This matter of earning money from Bessler's invention, has been skirted around on the forum, as if it would somehow be unworthy to try to earn money from it; but, as Tevye from 'Fiddler on the Roof' asked '... it's no shame to be poor... but it's no great honor either. So what would be so terrible... if I had a small fortune?' It should be remembered that Bessler's chief goal in researching and building his gravity wheel was to raise funds, ostensibly for the foundation of a school offering apprenticeships in numerous crafts. He asked for twenty thousand Pounds - a lot of money then and equal to three or more million Dollars today. I say ostensibly because although that may have been his honest intention, he was surrounded a small group of relatives who applied considerable pressure to subvert his position as Councillor of Commerce and divert funds to his greedy, criminal, in-laws.
I have maintained the view for many years that patenting this invention is the wrong way to go, and a phrase from the above quote reminded me that most of the poor on this planet could not afford to buy a patented invention, although they might well get together to build their own, possibly infringing a patent. How much better to offer it freely to anyone, anywhere.
I don't intend to rehearse my reasons for rejecting the patent route, suffice to say - government interference either by taxing to the hilt or burying it; upfront cost of world wide patent - and don't tell me that it will all come back in revenue; it might not for many reasons; and action from competitive resources; any way I'm nearly 70 and I need my small fortune now. How much better to get some financial reward within weeks of successfully building your working model than to have to wait two or three years, after you've mortgaged yourself to the max to pay for it.
So how can you make a small amount of money to help you live comfortable and perhaps help your children and grandchildren? The first thing to note is that when you announce your success, you have have everything already organised and ready to go. The first thing the world should know about your work is after you have completed the following tasks. First record your device on video, preferably include some slow-motion and some stills of it in various positions. Then write down in detail exactly how and why it works. Explain everything, leave nothing in doubt. Add numerous diagrams to illustrate any points which might be misconstrued Read it it over and over, and check it for errors. Get someone else you trust to read it if possible, to make sure you haven't left anything out.
You need to use the the video and the text to complete a video which will go viral within days of your announcement. This video, if monetized, will bring you substantial payments. By the way, I have had three offers to do any animations I might need and that would be of great benefit in making your video more transparent, so if you can do your own or you know someone who can then include animations if possible.
It is possible that you could provide an app for building a Bessler wheel and that is an area with which I'm not so familiar but obviously worth looking into. Lastly I have a friend who is an accomplished film director and producer and he is keen to make a documentary on the whole subject and if you (or I) are successful he would jump at the chance to make one. He has already made me an offer which included Associate Producer with a large down-payment on commencement of the filming, and a share in the proceeds.
Obviously this takes time and therefore somehow you will have to hold your tongue and tell no one until you are ready to tell the world! Then stand by for the onslaught of TV companies wanting to film an interview. At this point, or preferably before, you might consider getting someone to manage you? They can arrange the interviews, fees, film rights, book rights, promotions etc.
All of this without spending a penny, or filing a patent. I should add one consideration, which I am undecided about. Is it worth patenting the design in order to own it and give it away? I don't know.
JC
10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.
You need to use the the video and the text to complete a video which will go viral within days of your announcement. This video, if monetized, will bring you substantial payments. By the way, I have had three offers to do any animations I might need and that would be of great benefit in making your video more transparent, so if you can do your own or you know someone who can then include animations if possible.
It is possible that you could provide an app for building a Bessler wheel and that is an area with which I'm not so familiar but obviously worth looking into. Lastly I have a friend who is an accomplished film director and producer and he is keen to make a documentary on the whole subject and if you (or I) are successful he would jump at the chance to make one. He has already made me an offer which included Associate Producer with a large down-payment on commencement of the filming, and a share in the proceeds.
Obviously this takes time and therefore somehow you will have to hold your tongue and tell no one until you are ready to tell the world! Then stand by for the onslaught of TV companies wanting to film an interview. At this point, or preferably before, you might consider getting someone to manage you? They can arrange the interviews, fees, film rights, book rights, promotions etc.
All of this without spending a penny, or filing a patent. I should add one consideration, which I am undecided about. Is it worth patenting the design in order to own it and give it away? I don't know.
JC
10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.
I can see one potential problem with your get rich quick scheme, John. Discovering how Bessler did it is not inventing anything, it's just clarifying how someone else did it. It might not even be possible to patent the device if you can conclusively prove it was the one Bessler used. There might be some money in writing books about the rediscovery, but that is iffy at best. Documentaries on Bessler? Could be some money in that maybe. With an unpatentable invention no corporation is going to step in and buy it from you. They will simply build it and then pocket any profits for themselves. I think that once corporations realize how little power Bessler's wheels produced, their interest in it will probably be next to zero. Wish I could be more optimistic about this.
