Imagine a device that could supply an unlimited amount of energy.

It would solve many of the world's problems in one fell swoop.

Unfortunately, such a device is impossible to build,

but that hasn't stopped people throughout history from trying. impossible to

this very day people,

this very day, people still claim that they've created

perpetual motion machines and they keep getting proven wrong.

Learn more about perpetual motion machines, or the lack thereof,

on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Book your ticket to happiness with Sun Express Airlines. The idea of a perpetual motion machine is a tempting one, and if you know just enough physics to be dangerous, it's easy to think that such a device might be possible.

A perpetual motion machine is, as the name would suggest, a device that can

continuously operate forever without any external energy. As we'll see in a bit, such a device is

physically impossible, but for almost a thousand years people have been trying, usually creating similar devices over and over.

The first known attempt at a perpetual motion device dates back to the 12th century in India.

The Indian mathematician Bascara II created a device that became known as the Bascara Wheel.

The Bascara Wheel consists of a series of containers or compartments arranged in a circular fashion around a central axis.

Each compartment is filled with a weighted ball or a liquid, and the weight of the balls or liquid is carefully balanced to produce a

continuous rotation of the wheel. The best way I can describe it would be to imagine that you

had a bicycle wheel with heavy weights around the spokes.

As the wheel turns, the weights near the center of the wheel

would fall down the spoke to the edge, providing momentum to move the wheel.

As the wheel turned, weights on the spoke near the edge would fall back towards the center due to gravity.

In the theory of perpetual motion, the falling moving weight would be able to make the wheel turn indefinitely.

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