By Peter Weiss
For centuries, optimistic inventors have proposed perpetual-motion machines. These would defy scientific law, of course, and none has ever worked as advertised. Now, a blueprint for a minuscule perpetual-motion machine has been found convincing enough by other scientists to get published in the October Foundations of Physics.
In the report, Daniel P. Sheehan of the University of San Diego and his colleagues describe their design: a square silicon doughnut about the size of a red blood cell. A narrow gap in the doughnut ring would harbor a strong electric field. This would develop, presumably, because ambient heat and the structure’s electronic properties would separate charges. By driving a tiny silicon piston within the gap, the device would perform work.