ReplyDeleteOdd response Ken, seeing as I specifically said that I would never take the patent path. Books by the re-inventor of Bessler's wheel would definitely sell, I already have a literary agent and publisher waiting to go should I succeed. I never anticipated needing a corporation to buy it from me, that is the whole point of not patenting it. Lastly you may think you know how much or how little power Bessler's wheel would produce, but you do not know, and everything is scalable. But thank you for responding Ken, even if it was rather a negative one.
DeleteJC
From your line "I should add one consideration, which I am undecided about. Is it worth patenting the design in order to own it and give it away? I don't know." I think I got the impression that, should you find success with the rediscovery, you were considering patenting it. I have no intention of trying to patent anything I rediscover about the wheels, just, like you, publishing it so that others better equipped than I can attempt duplication based on whatever design I finally obtain. You seem very optimistic about the potential for his wheels to provide the energy needed to power our world. I am not. If anything, I think the real future of so-called "self motive" devices will involve permanent magnet motors like that Yildiz motor I mentioned previously. Bessler's wheels, however, are a historical mystery that needs to be solved. That solution will do much to spur research into self-motive devices and I mean "serious" research by governments and universities. The rediscovery will help remove the stigma surrounding the subject that prevents their highly trained scientists and engineers from even considering it at the present time.
DeleteThanks Ken, understood.
DeleteJC
John,
Deletewith regards to the power output of the wheel, 70lbs. repeatedly raised, and then dropped onto a 10ft. lever arm, would provide 700ft.lbs. of torque . Surely this would supply enough power to a treadle fixed to a large fly-wheel.
You may not be able to patent a perpetual motion machine, but you could patent a " wheel mounted, self retracting, weighted lever arm". :-)
We could produce an innovative toy by using Bessler wheel internal secret design and possibly make a fortune, can't we?
ReplyDeleteYes I'm sure that's a potential moneyspinner.
DeleteJC
How about marketing it as a Meccano set ?
DeleteJohn & all,
ReplyDeleteI once saw B.B.C. documentary about Trevor Baylis' attempt to get a worldwide patent scheme in force.
Although he had a patent for his wind up radio, it was only valid in the U.K.
Unscrupulous manufacturers in other countries soon flooded the market with cheap inferior knock-offs.
I suspect the same thing would happen with a re-invented Bessler's Wheel.
Yes I saw that program too, Stevo, that is partly why see little point in patenting the device even if it proves possible to do so.
DeleteJC
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi Michel. It's been a problem for hundreds of years and the truth is that it isn't really a "perpetual motion" machine, any more than a car engine is.. Bessler's wheel did work and consumed energy and therefore it had to have supply of energy. The debate is ongoing about where and what the energy is but it is there and is not therefore a "perpetual motion machine" which relies on having its own internal supply for ever - an impossibility of course.
DeleteJC
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteJohn,
DeleteI get a little stirred when I hear the " second mouth " uttering fact concerning what Bessler's invention was or wasn't ... mostly what it wasn't . If we are in agreement with what a perpetual motion machine is ( a machine that once set in motion would necessarily retain that motion until it was otherwise stopped by some greater force , etc ...) . My point being one can be at odds with the notion of anything perpetual but a movement which increases in speed and force for some time an can be demonstrated to sustain itself is what we are discussing , no ifs ands or buts . No?
Hi John, glad to read your making progress. It'd be wonderful if the mechanism did work (and a tragedy if it was lost again). I think your question is a very deep spiritual / philosophical one: How we manage our personal economy and the greater economy. I've been thinking about it quite a bit...
ReplyDeleteThe world would probably suggest you do as you said - i.e. create a vid showing it working, and sell the plans. This would be the standard method where the consumer pays for the goods. I think it would work ok, you'd probably make some money. You might hit a few problems with negative press, maybe with banking. Paypal have been known to retain funds, for example.
You can guarantee the oil companies would do anything to stop you, of course. You've said your motivation is to provide for your family, so all they'd have to do is threaten to kill 'em all, it'd be easy. That's probably the biggest obstacle. The criminals in charge have no problem killing innocents (have you seen the ITCCS news, Pope & others convicted?)
An alternative would be the gift-economy model where you release the plans for free, on a donations basis. It'd allow other people to re-distribute the plans - so at least the design wouldn't be lost (again). It's possible that you'd get far more in donations than you would have with the previous case. I'd also suggest that it's the right thing to do.
There's a more important angle on this than just money... You mention your mortality. The world of commerce is Satan's invention. God operates a gift-economy: You're given everything for free, and you pay back what you feel. We call it "life".
If your wheel does work you have a great opportunity to demonstrate your understanding and love of God - by giving your creation away for free like He does, and by knowing that He will take care of your family. Life doesn't come from money, it comes from God, and He takes care of all His creatures.
