Friday 22 January 2016

The Legend of Johann Bessler's Wheel.

I have replaced my usual blog with a brief account of the legend of Bessler's wheel.  I'm currently unable to maintain the frequency of my blog due to commitments which are keeping me exceedingly busy!  Once I have found and bought my house, I shall return to the blog plus I shall have published my interpretation of a large number of Bessler's clues, none of which relate to Bessler's portraits.

4th April 2016

JC


The legend of Bessler’s Wheel began on 6th June 1712, when Johann Bessler announced that he had invented a perpetual motion machine and he would be exhibiting it in the town square in Gera, Germany, on that day.  Everyone was free to come and see the machine running.  It took the form of a wheel mounted between two pillars and ran continuously until it was stopped or its parts wore out. The machine attracted huge crowds.  Although they were allowed to examine its external appearance thoroughly, they could not view the interior, because the inventor wished to sell the secret of its construction for the sum of 10,000 pounds – a sum equal to several millions today.

News of the invention reached the ears of high ranking men, scientists, politicians and members of the aristocracy.  They came and examined the machine, subjected it to numerous tests and concluded that it was genuine. Only one other man, Karl, the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, was allowed to view the interior and he testified that the machine was genuine. He is a man well-known in history as someone of the greatest integrity, and  the negotiations between Bessler and Karl took place against a background in which Karl acted as honest broker between the warring nations of Europe; a situation which required his absolute rectitude both in appearance and in action.

There were several attempts to buy the wheel, but negotiations always failed when they reached an impasse – the buyer wished to examine the interior before parting with the money, and the inventor fearing that once the secret was known the buyer would simply leave without paying and make his own perpetual motion machine, would not permit it.  Sadly, after some thirty years or more, the machine was lost to us when the inventor fell to his death during construction of another of his inventions, a vertical axle windmill.

However, the discovery of a series of encoded clues has led many to the opinion that the inventor left instructions for reconstructing his wheel, long after his death.  The clues were discovered during the process of investigating the official reports of the time which seemed to rule out any chance of fraud, hence the  interest in discovering the truth about the legend of Bessler’s wheel.

My own curiosity was sparked by the realisation that an earlier highly critical account by Bessler's maid-servant, which explained how the wheel was fraudulently driven, was so obviously flawed and a lie, that I was immediately attracted to do further research. In time I learned that there was no fraud involved, so the wheel was genuine and the claims of the inventor had to be taken seriously.

The tests which the wheel was subjected to involved lifting heavy weights from the castle yard to the roof, driving an Archimedes water pump and an endurance test lasting 56 days under lock and key and armed guard.  Bessler also organised demonstrations involving running the wheel on one set of bearings opened for inspection – and then transferring the device to a second set of open bearings, both sets having been examined to everyone’s satisfaction, both before, after and during the examination.

So the only problem is that modern science denies that Bessler's wheel was possible, but my own research has shown that this conclusion is wrong.  There is no need for a change in the laws of physics, as some  have suggested, we simply haven't covered every possible scenario in the evaluating the number of possible configurations.

I have produced copies of all Bessler's publications, with English translations.  They can be obtained by clicking on the appropriate links on the right.

JC

30 comments:

  1. Sounds like you're getting closer to making that permanent move to a new home in Sunny Spain. Best of luck with it, John.

    Meanwhile, I came across this short video. Looks like we can all now give up looking for the secret to Bessler's wheels because this guy claims he discovered it years ago! However, it looks like a "ramp" design of which there have been countless variations; all non-runners, of course. He seems unaware of this fact, though.


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTQTjjyYoiY

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  2. Man proposes, God disposes. We are staying here, in England, after all, Ken. The Spanish government in their efforts to raise more vitally needed taxes, have made it very difficult to live in your own villa there. Taxes, residency permits, etc, etc. So we shall continue to visit and rent as and when and as often as we can. I'm not too sorry, it will save us a lot of money which we can use here instead.

    JC

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    1. Well, there goes that dream... Yes, the Spanish economy is a mess and it looks like they are trying to empty the wallets of anybody who decides to relocate there. That will guarantee that only the richest of us can afford such a move. Still, maybe it's better you keep your wealth in England. Now your probably wondering why you even put your house up for sale in the first place! Is it too late to back out of the deal now? But, then again, sometimes making a move to a new home is a good thing and gives one fresh perspectives on things.

