Take a Cool Guess—The Fun Quiz on Renewable Energy and Environmental Sustainability. Today’s Topic: Perpetual Motion

Question: The first and second laws of thermodynamics conspire to make perpetual motion impossible.  But suppose you’re like me, and you like to examine claims like the one below and identify precisely where they fall apart.  What’s the exact reason that the “Archimedes Machine” below isn’t possible?

Relevance:  Let’s be honest, there’s not a hell of a lot of relevance to this one.  Oh, all right.  If you’re going to function as the editor of a website on renewable energy, it’s important to know enough about physics that you’re not a credulous boob.