I invite you to consider the possibility that every experience in your life has one objective only: To help you remember your Father. And this question in particular reveals that truth... You ask what to do with your creation, and the answer is copy your Father. :)
Veritopian, since THEY are not going to dignify your carefully crafted kindly offering, then I shall do-so a bit.
DeleteOver years of eying the BWF and later on JC's blog here, I have observed that both are infused rather with atheism, and it's practitioner/mongers.
So, on this account, that your suggestions were not enthusiastically taken-up nor commented upon glancingly even, is not all that surprising to this writer.
Indeed, the worship of Will (as if God Almighty Himself) has become quite THE thing popular of-doing, in these "improved" times in which we live (or merely exist, depending). It appears a phenomenon a whole lot easier to embrace rather than what the alternative would be, which lays down rules of conduct and for being, which are doubtless-so way harder to accept and follow as discipline. (Work is work and The Worldlies have learned to demand near-instant exchange payment for it, so to their like, giving appears a delusion fit only for suckers.)
It is obvious that Bessler was a God-fearing Christian man, but this gigantic fact (the Room Gorilla) of the whole entire that was certainly his, cuts NO SWATH WHATEVER with our present State- and Law- worshiping secularists.
So very cynical and effronterous as such types have now become, they will enthusiastically slap one's face by invective and ridicule's means, and then think nothing whatever of the pathetic insulting just done, as if they had a right to by virtue of their Way. This is how far gone this strain have become - the Death of Civility being the thing to achieve - as one might by logic and observation suppose? Their Reality is one appearing strictly confined to what their Five Senses will reveal, and not much more. How very limiting it all must be, such a confined view of insuperable myopia, to otherwise Endless Wonder. (Oh! They have their physical stars as adequate substitute.)
I am of the opinion that, The Secret of what the primus motus was and is, such that caused the continual imbalance that made the Wheel of Bessler's to go 'round and 'round seeming perpetual, will only be revealed (and with all that this might obviously imply being not unintended) to that
ONE WORTHY
This meaning here as in 'a selection' made to-purpose by higher Will than that merely of men's severally or individually.
Here knaves will not in any way prevail; only The Prince will ever withdraw THIS Excalibur, from it's hiding stone, and go forth with it.
Here-and-now on this one thing, 'mark my words'.
As to your comments on how one could proceed, and what precautions might be wisely due for the instituting of whatnot & etc., here we are on the page-identical. The Powers of Gain and it's attending, never ending madness for it are capable of any level horror-making, this so as to preserve their primacy over all, mere temporal materialism.
The gift economy model I find agreeable; the alternate odious to-a-fault but, it is after all The Way of this World and as sure as we do exist and we shall be done with it in only either of the two known ways o-u-t.
One could lay-down more of the same blather-sort here but, it would fall upon deafened ears only. Why even bother? Any points actually 'scored' would be but a time-waste sure, all mundane and otherwise things being considered.
The Prince we await . . .
James
"The Iconoclast, like the other mills of God, grinds slowly, but it grinds exceedingly small." - Brann
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhat you are describing sounds a bit like MT 13. I've built many models of MT 13 like devices and found that they never work. Any imbalance created by the movement of a smaller weight, whether or not it has a spring attached to it, is always completely cancelled out by the opposite motion of the heavy pendulum. This approach does not manage to keep the center of mass of the weights on one side of a wheel's axle.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteYou would find that the center of mass of the 8 equidistant pendulums would be located right below the wheel's axle. If any of those pendulums cause the center of mass of the smaller weights to shift to one side of the wheel in the slightest amount, then the center of mass of the 8 pendulums would immediately shift to the other side of the axle so that, when you determine the center of mass of all of the pendulums and smaller weights, it will always be located right back under the axle and that will result in no torque to turn the wheel. It's a very frustrating situation and seems inescapable regardless of the design one employs. Bessler's wheels, I believe, solved this problem by having the 8 pendulums shift themselves so as to push their center of mass to one side of the axle. Their displaced center of mass was then self maintaining as a wheel rotated. The question is just how did he do that. When that is determined, this mystery will finally be solved.
DeleteSo Ken,
Deleteif I had a ferris wheel with 8 gondolas, and put 4 elephants in the gondolas on the right,
and 4 elephants on the spokes near the hub it wouldn't turn ?
Then, once the wheel was stationary, I shifted the elephants back to their original positions, the wheel wouldn't move again?
Maybe I should give up !
That would of course be 4 elephants on the spokes to the left.
