On November 12th, 1717, clockmaker and mechanic Johann Bessler placed a 12-foot diameter, strange-looking wheel into a room. With a tender push, he started the contraption rotating, then confidently ...

Almost as soon as humans created machines, they attempted to make "perpetual motion machines" that work on their own and that work forever. However, the devices never have and likely never will work ...

James is a published author with multiple pop-history and science books to his name. He specializes in history, space, strange science, and anything out of the ordinary.View full profile James is a ...

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 ...