Bessler’s Wheel, odd numbers and the Pyramids.

You might think there cannot be any connection of interest to us, between Bessler’s wheel and the pyramids, but I will explained.

As many know I have remained stubbornly convinced that Bessler’s wheel had five mechanisms - I’m talking about his first wheels, both one-way wheels. I have also suggested that in other versions there may have been seven, nine and even eleven mechanisms.  In support of this conclusion I must point to the Maschinen Tractate (MT) drawings which include some anomalies in the numbering. See my article in www.theorffyreuscode.com, published 2009.

Bessler included the number of each illustration in his woodcuts. These are present up to and including number 104 They are of a similar style except for the numbers 52, 72, 92 and 102. In each of these cases the number two is drawn to look like a Z. All other examples of the letter two are shown in the usual curved style.  The angular number two may be intended to reflect the letter V twice, or in Roman numerals 55.

The ‘zed-like twos’ help to point to their accompanying partners, namely 50,70,90 and 100. The first and most obvious fact is that the number 5 is the first number to include the angular two. The only other numbers are the following odd numbers, 7 and 9. Why would this be done, I wondered. It seems to me that ever since I discovered the pentagon and the ubiquity of the number 5, that Bessler seemed to be suggesting that his wheel would not work with an even number of weights and that 5 was the ideal number. So 7 and 9 and even 11 mechanisms would also work but might be difficult to fit in to a wheel.

I also pointed out on the same website that MT137, the dodecagram or twelve pointed circle, also known as the circle of fifths because of its musical connotations, also contained a heptagram, or seventh circle.

So there are circles of fifths, sevenths and twelfths.  Is there any more? Many years ago I was watching a TV documentary on the pyramids of Egypt.  The presenter described the so-called ‘bent’ pyramid of Dahshure, which was started at a too steep an angle and had to be modified to a shallower slope when it was about half built.  It is thought that it became unstable at the initial angle, which interestingly  was set at 54 degrees, and then modified to 43 degrees.

54 degrees was immediately recognisable; it forms the two base angles of one segment of a pentagram.  It means that the apex of the pyramid was intended to form an angle of 72 degrees.  So each of the four faces of the pyramid was intended to reflect one segment of a pentagram.  Seeing as this idea did not pan out well because of the problems in building a pyramid with a geometrical figure inherent in its design, I wondered how they got on with the great pyramid at Giza.

It has been established that this pyramid (Khufu’s) was built with sloping sides of  about 51.5 degrees. If the bottom two angles of a triangle are both 51.5 degrees, that give an apex of 77 degrees, which doesn’t make sense at first sight.  360 divided by 77 gives us 4.67 - nothing relevant springs to mind.  I wondered if they wanted to build a pyramid reflecting a heptagram, but that would necessitate a slope angle of about 64 degrees, which we know was too steep.

The slope is 51.5 giving the apex an angle of 77 degrees.  It stresses the importance of the number 7 by producing it twice, and a circle divided by 7 gives.....51.5 degrees at the top angle of the pentagram segment. Although the builders could not build a pyramid reflecting a heptagram, they cleverly pointed to the geometric figure even though it wasn’t actually there.  It demonstrated what they wished to convey - their skill in constructing buildings which either demonstrated geometric figures, or implied their presence figuratively, rather than failing and building a pyramid without this key ingredient.

The reason I introduced the pyramid theme, is because Bessler used a similar technique to hide information.  Without actually drawing it he pointed to its existence with subtle clues and we could then infer its presence, just as we can the pentagram at the bent pyramid and the heptagram in the great pyramid at Giza.

One more fascinating fact; the Great Giza pyramid at 481 feet, was the tallest building on the planet until 1360, when Lincoln cathedral in England was built. It’s spire originally reached 525 feet before it collapsed in a storm, many years later.

Link to my granddaughter’s gofundme site https://www.helpamy.co.uk/

JC

Please Help my Granddaughter Amy Walk Again.

I would like to remind anyone who reads this, about the state of my poor granddaughter, Amy Pohl.  She had a brilliant career ahead of her before she was struck down by the most debilitating of diseases for which there seems little chance of a cure.  But Amy is a real fighter and determined to get well and that is why I'm posting this again, in the hope of maintaining her ongoing treatment at STEPS.

