The first law of thermodynamics, better known as Conservation of Energy, says that you can't create energy from nothing: it prohibits perpetual motion machines of the first type, which run and run indefinitely without consuming fuel or any other resource. According to our modern view of physics, energy is conserved in each individual interaction of particles. By mathematical induction, we see that no matter how large an assemblage of particles may be, it cannot produce energy from nothing - not without violating what we presently believe to be the laws of physics.

This is why the US Patent Office will summarily reject your amazingly clever proposal for an assemblage of wheels and gears that cause one spring to wind up another as the first runs down, and so continue to do work forever, according to your calculations. There's a fully general proof that at least one wheel must violate (our standard model of) the laws of physics for this to happen. So unless you can explain how one wheel violates the laws of physics, the assembly of wheels can't do it either.

A similar argument applies to a "reactionless drive", a propulsion system that violates Conservation of Momentum. In standard physics, momentum is conserved for all individual particles and their interactions; by mathematical induction, momentum is conserved for physical systems whatever their size. If you can visualize two particles knocking into each other and always coming out with the same total momentum that they started with, then you can see how scaling it up from particles to a gigantic complicated collection of gears won't change anything. Even if there's a trillion quadrillion atoms involved, 0 + 0 + ... + 0 = 0.

But Conservation of Energy, as such, cannot prohibit converting heat into work. You can, in fact, build a sealed box that converts ice cubes and stored electricity into warm water. It isn't even difficult. Energy cannot be created or destroyed: The net change in energy, from transforming (ice cubes + electricity) to (warm water), must be 0. So it couldn't violate Conservation of Energy, as such, if you did it the other way around...

Perpetual motion machines of the second type, which convert warm water into electrical current and ice cubes, are prohibited by the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

The Second Law is a...

Thermodynamics-Guy

Thermodynamics-Guy

Thermodynamics-Guy

Thermodynamics-Guy