I had an unusual email yesterday offering to supply a machine that would supply all my electricity free of charge. Now something for nothing is not only an unusual thing to be offered it is also something that raises curiosity in an inquiring mind. The item that was advertised as a free energy generator and being curious I had to find out more about it. So I clicked onto the link and found that I could by the device for something like forty pounds.
The advert also informed me that the reason that the device had not been on the market before was that the major energy companies had prevented it because of the money they would loose if every one bought one. This sounds similar to the story of the everlasting match.
My instincts led me to be wary of anything that smelt of getting a free lunch. There is something that needs to be investigated. So that's exactly what I did. I had not heard of a free energy generator before so I looked this item up on Wikipedea and what I found was long list of these things called perpetual motion machines.
There has been a very long list of these things dating beyond the middle ages. The dream is the same as the alchemist of turning metal into gold. In this case of turning a free energy generator into a fortune. However nobody has been able to prove that they have a working device. The only thing that smelt of perpetual motion was the dipping bird toy. The body was full of a liquid that heated by collecting heat from the room then when the beak dipped into a glass of water that was cooler the liquid contracted and the bird became erect. However this is far from being a free energy generator as it will not work under load.
Why don't these things work under load because of the opposing forcing forces, that is, mainly, gravity and friction. If you release the breaks in your auto facing down a hill the auto will move down the hill and accelerate until it reaches the bottom when it will start to slow down and eventually stop. To have perpetual motion the car would have to continue, to have a free energy generator it would also have to produce something. In other words up to now these things have never been successful.
As for the energy companies holding it off the market because they are worried that they market would dry up is, arguably false. If a large energy company got wind of such a successful invention it would pay a kings ransom to purchase it on the grounds that it would make a fortune.