DeleteWhat you describe would, of course, make the Ferris wheel turn. The problem is that you are the one supplying the energy needed to restore the 8 elephants to their starting positions. That is not perpetual motion. It's just a human moving elephants around. Also, the elephants can not shift themselves about either. For pm to exist you would have to have some mechanism that could shift 8 elephants around every 45 degrees of rotation of the Ferris wheel without you or the elephants doing anything. Bessler found such a mechanism, but used lead weights instead of elephants of course.
DeleteHi Ken,
Deletejust a bit of mental imagery to convey my idea. ( emphasis on mental ! )
I have thought of a way for the pendulums (gondolas) to move the small weights as the wheel turns every 45deg.
That would be out on the right, and a spring return on the left.
I have made a similar model before, but I used the pendulums in the wrong fashion, so I only achieved 22 1/2 deg. movement.
With a change to the mechanism, I hope to obtain the 45 deg. of rotation necessary.
I hope your design works, but my advice to you and others chasing pm via weight driven mechanisms is always consider the motions of all of the weights in the design. Inventors often disregard the motions of the "heavy" pendulums in their designs because they figure their motions are negligible. I can assure you, after evaluating hundreds of designs, that they are not and are usually the reason these designs do not work. It can be so frustrating to spend months working on constructing a wheel only to have it just sit there with no tendency to rotate. That is why I now confine myself to working only with computer simulations. They let me know in hours whether I'm moving in the right direction or not. My latest research with Bessler's wheels indicates that his design, although "simple", was very carefully balanced. He mentions that he had to perform a careful "adjustment" procedure on each of his wheels before they would work. I'm now trying to work out the exact details of that adjustment process. The going is slow.
DeleteI agree with ken and stevo...the idea is to ensure the center of mass of the weights is on one side...by employing 8 equidistant lever-weight fixture...but the critical point depends on how your lever-weight contraption is designed...we tend to over-look this point in every communication...the heart of the wheel is actually this concept...which gets blatantly ignored...Bessler got it the right way and that is why he had succeeded....Karl saw this and was amazed...comrades...let's focus on this crucial issue and not let it go into oblivion again and again...
ReplyDelete@Ken,
ReplyDeleteHave you ever considered the possibility that the weights in Bessler's wheel were the springs themselves?
Rick
Nope....No Chance, Zoelra...the original Bessler wheel had levers, weights and springs....all different but working in unison....I also disagree with Ken....Simulations in this case is not going to bring any results...original thinking or natural imagination will only work...sorry to sound different...but trust me...
Delete@Zoelra,
DeleteI make a distinction between the function of the weights Bessler used, which were 4 pound lead pieces about the size of a small juice can, and the springs he employed. While the springs are critical to the operation of a wheel, their masses were not since they did not undergo that much of a change in position during wheel operation. He could just have equally used some sort of light weight elastic bands and the wheels would have operated the same (I wonder if he had access to such things as rubber bands). But, the steel springs he did use added a considerable amount of weight to his wheels. In his twelve foot diameter Merseburg wheel I estimate that the springs alone added another 32 to 64 pounds of mass to the wheel.
"The dog creeps out of his kennel just as far as his chain will stretch." (Apologia Poetica.)
DeleteIf "springs were employed, but not as detractors suggested", I guess that the springs possibly wind up the chain when "the dog" comes back to his kennel, and make it short... until "the dog" wants to creep out again!
Michel & Zoelra,
DeleteI did have a little muse a while ago, if you have a chain wrapped around two drums, like a reel to reel tape recorder, when the chain is around one drum, the weight is on one side, then when it re-winds to the other drum, the weight moves to the other side.
The problem is, half way through the re-wind, the drums are balanced.
Also, don't forget, coil springs were not invented until the mid 19th. century.
However, I think this may be where the lazy tongs come in, if a V shaped spring is fixed to two of the corners, (as on some pliers or grips nowadays) they may serve the same purpose.
Another one of my muses is that, with a lazy tong that has a small diamond, and a large diamond, for a small movement on the small diamond, you get a larger movement on the other diamond,
I might use this idea on my latest design, if I cannot move the small weights far enough.
Hello Stevo,
Deletehave you tried to wrap the chain not like a tape recorder but like an S?
Hi Michel,
Deleteno I haven't actually made a model of this, I guess I have too much of a butterfly mind to concentrate on anything for too long. :-D
"You need to use the the video and the text to complete a video which will go viral within days of your announcement. This video, if monetized, will bring you substantial payments. By the way, I have had three offers to do any animations I might need and that would be of great benefit in making your video more transparent, so if you can do your own or you know someone who can then include animations if possible."
ReplyDeleteI wish I'd had three offers to do animations of the Gravity Pulse Motor (GPM) so that I could put the idea on YouTube - but then I'm afraid I don't have your well deserved celebrity, John.
