I would be surprised if this phenomenon caused the friction between metallic surfaces. The surface of metals aren't that flat on nanoscale (even if they are well polished).
This also kind of seems analogous to the electron Cooper pairs moving through a superconductor... As one electron moves down into a trout, the other moves up into a peak, and because of the push/pull balancing interaction of their paired up connection, energy is not dissipated (as heat), and in-turn no additional energy is required for propagation... They just keep on moving.
Good point, this will bar more complicated mechanisms. But a ring spinning forever around a dimple (in vaccuum of course) should work. Constant pressure so no flexing.
So, your perpetual motion device will inevitably interact with virtual particles with momentum contrary to its own, and therefore run down.
Even if you have problems with that, consider this: It's impossible to cool anything to 0K (absolute zero); all warm bodies (warmer than absolute zero) give off photons; therefore, your moving parts will interact with photons carrying momentum contrary to their own, and therefore be slowed and eventually halted. Again, this is unavoidable.
So the simple classical picture of a rock in simple inertial motion through the vacuum of space is valid as a simplification. Remember, though, that it's equally valid to construct a coordinate system where the rock is stationary and everything else is in perpetual motion.
Please explain that for me, because resistance is the thing that burns the kinetic energy off to other forms (such as heat). If you remove resistance, what is the problem?
Sure, if you remove all resistance it won't stop, that's Newton's First Law. But usually "perpetual motion" means you'd be able to harness the motion somehow, which is still not the case.
>A perpetual motion machine of the third kind, usually (but not always)[12] defined as one that completely eliminates friction and other dissipative forces, to maintain motion forever (due to its mass inertia).
