The vortex Perpetual motion
#1#
The age-old dream of perpetual motion, in
which an object moves forever without the expenditure of any limited
internal or external source of energy, became a fashionable quest for
Renaissance inventors.
In the Codex Madrid, Leonardo
recalled “having seen many men and from various countries brought by
their infantile credulity to Venice with the great hope of gain by
making mills in dead water. Being unable, after much expense, to move
such a machine, they were compelled by great fury to escape from this
debacle”. Carefully drawn “wheels which continually revolve” in the
Codex Forster may well be the designs of others encountered in Venice.
Commenting on the failure of each device, Leonardo noted that such
wheels are “sophistical”. Later he exclaimed “speculators on perpetual
motion, how many vain designs you have created in the like quest! Go
and join up with the seekers of gold”. And yet, he was unable to resist
the challenge himself!
In the belief that spirals and screws
might hold a solution, he applied his beloved principle of the vortex
to the problem. The design on the right of Codex Forster Fol
44r is one of a number of solutions or “compound screws” involving
planar spirals, conical spirals and V-shaped configurations of tubes
combined to achieve continuous motion. The water ascends to the centre
of the planar spiral “s p” and then passes to the pyramidal screw “n c”
running from the point at “c” to “p” and acting as an “equidistant
lever” to turn the whole apparatus. As the device revolves, further
“levers” would come into play, though the precise configuration or
operation is far from clear. Ultimately, the quest for perpetual motion
eluded Leonardo, just as it eludes modern physicists today.
< return to Catalogue