I'm confident that once the design is exposed to a sufficiently wide audience some keen mechanician will appreciate the rationale behind it and build a working model.
Of course, being based on the Keenie it is not a solution to the Bessler wheel and in its present form is merely a Point of Principle device. Still, that would be an enormous step forward I think you'll agree.
The main difference is the GPM's use of a dual earth reaction. Bessler's Wheel doesn't need this. From the appearance of his external pendulum I suspect that he uses the inertia of a high inertia beam as his "earth" reaction.
Whilst on the subject of the pendulum, John, I'd be most grateful for any links you might have that mention this large external pendulum being seen by witnesses of the wheel in operation.
Hi Frank, there are no reports by any witnesses, because the pendulums were never used, at least not in any examination or test or any exhibitions. I have my own theory about their presence in the drawings but I am positive that they never existed in reality.
DeleteJC
Thanks John.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that authoritative answer, John.
ReplyDeleteI too have a theory about those pendulums. I believe smaller versions existed inside the wheel.
Surely John, if Bessler referred to the power of the wheel being proportional to the swing of the weights, that has to mean there were internal pendulums.
ReplyDeleteAny weight that swings can be termed a pendulum of sorts.
Yes of course Trevor, I was referring to the external pendulums shown in the drawings.
DeleteJC
Although we have no record of it, I'm convinced that the pendulums were used in public demonstrations and were intended to be distractions that prevented people from being able to accurately determine how many sounds from the wheel were produced with each wheel rotation. With those oversized pendulums swinging back and forth it was hard to tell when the wheel completed a single rotation. Bessler wrote that the pendulums could be used to "regulate" the motion of a wheel. Maybe he used the natural resonance frequency of the pendulums to reduce the maximum speed of a wheel when it was just running freely. That reduced speed meant he would also be reducing the wear and tear on the wheel's inner mechanisms which would extend the time a wheel could be kept running before it suffered some internal failure that required him to do a repair.
ReplyDeleteThis makes a lot of sense....yes, bessler didn't want anyone to know the secret that easily...he was always scared of losing the prospects from the wheel...And, all this only goes to prove the simplicity of the wheel's internal mechanism....anyone could easily copy the secret mechanism with only one glance...But the question remains, why it has not been reinvented by anyone if it was so simple?
DeleteMaybe he kept it a secret, because it was a fake.
Deletewill we ever really and truly know ?
This comment has been removed by the author.
Delete@Suresh
DeleteThat's a question I always ask myself. If his design was so "simple" why has it not been rediscovered in the last 3 hundred or so years. It's an important question and really has a simple answer. His design required carefully shaped and weighted parts and tensioned springs and these parts had to be put together in a certain way with a certain amount of precision. No one has rediscovered his secret so far because no one has hit upon the particular combination of shapes and weights and tensions he used. Rediscovery will not take place until someone does.
@Uneqk
He kept it secret mainly because he wanted to get a lot of money for all of the hard work he had put into finding a design that worked. He also wanted to keep it secret so that someone else could not slip in and steal the credit for having originally invented the device and then robbed Bessler of the praise he would have received once the invention's secret was revealed.
I agree...But how long this could be allowed to go on?
DeleteIsn't there something that we could do to hasten the process?
Should we keep following the same routine without any success and just waste valuable time?
How do we know if someone is really on the right track?
After too many discussions and too many experiments we still seem to be heading nowhere...should this always go on like this?
What do we stand to gain by this?
Should we not make a concerted effort?
Stevo...You are right....we should stick to simplicity....I would suggest you to employ two wheels, back to back, with four compartments each...
DeleteMaybe the pendulums bear some correlation to his carefully-worded central poser:
ReplyDelete- One pound can cause the raising of more than one pound.
In other words, a one pound input weight can set in motion a sequence of events that results in a gain; tactfully avoiding any direct claim that "one pound can LIFT more than one pound" - that rather, some additional form of input energy must be admitted by a process initiated by the dropping of a small weight.
Hence his agreement with Wagner that "no mechanical arrangement has been found fit to the task"; simply acknowledging that we cannot gain GPE via direct leverage.
The weights that "come in pairs" must be the larger ones - the output weights. As one of them takes up an outside position, another takes a more-central one. This is what the Kassel pendulums illustrate - with one weight always depicted outside the wheel's perimeter - perhaps, beyond the sphere of influence of some other aspect of the mechanism (?).
The smaller spherical bob weight is the input mass - the 'one pound' - and the rectangular masses, each more than one pound.
However, as ever, these images are thematic hieroglyphs - metaphors, not explicit diagrams:
"In a true perpetuum mobile, everything must, of necessity, go around together. There can be nothing involved in it which remains stationary upon the axle."
