We’re not quite ready to call it perpetual motion yet but it is indeed an interesting machine. Norwegian artist and mathematician Reidar Finsrud is an outside the box thinker that has devised a machine, called the Finsrud Wheel, that he believes achieves true perpetual motion albeit, even he cannot explain how. The machine reportedly uses a combination of gravity, magnets, pendulums, and a little push to get it started in order to generate continuous motion.

Reidar Finsrud explained how it works:

“The machine is much more complicated than it appears at first sight. The upper part of the system is, among other things, absolutely decisive for the machine’s function. These “blade springs” transfer (steel) a little of the ball’s kinetic motion energy and this energy is used to lower the track ca. 200 micrometers, just a bit ahead of the ball. The energy is transferred via the frequency of the blade springs. The entire machine “floats” and is dependent on the central pendulum, the three large pendula, the speed of the ball, the frequency of the blade springs and everything else being in harmony – or “tuned”, “calibrated” in relation to each other.”

Built in 1996, it is claimed that the machine has run for up to a month without stopping.

“When a startup is required, this takes about 15 minutes, this is due to the difficulty involved in getting all the parts moving in harmony. It runs for about a month, until the glue is dried out, that holds the permanent magnets inside the footer.”

In 2008, the Discovery Channel ran a documentary about the wheel called “A Machine to Die For”. The Finsrud Wheel currently housed in a vault in a Norwegian gallery featuring Finsrud’s works

Below is a diagram of the device along with a video showing the machine in motion.