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No. 923: Perpetual Motion

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Perpetual Motion

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Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/owls/?comic=923

Strip by: Wibi

Ambrose: HOLLY HAVE YOU SEEN MY PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE
{Holly is pointing at the machine on a table. It is a small red box with an arrow on it.}
Holly: YEH IT'S RIGHT HERE BOSS
Ambrose: I'VE ACCIDENTALLY DESIGNED IT TO PERPETUALLY MOVE. COULD YOU BRING IT OVER HERE PLEASE
{Holly is pointing where the machine used to be.}
{Pan left. We see that the machine has moved off the table, through a nearby window, and is now continuing down the road.}

The author writes:

This is actually a clever debunking of most proposed perpetual motion machines.

The overbalanced wheel: As the wheel spins, it will start moving. Eventually it will either move out of usable range, or bump into something and break.
The drinking bird: Eventually the drinking bird will realize it is hungry as well as thirsty, and go to the park to beg for bread crumbs. Constructing this machine would also require constructing a "bread-handing parkgoer" machine, which is out of the question.
Maxwell's demon: A demon would refuse to provide infinite energy. It is impossible to formulate this scenario without the figure in question responsible for opening and closing the gate between gasses being malevolent.
The whimsical Rube Goldberg machine, so complex as to be completely inscrutable and unfalsifiable: Rube Goldberg died in 1970.