Sunday 31 July 2011

Bessler's wheel must have been driven by gravity alone.

Someone posted a link on the bessler forum, in support of their view saying "all forces in closed systems are conserved. It's widely available knowledge."  The implication seemed to be that because of this fact we were all wasting our time trying to duplicate Bessler's wheel.


The first line of the link says "In physics, a conservation law states that a particular measurable property of an isolated physical system does not change as the system evolves."

You can't argue with this - it is demonstrably true. However it doesn't apply to Bessler's wheel. Isolated systems are, as the definition suggests, closed sytems without any access to external sources of energy.

But in a gravitywheel such as I maintain, Bessler's was, if you take away the gravitational force the wheel will remain stationary, therefore it cannot possibly be described as an isolated system. Gravity is external to the wheel.

So although the law of Conservation is correct the particular ramifications alluded to, do not apply in this case.

It is frequently argued that Bessler did not state in precise language that his wheel depended entirely on gravity and therefore it must have required some additional force to operate. I don't think anyone has come up with a creditable alternative force and in my opinion there isn't one - there is only gravity and there is no physical reason why it should not do.

So Bessler may have only said that - "these weights are themselves the PM device, the essential constituent parts which must of necessity continue to exercise their motive force (derived from the perpetual motion principle) indefinitely - so long as they keep away from the cemntre of gravity." - but that is as close to saying it was driven by gravity as you can get without actually saying so!

I have argued this point since I first expressed it in my book, "Perpetual Motion; An Ancient Mystery Solved?" in 1997 and I see no reason to change it.

JC

Friday 22 July 2011

Why the number 5? What does it mean?

In a recent comment, Andre reminded me of something I have become so used to that I had forgotten how extraordinary it is. He said; It's monumentally obvious that the number 5 had a very special and important meaning to Bessler. It pops up everywhere."

I think this is something that people forget or are unaware of or disregard - and yet Johann Bessler was so preoccupied with the number five that he inserted it or hid it,in every single document he published as well as many that never saw the light of day, until recently.

Everyone is familiar with the pentagram and its association with the number five, and Bessler certainly was, because it too, appears, or should I say, is hidden within, many of his drawings. Hidden it may be, but it is easily found once you are aware of his fondness for it. Space prevents me from detailing all the many coded references to the pentagram and the number 5, but you can see some of the evidence at my website http://www.theorffyreuscode.com/

So the question is; why did Bessler include so many references to the number 5?

I suggested that it was to tell us that a gravity-driven wheel, capable of driving another device, has to have five mechanisms to accomplish the task. I also considered it likely that it was intended as a pointer to the most comprehensively encoded text of all of Bessler's publications, chapter 55 of his "Poetica Apologia".

Bessler became known as 'Orffyreus' at about the same time he first exhibited his wheel, a single-direction one, in 1712. So at that time he must have already decided on a simple code, alphabetic substitution, to use as a pseudonym for Bessler, probably designed to suggest that at least he had an interest or was knowledgeable about such things. In addition he added two more forenames to his given one, which was "Elias". The names, "Johann Ernst", do not appear on his birth registration documents but a glance through my website at http://www.theorffyreuscode.com/ shows how he also introduced the same 'number five' theme into his pseudonym at or before the time he first exhibited his wheel.

It seems to me that he must have already decided to encode information about his wheel so that, at some point in future, he would be able to show that he was the original inventor, long before he was successful - and to me that is a likely scenario as I have been guilty of the same!

So does the number five relate to the wheel or the code or something else? The problem is that the number five and the pentagram have several connotations. In fact they hold so many commonly understood, subjective cultural and emotional associations, in addition to their explicit or literal meaning, that the potential for misinterpretations are boundless. Connections include,the golden section, Mary Magdalen, the planet Venus and Freemasonry, to mention just some  the morer diverse ones.

