Perhaps the most persistent nonsense in physics: the perpetual motion machine. Bad ideas come and go in physics. But there’s one bit of nonsense that is perhaps more persistent than all others: the ...

Conservation of energy isn’t just a good idea: It is the law. In particular, it is the first law of thermodynamics. But, apparently, a lot of people don’t really get that because history is replete ...

A group of students at Ransom Everglades High School in Coconut Grove will see their science experiment launched on a Blue Origins rocket, as part of a program sponsored by NASA. The milestone is ...

Perpetual motion machines are impossible, right? They violate the laws of thermodynamics. And yet people have been trying to engineer one for centuries. YouTuber gzumwalt posted a video of what looks ...

Why AI is taking on impossible challenges. How a perpetual motion machine can power an AI. Why we have to put an explicit explanation about an April 1st article so that the search engines don’t ding ...

If you enjoyed this article, I’d like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in ...

My favorite shelf in the home library is where Raymond Roussel, the Comte de Lautréamont, E.T. A. Hoffmann, Leonora Carrington and other writers form a brilliant phalanx of eccentricity and marvel. I ...

At the turn of the 20th century, the quest for a perpetual motion machine took hold of public imagination. A number of Hoosiers were among those captivated by the idea of creating a perpetual motion ...

Testing the idea of a perpetual motion loop with a large-scale setup and explores the science behind it. Putin’s war machine in ‘freefall’ as new UK sanctions kick in Only Fools and Horses cast to ...