Wanted – Mad Scientist to help me win The Nobel Prize !

Well folks, it is the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day and I have no intention to make light of its significance. For those that missed it, here was my serious post on the theme:

The Day I Shot a Tiger

So if that was my serious post, this one has to be the super duper serious post as what I am about to propose to you could well be the solution to climate change!

Yes ladies and gentlemen, gather round as I attempt to disprove modern theories of thermodynamics and build a perpetual motion machine.

This idea actually came to me whilst a teenager, and because it was such a brilliant idea, I sat on it for more than 20 years.

I will explain my theory in basic English for the benefits of those do not possess my cerebral prowess!

Consider this –

A barrel of air, when dropped, falls to the ground.

That same barrel of air, when submerged in water and released, rises to the surface.

The motion of falling and rising produces kinetic energy.

If we can loop this cycle of falling, then rising, it might be possible to build a world first perpetual motion machine.

Yes, I know what you are thinking – Genius right?

Well hold your horses, we havn’t saved the planet quite yet.

So this is a cross section of the world’s first perpetual motion machine.

The little red circles are the barrels I was talking about, you know, filled with air. They sit inside this huge cylindrical object thingy which has two chambers, the left side filled with air, and the right side, water. The short black lines are spokes that protrude from the inner wall of the cylinder.

Now this whole cylinder thingy turns anti-clockwise, much like car wheels in the Southern Hemisphere. The super complex mathematical formula are there to make me look super intelligent, and can be ignored by the ignorant masses.

So how does it work? Well the small red barrels are free floating. When they enter the water filled chamber, they push the spokes up, and the whole cylinder thingy turns. At the top, they enter the watertight transfer chamber and exit through the left side. As we know, some chap called Newton discovered that if you drop something, it falls (genius!). Well, once in the air filled chamber, the barrel falls, pushing the spokes downward, et voila, we have a perpetually spinning wheel.

I was on a plane once and perchance found myself sitting next to some scientist guy. I knew this because his socks did not match. After some small chit chat where he feigned interest in my recount of life in Tokyo, you know, Pachinko parlours and hanabi games, I decided this was a man I could trust. I told him my idea and he smiled. I assume he thought I was brilliant, and this was validation enough for me to give him my number. He then started gibbering on about friction so our conversation ended there. Come to think of it, those seats were a bit itchy.

We parted ways, and I never heard from this kind man ever again.

I assume he did not want to take credit for my genius, such an honorable chap.

Today is Earth Day, a time to raise awareness of the serious environmental issues we face that cannot be ignored. I will not tell you how to live your life as by no means am I a role model. We are all guilty as charged. But I leave you with this article by fellow Bee, Jahanara Hoque who is far more eloquent (and smart) than me. Our youth are telling us to act, and this does not stop at the end of this day.

Celebrate Earth Day!

Dean Owen is a Co-Founder of Quimojo, a revolutionary new concept in Global Campus Recruitment.