Perpetuum Mobile Redux

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it is now a standard DSG-VU conform. With the board, you can talk about how a certain start-up is used. I'm sure you would also like to say that. They are synchronized on app, web and desktop.

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Plot. I'm Chris Stewart, and I invite you to come and join us here at the History of China podcast. We've got it all. Wars with millions on each side to help drive home exactly why you should never get involved

in a land war in Asia. Come along on the Silk Road to partake in its riches. Join the great cons of the steps on campaign, apply the seas on treasure ships, or strike out with pirate crews to take their riches for your own.

the sumptuousness of the Imperial Court behind the guarded gates of the forbidden city. All this and so much more here at the history of China podcast. Gabriel Lipman was a genius. Early in his career he developed a capillary electronmeter that was far more sensitive than any which proceeded it and the method he discovered

for making it eventually allowed for the creation of the Electoral Cardiogram. In 1895 he figured out not a more accurate way to measure time. He's best known for inventing color photography, which nabbed him a Nobel Prize. But in 1900, he made another invention, which could have changed human history even more

than color photography. No, that's underselling it. Litman's other invention could have changed more than human history, it could have changed the world.

Ah, that's still an understatement. would have changed literally the whole universe. Except that it didn't work. And I can tell you that right here at the start of things, because Lippon knew his invention

didn't work the very moment he thought it up. He knew in fact that it couldn't work. Strictly speaking, pretty much nothing is impossible. Almost every bad idea and faulty innovation we've covered in the 200 plus episodes of this

show could have been true. for good of work. But Litman's invention is the exception. It was actually totally completely impossible. And Litman, the genius who gave us the ECG and color photos and accurate clocks and laser holography and the colliostat and the Converse Piziotelectric Effect,

knew that it was impossible for his invention to work. Yet, for the life of him, he couldn't Figure out why it wouldn't work. And for 12 years, nobody else could either. This is the constant, a history of getting things wrong.

I'm Mark Chrysler. I'm busy putting the final touches on a multi-partner about a subject that's been sitting on the constant's most wanted list since the very beginning.

And so I thought this would be a good time to go back and revisit slash re-record slash reproduce a classic episode in which we tackled another of my white whales. And it's another story that I knew from the very genesis of this project I wanted to tell.

Right alongside the one where we used to think birds went in the winter and the chemists who missed up their own sweat for a major scientific breakthrough, it was the story of the Brownie and Ratchet. As I was preparing to start the constant, when people asked what I was up to, I'd say I

was working on a podcast. And if they asked what it was about, which was pretty rare really because, or to the wise, nobody wants to hear about the podcast you're working on, I'd tell them about the birds and the sweat. And then I'd tell them about the brownie and ratchet. I talked to it over with my wife, with my best friend, with whom ever would listen. And they

were supportive. It sounded like an interesting idea. The bird thing was funny. They go to the moon. The sweat thing was weird. Yes, people said they would listen to that show. There was just one thing. They didn't understand the Brownian Ratchet. In spite of all the warning signs, I tried to write the story again and again and again

again because I was stubborn. But everybody was right. It was too complicated, too technical, so my stubbornness gave in and I gave up. Until the Constance 2nd Anniversary, when I finally said to hell with it, I want to talk about the Brownian Ratchet. Now, more than six years later, Yikes. We're doing it again.

better and without ads for patreon supporters. What a deal! Today's episode, perpetual mobile redux. Alright, let us begin with a simple description. Picture a rectangular aquarium, just a typical brick-shaped fish house. With me so far? Now let's picture a watertight

It can be glass too, down the middle of the aquarium, effectively giving us two tanks right next to one another. Perfect for keeping those two baitfish you're on, got you, from murdering one another. So far, so good.

Next, we're going to take a drill and make a hole through the center of the divider, bridging the two tanks. Into that hole goes a stick that runs from inside of the first tank to the inside of the second.

Basically, two separate fish tanks with a stick going between them. Easy enough, right? Okay. Now we've got to start fudcing with the stick.

On the end of the stick going into the first tank, we're going to add some paddles, three or four of them will do. Like the wings on a lawn dart. Now, if there's movement in the water of the first tank, it'll bat the paddles around randomly moving the stick. But, on the other side of the stick, in the second tank, we're going to attach a ratchet, a gear with teeth that only lock one way and a Paul, a tiny catch that means the ratchet will only move clockwise.

We're almost there, so let's review. And Aquarium, divided into with a stick running between the two spaces. On the end of the stick in the first tank, a bunch of little winglets or paddles, on the end of the stick in the second tank, a ratchet that only turns clockwise.