perpetual-motion machine

1. A machine that could run forever. A perpetual-motion machine would have to produce at least as much energy as was needed for its operation. According to the second law of thermodynamics, such a machine is impossible, and to date none has ever been successfully demonstrated.

Example Sentences

He strung together variations without pause into a frictionless perpetual-motion machine.

Read more on New York Times

Now, if you have systems that spontaneously want to move, this sounds dangerously like a perpetual-motion machine, and that had scared physicists away.

Read more on Scientific American

Seattle has been so rich in a diversified and high-end economy that it seemed a perpetual-motion machine.

Read more on Seattle Times

As Charles Pierce at Esquire notes, this fake audit is "a political perpetual-motion machine that is designed never to finish its purported 'job.'"

Read more on Salon

Russian meddling on behalf of Donald Trump is an intelligence version of a perpetual-motion machine.

Read more on Washington Post