This 17 - 18^thcentury’s German inventor of perpetual motion machine, Orffyreus (1680- 1745) holds an eerie fascination to me. So today, I will tell you true story of this German inventor who sold his soul for perpetual motion.  In an odd way, his whole life revolved around perpetual motion.  Orffyreus was the one of the rare and best perpetual motionist the world has ever had. His work on perpetual motion machine is unparalleled by any one either before or since.

                 Orffyreus was a man of wide-ranging abilities and interests and, at one stage in his career; he earned his living as physician.  He was also considered as a great mechanical engineer. He worked for Count Karl, Landgrave of Hesse Cassel   as councilor and general engineer.

The word perpetual motion and Councilor Orffyreus are inseparable. He was an eager student of the 'Hidden Mysteries of Nature and Science.'  Guided by his intuitive feeling for perpetual motion, habit of using his intelligence to the utmost, a deepened command sense, reliance first and then on the observation and experiments, this remarkable man conceived, invented, and demonstrated a number of perpetual motion machines   to renowned man of science at many towns in Germany.  His last and the largest machine was demonstrated   at the castle of the Weissenstein in 1717.  Board of examiners was convinced that his machine was a true form of perpetual motion. Unfortunately for many reasons, his claim as an inventor of perpetual motion machine   has been put aside and thrown to the dust bins of history along with all other hoaxes frauds, mysteries and fakers whose lives occupy the achieves of many a dusty shelf in the museums through out the world.  History has wrongly convicted a genuine inventor and an innocent man.  All of the evidence about his machine faithfully recorded in his time support the conclusion that Orffyreus was a genuine inventor who solved the riddle of the perpetual motion machine about 300 years ago, but his personal character has intensified the doubts, his contemporaries did not realize the full importance and value of the invention. “Orffyreus’ work on his perpetual motion machine could have considerably extended our horizons in physics - and in technology too. But at this particular crossroads, mankind took a wrong turn..” says  George Egely, the author of the  book “Forbidden Invention”[R1] .

Perpetual motion is like a beautiful woman.  No matter cautious and careful she may remain most of the time, she is likely to get into the trouble at any time for no fault of her own but  only because nature has made him beautiful. Wicked and malicious man would try to possess her using all illegal means.  Similarly, perpetual motion is type of invention which itself is source of trouble for its inventor, as it would cause envy, antagonism, and hostility among the people.  Perpetual motion machine is likely to mushroom hundreds of opponents who would like to possess secret of its working mechanism by hook or crook.  We know any time a big fish can eat little one and destroy all her dreams- this is law of nature.  Orffyreus’ story illustrates the same point.

His genius was one of the manifestations of the age's vigour and drew nourishment from its extraordinary fertility. Orffyreus was a God sent member of that group of architects who had a dream of constructing the framework of our material civilization setting the stage for the drama of modern life based on free energy and power from nothing.

Orffyreus came at the scene to set a revolution in mechanics about the same time when 75 years old Newton had established himself as a big authority in mechanics.  It is intriguing to see that Newton’s laws of motion stand contrary to perpetual motion.  It was the time when various concepts of mechanics were still in process of development.  Today we have well defined concepts of energy, momentum, work and power, but these terms and concepts either didn’t come into existence or were poorly defined at the time when Orffyreus built and demonstrated his wheels. There was no uniform agreement among the scientist over these concepts and with different notions; they used different terms like impetus, vis viva etc to define quantitative aspects of motion. In Orffyreus times, steam engine was also in process of improvements. He was a pole apart from the view which eminent scientist held in his time, both in his conception of perpetual motion and in his conception of the means to achieve it.  Scientist in Orffyreus’ time had an opportunity to learn perpetual motion from   him but he never disclosed the secret to anyone without getting his reward. With development of steam engine, though science claimed to take shape as the companion of technology, without perpetual motion it was always lame. Later, by rejecting perpetual motion and promoting laws of thermodynamics, science fell into a grave error!

No man in the history took a more prominent part in the discovery of perpetual motion machine than did great Orffyreus. One cannot help feeling that man like him is born once in many centuries.  Indeed, they come to fulfill a specific mission.

