I would argue that the thing that is wrong is deep within the human mind. Man cannot rest content, apparently, with energy conservation. He must search for motion that renews itself forever. The examples date back since at least 600 years. Why they are wrong? Usually it is enough to consider whether the device violates energy conservation. If it does, it is impossible. Another possibility is that it actually tries to convert heat into work at 100% efficiency. That violates the second law, and is often harder to eliminate than energy violation.

A very nice site in this respect is the following (museum of unworkable devices):

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/museum/unwork.htm#neverwork

We must not forget that thermodynamics is the branch of physical science that deals with the action of heat and related forms of energy. That is why it is cold thermodynamics. There is no evidence that the energy sources of the gravity force, spring force and permanent magnets force are thermal. In physics, a force is any interaction, which tends to change the motion of an object. In other words any force can cause an object with mass to change its velocity (which includes to begin moving from a state of rest), i.e., to accelerate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force. It means we can successfully use gravity force, spring force and attractive/repulsive force of permanent magnets for obtaining energy by direct conversion of physical force action into mechanical movement and thus into the work and energy. These machines operate in full accordance with the laws of physics because each of mentioned forces have an own source of energy providing their operation and there is no contradiction to the laws of thermodynamics. I am convinced that if the existence of such natural forces as gravity force, the spring force and the attractive/repulsive force of permanent magnets is an absolute fact means there are energies leading these forces in action. Unfortunately, we do not know anything about energy source provides the gravitational pull objects toward each other also as we know nothing about the sources of energy of elasticity (spring force) and attractive/repulsive force of permanent magnets. Nevertheless, this cannot stop people successfully use these forces to generate energy.

Hi Vladimir

I understand your wonder at observing these devices whose motion cannot be explained by current theories. I note that they all involve magnets and some magnetic interaction.

This may come as a surprise to you, but as strange as this may seem in this age of "apparent" complete understanding of fundamental laws, the magnetic aspect of fundamental energy has not yet been understood nor integrated into any of the current theories on electromagnetism.

Even the basic equation used to calculate the force between two bar magnet is ad hoc and was drawn from experimental data, but cannot be derived from Maxwell nor any other current theory.

Halliday & Resnick "Physics" John Wyley & Sons, New York, 1967, page 93

As recently as 2014, an experiment was carried out to test the magnetic interaction between the magnetic aspect of 2 electrons:

http://www.nature.com/articles/nature13403.epdf?referrer_access_token=yoC6RXrPyxwvQviChYrG0tRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0PdPJ4geER1fKVR1YXH8GThqECstdb6e48mZm0qQo2OMX_XYURkzBSUZCrxM8VipvnG8FofxB39P4lc-1UIKEO1

Although this experiment confirms the inverse cube magnetic interaction law between elementary electromagnetic particles, neither this law nor any equation regarding magnetic interaction can be derived from any of the current theories.

It is however very well understood that the macroscopic magnetic fields of the permanent magnets used in these devices are caused by parallel allignment of the spins of electrons (obeying the inverse cube interaction law) in some materials, the very same electrons that magnetically interact according to the inverse cube law.

The chapter on the Properties of Magnetic Materials of the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics ([4], p.12-117), can give you quite a bit of information on how magnets develop their macroscopic fields, but none of this is covered by any currently available theory.

I saw many discussions on Researchgate regarding the hydrogen atom, and never is the inverse cube magnetic interaction law between the proton and the electron mentioned or considered.

So, do not be surprised that scientists remain doubtful about such interesting devices. As long as the inverse cube magnetic interaction law has not been integrated into a more complete form of electromagnetic theory, nobody in the formal community will consider these devices as more than picturesque gadgets probably hiding some hidden hoax.

I hope this info will be usefull to you.

Thank you, Andre

You wrote, “I understand your wonder at observing these devices whose motion cannot be explained by current theories. I note that they all involve magnets and some magnets interaction”. You did not notice devices involve gravity and spring force.

I agree that the current theories do not recognize the gravity, elasticity and permanent magnets as sources of energy. They do not recognize because know a little about them. It is necessary to go through a long and difficult way to obtain working theories. Practice shows that the development of theory can be successful making numerous experiments. Deficiency of knowledge in this area has led to a massive participation of the enthusiastic people in the experimental search for answers that cannot give the scientists. I want to emphasize that unknown to us energies manifest themselves in the form of forces that we feel, and we can measure. We know how to deal with the forces when calculating machines, mechanisms, and can design and build them for using these forces. At this time, engineer-designer has no necessity to know the theory of the origin of the physical force.