Are Perpetual Motion Machines Possible?

What if I told you I built a machine that creates energy? As the wheel turns, the coins fall in the slots so that one side of the wheel is always heavier than the other, which would keep pulling that side down and the wheel would never stop turning. Without so much as a push, this wheel would spin forever. Think about the possibilities. I could build a giant fleet of wind turbines that turn without wind to power the entire Earth. We wouldn't have to burn fossil fuels anymore. This could solve climate change. This wheel is a perpetual motion machine, a device that is supposed to move without any energy. Perpetual motion machines are the snake oil of physics. They are impossible. You may have seen this wheel before, and there's a reason it doesn't work. Well, physics, but also friction here on the axle, which will eventually stop any wheel from continuing to spin. But then there's also gravity. So, what I said earlier about one side of the wheel being heavier than the other was misleading because of the way gravity works on wheels. Imagine a regular wheel. Its center of mass is at the center of the wheel. Now imagine a wheel with a single coin in it. It might swing back and forth a couple times, but it won't rotate. Add a second coin. Add a third coin. The wheel swings back and forth, slowing down until it stops where the center of gravity is at its lowest position, always. So, the unbalanced wheel will swing back and forth like a sad pendulum until friction wins. In countless instances in history, people have claimed they've made a perpetual motion machine. Bhaskara's unbalanced mercury wheel in the 1100s, Zimara's self-blowing windmill in the 1500s, the capillary bowl where capillary action forces the water upwards, the Oxford electric bell, which ticks back and forth due to charge repulsion, and so on. In fact, the US Patent Office stopped granting patents for perpetual motion machines without a working prototype. Now, there's a more fundamental reason why these machines are impossible, and it's called the law of conservation of energy, which states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Energy never comes for free. If you see a machine producing motion, heat, light, or another form of energy, keep looking for the energy source. I repeat, So, now you know, if anyone tells you they've built a perpetual motion machine, tell them to peddle their wares elsewhere. It's all very simple, and so are you if you think it'll work. You can't get something for nothing.