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CHAPTER EIGHTOrffyreus’s Perpetual Motion Engine

Every science student studying for his or her school or college examinations knows perfectly well that even the most efficient machine loses some of the energy that is put into it. Friction, air resistance, and a host of other “energy leakages” prevent the full force of what went in from performing one hundred percent of its optimum work before it comes out. Energy, like matter, cannot, theoretically, be created or destroyed, and only through Einstein’s famous E = mc² formula can matter and energy be exchanged one for the other. Once this basic scientific principle is firmly grasped, it seems that a perpetual motion machine is a contradiction in terms.

It has been said, however, by some of those who are expert in such matters, that the design of a bumblebee’s body and wings is aerodynamically unstable and, theoretically at least, the bumblebee ought not to be able to fly. Fortunately for the bumblebee, it does not know this, so it goes on flying contentedly despite all scientific theories to the contrary.