shattering.

One of the fundamental of physics is that whenever a system possesses symmetry, the result is a conservation law. If the laws of the universe remain the same over time, then the astonishing result is that the system conserves energy. For example, star light from distant galaxies that are billions of light years away, at the very edge of the visible universe, we can find that the spectrum of light is identical to spectrum that we can find on earth. In the other words, the basic laws of physics haven’t changed for billions of years and they are constant out to the outer edges of the universe.

This raises a disturbing question. If energy is conserved because the laws of physics do not change with time, then could this symmetry be broken in rare and unusual circumstances?  There is still the possibility that the conservation of energy might be violated on a cosmic scal, if the symmetry of our laws is broken in exotic and unexpected places. In the Asimov novel, this symmetry was broken because there was a hole in space connecting our universe. The laws of physics change in the vicinity of the hole in space, therefore allowing a breakdown in the laws of thermodynamics. Hence, the conservation of energy could be violated if there are holes in space i.e. Wormholes.

Energy from the Vacuum?

A tantalizing question : Is it possible to extract energy from nothin? Physicist have only recently realized that the “nothing” of the vacuum is not empty at all but teaming with activity.

One of the proponents of this idea was the eccentric genius of the 20th century “Nikola Tesla”, a worthy rival of “Thomas Edison”. He came up with the idea of Zero Point Energy which based on the idea that vacuum may possess untold quantities of energy. Therefore, it can provide unlimited energy literally from thin air and would be the ultimate storehouse of energy.

Tesla also believed that he could extract unlimited energy from vacuum, a claim that unfortunately he did not prove in his notes. This Zero Point Energy seems to violate the First Law of thermodynamics. But inspite of that, it is always popular in few TV series and acts as the main power source like in the TV series “Stargate Atlantis” where the ships travels between galaxies with the help of ZPM ( Zero Point Modules ) which is based on the same phenomenon of zero point energy.

When scientists analyze the data from satellites currently orbiting the Earth, such as WMAP, they has come to the astounding conclusion that 73% of the universe is made of “Dark Energy”, the energy of a pure vacuum. This means that the greatest reservoir of energy in the universe is the vacuum that separeates the galaxies in the universe. Dark energy is everywhere in the universe, even in our living room. The amount of dark energy in outer space is astronomical, outweighing all the energy of the stars and galaxies put together. We can calculate the amount of dark energy of the Earth andit is quite small, too small to be uses to power a perpetual motion machine. Tesla was right aout dark energy. But the embarrassing thing is that no one knows how to calculate this energy or where is came from.

My point is that the conservation of enery arises from deep cosmological reasons. Any violation of these laws would necessarily mean a profoun shift in our understanding of the evolution of the universe. And the mystery of dark energy is forcing physicist to confront this question head on.