Amy left Winchester University with a first class honours degree in primary education.  But as she was entering her 3rd year of teaching at Rugby Free primary School, in December 2017, something happened that changed Amy's  life dramatically.

From a failed cannula in her left hand, inserted to provide routine treatment for a nasty cough (adult croup) she developed Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) and subsequently Functional Neurological Disease (FND).

Amy has spent the majority of her time since then in hospital, recently in a neurological ward at University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW).  She has no use in her left hand and suffers constant pain in that arm, neither can she use her legs.  She is unable to sit unsupported, and suffers from Post Traumatic Distress Disorder (PTSD) too.

UHCW was unable to offer any treatment other than maintaining her general health, but the side effects of her illness have caused her condition to deteriorate and without specialist care would continue to do so.

Following extensive research by everyone in the family it was decided that a new clinic which had opened a couple of years earlier might be able to offer Amy a chance to recover and she was transferred to STEPS Rehabilitation, Sheffield.  It looks as though it will prove to be a turning point in her path towards recovery.  This transfer was made possible by some limited Government funding thanks to huge pressure from Amy's family and her local Member of Parliament (MP) Mark Pawsey.

STEPS provides a very comprehensive treatment regime 7 days a week and Amy is making steady progress. It is clear, however, that this is just the start of a long journey and at over £5000 per week, it certainly isn't cheap.

I started Amy's crowdfunding page to try to raise enough funds to pay for Amy's treatment and it has almost reached its target of £40,000. So many people have kindly donated money and we cannot sufficiently express our gratitude, but of course the money raised so far will run out before Amy's treatment has allowed her to stand by herself and walk again, so we implore all who read this to donate to her fund or share the campaign via your social media accounts.

Our daughter, Jo, (Amy's mother), was diagnosed with cancer (stage 4 non-hodgkins  lymphoma), which resulted in her being in UHCW at the same time as Amy.  After several months of the strongest chemo available and radiation therapy (because she was young enough to survive it!) she emerged thinner, weaker but in remission.  Jo and her husband Dave have devoted themselves to finding the latest information on dealing with Amy's condition, but finding time to visit Amy who is in Sheffield, about 100 miles away, puts an enormous strain on both of them while they continue to carry on with their demanding jobs.  We (my wife, Sandra and I) try to visit Amy as often as possible but because of her tough regime Amy cannot receive visitors until after seven in the evening.

Any donations no matter how small and/or sharing the web sites with the social media would be very much appreciated.

Here are the links to her web sites, the HelpAmy web site, HelpAmy

Amy's crowd funding site gofundme.com

Lots of news there with videos and photos of Amy and her family and friends

Thanks to all of you for reading this.

JC

The Legend of Bessler’s Wheel and the Orffyreus Code

My apologies to all, I accidentally deleted my post about my progress on reconstructing Bessler’s wheel!  I lost all the comments too, and that is, I think, the first time in nine years that has happened, I’m so sorry but I can’t get it back.

PS Thanks for the quick action by anon, he recovered my lost post and has published it in the first comment below this one.

I’m posting the Legend of Bessler’s wheel again because I’m going to be working hard on finishing my reconstruction of Bessler’s wheel.  It’s been a busy year with little time to spend in my garage where the build should have been happening, but time is racing by and I must concentrate on finishing the job.  My apologies for promising fewer blogs but the sooner I finish it the sooner I can publish everything.


Please feel free to comment if you wish and I will try to check back daily. So here it is again, 


                                              The Legend of Bessler's wheel.

On 6th June, 1712, in Germany, Johann Bessler (also known by his pseudonym, Orffyreus) announced that after many years of failure, he had succeeded in designing and building a perpetual motion machine.  For more than fourteen years he exhibited his machine and allowed people to thoroughly examine it.  Following advice from the famous scientist, Gottfried Leibniz, he devised a number of demonstrations and tests designed to prove the validity of his machine without giving away the secret of its design.


Karl the Landgrave of Hesse permitted Bessler to live, work and exhibit his machine at the prince's castle of Weissenstein.  Karl was a man of unimpeachable reputation and he insisted on being allowed to verify the inventor's claims before he allowed Bessler to take up residence  This the inventor reluctantly agreed to and once he had examined the machine to his own satisfaction Karl authorised the  publication of his approval of the machine.  For several years Bessler was visited by numerous people of varying status, scientists, ministers and royalty.  Several official examinations were carried out and each time the examiners concluded that the inventor's claims were genuine.