...so even if the pendulums are more explicit than i'm supposing, they're certainly not swinging in the normal mode of oscillation, but more of an alternating tumbling motion as they turn upside-down - perhaps this inversion somehow facilitates an effective energy increase? Pure speculation for now...
The form of the "excess impetus" - of how m1 may cause the raising of >m1 via pairs of weights alternating between inside / outside positions - implies either two different masses of weights - lighter input weights and heavier output ones - or else they're all of equal mass but one can cause the raising of two.
In other words, the claim that the weights come in pairs may be referring to pairs of equal output masses, and omitting to mention the third, smaller input mass, or else he may mean unequal pairs, each comprising a smaller and larger mass. Given the Kassel pendulums, i'm drawn to the former interpretation - that a smaller mass m1 can cause the raising of a larger mass m2 via the assistance of another larger mass equal to m2. Two m2's, vs one m1, with some form of counterbalancing implied.
Perhaps the first thing that comes to mind when considering pairs of weights alternating between inner and outer positions is that these correspond to an over-balancing torque driving the wheel. But we must be extremely circumspect about falling for that conclusion because Bessler firmly tells us, in the same breath as the above clues, that nothing can come of any prospective over-balancing technique; "as one weight is giving an upwards impetus, another, at the same time, is giving an equal downwards one"... the lesson "one has to learn through bitter experience"; 'you can keep adding weights here or there, with the only result that it gets ever heavier, such that it would run longer if it were empty!'
So forget any conventional notions of overbalancing. That would clearly fall within Bessler's definition of "mechanical means", and comes up against the dead-end problem of direct leverage. He's emphatically calling out "..cold".. "Freezing cold...!"
His "proper method of mechanical application" involves something which he considers to be 'non-mechanical' in nature.
Nonetheless, it seems axiomatic that no rotational work can be performed by the wheel unless it facilitates the lowering of a mass; that is, a mass must itself be able to fall lower in the field in order for the wheel to rotate - so we cannot, for example, simply drop the point of application of a weight, without also dropping the weight itself.
The first, one-way, Gera wheel was under constant static torque while tied stationary - and upon release it reached full speed within a few revolutions. This presents two possibilities with respect to the internal driving weights; either the wheel was over-balanced, or else some other principle generated torque via a falling mass. Since over-balancing has been explicitly denied, we're left with the latter proposition: that the torque being produced by a lowered mass is generated by some other form of transmission to the axle.
DeleteNow we must be getting warmer..
The first impression one jumps to here then is that of a vertically-falling weight driving the axle - just as if it was winding off of an axial spool. However, such an easy conclusion would fall foul of his insistence that everything must go around together - ie. any vertically / linearly / radially moving mass would have to rotate at a different rate to the wheel - perhaps upon a separate coaxial bearing, traversing a portion of the radius before catching the wheel again and flipping 180° back round... that would fulfil the requirement of everything rotating, if not quite "together", in-step. The other alternative is that everything does indeed go around at the same rate, but this puts further constraints on any system able to produce torque from a falling mass by means other than over-balancing; the weights must "gravitate to the center" before "climbing back up", WHILE rotating at the same rate as the wheel itself... which again, would seem to preclude significant radial / vertical or indeed linear excursions.
Overall one is left with the distinct impression that whatever process he was exploiting, it wasn't trading lifts for falls - that this de facto characteristic was an almost-incidental consequence of the principle, rather than its means of operation. It is what allows multiple cycles to loop off one another, but isn't the cause of the completion of any single cycle.
I suspect the pendulums are implicating the same principle as the scissorjacks. I think that the relative lengths of the horizontal bars the pendulums hang from is part of the clue, as is their floating axes - they're biased in opposing directions, which might flip if the whole apparatus was rotated and the pendulums inverted (the point at which the effective gain is introduced?). Some kind of important ratio is implied in the relative lengths of their upper horizontal supports - perhaps a power ratio? Either way, the pendulums aren't representative of actual pendulums, any moreso than the scissorjacks are to be taken literally - rather, they're more like Feynman diagrams, symbolic of an interaction... their meaning lies in their relations to one another, and that of their component parts... they're emblematic of the means by which "one pound may cause the raising of more than one pound"... his "proper method of mechanical application".
Clear as mud? At the bottom of a hole, on a moonless night... like blind men trying to describe a heffalump, via the medium of interpretative dance. Still, by clearing away the underbrush of whatever the wheel was not, we might beat a closer path to whatever possibilities remain.. given the above reasonings, and not least, our patron here's recent hint that one mechanism may comprise three weights, it seems a reasonable lead to suppose that the weights that "come in pairs" and which drive the wheel, are accompanied and set in motion by a third, smaller weight - ie. that one pound may cause the raising of two pounds by somehow swinging / slinging four. The pendulums indicate that we're seeking a menage a trois, not an equal one-on-one partnership between alternating inner and outer weights.
