Re: Is an electron spinning around the nucleus considered perpetual motion?

First of all, what do you mean by "perpetual motion"?  The usual definition
involves some sort of mechanical movement (meaning, the movement of
macroscopic objects) that has no frictional drag or loss of mechanical energy.

Planets orbiting the sun, while spinning, might be considered as candidates
for perpetual motion, but detailed observations reveal that the orbital
motions and spins of the planets result in tidal forces, with corresponding
losses of mechanical energy.  On a slower timescale, gravitational waves
will also dissapate the energy of planetary motions, which (if nothing else
were going on) would eventually result in the planets falling into the Sun.

On the atomic scale, these same sorts of loss mechanisms might be expected
to collapse all atoms into inert lumps of matter, but the reality is that
the physics of atoms and molecules is governed by quantum mechanics.  Why
don't electrons fall into atomic nuclei?  Because speaking in a
quantum-mechanical sense, the electrons aren't allowed to be so closely
packed together in an ordinary atom.  Another way to put it is that
electrons, in being bound to an atom, have already given up all the energy
they can, and don't have any more energy to give up to a loss mechanism.

Is this perpetual motion?  Well, even ignoring the fact that you can't
*see* an atom -- it isn't "macroscopic" by any stretch of the imagination
-- there is one small problem with "perpetual motion" in an atom that
emerges from the quantum-mechanical haze:  specifically, if you consider an
atom with a single electron (that is, hydrogen), according to quantum
mechanics its ground state has no angular momentum associated with it.  In
other words, the electron doesn't "go around" the nucleus -- indeed, there
is no definable or measurable "motion" at all.

I don't know if this answers your question, or if it just leaves you with
more issues than answers.  I recommend that you look at any college physics
textbook, as a starting point.  Look especialy at sections relating to Work
and Energy, Friction, the Laws of Thermodynamics and (if it is included)
models of the atom -- including Bohr's atomic model and any introduction to
quantum mechanics that might be available.  Good luck!