I was talking to a physics teacher yesterday, a man of some years experience teaching at a fee-paying school and we got to discussing my research into Bessler's wheel.
"Of course you do realise that he was a fraud, don't you?" he said.
"How do you know that?" I asked.
"Surely you know that gravity is a conservative forece and as such it cannot be used to supply energy continuously to drive that wheel of his," was his response.
"But, " I replied, "the evidence that his claims were genuine is overwhelming and the numerous witnesses none of them fools, nor easily misled. Many of them were scientists, teachera and engineers themselves and looking for the signs of fraud."
"I'm sorry, my friend," he replied, "but you must face the facts, it's impossible, and I'll tell you why. To make the weights move in and out to cause overbalance, they will travel on different paths - right?" I nodded because I knew where he was going with this.
"A conservative force is defined as one where the work done in moving an object between two points is independent of the path taken, so even if they move inwards and outwards according to whether they are rising or falling...makes no difference."
"Yes I am aware of that", I said somewhat sarcastically, "gravity is a conservative force but just as a matter of interest, can you name a non-conservative force?"
"Yes of course, friction is a non-conservative force."
"And another one?"
"Well, right now I can't think of any others, but that is not the point," he said.
"But that is the point" I replied, "there are no others worth mentioning because almost all forces are conservative and although you may technically be correct I simply cannoit regard friction as the same kind of force as all the others. Let me ask you this; is the wind a conservative force? Is a current of water a conservative force?"
"Well yes but their interfaces are different."
"What d you mean?" I asked.
Gravity acts on the molecules constituting the weights, while those in the wind and water act on the external surfaces of the blades."
"Sorry," I responded, "that doesn't make any difference if, as you say, the path they take doesn't matter with a conservative force. Yes the shapes of the interfaces alter, but you can't say that that excuses the fact that even though it's a conservative force the wind can still be used as an energy source - or a stream of water. They are conservative forces and yet they demonstrate the fallacy of your argument. Maybe I can make the path of the weights make a different shape depending on whether it's rising or falling, just like the two surfaces of the windmill sails for instance."
"You are wrong my friend, science has taught us that gravity is not a source of energy, other than for the time it takes for a weight to fall, for over 300 years, but if you can prove them all wrong, I'll eat my hat!"
JC
10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.
"You are wrong my friend, science has taught us that gravity is not a source of energy, other than for the time it takes for a weight to fall, for over 300 years, but if you can prove them all wrong, I'll eat my hat!"
JC
10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.