      Update: I have made it to model #1442 and still am only getting "keels" for my efforts. I'm still confident that I have the correct lever shape, end weight mass, and suspension spring constant. I'm now continuing to adjust the lever mass with the hope that my keels will suddenly turn into a constant acceleration throughout a 45 degree segment of drum rotation. It could come today or tomorrow or...never! We're expecting a blizzard in a few hours so that will give me an excuse to do some extra work on my latest wm2d model wheel. I'm still confident of a plausible solution this year!

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    2. We always planned downsize, so the move to a smaller house is still what we want.

      You and I, Ken, will never give up on our search for the solution to Bessler's wheel, will we? But I'm planning a different route to getting my design verified, because at my age I!m suddenly aware of the accelerating passage of time. I'll be 71 in two weeks and the house move is interfering with my hands-on work, so I've made some arrangements to finally see if I'm right. If I am the my information will be published - and if I'm wrong . . .the same applies. In short all will revealed very soon.

      JC

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    3. I'm in the same boat, John, and, eventually, will be looking for a much smaller habitation. The older one gets, the simpler he wants his life to be so he can concentrate his remaining energies where he thinks they will have the greatest chance of achieving something of lasting value. As for "never" giving up on a search for the solution to the mystery of Bessler's wheels is concerned, I may, unfortunately, have to put the quest on the back burners for a while because I'm getting ready to begin my next book (which, once again, I am disappointed will not be the one in which I reveal Bessler's secret imbalanced pm wheel mechanics). I'm rapidly approaching my 1500th model and, so far, am not seeing the robust acceleration I was hoping to see way back before I hit my 1200th model. Sadly, everything in life has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Sooner or later, every pm chaser either calls it quits or dies during the chase. How elated Bessler must have been to break this time honored "tradition" by actually finding a runner while he was still among the living! I'm hoping that I will also know that pleasure and, if not I, then you or anyone else with a sincere interest in the Bessler mystery.

      I'm looking forward to whatever information you can release. I'm interested in the specific clues you used that led you to your design. I also have clues that have led me to my particular design and, obviously, my clues are probably quite different because I don't think we have the same or even similar designs.

      Well, let's all hope this quest can finally be "put to rest" in this year. I still remain optimistic.

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  3. Hi John, does your design still work on the idea of five (5) mechanism's.
    Also. All the best with your move.

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  4. John, and ken, I'm not personally chasing Bessler wheel. I had been working on a project for the last ten years plus regarding a system that came from a watch, I'm not really someone who goes on the net, but about three years ago I bumped into your site, only because people said what im doing is perpetual motion and that's how I came across Bessler.
    Can I ask , if either or both of you turn the wheel what happens next. John will you try and sell your storey, make a flim and run off with a few bob? Ken would you more or less do the same? You probably think im completely mad, but you both have putt many, many years into something you both strongly believe in and imagine one is successful, would you worry about the other. Or is it dog eat dog. I'm not trying to cause friction between anyone I just have my reasons. You don't have to answer, just tell me to keep my thoughts to myself. Best of luck to both of you.

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    1. If the "fickle finger of fate" selects me to be the one who successfully reverse engineers Bessler's imbalanced pm wheel mechanics, I will simply put out a volume wherein the secret will be revealed. It will be heavily illustrated so that a craftsman could use it to duplicate either Bessler's 3 foot diameter, one direction prototype wheel or one of this larger one or two direction wheels. I'm not interested in trying to patent the mechanics because they are his not mine and I'm not necessarily interested in doing the construction of a working physical model although I might eventually do that if I see no one else taking a crack at it. For me, just the satisfaction of finding a plausible solution to this three centuries old mystery is sufficient. Rediscovering his secret will help to give a boost to the entire field of mechanical free energy devices and, perhaps, provide a path to more powerful devices. Right now I do believe such devices exist, but they are based on magnetic rather than gravitational forces. I've mentioned that Turkish inventor, Muammer Yildiz, in the past and I would highly recommend anyone interested in permanent magnet motors view some of the videos of his devices on youtube. They are very impressive and just could be the beginning of a revolution in OU technoguy. Well, time will tell. Hopefully his inventions will not wind up like Bessler's by just fading from the scene and leaving nothing but a mystery in their wake. Yildiz, unlike Bessler, has published the patent he obtained on his device and it includes diagrams of the particular arrangement of magnets he found made it work. The patent (scroll down until you reach Patent # WO2009019001) can be viewed by using this link:


      http://www.rexresearch.com/yildiz/yildiz.htm


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    2. Uneqk, I'm trying to arrange verification of my hypothesis if only to get support from someone of high repute, rather in the way that Bessler did. I'm not interested in patents, simply because they are too much trouble, too expensive and too time-consuming and not really secure. Much better to do as Bessler tried to do and get a one-off payment and hope for some limited recognition.

