Finsrud's Perpetuum Mobile

[Gregory]

Hello noodles,

Sorry, if you felt me hostile, I don't want to be. I'm only very excited about this machine.
I also think the magnetic pendulum will always stops, and find equilibrium, as you say. Sure. At the best, it can tuned to swing some more time.

About the flash you mentioned... I missedit before, but now I can see, what you say.
At first sight it was very strange. But soon after that I realized what it is. Simple and nothing strange:
You have to keep in mind, that the machine stay behind glass walls from every direction, and above the sculpture there are strong lights to light it properly. And the ball is a clear shining silver ball.
The thing at the bottom of the spring is a normal mother screw made of copper, also clear, used to fix the spring normally.

The flashing is only a normal optical illusion caused by the glass, the lights, and the shining steel parts. Only a reflection. Nothing strange, I think.
If you look more carefully, you can find other similar, but weaker effects on the surface of other parts of the sculpture. For example there is another, smaller and fixed steel ball, with a periodic reflection effect. And possible to find more similar, but weaker ones...

It is said,
that it only stops, if the clay that holds the magnets
in the lower buttom magnet plate dries out too much.

Good to hear! That can be fixed. Of course, It is obvious that the machine also stops without the pendulums.

I failed to determine what is the big click exactly, but will try once more.
I only had that idea about the ball to react the pendulums. In the other hand the ball always react without my speculation of the big click, because the ball rolls on the swinging track, and interact with the horseshoe magnets, which ones are directly connected to the pendulums.

[Gregory]

After the shining steel ball left that spring, the flash appears. And appears periodically. Really only a reflection caused by the ball, the glass, and the lights. What other might be?

[noodles]

That is what I thought was an electrical discharge of some sort...

It is a low quality video, so hard to tell for sure, but it seems to me to be more than just a reflection...but without 100% clear video, it is hard to tell.  If the original video poster could make a loss less copy of just those sections, maybe take a screenshot of the high quality version, it would settle the issue fully.

That is what I thought was electric, hence my electromagnet comments earlier.

If I can go of on one of my thoughts again -
The middle gold dome reminds me of a van der graaf generator/something tesla made.
Maybe, pendulums swing, causing something to rub against a material to build static electric charge (EG, cloth on perspex type of thing) then this energy is discharged as the ball hits that point on its run, attracting at just the right moment and switching off just as the ball passes so as not to drag it back.

Maybe...maybe...

[noodles]

Also, noise energy costs system energy.  The amount of noise this is making per run is quite a lot, if it was close to 100% efficiency, by reducing this noise, you could have OU quite easily...

But hold on a second, why are we getting so excited about this one?  It stops and there is no big principle here  (unlike for example, SMOT)...

[Gregory]

Don't you think, that this static electricity idea is much more complicated than the machine itself?
Not as easy to do as you say, i think. Can you generate enough power with static electricity to affect an almost 1kg steel ball? If you change the charge of the steel ball in such way, does it any considerable effect on the interaction between the magnets and the ball?

However, if this is the case, the sculpture still moves for weeks. 
Yeah, everything stops after a certain time, even the solar system will... Everything change after its certain period of time. In my opinion this is the one real law about the impossibility of perpetual motion, when you think literally.
Of course, this is more philosophical, but true. The only one real perpetual motion is the whole universe itself.