8.1: Why don't electrical perpetual motion machines work?
Description
This article is from the Scientific Skepticism FAQ, by Paul Johnson Paul@treetop.demon.co.uk with numerous contributions by others.
8.1: Why don't electrical perpetual motion machines work?
Electrical perpetual motion machinists usually present a machine that
causes a small battery to generate a huge amount of power. The most
common problem here is that the "huge amount of power" was incorrectly
measured. AC power measurements are tricky; you can't just multiply
the voltage and current, because they may be out of phase. Thus,
measuring 10 Volts and 10 Amps could indicate anything from 0 to 100
Watts, depending on the power factor. In addition, most AC meters
expect a sinusoidal wave; if they are given some other wave they may
be totally wrong. A simple argument against these machines is; "If
they can provide so much energy, why do they need the battery to keep
going?"
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