The wacky wager update

Well, two comments, one pro and one con and several emails, mostly for. I understand your point Lucius but there are needs which are not personal but which I would like to be able to satisfy if it were possible. My family has needs and there are others I could wish to help if I had the means, so for that reason as well as the others I mentioned before, I shall stick with my proposal to obtain odds against the creation of a gravity-driven wheel within the next year - and that has raised another issue.

I have been corresponding with one of the best known names in the gambling industry and it has become clear that they wish to use the term 'perpetual motion machine' and have the resulting device verified by the famous Science Museum. That seems very reasonable but I am concerned that when the time comes for verification the Science Museum's definition of perpetual motion might exclude my machine.

I have discussed this definition many many times and the whole thing seems to come down to the fact that a perpetual motion machine is defined as one which is excluded from all external sources of energy. I have always maintained that a gravitywheel obtains its energy for rotation from the force of gravity and since gravity is both external and internal to the gravitywheel it is not technically a perpetual motion machine although that is what they would have called it in Bessler's time.

I have compromised by suggesting that they could call it a 'gravity-powered perpetual motion machine'. I await their response.

JC