Perpetual motion machines, as their name suggest, are machines that are perpetual. That is, their working is eternal. What makes these devices so fabled? That’s because they violate the laws of thermodynamics. There are two types among perpetual motion machines. The machines of the first kind, ‘produce’ more energy than they consume. Hence they violate two laws of thermodynamics, the first, that total energy is always constant (the law of conservation of energy) and the second too, that total entropy always increases, or remain constant.( In other words, some energy is always lost, in the form of heat. ) The second type is that run along forever. This means that they are 100% efficient. They do not violate the first law, but violate the second law.
The "Overbalanced Wheel". It was thought that the metal balls on the right side would turn the wheel because of the longer lever arm, but since the left side had more balls than the right side, the torque was balanced and the perpetual movement could not be achieved.
Now the biggest question is, do they work? No. If they ever did work, that would be enough to solve the whole energy crisis of the world. Free, unlimited energy! Yet, we know from all these years’ works that the laws of thermodynamics cannot be violated and such a machine cannot be created. All those so called working perpetual motion machines created so far have either been hoaxes, or they had a hidden source of energy.