I think that Bessler found the best way to produce a gravitywheel which was suffiently powerful to be able to drive an additional piece of machinery, such as a water pump. This design required five mechanisms for reasons which I will discuss in a later blog. Five then formed the core of his subsequent code. He built a large dual direction wheel at Kassel, which required two lots of five mechanisms - one for each direction - hence the ubiquity of the two number fives i.e."5,5". What better use of "5,5" than to write his autobiography "Apologia Poetica", incorporating his code into Chapter 55 and inserting numerous pentagrams into the drawings in other documents.

How delightful to fill the ensuing book and all his drawings with veiled references to the his mysterious number 5s - and sit back and watch as others pored over the clues and tried to make sense of them!

JC

Sunday 17 July 2011

Maybe Karl described the simplicity of the concept, and not the wheel itself.

I suppose I should mention this on the Besslerwheel form but it doesn't seem to warrant a new thread; it's just my musings again.

When Karl's emissary, Nathaniel von Stapff, first approached Bessler with a view to checking out his claims, he must have made it clear to Bessler that in order to take advantage of the Landgrave's patronage, he would be required to reveal the secret, under an oath of silence of course, of the wheel's construction. Clearly this was a highly contentious issue for Bessler and yet he was persuaded to accept, the issue molified to some extent by the promise of 4000 thalers for the privilege.

So before Karl could even consider such a proposal he had to verify to his own satisfaction that Bessler's wheel actually worked, and since the Kassel wheel would not be finished for several months, and the previous, Merseberg wheel, had been destroyed, the wheel Karl saw must have been the small model mentioned two or three times elsewhere.

This small model may have been Bessler's first fully working model or even one which showed some rotation without providing enough to drive another device and it could only turn one way. It may have been the same one that was found in pieces after his death, and the same one that Jean-Pierre de Crousaz wrote somewaht sarcastically about. So when Karl described its simplicity he was probably describing the basic concept and not the interior of the Kassel wheel.

It is evident that Karl was heavily involved with matters of State and probably never took time to view the interior of the larger wheel, so one might conclude that although the concept appeared extremely simple to Karl, as he examined the model wheel - and that idea was born out by Bessler's own fears that any potential buyer might think he deserved his money back once he knew the secret, in fact the actual working model might have been considerably more complicated.

By complicated I mean that, whereas I have always maintained that Bessler indicated that five mechanisms were necessary to a fully functioning wheel, there might have been as few as two in his model version - a very simple concept and an ideal method of constructing a proof of principle version.

JC

Monday 11 July 2011

Principle of connectedness, and is five necessary?

Interpreting Bessler's principle of connectedness is a bit like knitting smoke. You can see it but you can't seem to grasp it. I thought I'd got it before, but now I think I really have! But have I? I think so but who knows at this point.

You can read the words 'principle of connectedness' and surmise that it refers to a degree of connection. Is it a vaccilating connection, sometimes fast and sometimes loose? Is it a flexible connection only capable of connection in one direction? Might be. There are several possibilities, but I think I understand what he was referring to now and if I'm right it doesn't in fact refer to the way the actual connections are made, in my opinion refer it refers to something else. I once thought I had found a feature of gravitywheels which no-one else was aware of. Then I met a guy who had come from Australia and had dropped into meet me and we discovered we were both aware of this oddity. I have seen comments which come close to what I'm thinking of but no one seems to have accurately described it. Of course it might not be as mysterious as I'm thinking, but I'm going to write something on the subject and post if for comment.

The other thing that concerns me - am I right in thinking that Bessler was indicating five mechanisms? I still think so, but testing five mechanisms on a wheel takes so much longer because I have to build each of them and attach them, whereas if I just wanted to test the hypothesis with two it would be so much quicker. But Bessler said "If I arrange to have just one cross-bar in the machine it revolves very slowly...", so will my two produce enough mechanical advantage to at least provide proof of the principle? Another rhetorical question for which the answer must be, try it and see.

JC

Tuesday 5 July 2011

When Bessler's wheel is reconstructed it will match his design exactly.

