On November 12th, 1717, clockmaker and mechanic Johann Bessler placed a 12-foot diameter, strange-looking wheel into a room. With a tender push, he started the contraption rotating, then confidently ...

The search for a perpetual motion machine has been the chupacabra of physics for centuries. Multiple designs have been made, tested and, ultimately, found lacking. Perpetual motion machines are ...

Just imagine what it would be like if we could generate free energy. No need to worry about pollution, or fuel, or effort, or anything. It’s no wonder so many people have tried their hands at building ...

A wheel weighted with swinging mallets. A cylinder rotating in a sealed, water-filled container. A siphon that transfers liquid back and forth in a seemingly endless loop. These may sound like the ...

The challenge: Use two mousetraps, six rubber bands, and $15 worth of materials to build a device that can safely transport a delicate, uncooked egg from an elevated platform to a target on the floor, ...

I'm not sure why I keep getting emails about perpetual motion machines, but I do. They usually go something like this: "Thank you so much for your recent post on Wired regarding perpetual motion ...

Last week, a "self sustaining electrical turbine generator" was found on Kickstarter. Another name for the product is a perpetual motion machine. (We saw this story first on GigaOm.) Put simply, a ...

Let's start with a water wheel in still water with an electric generator hooked up to it. Let's say it has a ratchet wheel so it can only turn in one direction. I want to calculate the probability ...

A wheel weighted with swinging mallets. A cylinder rotating in a sealed, water-filled container. A siphon that transfers liquid back in forth in a seemingly endless loop. These may sound like the ...