Paul Scheerbart
Page 22
The Great Disruption
There is no doubt whatever that the Perpet wil , among other things, con-
stitute a major disruption in human life. One might wel ask: Is this good
fortune not showing up too soon? Are we ripe for this new life of artists
and gods? Our imagination has not yet progressed to the point of being
able to grasp the consequences of this discovery even in general terms.
But — we must accept this in its entirety — as we would a natural phe-
nomenon, and we must also make our peace with any unfortunate side
effects.
The thing wil make the same sort of impression as a colossal earth-
quake — and a great deal — a very great deal — wil collapse beneath its
force.
The Ceremonious Silence
And a ceremonious silence wil set in once people have recovered from the
initial shock.
And al our religious views wil be subjected to a thorough revision.
And people wil no longer speak of the infinite, universal God — he’s
much too big for us.
And people wil say that even the godhead “Earth” is too big for us in
the end.
And then the great silence wil be fil ed with religious awe.
Wheels and Rings
Wheels already hold great significance for us — for it is to the railway
we owe the dangerous centralization of human beings in our major cities.
Steam and electricity, too, have brought us many il s — including the be-
wilderment of almost our entire intel ectual lives, as it can no longer be
denied that al the traveling done in this age of ours has produced a paucity
of thought in the human mind and, in consequence, a decline of culture.
And so the Perpet wil not be just another bit of progress with no fur-
ther repercussions.
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How priceless it seems to me that the spokeless wheel, which after al
lies at the heart of the whole discovery, is actual y a ring. Thus we have ring
symbolism foreshadowing the Great Perpet . . .
The Astral Direction
It’s clear as day that the only point of my experiencing this entire wheel
business was to have the significance of the star Earth made clear to me.
This significance wil remain unshakeable — even if the wheel turns out
not to work perpetually.
Heat, steam, electricity, and magnetism are also part of the star Earth’s
perpetual output — this must never again be forgotten. Henceforth the
physicist must formulate his wisdom differently; ways and means wil be
found to compel him to do so. Alas, there’s no getting around it.
But — since I have been speaking more and more of other stars — and
with this was hoping to bring forth an astral direction in literature and
art — — I find myself suddenly standing here crestfal en and, though it pains
me, must admit: I was on the wrong track. There is no need for us to suppose
that life on other stars is any more pleasant than our life here on Earth.
The star Earth, now that the Perpet has been discovered, is in fact entirely
pleasant. Al paradises are nothing compared to life on Earth after the
discovery of the Perpet.
This astral direction is already, like so many other things, “highly
superfluous.”
And in fact this makes me very sad . . . .
The “Star” Earth
The enormous gravitational labors performed by Earth without interrup-
tion over millions of years are impressing themselves on me more and more
keenly. Earth itself is a perpetual motion machine.
Putting waterfal s to work is already a means of making use of so-cal ed
gravitational force — and steam power is itself real y nothing more than a
specific variety of “gravity.”
I do find it strange, though, that humankind persists in considering its
work extremely important — without even realizing that actual y, even in
the case of steam engines, it is the star Earth doing al the work.
“Man, be more humble!” one wants to shout again and again.
In any case, I have final y come to appreciate just how huge this star
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Earth is. The fact that it is almost six times as heavy as water — this should
no longer be just casual y remarked on. It just won’t do anymore. The gen-
eral notion of gravity should be abolished. Even Wil iam Thomson (Lord
Kelvin) wanted to attribute gravity to atmospheric pressure — an odd way
to go about it — insisting on presenting Earth as a “nonparticipant” . . .
The first commandment is now: Live in harmony with your star!
But — what are the desires of this star Earth?
It wishes to keep moving further out — out into this great world — and
it revolves around itself — four miles every second! —
From this we must conclude that it is always capable of getting a good
look at everything that is going on around us in the solar system.
And so if we wish to live in harmony with our star Earth, we too must
do what it is doing — namely: we must constantly gaze out at the planetary
system and the sun.
And — — — this would show my astral direction to be quite cor-
rect — the star “Earth” doesn’t want our thoughts to adhere constantly
and forever to its terrestrial plane.
The star Earth also desires the astral — after al , it is itself a star.
And — — — this would seem enough to “salvage” my astral direction.
Wel — thank God!
One shouldn’t be so quick to give up on an idea — and I mustn’t forget
the “spokeless” wheel either . . . .
This “ring”!
