The Zamboni pendulum

An electrostatic "Perpetuum mobile" of Giuseppe Zamboni - its modern legend and the simple explanation in the InterNet

Modern legends, in English "urban legends" mentioned, are the sailor yarn of our time: unbelievable stories, which are told at tables reserved for regulars everywhere in the world and from absolutely reliable sources to originate to be supposed: "a friend told it to me, whose acquaintance experienced history". No doubt thus, history must have happened in such a way or similarly.

For search "urban legends" Google.de finds 520,000 entries in the search machine, and there are numerous data bases, which are concerned intensively with this topic. The electronic search in the InterNet is suitable thus very well to let lead in order to expose modern legends as such and not in errs.

The authoress of the book really worth reading orders with the universe, Baerbel Mohr, seems to have mounted a modern legend. Mrs. Mohr writes in chapter 4 on page 29 over the Italian priest and physicist Giuseppe Zamboni: "Joseppe Zamboni built a mysterioese clock, those for 1835 in Verona, without to be ever drawn up, since 1835 still run also today. The science does not make large of waiving around this clock." Mrs. Mohr courage-measured, one cannot explain the phenomenon, "one only to the world of the mechanics and subject believes so long." The authoress continues to write the fact that the mysterioese clock stands today in the "Clairington Laboratory" the Oxford University and runs and runs...

If one refrains from the fact that it gives to the Oxford University no "Clairington Laboratory", and that the quoted physicist was not called "Joseppe Zamboni", it sounds first rather exciting this history. The reader here possibly wittert a conspiracy "of the science", which withholds us an innovative invention of the Mr. Zamboni, by not dealing with it. Since in this connection no failure is accused to individual scientists, "the science" seems to be altogether debt.

Equipped with the search word "Joseppe Zamboni", finds the Skeptiker only one entry in Google.de, which is to a large extent identical in the wording to the description in Baerbel Mohrs book. Too few search results, if one assumes Mr. Zamboni must have been a famous physicist. The conspiracy theory is possibly however fed by this amazing lack of results.

The search for "Zamboni" and "clock" naeherbringt us to the goal, because now referring to the resident of Munich professor Alois Ramis is 1815 a small series of electrostatic clocks already built, which used two Zamboni' S?en - drying cell batteries to that - as energy source. No miracle thus that the allegedly mysterioese clock of the Mr. Zamboni does not have to be drawn up, it runs in battery operation.

And, it is not even a clock! Baerbel Mohrs description fits very well on the Zamboni' pendulum, which perhaps looks at first sight like clock, but no time to indicate or measure can. The Zamboni' pendulum oscillates with a battery set equipped well 150 years long more or less strongly back and forth. Clocks tick differently, them are the time accurately to measure and have therefore a precise clockwork. One finds Zamboni' drying columns and pendulums in different museums in Europe, for example in the museum experimental physics of the University of Innsbruck, in the Clarendon Laboratory of the Oxford University, in the original experimental assembly of R?gen f?das German museum in Munich, and in the Museo Civico d'Arte di Modena

Result

The "mysterioese clock" is stated in Baerbel Mohrs book as example of the fact that many well-known phenomena cannot be proven sufficiently scientifically. How the search shows in the InterNet however fast, this example is not well selected. Zamboni's pendulum is not Mysterium, it is a scientific long-term experiment.

1. "Joseppe Zamboni" is called actually Giuseppe Zamboni.
   
   
2. The "Clairington Laboratory" is called correctly Clarendon Laboratory.
   
   
3. Professor Robert Walker procured the Zamboni pendulum well-known as Clarendon Dry Pile for the department OF Physics of the Oxford University, and set up 1840 in the Clarendon Laboratory.
   
   
4. According to Clarendon Laboratory of archives from 29 October 1998, is the Clarendon Dry Pile in the Guiness book of the records as "world's most durable battery" (most long-lived battery of the world) to be led. The search with www.guinnessworldrecords.com does not find an entry in the current data base of the records in July 2004.
   
