The Perpetual Motion Machine That Wasn’t
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Keywords
perpetual motion, technological fraud, Charles Redheffer, engineering, history of technology, inventions, scientific advancements, robotics, historical frauds, innovation
Summary
This conversation explores the historical case of Charles Redheffer and his fraudulent perpetual motion machine in the early 19th century. It delves into the implications of questioning established scientific principles and the role of engineers in exposing technological frauds. The narrative highlights the absurdity of Redheffer's claims and the eventual unraveling of his deception, emphasizing the importance of skepticism in scientific advancement.
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Invisible Not Broken (00:02.37)
perpetual motion machine that wasn't.
Have you ever seen a rule and wanted to see what happens if you break it? While I'm not advocating anarchy, I will suggest questioning what has always been known can lead to tremendous scientific advancements. This, however, is a case of advancing one man's pocketbook while claiming to break a fundamental law in physics, perpetual motion.
The year was 1812 and a man named Charles Redhepper came into Philadelphia with a dream as large as his last name. He asked the state, what could you do with unlimited power source? Perhaps you yourself may take a moment to imagine the robotics that will remove your chores, your homework, or perhaps something even larger than your own needs.
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Mr. Red Heifer set up shop just outside the city and charged men $5. And in neither an act of condescension or an aid, charged women $1. Now given inflation, as of 2025, $1 in 1812 is worth $24.29. $5 in 1812 is worth $121.45. Now I'm feeling a little less guilty about the whole Disneyland thing.
It may be difficult to imagine the overwhelming crowds that would surge and queue up for days to see a machine that in its simplest terms was a generator. The main idea behind the machine was force meeting force would generate the eternal energy to power another machine. Now, our grand inventor, Mr. Red Huffer, had grand plans and he wanted to build bigger and better like
many inventors, very, very wealthy inventors, Mr. Red Heifer saw little need to risk his own hoard of riches and asked for the city of Philadelphia to bankroll his next perpetual motion machine, will be absolutely bigger than the last one. Now the city at this time was unused to writing a check to unproven technological advancements, and on January 21st, 1813,
eight engineers and one bring your date son to work day son, a kid went to the workshop. Now, I assume if you are listening to this podcast and you know that we are discussing frauds in technological advancement, you're not going to be shocked or spoiled when I tell you this perpetual motion machine was not what it was claiming to be. Don't mean to spoil the surprise.
But if you were going to create a fake perpetual motion machine and you knew that engineers are coming to take a look at it and your future income depended on these future engineers feeling like you had done and gone and created this thing, how would you hide it from them? What would you do? Feel free to take a second. Just curious what everyone's answers would be. Not that I'm trying to turn any of into criminals, just a thought exercise. So.
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I guarantee you came up selling better than he did. Mr. Red Heifer took in my estimation the most obvious way out. He allowed the inspectors to search only through a small barred window. Now the sons noticed that the gears were worn in the opposite direction. Now if you don't know what that means, that's okay. But what it means is that this is a machine that takes force upon force to hand that force over to another machine as energy, right?
This machine was doing the opposite. This machine was taking energy in. It wasn't sending energy out. So what would you do if you were a kid and the research I was doing showed him to be about eight years old? What would you do if you found out that you were the one to expose this fraud? You were a child who was able to expose this. Now I myself...
I'm not above enjoying a little dose of petty and neither did the elder or younger Mr. Sellers. Now they decided to do something that they thought was going to be very smart. They teamed up together and with a heaping dose of irony hired an engineer by the name of Isaiah Luckins to recreate Mr. Red Heifer's motion machine. But they hid a clockwork motor in the center.
Now they invited Mr. Redheifer over to witness this new miracle and he, Mr. Redheifer was immediately taken in. He knew this machine didn't work the way he said it was going to. So he was absolutely obsessed with this new machine. He had to have it. He could, he could take over the entire world with this machine.
So he offers to buy it from them. They show him that it was all false and that he was lied to.
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So he's called out Mr. Red Heifer's devious plan. Now, if you think that Mr. Red Heifer was chastened into obscurity, you've been ill-informed of the special nature of people who are willing to lie to the public as a way to make their living. They have a special ability, especially false technological geniuses. They seem to have an imperviousness to shame, and it seems to just
drip off of them like water off a duck's back. Mr. Red Heifer reappears in New York very quickly after with a completely retooled machine. Now given what we know about the first machine and how he was caught, what do you think Mr. Red Heifer did to make this machine less likely to be discovered as a fraud? Yes, I am afraid fraud, but that's going to be a theme this year, is going to be technological frauds.
So since we know that the gears were the giveaway, what would he do to make it less likely? Now, if you are familiar with this podcast, you might remember we did a year on the history of robots. And if you are suddenly wondering, why am I thinking about a chess playing robot from hundreds of years ago, I will tell you, you are right on the money and you have every right to be smiling right now. along with these gathering throngs of people desperate,
to see the society changing technology was one of the most respected mechanical engineers of the era. He was a brilliant inventor with a lot of patents and was actually the real thing. Now his name was Mr. Robert Fulton. And the first thing that Mr. Fulton observed was that for a machine, these movements were not smooth or identical. Now that's sort of the identifying feature of a machine is that it replicates things. does.
things over and over again in the same exact way. Now, if you remember a recent event, I think last year, so like 2024, 2023, we saw a similar issue with robots. It just came to my mind. No particular reason. Mr. Fulton decided to take a much more direct route than the Mr. Sellers. He decided he was not into being petty. He wanted to just deal with this head on. So he challenged Mr. Redhepper on the spot and said that there is something very wrong here.
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Mr. Redhepper said, I can't let you examine this because you might harm things. And Mr. Fulton said he would take on any of the financial costs for anything he ruined if it was proven that this was an actual machine. And for some reason, Mr. Redhepper said, sure, go ahead and look. He seemed very confident. There was apparently a wall behind it. And I only say apparently because this just seems odd to me. But according to the reports, what I'm going to have to guess was a very thin wall.
He kind of went through it and found a either a string twine or wire, depending on the source, that attached to this machine and went up two flights of stairs to a room where Mr. Fulton found this very bemused older man eating a sandwich with one hand and running the machine with
the other. So that would account for the jerking movements. it was, it was rather a moment. Now, undone by a sandwich is not a phrase historians use often. Almost never, but apparently not. Never. Undone by a sandwich. Now there's no more information on Mr. Redhepper after this point in time. He disappears from history or historical record.
So I just want to thank you. We've been on hiatus for about two years. So I thank you for returning with me. I hope you enjoy. This will be pretty much the series. We'll be discussing technological frauds this year.
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Chapters
00:00 The Quest for Perpetual Motion
02:44 The Rise and Fall of Charles Redheffer
05:28 Exposing the Fraud: The Role of Engineers
