The principle of the impossibility of perpetual motion

...However, the search for perpetual motion machines continued amid the wave of the Industrial Revolution, and although the Paris Academy of Sciences refused to accept this type of invention in 1775, proposals for new inventions continued unabated. In the 19th century, physical research on heat engines progressed, and NLS Carnot established the principle of the impossibility of perpetual motion machines in his Reflections on the Motive Force of Fire (1824), laying the foundations of thermodynamics, and defined a perpetual motion machine as a device that ``not only continues motion indefinitely after the initial impact, but can generate power infinitely, successively withdraw all stationary objects in nature from their state, thereby denying the law of inertia, and ultimately can throw the whole world into motion, maintain that motion, and draw from itself a force sufficient to constantly accelerate it.'' Carnot said, ``If this were possible, there would be no need to seek power in the currents of water or air or combustibles, but we would have access to an inexhaustible source of power that could be drawn as much as we wanted.'' ...

*Here is a partial explanation of the terminology that refers to the "principle of the impossibility of perpetual motion machines."

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

…しかし産業革命の波の中で永久機関への模索が続き，1775年にパリ科学アカデミーはこの種の考案の受理を拒否したが，新発明の提唱はあとを絶たなかった。19世紀に入って熱機関についての物理的研究が進み，N.L.S.カルノーが《火の動力についての考察》(1824)で永久機関不可能の原理をうちたてて熱力学の基礎をつくり，〈単に最初の衝撃の後かぎりなく続く運動というだけでなく，動力を無限につくり出し，自然界のすべての静止物体をつぎつぎにその状態から引き出し，それによって慣性の法則を否定することができ，究極には全世界を運動に投げ込んでその運動を保持し，かつ絶えず加速するに足る力を自分からくみ出すことのできるような装置〉を〈永久機関〉と規定した。カルノーは〈もしそれが可能なら水や空気の流れや可燃物の中に動力を求める必要はなく，欲しいだけくみ出しうる尽きることのない動力の源泉が利用できることになろう〉と言っている。…

※「永久機関不可能の原理」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

出典｜株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典 第２版について | 情報