Omaha daily bee., 1910-03-13

Perhaps no other faliacy in the history
OF invention has maintained such a firm
hold on the minds OF people as that Of
perpetual motion. Despite the fact hat
ell scientific thought has long discrsdited
the possibility Of producing a machine
which will run indefinitely Of itself, there
are many who still believe that such an
Invention can be perfected. The patent Of
flee at Washington is overrun with those
who believe they have at last solved the
problem, as many as a half dozen APP
pllcsnts appearing there every week.
Usually the applicant declares that he
has only one part or another lacking. but
the patent office tells them that only the
submission Of a working model will be &C
cepted, and to date no such model has
been submitted; nor Is there the slightest
probability that such a one will be. A
circular letter used to be sent out calling
the attention of perpetual motion cranks
to the futility OF their efforts. and advis-
ing them not TO continue trying to solve
the problem, but owing to its ineffective
ness this letter has been discontinued,
a few months ago a woman came into
the patent office with a bucket and chain
idea in her head, claiming that she had
at last discovered the principle upon which
the universe is operated. She said she
had been working on II for fifteen years,
during all OF which time she had kept II
a profound secret from her husband. She
was told that perpetual motion had been
invented. but that the Almighty Himself
held the original patent. She was advised
to go home and give UP the idea, and told
that most Of those who continued to follow
the perpetual motion will o. the wlsp
landed in an insane asylum. She, unlike
most Of her predecessors, concluded to do
so. Otherwise, her case was typical of
thousands who have tried to solve this
impossible project.
The machines that have been devised to
operate perpetually have used about all OF
the known principles Of motion. In some
the loss Of equilibrium has been the mo-
tive force; In others. the specific gravity
Of floats and weights immersed in water
or other liquid. Some inventors lave used
as tho propelling power the ascension Of
receptacles inflated with air or gas under
water, while the compression and subse-
quent expansion OF gas has been employed
as the actuating principle In others. That
the inventors are perfectly sangine Of sue
cess is demonstrated by the humorous fact
that many provide brakes to stop their ma
chine, and others attach governors to keep
them from running away with themselves.
James Cox of Shoe Lane, London, came
nearer to approximating perpetual motion
than any other inventor in the worlds
history. His invention was a clock with
a self-winding attachment. This attach
ment consisted of q barometer SO arranged
that whenever the mercury rose or fell 1t
wound the clock. Slight as changes in at
mospheric pressure are at times, they were
always sufficient to keep the instrument
wound UP. and often so great that baro-
metric change would have broken the
winding mechanism had he not arranged
a special device to protect It from such a
catastrophe. The mechanism was so con-
structed that whenever the weights had
become wound up the winding apparatus
automatically threw itself out of gear
When they had descended a certain dis