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Perpetual motion   /pərpˈɛtʃuəl mˈoʊʃən/   Listen
noun
Motion  n.  
1.
The act, process, or state of changing place or position; movement; the passing of a body from one place or position to another, whether voluntary or involuntary; opposed to rest. "Speaking or mute, all comeliness and grace attends thee, and each word, each motion, forms."
2.
Power of, or capacity for, motion. "Devoid of sense and motion."
3.
Direction of movement; course; tendency; as, the motion of the planets is from west to east. "In our proper motion we ascend."
4.
Change in the relative position of the parts of anything; action of a machine with respect to the relative movement of its parts. "This is the great wheel to which the clock owes its motion."
5.
Movement of the mind, desires, or passions; mental act, or impulse to any action; internal activity. "Let a good man obey every good motion rising in his heart, knowing that every such motion proceeds from God."
6.
A proposal or suggestion looking to action or progress; esp., a formal proposal made in a deliberative assembly; as, a motion to adjourn. "Yes, I agree, and thank you for your motion."
7.
(Law) An application made to a court or judge orally in open court. Its object is to obtain an order or rule directing some act to be done in favor of the applicant.
8.
(Mus.) Change of pitch in successive sounds, whether in the same part or in groups of parts. "The independent motions of different parts sounding together constitute counterpoint." Note: Conjunct motion is that by single degrees of the scale. Contrary motion is that when parts move in opposite directions. Disjunct motion is motion by skips. Oblique motion is that when one part is stationary while another moves. Similar or direct motion is that when parts move in the same direction.
9.
A puppet show or puppet. (Obs.) "What motion's this? the model of Nineveh?" Note: Motion, in mechanics, may be simple or compound. Simple motions are: (a) straight translation, which, if of indefinite duration, must be reciprocating. (b) Simple rotation, which may be either continuous or reciprocating, and when reciprocating is called oscillating. (c) Helical, which, if of indefinite duration, must be reciprocating. Compound motion consists of combinations of any of the simple motions.
Center of motion, Harmonic motion, etc. See under Center, Harmonic, etc.
Motion block (Steam Engine), a crosshead.
Perpetual motion (Mech.), an incessant motion conceived to be attainable by a machine supplying its own motive forces independently of any action from without. According to the law of conservation of energy, such perpetual motion is impossible, and no device has yet been built that is capable of perpetual motion.
Synonyms: See Movement.



adjective
Perpetual  adj.  Neverceasing; continuing forever or for an unlimited time; unfailing; everlasting; continuous. "Unto the kingdom of perpetual night." "Perpetual feast of nectared sweets."
Circle of perpetual apparition, or Circle of perpetual occultation. See under Circle.
Perpetual calendar, a calendar so devised that it may be adjusted for any month or year.
Perpetual curacy (Ch. of Eng.), a curacy in which all the tithes are appropriated, and no vicarage is endowed.
Perpetual motion. See under Motion.
Perpetual screw. See Endless screw, under Screw.
Synonyms: Continual; unceasing; endless; everlasting; incessant; constant; eternal. See Constant.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Perpetual motion" Quotes from Famous Books



... seems at present to be agitating as many pseudo-scientific minds as did that of perpetual motion not many years ago, or the philosopher's stone at a more remote period. It possesses perhaps a still stronger attraction in the danger connected with the experiments—the source, we suppose, of the eagerness shown by Professor Wise and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various

... was half Italian, (being glad of coming out of little Barbary, and a universal tippling-house,) I would take no notice of it; being well satisfied, that the mathematicians of our times can no where find out the perpetual motion so well as here, where the goblets of Germans are an evident demonstration of its possibility—they think they cannot make good cheer, nor permit friendship or fraternity, as they call it, with any, without giving the seal brimful of ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus

... universe, we have running through them all the principle of the conservation of motion, which is to matter the source of all its activities, energies, and powers. Motion, therefore, might almost be said to be eternal. We have heard from time to time of the term perpetual motion. Philosophers have from time to time endeavoured to discover some application of this perpetual motion, but all efforts in this direction up to the present have proved futile. In one sense there is no such thing as perpetual motion. In another sense, that is from the ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper

... tradition is handed down by Berthold that the moon is Mary Magdalene, and the spots her tears of repentance. [63] Fontenelle, the French poet and philosopher, saw a woman in the moon's changes. "Everything," he says, "is in perpetual motion; even including a certain young lady in the moon, who was seen with a telescope about forty years ago, everything has considerably aged. She had a pretty good face, but her cheeks are now sunken, her nose is ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... Dr Thomas Young demonstrated that certain curved surfaces suspended by a thread moved into and not away from a horizontal current of air, but the demonstration, which approaches perilously near to perpetual motion if the current be truly horizontal, has never been successfully repeated, so that there is more than a suspicion that Young's air-current was NOT horizontal. Others had made and were making experiments on the resistance offered to the air by flat surfaces, ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian


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