Perpetual Motion

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 24 September 2015

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the rise of the idea of perpetual motion and its decline, in the 19th Century, with the Laws of Thermodynamics. For hundreds of years, some of the greatest names in science thought there might be machines that could power themselves endlessly. Leonardo Da Vinci tested the idea of a constantly-spinning wheel and Robert Boyle tried to recirculate water from a draining flask. Gottfried Leibniz supported a friend, Orffyreus, who claimed he had built an ever-rotating wheel. An increasing number of scientists voiced their doubts about perpetual motion, from the time of Galileo, but none could prove it was impossible. For scientists, the designs were a way of exploring the laws of nature. Others claimed their inventions actually worked, and promised a limitless supply of energy. It was not until the 19th Century that the picture became clearer, with the experiments of James Joule and Robert Mayer on the links between heat and work, and the establishment of the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics. With Ruth Gregory Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Durham University Frank Close Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Oxford and Steven Bramwell Professor of Physics and former Professor of Chemistry at University College London Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading this episode of In Our Time for more details about In Our Time
0:04.0	and for our terms of use please go to bbc.co.uk slash radio for.
0:08.9	I hope you enjoy the program.
0:10.7	Hello, perpetual motion has intrigued some of the greatest names in science as they
0:14.9	tried to invent machines that could power themselves endlessly.
0:18.0	They are not a da Vincius catch to wheel to keep on turning or a boil worked on and apparently
0:23.4	never ending fountain.
0:25.2	They were designed to wind mills, pumping bellows to drive their own sails and water wheels
0:29.4	recirculating their own mill streams.
0:32.2	To scientists the designs were a way of exploring the laws of nature.
0:36.1	There were others though who claimed their inventions actually worked promising and for
0:39.9	free, a limitless supply of energy, supposedly another scientific miracle in the ages of discovery.
0:46.2	Many doubted among them Galileo but none could prove perpetual motion was impossible.
0:51.2	I had to wait for the 19th century and two of the most robust laws in science, the first
0:55.5	and second laws of thermodynamics.
0:58.0	With me to discuss perpetual motion are Ruth Gregory, Professor of Mathematics and Physics
1:02.9	at Durham University, Frank Close, Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Oxford
1:08.2	and Stephen Brownwell, Professor of Physics and former Professor of Chemistry at University
1:12.7	College London.
1:13.7	Frank Close, what does scientists mean by perpetual motion?
1:17.5	Well the idea that you could have a machine that once it was operating could continue to
1:23.3	run forever without needing any power to keep it going, that's the idea of perpetual motion
	...

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