The Perpetual Motion Club by Sue Lange Page B

She graduated to magnets and water tubes and balloons in a buoyancy system. She went through each historic PMM archetype, building small versions to understand exactly why they failed.
    She stored her models in an old footlocker, the contents of which had consisted of previous summers’ beach toys: half-flat volleyballs, dog-chewed Frisbees, holey towels. She tossed all that to the garbage bin to make room for her projects. No point in leaving the evidence of her work lying around for her cynical mother to comment on.
    Her gadgets required easily obtainable materials only. More modern PMMs, like those that used photovoltaics and violated the second law of thermodynamics, were inaccessible to her. They called for expensive high-tech parts not available at Radio Shack or mail order hobby suppliers. Gerry Martin could build those, but not Elsa.
    She studied historical frauds like Aldrich, knowing they failed only because the technology to make their theories work wasn’t available to them. If she took their basic ideas, their systems of hydraulics and pumps, and used smaller and smaller devices to eliminate friction, Elsa was convinced a self-powering device could certainly be created. Quantum mechanics predicts bits of energy created at the subatomic level out of nothing. This energy simply needed to be tapped.
    She joined free-energy chatlists and discussed principles with others like her: believers that anything was possible.
    She saw herself unveiling the winning project at FutureWorld. Jason Bridges might blow her off today because she was a nobody, but when she won the prize, became the darling of the school, had her moment in the sun, things would be different. Even the slice—no, interesting—tall, new boy would have to acknowledge her accomplishment. Maybe then he’d take her seriously.
    He’d be lucky if she gave him the time of day then. He’d go out of his way in the hallway to find her. He’d raise his voice when talking to his pals in order to catch her attention. Maybe he’d even wait outside the girls’ restroom, drinking at the fountain for fifteen minutes just for a chance to invite her to the upcoming game. He’d offer his letter jacket for her to wear. She’d try it on just to placate him. The sleeves, oversized in masculine length, would go well beyond her fingertips. She’d laugh in his face and throw it on the ground. Next year he’d beg to take her to the prom and then . . .
    Sure.
    Asshole.
    So she read and studied and built and thought. Most of all, she thought. Theorized. And then thought some more. When Lainie quietly opened the bedroom door at night to check on her daughter, she saw Elsa lying motionless with her eyes closed. Lainie assumed she was sleeping soundly and all was well. But Elsa was wide awake, thinking.
    Ideas came into her head at such times. She would pull out a paper and pencil from under the pillow, turn on the light by the bed, and scribble a quick Carnot diagram. She’d look at it from all angles, considering its flaws, engaging its possibilities. At dawn sleep would finally cease the perpetual motion in her brain.
    She floated new ideas by her online chat mates, getting shot down or encouraged depending on who was there at the time.
    She came up with an idea for an electron dynamo. Something like a fuel cell, only instead of recombining H2 and O2 molecules, it would give off free radicals which would create an electrically conductive plasma. The electric current from the dynamo could be used to power a small toy, like a Barbie Doll windmill maybe, anything to prove a perpetual motion point.
    The idea fell through when she realized the water needed to power it would be consumed, requiring replenishment and hence breaking the PM cycle. Maybe if it was placed in a river it would work, she surmised. But like solar power, it would be a system violating the rules for PMMs. The sun seems infinite, but it is not. Not only does it go down at night, but someday, in 5 billion