Recently, a blog or so back, I mentioned that I had found additional confirmation that my design was correct, in one of Bessler's clues. This led me to consider my other interpreted codes and I found further examples which consolidated my view that I was on the right track. Ruminating on this while on holiday I was struck by the curious lack of interest in Bessler's codes, and I realised that as far as I can tell, there are few who support my work on this subject.

I know that the interpretation of these kinds of codes is highly subjective and prone to being influenced by personal prejudices. In other words, I may appear to be guilty of interpreting the facts to fit the theory, or finding what I'm looking for by ignoring equally valid alternatives. Where I have thought that this was possible in some of the interpretations I have posted at http://www.theorffyreuscode.com/, I have admitted that this might be the case, and have said that the results are more speculative. In other cases I have had no doubts and have said so too.

In which case I am surprised to see comments from time to time, on the besslerwheel forum posing possible solutions to apparent codes for which I have already offered my own interpretations and which I am satisfied are correct. Of course they may simply disagree with my views, but sometimes it seems as though other people are unaware of my work in this area and perhaps I should be doing more to broadcast it. Those who follow my progress (or lack of it!) in reconstructing Bessler's wheel might think that I should get on with finishing it, rather than encouraging people to read my decoding efforts just in case they get there first. But I am trying to cover all outcomes including one where I am stuck, or unable to finish the wheel for some reason beyond my control.

I have another website at http://www.orffyreus.net/, where I have published everything I have found which may lead to the decoding of Chapter 55 in Bessler's 'Apologia Poetica'. It seems to me that my descriptions of my work in deciphering that extraordinary document are certainly a step towards full decipherment, yet no one has commented on it and as far as I know, no work is being done on it.

The methodology needed to recognise and decipher these numerous clues is straight forward. It should be obvious by now that I have deciphered far more than the limited amount I have revealed on my websites so I can say with a considerable degree of confidence that what is there is genuine, unless I have said that it is speculative. When I have more up-to-date information that requires additions or amendments to what is there I have added it.

I am writing a long document detailing the additional information concerning both the concept and the design revealed in Bessler's clues, and it will be published once I have succeeded in reconstructing Bessler's wheel. This will prove to those who say that we shall never know whether any new design is in any way similar to Bessler's, that they are wrong and that my design configuration is exactly the same as Bessler's.  I am confident that the design will match Bessler's because of the information I already have. 

JC

Sunday 3 July 2011

A simple design and a parallell course?

I returned from Spain and found that there were 450 postings on Besslerwheel forum in my short absence! But here's a confession; I am so convinced that I know exactly how Bessler's wheel worked that I have kind of lost interest in other people's theories, and I couldn't face the prospect of going through all 450 postings, so I just looked at the subjects that seemed most attractive to me. I may have missed some interesting comments but it is my impression that most of the ideas which surface there have been discussed previously and more than once.

I suppose this sounds egotistical, but its just a subjective feeling and if I think I'm right then I guess I'm going to think that way. I shall continue to read most of the posts and be interested in any that appear to be closing in on my own ideas, and I'm not so conceited as to think that no one else is working on a parallel course to my own.

Now I'm back I need to concentrate on finishing my proof of principle wheel. It's not as simple as Karl seemed to think, not to build any way, although I'm sure the equivalent of a carpenter's boy today, could make it if he was allowed to study the design for a few minutes. If you can see a finished mechanical system laid bare so all its parts are visible, then I'm sure that in most cases it is easy to understand how it works, but devising the best mechanical arrangement with nothing more than the basic concept to guide you is not so easy. Where in the length of a lever is the best point to attach a pivot? How wide should the angle be that a lever moves through to gain the most mechanical advantgage? Is there a point at which the advantage gained is cancelled out by other reactions? But if all this has been worked out correctly and results in a working model, then to an observer studying the movement, it might indeed look simple and easy to copy.

I have no fear that anyone will gain any insight into my design from the above rhetorical questions, although they apply to my design I don't think that anyone will just stumble on the correct configuration from those few words - unless of course they are on that parallell course!

JC

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