I'm a fraud.
A big, fat, handsome fraud.
And it's only a matter of time before the world catches on.
*Door Bell*
Now what?
Greetings, Captain Disillusion!
Ellie!
What're you doing here?
New month, new delivery. Got a fresh batch of debunking topics for ya...
Right here.
Already?
Mhm!
Come on in...
People want you to discuss the moon-landing hoax conspiracy theories.
Mythbusters already did that better than I ever could.
To give your two cents on the topic of cryptozoology.
Do I look like either of the hosts of Monster Talk? Pff.
And to definitively disprove the flat earth hypothesis.
Vsauce covered it. I can't compete with that sexy beard.
I'm just an expert on spotting if a picture of a thing is on top of a picture of another thing!
Ellie... have I become superannuated?
...Yes?
No.
I gotta level with you, I don't really know what superannuated means.
But, I do have one more item you might be interested in.
What is it?
No one knows. We're hoping you might be able to figure it out.
Has anyone tried the button?
*Gasp*
*Scream*
Fact: The High-Definition Video Image is made up of
2 million 73 thousand 6 hundred pixels!
Making me look... a little different.
Oh my Holly. It's you! It's him!
*chuckle* At least I still got my hair.
Ellie, this man instilled a love for science in millions of kids!
Wow, do you sign stuff?
I'm Captain Disillusion, sir.
It's an honor to meet you!
Oh well, y'know it's always great to meet some fans.
Old or young... matte, or glossy...
Heh... what century is this, anyway?
The 21st! >> Oh, heh!
Hey, y'know, you remind me of one of my lab-assistants, yeah.
Josie, yeah... no, no, Phoebe... no, you're really more of a Liza, yeah.
I'm Ellie.
Oh, nice to meet ya Ellie! Nice to meet ya Captain Disillusion.
I'm Beakman, and you've just broken in to Beakman's -
Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute - this is MY show.
I'm a web video debunker.
Well, I'm a TV scientist.
Well, I've got all these kids asking me for scientific explanations of
weird videos, and I don't know nothing about no science.
Well, I've never used science to explain a weird video before.
Hold on! I'm getting an idea.
You... and I... should team up
We've got it.
Clear your browser cache and save your work...
It's the mash-up of the millenium!
Here they are... the valiant vanquisher of VFX, and the irrepressible instigator
of scientific inquiry. The two... the only... Captain Disillusion and Beakman!
You post em'... we'll roast em! Let's DEBUNKULATE!
Mr. Flare: Blocked due to a copyright claim by Sony Pictures Television.
Jeff Vance from Salem, Oregon, asks,
"Dear Captain, you might want to check out some of the free energy devices sometime.
Like this one."
Not really a question, Jeff.
I've seen these. Someone builds a contraption and claims that
magnets can make it spin forever and generate unlimited energy.
A magnetic engine?
Also known as a "perpetual motion machine."
I got this, Beakman. Jeff, if these videos are fake,
there's about a million ways to create the illusion using mechanical effects.
First -
IF these videos are fake?
Oh captain, my captain... we don't need to know how a perpetual motion machine was faked
to be certain that it was.
How can that possibly be?
Because such a device is against the law.
I knew it! It's a conspiracy by big oil to keep free energy technology out of
the hands of the public! Wake up, sheeple!
No, no, no, no, Ellie... I'm talkin' about the laws of thermodynamics.
If you spin a wheel, by itself, in the vacuum of outer space,
it will keep on spinning, at the same speed, forever, because there's
nothing out there to stop it.
Zaloom! Perpetual motion. But, if you try to use the wheel to power something else,
it won't work.
The first law of thermodynamics tells us that energy, which makes our wheel move,
can't be created or destroyed - only converted into other forms.
If the wheel is attached to a bicycle, the friction on the axle converts
the wheel's kinetic energy into heat.
So eventually, when all that energy has escaped, the wheel will stop.
The second law of thermodynamics tells us that this process is a one-way street.
It can't be reversed. Here on Earth,
there's also air resistance and gravity acting on the wheel.
So it'll stop spinning even sooner - no matter how well-oiled it is.
You can't win.
A machine won't put out more energy than you put in.
Worse, you can't even break even. A machine won't run forever,
unless you keep putting energy into it.