Over several years Karl aged and it was decided that the inventor should leave the castle and he was granted accommodation in the nearby town of Karlshaven. Despite the strong circumstantial evidence that his machine was genuine,  Bessler failed to secure a sale and after more than thirty years he died in poverty.  His death came after he fell from a windmill he had been commissioned to build.  The windmill was an interesting design using a vertical axle which allowed it to benefit from winds from any directions.  


He had asked for a huge sum of money for the secret of his perpetual motion machine, £20,000 which was an amount only affordable by kings and princes, and although many were interested, none were prepared to agree to the terms of the deal. Bessler required that he be given the money and the buyer take the machine without viewing the internal workings.  Those who sought to purchase the wheel, for that was the form the machine took, insisted that they see the secret mechanism before they parted with the money. Bessler feared that once the design was known the buyers could simply walk away knowing how to build his machine and he would get nothing for his trouble.


I became curious about the legend of Bessler’s Wheel, while still in my teens, and have spent most of my life researching the life of Johann Bessler (I’m now 74).  I obtained copies of all his books and had them translated into English and self-published them, in the hope that either myself or someone else might solve the secret and present it to the world in this time of pollution, global warming and increasingly limited energy resources.


For some ideas about Bessler’s code why not visit my web sites at www.theorffyreuscode.com

On 6th June, 1712, in Germany, Johann Bessler (also known by his pseudonym, Orffyreus) announced that after many years of failure, he had succeeded in designing and building a perpetual motion machine.  For more than fourteen years he exhibited his machine and allowed people to thoroughly examine it.  Following advice from the famous scientist, Gottfried Leibniz, he devised a number of demonstrations and tests designed to prove the validity of his machine without giving away the secret of its design.


This problem was anticipated by Bessler and he took extraordinary measures to ensure that his secret was safe, but he encoded all the information needed to reconstruct the machine in a small number of books that he published. He implied that he was prepared to die without selling the secret and that he believed that post humus acknowledgement was preferable to being robbed of his secret while he yet lived.


It has recently become clear that Bessler had a huge knowledge of the history of codes and adopted several completely different ones to disguise information within his publications.  I have made considerable advances in deciphering his codes and I am confident that I have the complete design.


Johann Bessler published three books, and digital copies of these with English translations may be obtained from the links to the right of this blog.  In addition there is a copy of his unpublished document containing some 141 drawings - and my own account of Bessler’s life is also available from the links.  It is called "Perpetual Motion; An Ancient Mystery Solved?"  Bessler's three published books are entitled "Grundlicher Bericht", "Apologia Poetica" and "Das Triumphirende...". I have called Bessler's collection of 141 drawings his Maschinen Tractate, but it was originally found in the form of a number of loosely collected drawings of perpetual motion designs. Many of these have handwritten notes attached and I have published the best English translation of them that I was able to get. Bessler never published these drawings but clearly intended to do so at some point.


JC 

New insight into Kreuz AP passage

After I posted a previous blog about the passage in Apologia Poetica in which Bessler discusses the use of crossbars in his machine I sought some further insight into the text.  In the translation which  I published in my biography of Bessler, he seems to be saying that when he first built his machine he used one crossbar but the wheel barely moved.  He then tells us that when he added more crossbars, plus weights, pulleys and cord, the wheel spun more quickly.  However I have studied the original German text and there are some interesting aspects to it which I think help explain what Bessler wanted us to understand from it.

The first thing I always thought odd was the addition of more weights pulleys and cords in the second part of the passage.  It seemed to me that  they should have been included with the first reference to crossbars.  Then he could have said that more of each were needed.  My initial conclusion was that Bessler was informing us of the presence of crosses i.e, part of a scissor mechanism, which I still think he was, but also of weights, pulleys and cords.  However subsequently I considered that there were two or three pieces of information being presented within one piece of text, using a trick he has used elsewhere.

My translator thought that ‘crossbar’ was the word Bessler intended, and there has been much discussion about whether he actually meant ‘cross’ and not ‘crossbar’. The word ‘cross’ could suggest a design using the shape of a cross, in other words four equal divisions within the wheel. However I discovered a word which one might gloss over but which gives us a clue to his thinking.

