The Road to Perpetual Motion

[infringer]

The driving mechanisim the weighted arm spins the wheel and is bounced up with a spring.

So with that said a bouncing ball shall come to rest just as a spring will what will keep this arm moving aside from the spring ...

I need to look more I guess I may not understand it all by looking at pics and skimming over the article.

But explanation of mechanics I see how rachet is a one way gravitational switch but ...  errr what will keep it prepetual.

Interesting thought but even with all the fancy pics and stuff I would like a laymens short explanation of mechanical operation all in one ..

[hansvonlieven]

G'day Infringer,

The thing that keeps the thing perpetual is the creation and maintenance of what I called the "black hole". It is the key element in the whole design, everything else is contributing to that end, nothing more.

In spite of its seeming simplicity, there are complex forces interacting here, it requires intensive study to understand the rationale of how it all hangs together.

Hans von Lieven

[WilbyInebriated]

The thing that keeps the thing perpetual is the creation and maintenance of what I called the "black hole". It is the key element in the whole design, everything else is contributing to that end, nothing more.

In spite of its seeming simplicity, there are complex forces interacting here, it requires intensive study to understand the rationale of how it all hangs together.

Hans von Lieven

well that's definitely layman's terms and short. it somehow missed the mark on an explanation of mechanical operation... 
you might as well have just said, "black hole" = Lee-Tseung Pulls

[hansvonlieven]

@ WilbyInebriated

No idiotic Lee-Tseung pull involved here.

There is nothing esoteric about what I called the "black hole". In an unbalanced wheel there are two conditions present that have to be maintained if rotation is to ensue. One is the concentration or weights hopefully high up to the left or the right of the axle. That is what everybody is concentrating on, the creation of a high density area in the right spot.

What everybody seem to be forgetting is that this creates by necessity an area of low density in the opposing segment. It is this area that I dubbed the "black hole". It is also the area I am addressing.

Sure, it is just another way of looking at the same thing, but there are advantages in visualising the wheel in terms of a low density area. By concentrating on the creation of a low density area the mind operates along a different track and avoids the well grooved track that keeps coming up again and again showing approaches that have been seen a hundred times before and are known not to work.

Hans von Lieven

[Sprocket]

Excuse the delay.  The rest of your site displays fine, just a problem with that article it seems!  Still, probably Opera's fault (see pic.)