I don't currently have any prospective mechanism that fulfils this description, but i'm actively looking for one...
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteHi mate, sounds intriguing... also might fit with his claim that "On one side it is heavy and full; on the other empty and light, just as it should be."
DeleteThis problem of how to keep most of the weights on one side in spite of the rotation is one of the most vexing angles on the whole problem.. it seems so intractably contrary that i prefer not to think about it, and just hope it'll resolve itself when some other lead bears fruit..
But yep, 5 and 3 are certainly seem like warm numbers...
If you want any sims done then i've got nowt else going on ATM... link us some sketches if you're up for it..
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteVibe,
DeleteI'm not ignoring the opportunity to link up, I can't access my e-mail account, I've tried to go to the help section, and it says the information has been sent to a recovery account.
How on earth do you access that ?
I tried entering my cell phone number as requested, using every combination of brackets, spaces, area codes I could think of, no luck !
I think it was because I was without a laptop for so long.
One final point on pendulums (apologies JC for the bomb posts!): if there was any free-swinging pendulum-type mechanism, then its harmonic period was incidental to the gain mechanism, since any resonant frequency would be a function of the pendulum's period in relation to the wheel's speed of rotation, yet it accelerated up through persumably sub-optimal sync in order to reach steady speed.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, his claim that "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 bars, pulleys and weights, the machine can revolve much faster", makes no mention of also adjusting the pendulums' lengths to balance their periods to the increased speeds of rotation as more are added.
Hence, rather than freely-swinging, they would have had to be in some kind of direct-drive configuration to the wheel's rotation; such that their relative speeds are held in constant mesh. Again, this would seem to preclude any exploit based upon resonant harmonic periods..
The external pendulums were actually perfectly counter balanced against each other through the crank pieces at the ends of a wheel's axle. As long as the axle did not move the pendulums could apply no torque to it or its attached wheel. This situation changed however when axle motion began. The axle would have applied maximum driving force to the separate pendulums when a wheel just started turning and, because the pendulums were swinging below their resonance frequency, the axle would have experienced a strong counter torque that slowed its acceleration but did not prevent it. At a certain rotation speed, the axle would be driving the pendulums at exactly their resonance frequency and the axle at this time would feel no counter torque from the pendulums. At this time, if the torque of the axle was balanced by other counter torques being applied to it, say by machinery attached to it, then wheel rotation would remain constant. If not, then the axle would attempt to continue to accelerate and force the pendulums to begin oscillating above their natural resonance frequencies. As this happened, there would be a growing counter torque applied to the axle by the pendulums until a balance was achieved as the pendulums oscillated slightly above their natural resonance frequencies. With this balance in torques acting on the axle, wheel speed would remain constant. Sliding the lower pendulum bobs up and down along their suspension rods by equal amounts would allow small adjustments to be made in their natural resonance frequency which could then be used to fine tune the finally rotation speed of a wheel. Thus, Bessler had found a simple way to apply continuous braking counter torque to his wheels without having to use methods that involved friction such as brakes or aerodynamic / hydrodynamic drag. It's a very clever method and, as I mentioned above, it provided audiences at public demonstrations with the distraction of two counter swinging pendulums and also limited maximum wheel rotation so as to reduce the wear on its internal parts which would reduce the frequency for required maintenance / repairs.
DeleteSounds good, Ken, but two questions occur to me.
ReplyDeleteWas this just a proposal though not actually implemented which would explain the lack of witnesses?
Why do the pair of pendulums differ significantly in their construction from the single pendulum?
I don't find the lack of witnesses to the pendulum use that troubling. You must remember that we only have a fraction of the information about his wheel demonstrations. It might just be that we don't have any descriptions at the present that describe the pendulum usage because we still have incomplete information. I can't believe that Bessler would go to the trouble of illustrating the pendulums if they were never used. Official witnesses / examiners of the wheels probably did not report them because they did not see them. Bessler would have removed them so that they would not present a hazard during examination of a wheel's axle bearings while a wheel was running.
DeleteYou ask why the pair of pendulums "differ significantly in their construction" from the single pendulum. By this I assume you mean the "single" pendulum shown being used on the Kassel wheel at Weissenstein Castle that has that large football shaped lead weight as a bob. We only see one of the pendulums in the wheel's illustration because the other is hidden behind the wheel. These are both compound pendulums like the one used on the Merseberg wheel and Bessler would have adjusted them by sliding the football sized pieces of lead up and down their support pieces by equal amounts. There is another illustration, however, that shows the Kassel wheel running an attached water pump and stamping mill that does show what appears to be a pair of very different pendulums. These are not really pendulums, but are just long arms with paddles attached to their swinging ends. Here I think Bessler is showing that he could also limit the wheel's speed by using aerodynamic braking. There is an illustration in one of Wagner's "critiques" showing a similar use of paddles to limit the speed of the windup mechanism he used to power his "intrinsic" motion wheel.