So a closer study of the words he used reveals more information than one might get at first.  This is my latest interpretation.  The first words below are from my original version of Apologia Poetica, Part 2, XXXIII

"If I arrange to have just one cross-bar in the machine, it revolves very slowly, just as if it can hardly turn itself at all, but, on the contrary, when I arrange several crossbars, pulley and weights, the machine can revolve much faster, and throw Wagner's calculations clean out of the window!"

Now my new interpretation using equally acceptable alternative words:

"So in an  earlier work, I used just (or only) a (or one) cross, so to speak (or as it were),

"So you will see it, is very slow and hard to turn around by itself; On the other hand, (or whereas) if I added more crosses, pulleys and weights, then the device can run much faster;"

The word used in the German text is
 Gleichsam = so to speak, or as it were.  
 In the English dictionary, .
(definition of 'so to speak' = so to speak to draw attention to the fact that you are describing or referring to something in a way that may be amusing or unusual rather than completely accurate)

With his first use of the word "Kreuze", he is saying that it is like a cross.  In the second part he is saying, add these other parts, as well as more crossbars....... but he doesn't mean crosses.  This is why the first use of the word Kreuze, is separate from the second use.

I believe his intention in the first use of the word "kreuze" was to confirm the need for five mechanisms and not four.  So the first part is saying if you use four mechanisms the wheel will hardly turn, but if you use more by adding additional crossbars to the four you already have, then the wheel will turn fast.

So there are potentially three pieces of information; firstly, is that there needs to be more than four  mechanisms; secondly, there is a portion at least of the scissor mechanism involved, and thirdly, he tells us that we need to add more crossbars, weights, pulleys and cord.

JC

Karl’s New Year Card

Following a question abut Karl's birthday card I decided to post images of the only item I have which I assumed the posted comment referred to.  Although I have had this item for many years I have never attributed anything of significance to it although it is a curious document.

I contains large number of Chronograms each of which seem, as far as I have investigated, point to a particular year, usually the one in which the item is inserted.  Each one has a bible reference attached which I assume contains the quotation that Bessler used.

That is all I can say about the document but I am curious to know if anyone else sees more within it that is apparent to me.  It will be useful to post it here for anyone to return to should the need arise.

I was unable to arrange them in a more compact manner so they are central but in order from first page to last, top to bottom. Clicking on each page will give you a large version.

Doubtless you will notice the curious coincidence of the last part of the last page referring to this year 2019.

JC

The Legend of Bessler’s Wheel and the Orffyreus Code

I’m posting the Legend of Bessler’s wheel again because I’m going to be working hard on finishing my reconstruction of Bessler’s wheel.  It’s been a busy year with little time to spend in my garage where the build should have been happening, but time is racing by and I must concentrate on finishing the job.  My apologies for promising fewer blogs but the sooner I finish it the sooner I can publish everything.


Please feel free to comment if you wish and I will try to check back daily. So here it is again, 


                                              The Legend of Bessler's wheel.


Karl the Landgrave of Hesse permitted Bessler to live, work and exhibit his machine at the prince's castle of Weissenstein.  Karl was a man of unimpeachable reputation and he insisted on being allowed to verify the inventor's claims before he allowed Bessler to take up residence  This the inventor reluctantly agreed to and once he had examined the machine to his own satisfaction Karl authorised the  publication of his approval of the machine.  For several years Bessler was visited by numerous people of varying status, scientists, ministers and royalty.  Several official examinations were carried out and each time the examiners concluded that the inventor's claims were genuine.


Over several years Karl aged and it was decided that the inventor should leave the castle and he was granted accommodation in the nearby town of Karlshaven. Despite the strong circumstantial evidence that his machine was genuine,  Bessler failed to secure a sale and after more than thirty years he died in poverty.  His death came after he fell from a windmill he had been commissioned to build.  The windmill was an interesting design using a vertical axle which allowed it to benefit from winds from any directions.  