      I'm not afraid of competition and Ken knows I have taken a completely different tack to him and we will never be in competition with each other.

      A film? Who knows? There is a guy who wishes to film me if I succeed, but time will tell. He would probably feel the same about anyone who suceeds in this project.

      No you're not mad, Uneqk, no more than the rest us! LOL

      JC

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  5. Thanks John and Ken, really appreciate your answers.

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    1. Anyone trying to reverse engineer Bessler's wheels is actually doing more than just chasing pm. He's actually engaged in what's known as "forensic archaeology" which is an attempt to determine the reality behind such things as ancient cultures, artwork, religions, and technologies. It does not matter that Bessler's wheels are not actually "ancient", but, rather, only about three centuries old. They are a historical mystery which needs to be solved. I'm sure, as my efforts show, it will take a lot of work since the solution involves finding the particular mechanics he found that actually managed to keep the center of mass of a wheel's set of weighted levers on the wheel's descending side despite the rotation of the wheel. That feat requires that energy constantly be expended and at a rate sufficient to compensate for the tendency of the center of mass to drop during wheel rotation. Where did that required energy come from? Well, it certainly did not come out of thin air. It had to be extracted from some source inside of his wheels and it could not be some obvious source such as a wound up mainspring or tank of compressed air. Bessler figured out a simple system of interconnected weighted levers, ropes, and suspension springs that was able to capture, store, and then use the gravitational potential energy lost by ascending side weights and levers as they swung in toward the axle to lift the center of mass continuously back to its starting location as the wheel began to rotate. It's really just as simple as that, but finding the precise shape of the parts he used and their various parameters is most definitely not simple. The clues to these are, imo, contained solely in the two DT portraits, but they are carefully hidden and require years of careful analysis to slowly unravel and use in an actual wheel. I believe that he actually stumbled upon the design by sheer luck and the chances of it happening again to someone else without Bessler's clues to guide him is probably about one in trillion! Anyway, I'm still optimistic that this will be the year a plausible solution is forthcoming.

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  6. I've been thinking about Bessler's detractors of late and find myself feeling a bit more sympathetic toward them. We generally tend to demonize the likes of Borlach, de Crousaz, Gartner, and Wagner because we read of them mercilessly defaming poor Bessler and insisting that he was a "mountebank without peer". However, rarely do we consider the situation from their point of view.

    They all had probably seen many proposed designs for pm devices which had either failed to work or only worked because they were frauds. Indeed, most, like Wagner, had probably taken a turn at constructing an imbalanced pm wheel and, after many attempts, gave up because they saw there was no way they could do it without violating some or all of Newton's laws of motion. As news of Bessler's achievements spread and his fame grew, his detractors would have found themselves under increasing pressure to replicate Bessler's wheels with their own working designs to prove how adept they were at the science of mechanics. Of course, they could not relieve that pressure by presenting their own working wheels and could only respond by trying to convince everyone that Bessler was a fraud. And, it's not that they knew that to be false. No, rather, they were so convinced he had to be a fraud that I'm sure most of them would have bet their personal fortunes and even lives on that being the case.

    It's obvious from Bessler's various derogatory references to his detractors that they annoyed him greatly. However, we must also remember that the opposite was also true. As long as Bessler's wheels kept turning and passing "official" tests, his detractors were also annoyed and, perhaps, even a bit fearful. While they were absolutely sure Bessler's wheels had to be fraudulent, I sure there was a tiny voice in the back of their minds that was saying "What if they are real?!" Indeed, one of their greatest fears would have been that Bessler might find a buyer for his invention and then, after the 100,000 deutchthalers were exchanged, the new owner would publicly state that his wheels were genuine and all of his detractors did not know what the heck they were talking about. Bessler would have emerged victorious and they would have been publicly humiliated for the rest of their lives!

    Well, all of that did not happen during the lifetimes of either Bessler or his detractors. All went to their graves without the matter being fully settled. Still today, however, the scientific world views Bessler as a fraud and, basically, sides with his detractors. If this is, finally, the year in which his wheels are successfully reverse engineered and their secrets made known, it will be very interesting to see how the world of "real" science reacts.

