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Lädt ... The Perpetual Motion Machine: The Story of an Invention (Imagining Science)von Paul Scheerbart
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In the last days of 1907, the German novelist and exponent of glass architecture Paul Scheerbart embarked upon an attempt to invent a perpetual motion machine. For the next two and a half years he would document his ongoing efforts (and failures) from his laundry-room-cum-laboratory, hiring plumbers and mechanics to construct his models while spinning out a series of imagined futures that his invention-in-the-making was going to enable. The Perpetual Motion Machine: The Story of an Invention, originally published in German in 1910, is an indefinable blend of diary, diagrams and digression that falls somewhere between memoir and reverie: a document of what poet and translator Andrew Joron calls a "two-and-a-half-year-long tantrum of the imagination." Shifting ambiguously from irony to enthusiasm and back, Scheerbart's unique amalgamation of visionary humor and optimistic failure ultimately proves to be a more literary invention than scientific: a perpetual motion of a fevered imagination that reads as if Robert Walser had tried his hand at science fiction. With "toiling wheels" inextricably embedded in his head, Scheerbart's visions of rising globalization, ecological devastation, militaristic weapons of mass destruction and the possible end of literature soon lead him to dread success more than failure. The Perpetual Motion Machine is an ode to the fertility of misery and a battle cry of the imagination against praxis. Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
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Google Books — Lädt ... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)838.91209Literature German and related languages Miscellaneous German writings 1900- 1900-1990 1900-1945 Individual authors not limited to one specific form : description; critical appraisal; biography; collected worksKlassifikation der Library of Congress [LCC] (USA)BewertungDurchschnitt:
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This book in particular was highly entertaining, though I never knew how much of it was meant as a joke and how much was meant in all seriousness. Most likely, Scheerbart didn't worry about those kinds of distinctions, just as he didn't worry about the distinction between reality and fantasy.
Ignoring what scientists had agreed upon after the discovery of the conservation of energy, Scheerbart (a German novelist and exponent of 'glass architecture') dedicates more than a year of his life trying to come up with a perpetual motion machine. His writing, interspersed with many illustrations of his machines, is a combination of explanation, wit, philosophy, and speculation. A lot of speculation.
From day one, before he had even built any models, he speculates on the far reaching effects of his machine. People will be able to move mountains with perpets, nations will dissolve, scientists can concentrate on astral affairs, he will become obscenely rich and famous, and ... But not only did he madly speculate in the positive direction, he also speculated in the negative... I won't go on quoting from the book because it is so short and it is full of good quotable bits so you should read it for yourself. However, I do want to say one word about the actual machines he invents. One look at them and it is pretty obvious that they will not work. It's quite shocking to me that he even thought they would work.
I think he has a fantastical understanding on the working of the wheel. He criticizes other scientists because "they always insisted that once a weight neared the center of the Earth, it would have to be raised up again. And so it seemed axiomatic to all of them that a perpetual motion machine would be impossible. But once the weight did not approach the center of the Earth--as in Figure 21--one would have to throw this beautiful "scientific" discourse on the scrap heap."
Figure 21 shows a contraption where the weight is elevated, but the problem is that it will never move the wheels he has in place because it is in a state of equilibrium. Only if/when the weight is allowed to drop or move in some way can it create motion. I think Scheerbart believes that potential energy alone can be transferred into the motion of wheels turning without the weight moving or dropping in any way. Even a kid can tell you this is not how things work in the real world. The fact that he could think this is a good indication of how out of touch with reality he really was.
However, this criticism is aimed at Scheerbart's science only, and is in no way a criticism of the book that came out of it... as Scheerbart's failings only make the book better. ( )