The Nourishment Aria
It has always embarrassed me to think of the ridiculous way in which peo-
ple on the star Earth “nourish” themselves.
What can this be if not a mockery of humankind? And I believe that
eventual y it wil be possible to manufacture wafers that offer us al the
nutrients we require in highly concentrated form. Pure protein already
exists.
Whereby it remains regrettable that we cannot simply live on air.
But — there is no doubt a good reason for this bothersome circum-
stance: things shouldn’t be so comfortable here on Earth’s epidermis that
we forget the existence of the other stars.
I’ve been pointing this out for years, a good hundred thousand times so
far . . . .
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The Elixir of Life
That we should have to “die” has never struck me as particularly “divine.”
Meanwhile — are we real y quite certain that we are “living”?
We can’t even observe the moment when we fal asleep.
“To earth thou shalt return!”
This sentence might wel have the fol owing meaning: for a certain
length of time we are permitted to believe that we are leading independent
lives — but in truth we are not. We are merely leading the lives that the star
Earth allows us to live. The more we are one with it — the happier we are.
And when we die, we become ful y one with it again. Then we wil go on
leading astral lives. Our human lives are not as important — as our astral
lives are — this, in my opinion, is the wisdom that this endless dying on the
&n
bsp; epidermis of our star is constantly preaching to us in the most insistent terms.
And for this reason there is surely no cause to describe human dying
as lamentable.
Anyone who lives in harmony with his star Earth wil most assuredly
have no more fear of dying.
• • •
Whether the wheel now worked or failed to work — after what has been
said above, this could be of only secondary interest to me. Real y, did it
mat er?
This did not, however, stop me from continuing to work with the models.
For al of November I kept perpetual y at my labors, screwing and
sawing until my fingers ached, as they were not accustomed to such work.
The ideas described in the last little articles on the pages above were
probably formulated only in November, I’m no longer quite sure. In any
case I gradual y calmed down and accepted it with philosophical equanim-
ity when a model failed to function.
The most important thing from my point of view had already been
determined: the perpetual work performed by the Earth could no longer
be put in question.
And this insight was surely worth my having fil ed my imagination with
“wheels” for over a year.
Whether humankind or I myself succeed in translating the perpetual work
performed by our star into perpetual motion cannot be considered of par-
ticular importance; we are already partly in a position, in the use of steam,
for example, to utilize the Earth’s activity for our own purposes.
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For the time being, I shal pay no particular attention to the “Princi-
ple of Conversation of Energy,” since I am, after al , attacking the basic
premises of physics; we don’t know whether the atoms in outer space attract
one another — we don’t know whether stars do — we are in no position to
recognize universal laws. And we must energetical y object when physicists
have the colossal nerve to speak of “universal laws.”
I’ve included only a few of the models that were built in November and
the first half of December 1908 among the illustrations. In Figure 16, I
placed the system on top of two free-floating tracks and attached g f in such
a way as to make this rod perpendicular to the line connecting the two
midpoints of b and d.
Then I attempted to place wheel b above d in such a way that their
midpoints were equidistant from g (Figure 17).
In Figure 18 I reverted to the metal guide (see shaded area) and suddenly
realized — this was 17 December 1908 — that although the weight of KL
was making the smal wheel b exert steady downward pressure on d — al
the wheels touching the ground (including d) were at the same time being
pushed to the right even as b was being pushed to the left, with the result
that d moved not in the direction of the arrow but rather the opposite way.
At this point I realized why none of the models worked: in every one of
them, d moved not in the direction of the arrow, no matter how I attached
it; in other words, placing one wheel on top of the other didn’t work.
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I had a good laugh over the fact that I hadn’t understood this simple
matter much earlier.
And I abandoned the entire perpetual motion project. I wasn’t even sad
about it.
This lasted only a few days though. Even though I wanted to abandon
the wheels, they wouldn’t abandon me. And as early as 20 December I
pulled out the old “spokeless” wheel again.
And I soon saw (Figure 19) that d mounted within a most certainly did
have to move in the direction of the arrow — precisely because the lower
rods were being moved to the left in the direction of the arrow. The entire
system, therefore, had to move to the right — compelled by the constant
motion of a to the right.
The only thing wrong with the model of Figure 19 was that a was can-
celed out if it was not heavier than KL.
In January 1909 I had a model built of Figure 20 in which the mid-
points of a, b, and d al lay in a single line; d might, of course, also be
placed on the “dotted” track.
