Elaborate Mechanism Works and Works to Do Nothing Well (Feb, 1954)
Filed under: Useless Tech — @ 10:04 am
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Feb, 1954
| Buy on Ebay
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Feb, 1954
| Buy on Ebay
Elaborate Mechanism Works and Works to Do Nothing Well
We all know someone who works harder doing nothing than most of us work doing something, but we can’t possibly know anything that works harder at nothing than a machine built by a California hobbyist. The machine has over 700 working parts that rotate, twist, oscillate and reciprocate—all for no purpose except movement. It is the brainstorm of Lawrence Wahlstrom, a landscape artist, who calls it a flying-saucer detector. The machine not only accomplishes nothing, it is never completed—it has been under construction seven years. Each year Wahlstrom adds 50 or more moving parts to it so it can do nothing more efficiently!
This was featured in newsreels, LIFE and Time mags and even commented on as a sign of our spiritual-less times in Catholic Digest in 1953.
I was hoping to find a copy of the newsreel on youtube but no luck.
Comment by Stannous — April 23, 2007 @ 10:23 am
It went ‘zing’ when it moved, ‘bop’ when it stopped, ‘whirr’ when it stood still; I never knew just what it was, and I guess I never will.
Comment by jayessell — April 24, 2007 @ 3:16 pm
Hey, it’s like the internet.
Comment by Chainsaw Fencing Champ — December 3, 2007 @ 9:29 pm
This is our grandfather. He also appeared on a popular TV show “I’ve got a secret” in 1953 or 54. We were hoping to find a copy of the TV appearance or information about the machine’s whereabouts.
Comment by Davies Family — February 22, 2008 @ 9:25 pm
[...] the idea of technology that serves absolutely no useful purpose. So, I was happy to stumble upon this thing, an “Elaborate Mechanism Works and Works to do Nothing Well”, from 1954. Awesome. And [...]
Pingback by Danimal Goes to ITP » Useless Technology — March 7, 2008 @ 3:29 pm
It reminds me of a “Perpetuum mobile sculpture” made by norwegian artist Reidar Finsrud, it has a circular ball track similar to this one, suspended by som peldulum arangement. He claims it has been running continuously since april 1996. www.galleri-finsrud.no/sider/mobile/mobile.html has some pics and a video clip, there are also some links but many of them are dead.
I’ve never seen a good explanation of it, I wonder if it’s based on some “Foucaults pendulum” principle. Like that the earth’s rotation causes the pendulums to precess (change direction of swing), and that the machine is able to absorb a tiny amount of energy from this to keep the ball rolling. But you have to remember that he presents it as a work of art rather than an actual perpetuum mobile, it may be some tricks involved.
Comment by Axel — May 9, 2008 @ 5:41 pm
I don’t think it was meant to be a Perpetual Motion Machine.
It’s what we would call Kinetic Art.
One of the Dr. Who episodes (Tom Baker era?) suggested tapping
The kinetic energy of the planet.
Was there a crackpot plan to build huge gyroscopes
at the equator to capture the power of its’ spin?
Comment by jayessell — May 9, 2008 @ 6:24 pm