Ok, fine, but the people in the videos ARE putting energy into their magnet engines.
They're using magnets.
I hate to burst your bubble there, D man,
but magnets are not a source of energy.
Then, what do you call this? *gasp*
I call that a waste of potential.
Now, are you tellin' me that you kids in the 21st century still don't know how magnets work?
Well, it was a trending topic once because of a song, and...
I think I bought the song, but... didn't click on any of the articles.
Oh, brother! All the stuff in the universe is made of atoms,
each of which has a nucleus with some electrons zippin' around it.
These electrons have what physicists call, "spin".
When a whole bunch of them in neighbouring atoms spin in the same direction,
they create a magnetic field. We can get this to happen in some metals, turning them into permanent magnets.
Like the ones on your fridge.
I don't know, seems to me like there's plenty of energy inside magnets.
Well, Captain, as we both know, things are not always as they seem.
Observe. Oh, thank you, Ray, heh... lookin' good! >> Well, thank you very much!.
Opposite poles of two magnets attract. The closer they get to each other,
the more the two magnetic fields interact, and potential energy increases.
But once they snap together, all the energy dissipates as heat.
You have to put in just as much work to pull em' apart again.
What about when the same poles of two magnets repel?
It must take energy to push like that.
Yeah, but who's doin' the pushing, the magnets, or you?
Ohhh.
That's nice, Beak, but uh... here's a "Fast Fact" for ya.
Regular, non-perpetual motion motors, have magnets in them.
Ah, they do, but not just any magnets - special magnets, that can be turned on,
or off, with electricity - called...
Electromagnets. >> Which we already covered in uh...
Season 4, episode 13. >> Of Beakman's World!
So, motors? >> *gasp* Oh, I know this!
Every electric motor has 2 basic parts, the rotor - the thing that rotates -
and the stator - the thing that stays still.
Both are lined with a combination of permanent and electromagnets.
When some of the electromagnets in the stator are turned on,
they attract magnets in the rotor, making it turn a little.
Then those electromagnets go off, and another set goes on, turning the rotor further.
Over and over, the magnets in the rotor chase the magnetic fields in the stator,
and the motor shaft spins.
Oh, amazing Ellie, how do you know so much about electric motors?
I'm saving up for a Tesla.
Oh, ah... >> Tesla is a car now.
Huh, fascinating.
Wait a minute, I think I just got i!
It's not the magnets that drive the motor, it's the changing current!
As long as you have electromagnets turning on and off on the stator or the rotor,
or on both, things'll move!
That's right! But - >> But if you have permanent magnets on both sides,
the whole contraption will get stuck faster than the clock I filled with mayonnaise that time.
Yes, because of - >> Because of something called, "cogging torque."
Boy, you're really gettin' the hang of this.
When two magnets are close together, it's not just their closest poles that are interacting,
it's their magnetic fields as whole.
So in a set up like this, the magnets are doing just as much pulling as pushing.
Try it for yourself, and you'll see that instead of spinning fast,
the rotor gets stuck whenever the stator magnet
is exactly half-way between each pair of rotor magnets.
They lock together like the teeth of two invisible cogs.
Which means you'd have to get... creative to make your machine appear to work.
For instance, you could put a reed switch in the housing of the fan,
to have it activate from proximity to the magnet and power the motor with a button cell.
Or, you could connect two button cells directly to the coil in the glue beads on this contraption.
Or, you could hide a small, powerful motor and battery in the core of this needlessly large device,
then pretend to disassemble it and let gullible observers examine the decorative parts,
while your lackey makes sure that no one gets too close to the actual machine.
The possibilities for fooling an uninformed audience are endless.
So, does this mean magnet engines could never, ever, ever, ever work?
Well, it means that they don't work according to the laws of physics as we understand them today.
In the future, we might make new discoveries that change our core assumptions
about how the universe works,
forcing us to rewrite physics textbooks, and helping us overcome these limitations
in a completely new way. But I wouldn't hold my breath.
So, Jeff of Salem, Oregon, that's the deal with "free energy devices".
Ah, it looks my work is done here.
Where are you off to, Beakman?
You know, there's always so much more to learn.
Time to explore the world! I hear Mexico is really nice this time of year.
Remember, love with your heart, >> use your head for everything else,
see you next time, >> on Captain Disillusion!