Percy Verance

Little confirmed biographical information about Percy Verance is easy to find today, but he is known as the author of Perpetual Motion, a work that traces attempts to create machines that would run indefinitely under their own power.

Rather than reading like a dry technical manual, the book brings together historical examples, illustrations, and explanations of the inventors and devices connected with the perpetual-motion idea. That makes Verance especially interesting to listeners who enjoy the meeting point of science, engineering history, and human imagination.

Because reliable personal details are scarce in the sources I could confirm, it is safest to remember him through his subject: a curious guide to one of invention's most persistent and impossible dreams.