Science has taught us that perpetual motion machines are impossible, they violate the laws of physics and we are all wasting our time and our lives in chasing this fantasy. It's interesting to look at the support for both the scientific point of view and the dogmatic one.
Science relies initially on theory which is an idea held contingent upon 'evidence'. A theory can be a set of statements supported by evidence that can be used to predict natural phenomena. Predictions are the fundamental support of theories and they evolve from empirical observations.
Even 'established' laws of physics are still theories though regarded as proven by evidence and the fulfilled predictions based on that evidence, but they are still subject to re-evaluation if either; new evidence comes to light; or a better (simpler) theory comes along that explains the same evidence.
Dogma or doctrine, on the other hand, could be a statement originating from a revelation, vision, image, dream, or thought or any other source of mental origin. Its support is faith. No evidence is required and neither is it necessarily sought. Reliable and consistent predictions are absent from faith related statements. Dogmas may change and evolve exclusively from human decision and not from any empirical observations.
Perpetual motionist's beliefs tend to fall somewhere between science and dogma. Adherents believe, for what seems to them to be good reason, that perpetual motion machines are possible, in particular, gravity enabled machines. I used the word 'enabled' with good reason as we have been told an infinite number of times (it seems!) that gravity is not an energy source. Leaving that aside for a moment, perpetual motionists feel intuitively that a weight driven machine could be made to run continuously with no additional input of energy other than that from falling weights. It seems so obvious to them, and I include myself, that we think that science must be wrong - at least in rejecting Bessler's wheel.
But, without a theory explaining how this might be achieved, the disciples of this belief can only be regarded in much the same way as members of a religious faith, who, requiring no evidence other than their own subjective certainty that what they believe must be true, exhibit blind faith when questioned on their convictions. This may be regarded as too simplistic a view but without evidence to the contrary where does this strong but inexplicable certainty come from?
Well in this case, Johann Bessler's extremely convincing demonstrations of his wheels provides the strongest evidence ever reported about such machines. The vast majority of people dismiss the very idea that Johann Bessler could possibly have built a genuine perpetual motion machine. Personally I don't like to use the term 'perpetual motion' about a weight driven machine; it isn't perpetual motion so much as continuous motion, providing the force of gravity is present. Continuous motion sounds more believable too, not that that is any kind of criterion to support such a contention.
The laws of physics must remain unaffected by this machine; there can be no conflict with them, in which case the theories I spoke of earlier will remain intact and supported by the evidence provided by Bessler's machine. Only the predictions are wrong about such machines being impossible. As I said above, the predictions are subject to re-evaluation and in this case they will be once the proof is self-evident, in the form of a working model.
JC
The laws of physics must remain unaffected by this machine; there can be no conflict with them, in which case the theories I spoke of earlier will remain intact and supported by the evidence provided by Bessler's machine. Only the predictions are wrong about such machines being impossible. As I said above, the predictions are subject to re-evaluation and in this case they will be once the proof is self-evident, in the form of a working model.
JC
