When our old friend Herman Helmholtz presented the original formulation of what is now known as the First Law of Thermodynamics, beginning with the axiomatic statement that a Perpetual Motion Machine is impossible, he was referring to the idea that a machine that had no external source of energy would run out fuel very quickly and stop. Such a concept was and is obviously impossible. We, on the other hand, often, mistakenly in my opinion, use the words Perpetual Motion when referring to Bessler's machine, despite the very strong evidence that it acquired sufficient energy to run continuously as long as it was operating within a gravitational field - an external energy source and therefore not a Perpetual Motion machine as such as was discussed by Helmholtz. He was describing a closed system.
This habit of calling Bessler's machine a perpetual motion machine is like putting our collective heads into the lion's mouth. We are asking for our ideas to be shot down in flames, because as Helmholtz said, no one had ever invented such a machine therefore they must be impossible. (Sorry about the mixed metaphors!)
That idea, that Perpetual Motion machines are against the laws of physics, has stayed with us, and it is a seemingly insurmountable wall that has included the Bessler type of machine. For the purposes of this blog I shall refer to Helmholtz's Perpetual Motion as PM and Bessler's as PM+G. In other words 'Perpetual Motion with the aid of Gravity'. I came to this conclusion while trying to understand why everyone else on the planet knew with utter certainty that Bessler was a fraud.
Since Bessler's day people from all over the world have strived to duplicate his wheel, so far without success; and yet there are still only two reasons given why the claims must be false; one is that such machines break the laws of physics, and secondly, that if such a device were possible someone would have invented it. To put it another way, PM machines must be impossible otherwise someone would have invented one already. Both points originated from Herman Helmholtz, almost 200 years ago. This reasoning is irrelevant if you accept that Bessler did indeed invent a PM+G machine. That one fact destroys the second point, but only if you are talking about Helmholtz's PM machine. The fact that Bessler succeeded obviously means that his machine did not break any physical laws.
Space prevents me from rehearsing the reasons why many people now believe that Bessler's claims were genuine and that he did invent a machine which ran continuously with no obvious external supply of energy. If people wish I can briefly go through them in a future blog, but all the information is out there especially on the besslerwheel forum, which you can find at http://www.besslerwheel.com/forum/index.php There is more than enough evidence to show that he discovered a way of using falling weights in his wheel, therefore he used the force of gravity to drive his machine.
We are all aware of the many experiment carried out over the last 300 years to try to find the source of energy he used, on the assumption that there must have been some external energy supply, and yet not one single source has been found which would supply enough energy to duplicate the output of his machines. It is quite clear that it was gravity and not one of the other more unconvincing sources suggested. In which case if we assume that Bessler was honest it must be possible to make use of gravity without breaking the laws of physics.
There is no good reason why gravity may not be so used, and the idea - the premise - that gravity cannot be so used is wrong, It is said that 'if the premise is true, then the conclusion must be true', but the reverse is also true, if the premise is wrong then the conclusion must be wrong. When Helmholtz stated that PM machines were impossible, he was right, but he was not suggesting gravity driven machines were impossible, he wasn't even discussing them.
The whole house of cards was started, even before Bessler's time, because no-one understood the force of gravity, and any and everything which suggested that something was a perpetual motion machine was lumped together with the PM+G machines as well as the more obvious PM machines whose secret of construction were still being sought despite the obvious fallacy in their design concept. Despite my many attempts to reprogram people's thinking, the impossibility of PM+G is still lumped to together with PM and, as Mike Wech wrote,'Some things in life become ingrained in your psyche. You can't shake them no matter how hard you try. They're tattooed inside your skull, lying dormant, 'til the moment you need to draw from them.'
Knowing this I am absolutely certain that the sceptics will not accept this possibility until someone produces a working model demonstrating the use of gravity as a fuel and probably not even then.
However I don't see why we should do nothing about their demands - we are doing our best to prove Bessler's claim - so I say, if they are so sure that Bessler was a fraud, why don't they duplicate his wheels and the tests they underwent, but using only the materials and technology that was available then? They cannot use gravity because they say its impossible, but surely someone could have managed to build a fraudulent version in the last 300 years, if his was a fake - and if it was possible?
However I don't see why we should do nothing about their demands - we are doing our best to prove Bessler's claim - so I say, if they are so sure that Bessler was a fraud, why don't they duplicate his wheels and the tests they underwent, but using only the materials and technology that was available then? They cannot use gravity because they say its impossible, but surely someone could have managed to build a fraudulent version in the last 300 years, if his was a fake - and if it was possible?
JC
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