Misconceptions & Reasoning
📋 What it is
Test "obvious" machine ideas against evidence — many beliefs about force and motion are wrong.
🗣️ Coach says
Machines and motion have feels-right-but-wrong ideas: machines don’t create energy (a "perpetual motion machine" is impossible), heavier things don’t fall faster (ignoring air), and a moving object doesn’t need constant force to keep moving (it needs force to CHANGE its motion). Reason from the physics, not the hunch.
🧠 Memory hook
Feels-true ≠ is-true. No machine makes free energy; force CHANGES motion (doesn’t just maintain it).
😂 Giggle
Why are gears such good friends?
They always mesh well together!
😲 Whoa!
People have tried for centuries to build a "perpetual motion machine" that runs forever with no energy — every single one has failed, because it would break the law that energy can’t be created.
✅ Quick check: Why is a "perpetual motion machine" (one that runs forever for free) impossible?
Say your answer out loud first — then reveal.
It would create energy from nothing, breaking the law that energy is conserved (never created or destroyed).
Perpetual motion violates energy conservation.
🧪 Try it! (2 minutes)
Give a ball a push on a smooth floor — it keeps going a while with NO more force (until friction stops it).