   
5. Jim Williamson of the Oxford Physics department is to have said in the year 2001 about the Clarendon Dry Pile experiment: "It is quietly there and quietly ringing. You CAN lake it into the glass cabinet into the entrance hall OF the Clarendon (Laboratory), on the left as you go into the Martin Wood (Lecture Theatre)."
   
   
6. Zamboni's pendulum is propelled an electrostatic pendulum, from two trockenzellen, no "mysterioese clock".
   
   
7. The Zamboni S?e is a battery, which propels among other things the Zamboni pendulum.
   
   
8. The alleged Perpetuum mobile of Giuseppe Zamboni runs for a very long time, but are enough evenly only in such a way, until its two trockenzellen are used up. The Clarendon Dry Pile Zamboni mentioned pendulum of the Oxford University is since 1840 in enterprise, it oscillates thus for more than 160 years. The Zamboni pendulum in the museum experimental physics of the Universit?Innsbruck was 147 years in enterprise, from 1823 to 1970.

Sources of picture: Zamboni pendulum - with friendly permission of professor Armin Denoth, museum experimental physics of the University of Innsbruck.
Volt ash column - with friendly permission of Pierre R. Roberge, www.corrosion doctors.org

Bibliography - the just facts

In the year 1789 the Italian physician and natural scientist Luigi Galvani discover the "electrical Kr?e of the muscle movement" with frog thigh attempts.

From Galvanis discovery lively, invents Alessandro Volta 1799 its "galvanic S?e", a battery, which produces so-called galvanic river on chemical way. The operational principle of volt ashes S?e corresponds to the modern wet cell battery. First volt ashes S?en consisted of stacked zinc and copper disks, which were separate by damp, with S?e getr?te Stofffetzen or paper disks and were gest?t by three senkrechten Glasst?n. Volta built S?en with drei?g, for forty and f?zig elements, in order to study the potential gradient. It could prove that the Stromst?e with the number of the used elements increases. If more than twenty elements are used, does volt ash give painful Stromst to S?e? off. Giuseppe Zamboni developed volt ash further column.

Zamboni S?e (dry S?e) is a volt ash S?e of very many (1000-2000) disk's pairs, into which air-dry paper the place of the damp felt disks, false gold plating (kupferbronze) and false silver plating (tin) the place of the metals copper and zinc represents. In order to produce a Zamboni column, Bl?er of false gold and silberpapier with the page are laminated stuck, disks from it cut, these closely one on the other in a Glasr?e, so da?die tin side of each disk on the copper side of the preceding to be come, and by up-cemented brass versions closed the Glasr?e. The humidity held still in the air-dry paper affects gew?lichen volt ashes the metals in the same way electrically exciting as the Fl?igkeit in a S?e; the ends or poles of the S?e load themselves therefore with opposite Elektrizit?n, whose difference of potential with the number of disk's pairs w?st, l? itself the copper end with more positive, the zinc end with negative Elektrizit?
-- Meyers encyclopedia, 1888

Giuseppe Zamboni, catholic priest and physicist, June 1776 - 25 July 1846, inventor of the Zamboni' column (drying cell battery) of 1812.
Kurzbiografie (english)
Ausf?liche biography (english)

The Zambonis?e - a high voltage drying cell after Zamboni, consisting of 4.000 elements.
-- museum experimental physics of the University of Innsbruck

Professor Alois Ramis builds 1815 in M?hen a small series of electrostatic clocks and uses as energy source two Zamboni S?en, a modification of volt ashes S?e.

The Zamboni pendulum, an electrostatic "Perpetuum mobile", is propelled by two Zamboni' S?en. The picture shows a Zamboni pendulum, which was from 1823 to 1970 in enterprise.
-- museum experimental physics of the University of Innsbruck

Zamboni pendulum - The Clarendon Dry Pile, 1840 of professor Robert Walker in the Clarendon Laboratory developed and at least until 2001 in enterprise, possibly still today.
-- Clarendon Laboratory of archives, department OF Physics, Oxford University

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