He had asked for a huge sum of money for the secret of his perpetual motion machine, £20,000 which was an amount only affordable by kings and princes, and although many were interested, none were prepared to agree to the terms of the deal. Bessler required that he be given the money and the buyer take the machine without viewing the internal workings.  Those who sought to purchase the wheel, for that was the form the machine took, insisted that they see the secret mechanism before they parted with the money. Bessler feared that once the design was known the buyers could simply walk away knowing how to build his machine and he would get nothing for his trouble.


I became curious about the legend of Bessler’s Wheel, while still in my teens, and have spent most of my life researching the life of Johann Bessler (I’m now 74).  I obtained copies of all his books and had them translated into English and self-published them, in the hope that either myself or someone else might solve the secret and present it to the world in this time of pollution, global warming and increasingly limited energy resources.


For some ideas about Bessler’s code why not visit my web sites at www.theorffyreuscode.com

On 6th June, 1712, in Germany, Johann Bessler (also known by his pseudonym, Orffyreus) announced that after many years of failure, he had succeeded in designing and building a perpetual motion machine.  For more than fourteen years he exhibited his machine and allowed people to thoroughly examine it.  Following advice from the famous scientist, Gottfried Leibniz, he devised a number of demonstrations and tests designed to prove the validity of his machine without giving away the secret of its design.


This problem was anticipated by Bessler and he took extraordinary measures to ensure that his secret was safe, but he encoded all the information needed to reconstruct the machine in a small number of books that he published. He implied that he was prepared to die without selling the secret and that he believed that post humus acknowledgement was preferable to being robbed of his secret while he yet lived.


It has recently become clear that Bessler had a huge knowledge of the history of codes and adopted several completely different ones to disguise information within his publications.  I have made considerable advances in deciphering his codes and I am confident that I have the complete design.


Johann Bessler published three books, and digital copies of these with English translations may be obtained from the links to the right of this blog.  In addition there is a copy of his unpublished document containing some 141 drawings - and my own account of Bessler’s life is also available from the links.  It is called "Perpetual Motion; An Ancient Mystery Solved?"  Bessler's three published books are entitled "Grundlicher Bericht", "Apologia Poetica" and "Das Triumphirende...". I have called Bessler's collection of 141 drawings his Maschinen Tractate, but it was originally found in the form of a number of loosely collected drawings of perpetual motion designs. Many of these have handwritten notes attached and I have published the best English translation of them that I was able to get. Bessler never published these drawings but clearly intended to do so at some point.


JC

Kreuz Means the X in Storksbill/Pantograph.

In a recent blog I posted a small coded clue, thinking that if anyone had a go at it they would need help in solving it.  Wrong!  One anonymous person got it quite quickly.  The clue was  an anagram, which looked like this.  “Karl’s next mobilizers sunk.”

The solution was this, “kreuz means x in storksbill"

Check this earlier blog

Friday, 10 November 2017

Johann Bessler's so-called Cross-Bars

So what does this mean?  When I published Apologia Poetica my translator suggested Kreuz meant crossbar, as there were literally dozens of potential meanings available depending on the required meaning and he could not think of anything more suitable. But actually the basic translation is “cross”.  Knowing Bessler’s propensity for offering clues which are vague or have more than one meaning and with no apparent reference to other things, it took me a while (about 30 years!) to make the connection.  The X's also known as “crosses” are a basic component of the famous “storksbill” or “pantograph”. Some shown in red and some in yellow as below.

When Bessler says that when he used just one cross, the wheel scarcely moved (paraphrased) but when he added more it turned, he simply meant that you needed more than one. 

This seems to me to suggest that although the pantograph mechanism was used, it was a small part not requiring a lengthy travel, just more than one link. He possibly designed it as one rectangle without an X to begin with and then adapted it as he saw fit. 

He also takes the opportunity to throw in the information that he used cords and pulleys as well as weights. If you study my version of the “Toys” page (first published here on Wednesday, 16th January 2013) you will see that I've divided each component of 'A' into five equal parts.  The divisions run across the page to include the scissor mechanisms.  The line including the top of 'A' and 'B' division includes three pieces of scissor mechanisms, but only two complete X's.  This I believe was done because he identified the parts of the scissor mechanisms with the X for purposes of confusion, but although there are three complete pieces of scissors, there are only two X;s, hence the suggestion he needed more than one.

Note the inherent suggestion that there are only five mechanisms required, as claimed by myself and hinted elsewhere and everywhere in Bessler's work.

JC.