Charles Redheffer
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Charles Redheffer (? - ?) was a US inventor who claimed to have invented a perpetual motion machine. It proved to be a hoax.
Charles Redheffer appeared in Philadelphia in 1812. He claimed he had invented a perpetual motion machine and exhibited it in his shop in the outskirts of the city for the fee of $1 per person. He lobbied for funds so he could build a larger version. In Philadelphia Gazette, a confederate bet that no one could debunk it.
On January 21, 1813 eight city commissioners visited Redheffer to inspect the machine. They had to do so through a barred window. The machine seemed to be a gravity-driven pendulum where an output gear drove a vertical shaft. Whenever they came too close to the machine, Redheffer stopped them lest they supposedly damage it.
One of the commissioners noticed that although the machine was supposedly providing energy for the output shaft, the gears were worn in the wrong direction for it to work. The shaft actually powered the machine.
Inspectors hired local engineer Isaiah Lukens to build a similar machine which used a hidden clockwork as a power source. Then they displayed the machine to Redheffer.
His ruse revealed, Redheffer immediately departed for New York where he was still unknown and exhibited his machine there.
When mechanical engineer Robert Fulton went to see the machine, he noticed that the machine was unsteady, as if someone would have powered it manually and irregularly with a crank. Fulton challenged Redheffer and said he would expose the secret power source; otherwise he would pay for all the damage he would cause. Redheffer agreed - there were spectators present.
Fulton removed some boards from the wall alongside the machine and exposed a catgut cord that led to the upper floor. Upstairs he found an old man who was turning a hand-crank with one hand and eating bread with the other.
Spectators realized they had been duped and demolished the machine. Redheffer fled the city.
[edit] References
- Kotz, John C., Paul M. Treichel, and Gabriela C. Weaver. "Principles of Reactivity: Entropy and Free Energy." Introduction. Chemistry & Chemical Reactivity. By Kotz, Treichel, and Weaver. Ed. David Harris. 6th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson Brooks/Cole, 2006. 902-903.