Unfortunately I failed to construct the model with sufficient accuracy
that it could be weighted. Nonetheless, I saw that I had not deceived myself.
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On 8 January 1909 I submitted this last version to the Imperial Patent
Office in Berlin.
It’s not my business to use the power of suggestion to force my beliefs
on anyone who doesn’t believe any of this; belief alone wil not suffice to set
anything in perpetual motion.
In any case, wheel d must be mounted inside a in such a way that it rol s
down a slanting plane within a.
Of course — d can’t rol down anything, since the rotation of d is imme-
diately translated into the rotation of a; a is held on either side by b and d
and is forced to rotate by the necessary rotation of b and d.
Whether or not this wil wind up working only if executed with cog
wheels I just don’t know. But the setup as a whole is perfectly clear. KL—
this calamity — perpetual y exerts downward force — and b and d, despite
their constant rotation, can’t move even a fraction of a mil imeter closer to
the midpoint of the Earth — — — — and thus the system keeps on running
without any further action on our part as long as the wheels remain intact.
No question, this wheel activity wil stir up a lot of dust.
In any case, we now know that everything depends upon the wil of the
star Earth.
None of us “deserves” the perpetual motion machine.
But we do have to acknowledge that our work cannot be considered
significant, since our star is so much more and works so much more — than
we do . . . . . .
Once we have acknowledged this, we’l have done enough acknowledg-
ing; we’l just have to be careful not to go back to thinking about infinite
space right away. And we should give up, once and for al , speaking of
“universal laws”; al theories pointing to such laws (such as so-cal ed
monism) should no longer be taken seriously.
Zehlendorf (Berlin), 4 March 1909
A tinsmith put together a model in which the wheels were arranged as in
drawing 21.
The wheels turned so haltingly that I was unable to see whether the
thing worked or not. On the ground, to be sure, there were three points of
frictional resistance to overcome. And natural y there was a bit of jamming
where b and d exerted pressure on spokeless wheel a.
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But I thought the problem had nonetheless been resolved.
• • •
Stil , at this point I left the entire business alone and did nothing more. The
drawing of this model remained lying on my desk for a ful year — while
I occupied myself with other things — particularly with aerial matters and
with grandiose air militarism, which in my opinion would certainly be deal-
ing a death blow to al land and sea militarism quite soon.
People were not so swift to see my point — I often found myself writing
the same thing with different words. And in the process I recognized how
absurd
ly cumbersome human thought was — which began to disgust me.
And in the end I wasn’t surprised that scholars of the star Earth hadn’t the
slightest idea how to approach gravity; they kept emphasizing that a mass
approaching the center of the Earth would have to be raised up again.
And al of them believed it axiomatic that this circumstance would render
a perpetual motion machine impossible. But as soon as the mass did not
approach the center of the Earth, as in drawing 21 — al these lovely “sci-
entific” speeches would have to be tossed on the scrap heap . . . .
In short: the drawing in question, as I’ve said before, sat on my desk for
a ful year, and nothing new occurred to me. But al of a sudden, on 30
January 1909, I took a closer look at drawing 13. And I thought: d mustn’t
be al owed to touch the ground. Hereupon I placed d atop the freely rotat-
ing cog z— and the thing wil run perpetually, as d can exert the ful force
of its weight on z.
The result is a weighted pressure motor capable of powering a vehicle;
the construction can be set in motion by the axis of z (see drawing 22).
Contrary rotation of the bottommost wheel, frictional resistance, and
jamming — these three obstacles were hereby overcome.
Al at once I had discovered a fixed weighted pressure motor that could
also work when suspended or mounted in a vehicle. Three little wheels had
solved the entire problem.
Now the whole thing looked like a toy.
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And for a ful year I had failed to hit on the utterly simple idea of turn-
ing drawing 13 into a “fixed” system. That’s al there was to it!
Let me tel you: I couldn’t help finding my human intelligence hideously
inconsequential. After al , for one ful year it hadn’t even occurred to me
to consider that something that didn’t work as a vehicle might stil merit
consideration as a fixed system. I just didn’t think of it.
z is the most important component in drawing 22. When the axis of d
is fixed and unobstructed beneath the axis as in the drawing, d wil simply
exert pressure on b, and no rotation at al wil occur — neither wheel wil
have any cause to rotate — neither to the right nor the left. It takes z to
bring the entire construction into perpetual motion, provided that the axis
of d remains unobstructed below, and so z is the capstone of this entire