The chicken and egg situation in a perpetual machine

By MUNGAI KIHANYA

The Sunday Nation

Nairobi,

13 May 2007

Did I write-off Derrick Mutisya’s invention of the machine that generates electricity and uses the same power to run itself unfairly? J. O. O. Onyango thinks so. He notes in his email that “we all saw it being demonstrated on TV a few days earlier”. The truth is that I never said Mr. Mutisya’s “Galaxy 6-2-6” doesn’t work; I only wondered how it was started in the first instance…

The idea of a perpetual machine (one that runs for ever without needing energy input from the “outside”) has fascinated inventors for many centuries. When my uncle installed solar electricity at his rural home some 15 years ago, the barely literate old man was struck by a spark of genius. He reasoned as follows:

Sunlight falls on the solar panel to generate electricity. The electricity charges the battery. At night, the battery powers the bulbs in the house to produce light. But sunlight is light. Thus he wondered, “What if we placed a bulb above the solar panel at night? Wouldn’t its light generate more electricity thereby extending the duration that the battery lasts before discharging?”

Before explaining anything, I told him to try it out and he asked the technician to install a fairly powerful spotlight bulb on the roof – aimed at the solar panel. To his bewilderment, the battery went flat earlier than usual that evening. The following night was the same and on the third day the “power re-circulating” bulb was removed. Things got back to normal.

He was now ready to listen to my explanation, but before we go into that, let me tell you about my own “invention” of a perpetual machine. The design was conceived while I was in early secondary school a few decades ago, but was never built.

The machine comprised of two large water tanks – one placed on a platform about 20 metres high and the other on the ground. There were two pipes to move the water up and down respectively.

A turbine was fitted at the bottom of the down-flow pipe. One end of the rotating shaft from the turbine was connected to a pump for driving the water back to the top tank through the second pipe.

The other end of the shaft was connected to a generator to produce electricity. To start the system running, all that was needed was to fill water in the upper tank, allow it to run down the first pipe…and voila! We have an everlasting source of power.

But when you think about it, this machine would require energy from the “outside” to put the initial water in the upper tank. Similarly, my uncle’s system also needed “external” energy to charge the battery in the first instance.

So now it is clear why I am wondering how Mutisya started his device at the beginning. And still, can any machine run indefinitely without “refuelling”? Well, that’s a story for next week. In the meantime, can you think of a design for a system that runs forever? Tell me about it.