To Orffyreus making new designs of the machines was not just a hobby, but also a passion.  He was an extraordinary person, in fact, a genius who worked hard and devoted his whole life to the noble cause of perpetual motion, just for the love of it and love for understanding the Nature and its great secrets.  His work makes it clear that his genius was no pretense. He produced a whole set of directional and non-directional perpetual motion wheels. He built several "perpetual motion machine" that ran on gravity. His musical inventions included an organ.

Orffyreus called himself a physician and sometimes a mechanic. He went on building and building but his mind was taking him where no inventor had gone before. He was drawn to the new source of power- gravity. He tried hard to obtain perpetual motion. Only after many many false starts and ineffectual attempts, he succeeded in his difficult venture. Bessler claimed he had succeeded in making "a dead material not only move itself, but lift weights and perform work even the most profound mathematicians and the most learned people have continually fallen into error". He built several wheels and demonstrated them at several places in Germany. In his life time everywhere examiners wanted to see his theory of perpetual motion machine. They wanted it brought down to the hard earth. But Orffyreus was wise enough not to sell the great secret just for nothing. Orffyreus engine violated all the conventions of the great contemporary engineers.

He had a mind larger than life and brain greater than scientist. And the deep joy he gained from perpetual motion was unparalleled. His overbalancing wheel represents a last breath of the soaring medieval imagination. The German scientist and philosopher Leibniz became his friend. ("Qrffyreus est the mes amis"(Wedge, S.16).  He had touched Leibniz’s heart and head. To save his talents, he brought him to Count Karl, Landgrave of Hesse cassel. He was esteemed and rewarded by Karl, Landgrave of Hesse Caseel., but contemporary scientist were  too preoccupied with theoretical  questions on perpetual motion to make much use of his profound work on perpetual motion during his lifetime. Een Leibniz himself couldn’t believe that perpetual motion is possible. Orffyreus lived a turbulent life at many places in Germany, deeply admired by a few able scientists like Leibniz but also making no immediate impress on Isaac Newton commensurate with his genius. Orffyreus had a tragic career.  His ambitions could not be realized.  His enemy ridiculed him and considered him as a fraud. He seems to have been unaffected by this. He was aware of the significance of what he had done and was content to let posterity appraise him.

Orffyreus was the first man who realized friction is not the first and any serious problem a perpetual motion machine designer has to face. He was the first to demonstrate that even in presence of the friction perpetual motion machine can do all useful work like raising weights and water from deep mines, bellowing furnaces, grinding grains and doing all milling without feeding on any type of force.  He proved that a concoction of motions of gears, weights, and linkages could be cleverly arranged to constitute perpetual motion.  He did not forget to emphasize the fact that the entire mechanism that rotates is indeed very simple.  By analysis of machine motions, he created a mechanics, which aimed at free power without regard to the expenditure of forces that drive them.

After he invented his perpetual motion machine, Orffyreus spent major part of his life in brooding over his bargain and financial troubles. When he was 31 he dreamed to petition to gain the exclusive rights to a gravity-powered wagon. He and his plans based on perpetual motion mirrored the imagination of the Industrial Revolution but everything failed. His enemies called him insane for his achievements, they alleged him perpetually so Orffyreus set about to vindicate himself by building larger versions of perpetual motion machines.  As his personality emerges from the shadows, it reveals qualities we have not seen before in the best inventive minds. Orffyreus was a touchy person.  In  1715 while he was struggling to establish his invention with a suitable reward, he said: “Never did I hear a word of praise, though I was criticized from all directions. But I never changed, never once wavered, because a single word could have betrayed my wondrous achievement.” He'd genuinely loved the people around him and expected a reward from them, but instead he was deserted for no fault of him, people were indeed very ungrateful to him for what   he had given to the world. “ I have often had only dry bread to eat and water to drink.” complained Orffyreus in the last days of his life.  His fellowman saw him dieing in chill, they saw him hungry and crying for bread but no one came to help. He died with his secret and shattered dreams. Beyond that -- what more could anyone suffer!