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    1. Excellent post Ken. I had looked at Gartner's fear of competition but I did not comment on the broader picture. Your question,"What if they are real?!" in their minds, had not ocurred to me.

      JC

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  7. Finally, the secret of imbalanced pm wheel motion revealed...Leggo blocks!


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0caABBK8-I

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    1. I liked it, although I'm sure we've designed something very similar that didn't work! I don't knw how he did it?

      Michel, please don't feel you have to delete your comments, I welcome all of them, gladly.

      JC

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    2. Well, I don't know about you, John, but I have never designed anything like that young man's six weighted wheel. I've decided to refer to it as the "Sliding Pivot Lever Wheel" or SPLW for short. If it's genuine, then I think the unique feature that would make it work would be the way the pivots at the 9 and 3 o'clock positions slide toward the descending side continuously. Perhaps that combined with the flipping over of the weights on the descending side makes a critical difference between success and failure and other pm chasers might want to take note of this and consider incorporating it into their own designs. Interesting that he makes it work with only six weighted levers. I wonder if it would work more smoothly with eight levers. Also, interesting that his design does not, like Bessler's, require the use of coordinating ropes. Like Bessler's, however, it almost immediately reaches its maximum rotation rate and does not accelerate thereafter. Well, we'll just have to be patient and see if anyone else out there with Lego blocks manages to duplicate the design and confirms it works.

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    3. Well, Ken, John and all of us, we can now stop searching anymore.

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    4. Dudes,
      don't get excited just yet, if you check the playlist at the side of the video, there's another one showing how it's made, after 16+ minutes, the guy tries it out, EPIC FAIL!

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8QSiJh3v_s#t=951-596

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    5. There's only six in Ken's link but eight weights in your's Stevo. Would that make any difference?

      JC

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    6. All I can say for sure is that it bears no resemblance to mine ..... thankfully, if it doesn't work!

      JC

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    7. Okay, I can see that I'm going to have to try and do a quick wm2d model of this unique design to see what its potential is. I've studied the video at 0.25 times normal speed several times and it's motion is somewhat complicated to model. As the weighted levers pass the wheel's 3 o'clock position, they simultaneously flop over and their pivots begin to slid down along a 45 degree incline pulled along, no doubt, by the centrifugal force of the moving piston weight. The pivots only slide a short distance, though. As all of that is happening, the pivots of the dangling levers on the ascending side approaching the 9 o'clock position begin sliding down and closer to the axle. I won't try to duplicate all of the individual parts he used, however. I'll only try to have the pivots sliding at the right positions during a wheel rotation. I'm convinced his sliding pivot approach might be what allows this design to keep its weights' center of mass just barely on the descending side to provide continuous rotation. My model will call for extensive use of wm2d's slot tool.

      Make no mistake about it, guys. This is a very unique design and I have never seen this sliding pivot approach used by anybody before, not even Bessler. It's nice to see a young person taking enough interest in mechanical pm to go to the effort of constructing one with something that, normally, would be considered a kid's construction toy. I owned Lego blocks as a kid, but then they consisted only of large, hollow, white, marble looking plastic bricks with six raised dots on their tops to allow them to be stacked like real brickwork. I also remember some long green pieces for capping one's brickwork along with curved arches, green doors, and green windows. The roof of one's little construction was made from a cut piece of a large sheet of cardboard with a shingle pattern printed on it. Everything I made with them looked like models for badly constructed mausoleums! Lol! Nowadays, there's girders and motors and pistons and, of course, sky high prices for these little plastic pieces. But, heck, if it allowed him to construct a working pm wheel, then the cost was well worth it!

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    8. Oh, and in addition, like John, I can state that this unique SPLW design bears no resemblance to what I believe Bessler used. However, despite that I am really hoping he's found something that works. Even if it's not Bessler's, it proves that an imbalanced pm wheel is possible. If, as I'm 100% sure, it is not Bessler's, then it also proves that there is more than one way to achieve a working imbalanced pm wheel. That can give comfort to those pursuing such a wheel who are not really concerned if it's the same as the one Bessler found. In other words, Bessler did not have a monopoly on these types of wheels and, when he stated that "no finer design will ever be found", he was wrong.

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    9. @STEVO: I viewed the video you provided a link to (thanks) in which someone tries to debunk the SPLW with his own 8 lever version. But, if you look closely at the design he made and which fails at the end of his video, you will notice it is not a faithful copy of the SPLW! Aside from not having only six levers, his version only has weighted levers that have fixed pivots. There is no sliding action of the pivots on his wheel's descending and ascending sides. His did not work? Not a surprise because it lacks what I consider the unique feature needed to keep the center of mass of the weights on the wheel's descending side...sliding pivots!

