Posts Tagged: "perpetual motion"

Knowing When You Have Too Much Time on Your Hands

Last week the Obama Administration responded to a petition requesting the United States government secure funding and resources, and to begin construction of a Death Star by 2016. The first thing that popped into my head upon hearing about the Death Star petition was that some rather juvenile person must have had too much time on their hands and couldn’t think of anything productive to do. I then asked my assistant in jest, “how do you know when you have too much time on your hands?” The ideas started flying, many if not most related to patents, so I knew what I had to do.

The Patent Law of Perpetual Motion

The reality is that science fact and science fiction are dictated based on currently accepted understandings, whether they be true or not. As impossible as something sounds, what we understand as science fact is always bounded by our understanding of our surroundings. As our knowledge expands what was formerly science fact frequently becomes science wrong, sometimes badly wrong. Does that mean that someday perpetual motion will be a reality? Who knows. I am not holding my breath or taking any bets, but there are a lot of highly intelligent people constantly trying to unlock the mysteries of the universe and with so many new discoveries it seems science continues to encroach upon the impossible. Just think about cloaking devices and a transporter a la Star Trek, which are already to some extent realities.