Here's a thought,
ReplyDeleteThe top two weights slide on a bar, like abacus beads.
The bottom weight is fixed with the "points" vertical.
A cord is passed between the two top weights and down to the bottom weights top "point", to make a triangle.
The bottom weight has a pivot in the middle, so it can swing back and forth.
If there are stops either side of the vertical pendulum bar, when it swings and hits one, the bar will stop, but the bottom weight will swing on its own momentum.
This action will pull the cord, and shift the two weights on the top, altering the balance, and giving the top bar a "push".
And of course vice-versa.
I'm not sure what you are trying to describe here. If you are referring to the external pendulums on the Merseberg wheel, then there is no indication that the two block weights on their cross beams could slide about. As part of a compound pendulum, they would have been fixed in place and only the lower bob weight would have been slid along its suspension rod to adjust a pendulum's resonance frequency. These pendulums played no role in driving his wheels, only in limiting their maximum rotation speeds when running freely which process we could refer to as "dissonance braking" for lack of a better term. If they did, then that would have been immediately obvious to examiners of his wheels and they would not have been able to work without them.
DeleteAnother take on the kiiking idea.
DeleteGuys...lets not complicate the already confusing issue...it is high time we sort this out entirely..
ReplyDeleteTalking about pendulums...sometimes we take it to be the external ones and sometimes the internal...
More so, the external ones are not important and they only go to complicate the matter...we can very well ignore them...Pendulums only refer to the inner ones and whenever someone talks about pendulums it should refer to the inner ones...remember what Karl saw...a remarkable arrangement of these pendulums inside..If we can find out about this way of arrangement we have have solved the mystery..
Hence, I would request everyone to keep this matter in mind and not to worsen the matter...
can't remember Karl said anything about pendulums inside the wheel ?!... i must have missed that one.
DeleteVincent....Karl saw a beautiful arrangement of levers and weights inside the wheel...each lever-weight attachment works like a pendulum...what I mean to say is that we should not confuse this pendulum with the external one which is a negligible one..
Delete@Suresh
DeleteYou are citing a description of what Carl supposedly saw inside of Bessler's wheel which appeared in a chapter titled "Bessler's Wonderful Wheel" in a book Frank Edward's wrote in 1956. You can read the entire chapter at: http://www.keelynet.com/energy/bessler.htm.
This description is generally regarded as fiction and Edwards does not give his source for this alleged description other than suggesting that Carl wrote it down in some sort of diary. I am unaware of the existence of such a diary. However, I am well convinced that Bessler's wheels did use weights that were attached to the ends of movable levers. But, these levers were not free to oscillate about like simple pendulums. They were restrained to each move within a certain arc and their motions were carefully synchronized with each other using ropes of various lengths and precise spring tensions. To a casual observer the design Bessler used would have seemed simple, but, from my own ongoing research, I can say that what was going on inside of the wheels during rotation was definitely not simple. If it had been, then this mystery would have been solved a long time ago.
Ken is right, I can assure you no such thing happened. For a start Karl swore never to reveal what he had seen inside the wheel, and it is clear from Bessler's letters that he never did. Frank Edwards's book is full of what one might call 'poetic license'!
DeleteJC
John,
ReplyDeleteIt's a hell of a thing to get caught up in the dream of this device . I salute you for your effort . It is puzzling how one can design a machine which preserves a majority of its weight on the side toward which it turns . It seems that one must have weights not only in reserve but rather replacing themselves in their movement . One must conclude this is what Bessler was hinting at : the four hammers can replace/displace the two anvils by their natural motion and that the cycle can continue perpetually . Simply put although , at the moment I have considered such a device before I wrote this to you . ;)
"It is puzzling how one can design a machine which preserves a majority of its weight on the side toward which it turns."
ReplyDeleteThis assumes that Bessler's wheel works that way.
I don't believe it did.
I believe there are other methods of harvesting gravity.
The Gravity Pulse Motor (GPM) is one example.
One can design a wheel where the majority of weights will remain on one side toward which it turns..
ReplyDeleteIt is possible Frank...the lever-weight attachment should be designed like a pendulum and its swinging will ensure that the weights are on one side...hard to believe but true....it is just a matter of proper designing...
I'm open to persuasion. :-)
ReplyDeleteCan you explain how, with diagrams - on BesslerWheel.
Or perhaps you already have and I haven't being paying attention, eh!
Refer MT-23....it is somewhat like it..
Delete