[[B1-K06-S0081-DE|Deutsch]] — [[B1-K06-S0081-RU|по-русски]] — [[B1-K06-S0081-FR|Français]] — [[B1-K06-S0081-IT|Italiano]] — [[B1-K06-S0081-ES|Español]] [[B1-K00-S0008-EN|Table of content]] (As printed in the book) — [[00-Inhalt-Erzaehl-EN|Directly to page...]] — [[B1-K06-S0082-EN|next page]] --- Beelzebub's Tales To His Grandson Chapter 6 – Perpetual Motion, page 73/74 “In short, the invention of ‘perpetual motion’ was, as they say, ‘the rage,’ and every crank felt obliged to be interested in this question. “I was once in one of the towns there where models of every kind and innumerable ‘descriptions’ of proposed ‘mechanisms’ for this ‘perpetual motion’ were assembled. “What wasn’t there? What ‘ingenious’ and complicated machines did I not see? In any single one of these mechanisms I saw there, there must have been more ideas and ‘[[Kluegeln-EN|wiseacrings]]’ than in all the laws of World-creation and World-existence. ^21c28c “I noted at the time that in these innumerable models and descriptions of proposed mechanisms, the idea of using what is called the ‘force of weight’ predominated. And the idea of employing the ‘force of weight’ they explained thus: a very complicated mechanism was to lift ‘some’ weight and this latter was then to fall and by its fall set the whole mechanism in motion, which motion would again lift the weight, and so on, and so on. “The result of it all was that thousands were shut up in ‘lunatic asylums,’ thousands more, having made this idea their dream, either began to fail altogether to fulfill even those being-duties of theirs which had somehow or other in the course of many years been established there, or to fulfill them in such a way as ‘couldn’t be worse.’ “I don’t know how it would all have ended if some quite demented being there, with one foot already in the grave, such a one as they themselves call an ‘old dotard,’ and who had previously somehow acquired a certain authority, had not proved by ‘calculations’ known only to himself that it was absolutely impossible to invent ‘perpetual motion.’ --- [[B1-K06-S0080-EN|previous page]] — page 81 — [[B1-K06-S0082-EN|next page]] ---