One curious reader wonders if a tuning fork banged in space would vibrate forever. The question raises the concept of perpetual motion, which contradicts the laws of thermodynamics. The second law states that the entropy of an isolated system increases over time, and that heat always moves from hotter to colder regions, making perpetual motion impossible. While space lacks the friction of the Earth’s atmosphere, internal friction within the tuning fork causes its vibrations and sound. However, without air molecules, the vibrations produce no audible sound, and the energy eventually dissipates as heat. In the end, the tuning fork succumbs to the unyielding laws of physics.
