"It's a great scheme, you get out more than you put in, honest"

For hundreds of years the idea of a perpetual motion machine has been the scientific equivalent of the Bernie Madoff investment strategy.

Unfortunately, the first law of thermodynamics always comes back to bite you. It's not possible to get more out than you put in because, unlike the Securities and Exchange Commission, on this planet, friction always does its job to work against the guarantee of something for nothing.

Take a look at this YouTube example of a Perpetual Motion machine. Invented by Mr. Reidar Finsrud, it does look pretty convincing and for the 10 minute run of the video it certainly doesn't appear to slow down. But there does appear to be quite a bit of friction and noise involved and let's face it, a Grandfather clock also takes a long time to slow down.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this example is not the purported illustration of perpetual motion, rather, it's the service YouTube has provided in democratising science, by allowing the layman and the expert to express their views on scientific matters.

By way of example, consider the high level of scientific debate this particular video has generated. I've provided a few snippets below of edited highlights from the trail of comments and erudite observations;

"You just don't get it do you? And how dare you speculate that scientists only guess!"

"Anyone who thinks this represents perpetual motion is a retard. A really really big retard."

"give me a call and if the laws of thermodynamics have not been broken i will happily admit that i was wrong."

"ok smart arse, prove to me thermodynamics can be violated for non quantum systems"

"calm down, just because my opinion differs from yours is no reason to get hostile"

And a good one to end with,

"don't be stupit"

OK, leaving aside the comments of potential future Nobel prize winners, a vaguely serious takeaway could be that we actually do have the possibility of harnessing energy and releasing it slowly into the real world and it is the materials science behind piezoelectrics which is one of the keys to unlocking such potential.

Take for example a recent news story which relates to the activities of Noliac Motion in building a pavilion for the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Denmark). Stacked ceramic multilayer actuators (SCMAs) are placed in the floor of the pavilion/sculpture/working model shown left, the floor is thus piezoelectric, which allows it to absorb energy from the dancing hordes and generate electricity at the same time.

These developments are in a similar vein to Japanese efforts to harness piezoelectric current from commuters passing through turnstiles at Tokyo Station, where JR East the railroad company, anticipate using people power to operate ticket gates or automatic gates.

Similarly, nanofibre based piezoeletrics in garments may soon be powering your iPod.

All great examples of what has been coined in energy circles, "Crowd Farming". Although still subject to debate in terms of practicalities and economics, there's more to it than perpetual mechanical motion!

Finally, for those of you who are convinced by the perpetual motion video, skip forward to 9:56min for a slightly less than convincing entrance by what one can only presume to be the inventor - does he sound like that Madoff guy to you or just a clever Norwegian artist and sculptor?

Editors Note:

For those of you who are gluttons for punishment and who send in kind words about Materials Thoughts, after seven years of blood sweat and horrendous topical gags with a materials slant the author has finally cast off his mask of secrecy and his collected dribblings can now be found at Social Materials or be followed on Twitter, with a wonderful archive of past Materials Thoughts on the AZoNetwork Blog Page - he says he'd love to hear from you.