The Seven Follies of Science [2nd ed.]: A popular account of the most famous scientific impossibilities and the attempts which have been made to solve them. To which is added a small budget of interesting paradoxes, illusions, and marvels — John Shaqi
The Seven Follies of Science [2nd ed.]: A popular account of the most famous scientific impossibilities and the attempts which have been made to solve them. To which is added a small budget of interesting paradoxes, illusions, and marvelsPhin, John
History
The Seven Follies of Science [2nd ed.]: A popular account of the most famous scientific impossibilities and the attempts which have been made to solve them. To which is added a small budget of interesting paradoxes, illusions, and marvels
Phin, John
Geometry -- Famous problems; Scientific recreations
After an elaborate description of the screw, he says: "These things,
considered together, it will hence appear how a perpetual motion may
seem easily contrivable. For, if there were but such a water-wheel made
on this instrument, upon which the stream that is carried up may fall
in its descent, it would turn the screw round, and by that means convey
as much water up as is required to move it; so that the motion must
needs be continual since the same weight which in its fall does turn the
wheel, is, by the turning of the wheel, carried up again. Or, if the
water, falling upon one wheel, would not be forcible enough for this
effect, why then there might be two, or three, or more, according as the
length and elevation of the instrument will admit; by which means the
weight of it may be so multiplied in the fall that it shall be
equivalent to twice or thrice that quantity of water which ascends; as
may be more plainly discerned by the following diagram (Fig. 10):
"Where the figure LM at the bottom does represent a wooden cylinder with
helical cavities cut in it, which at AB is supposed to be covered over
with tin plates, and three waterwheels, upon it, HIK; the lower cistern,
which contains the water, being CD. Now, this cylinder being turned
round, all the water which from the cistern ascends through it, will
fall into the vessel at E, and from that vessel being conveyed upon the
water-wheel H, shall consequently give a circular motion to the whole
screw. Or, if this alone should be too weak for the turning of it, then
the same water which falls from the wheel H, being received into the
other vessel F, may from thence again descend on the wheel I, by which
means the force of it will be doubled. And if this be yet insufficient,
then may the water, which falls on the second wheel I, be received into
the other vessel G, and from thence again descend on the third wheel at
K; and so for as many other wheels as the instrument is capable of. So
that besides the greater distance of these three streams from the center
or axis by which they are made so much heavier; and besides that the
fall of this outward water is forcible and violent, whereas the ascent
of that within is natural--besides all this, there is twice as much
water to turn the screw as is carried up by it.
[Illustration: Fig. 10.]
"But, on the other side, if all the water falling upon one wheel would
be able to turn it round, then half of it would serve with two wheels,
and the rest may be so disposed of in the fall as to serve unto some
other useful, delightful ends.
"When I first thought of this invention, I could scarce forbear, with
Archimedes, to cry out 'Eureka! Eureka!' it seeming so infallible a way
for the effecting of a perpetual motion that nothing could be so much as
probably objected against it; but, upon trial and experience, I find it
altogether insufficient for any such purpose, and that for these two
reasons:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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