      I'm so excited about this design now, that I think I'll put all of my other demanding projects on hold for a while and see what I can come up with. If what I find looks promising, then I wouldn't be surprised if the stock of the company that makes Lego blocks suddenly spikes as all the pm chasers out there run out and buy up the same parts the young man used so that they can make exact duplicates of his working build. This should get interesting. Stay tuned folks for further news as it becomes available!

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    10. @ Ken,
      yes, you're correct, there is a difference, I'll await the result of your simulation.
      Good luck.
      However, I have seen this idea at overunity.com. so it's not new.

      @ John,
      I don't know if 6 or 8 mechanisms would make any difference, maybe Ken will try several simulations.
      I'll keep my fingers crossed, well all except the injured one anyway! :-D

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    11. Update. I spent an hour earlier (before the GOP Presidential candidate debate minus Trump started) working of duplicating the SPLW and immediately ran into a lot of difficulties. The wheel and its oddly shaped arms came out good, but there's something wrong, possibly a glitch, in my wm2d program that is keeping the slots from working properly. So, I'm going to have to fall back on another "work around" I've used in the past which involves attaching the lever pivots to a square piece that can then slide back and forth inside of a tight "box" made of long thin rectangles. It's crude and slows down the frame processing a bit, but I know it works and is glitch free. At this point I'm still very optimistic about this new approach to building a imbalanced pm wheel. I do not know the exact masses or dimensions of the Lego components used in his wheel, so I've had to make reasonable guesses as to what these are and hope for the best. If he's got something real here, I should see the center of mass as least trying to stay on the wheel's descending side during rotation. I should know in another day or so. What a nice surprise it would be to see that someone, somewhere has a imbalanced pm wheel that actually works!

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    13. I made an analysis/simulation of Jozo Malacky's SPL wheel, as precisely as I could catch it, looking at the video.
      Here:

      http://editions.magisoptis.org/Images/SPiL_wheel.gif

      In red you see the place of the center of mass (CoM).
      It appears that the center of mass stays very shortly on the descending side of the wheel, but most of the time, unfortunately, stays on the ascending side ― so the wheel probably must not be working.
      Maybe did I make some mistakes, or did not use good parameters... But I'm no more so enthusiastic as few hours before... I wait for your own analysis...

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    14. Thanks for your simulation, Michel, but I think there's something wrong with the motion of its center of mass. If you carefully study the video of the Malacky SPL wheel at 0.25 times normal speed you will notice that each time a lever flops over on the descending side of the wheel as an ascending side lever's pivot slides inward toward the axle, there is small, but quite noticeable increase in the rotation rate of the wheel. That could only be happening if, as these actions take place, the center of mass is suddenly shifting farther out onto the wheel's descending side than indicated in your simulation. The increased torque and momentum from that shift then carries the wheel along until the next shift takes place. During that delay, the center of mass will, of course, slide over to the ascending side, but not as far as your sim indicates, imo. If you study the video as I suggest, I think you will notice exactly what I am referring to.

      Meanwhile, I have completed my version of his unique wheel using wm2d. It was a real pain in the arse to complete since I could not use the slot tools. I also had to change a few parameters. For example, my version has a disc two feet in diameter with six 8 inch long bent arms projecting from it every 60 degrees around its perimeter. My levers are about 3 inches in length and the weights at the ends of the levers are a quarter of a pound each. Each pivot can slide through a distance of about 2 inches. The sliding of the pivots and flopping of the weights should take place exactly as happens in his original design, however. If he has something real, then I expect to see its center of mass spending most of its time on the descending side although, because his wheel does not accelerate, not all of its time there. I've spent about two hours on my model and will try to run the simulations of it tomorrow. So far, everything I've seen about this wheel in the video convinces me that, most likely, it is real! Well, we'll see what my testing reveals tomorrow. Stay tuned!

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  8. Sad news. I finally got a chance to test my wm2d model of the "Sliding Pivot Lever Wheel" and the results confirm what Michel's earlier analysis indicated. Even when the wheel's center of mass is at its maximum displacement onto the descending side after the sliding of the pivot and flopping over of the weighted lever approaching the 3 o'clock position occurs, it is still very close to the axle. As wheel rotation continues a little farther, the center of mass just slides to a position below the axle in my model. As one then forces the wheel to continue to rotate clockwise using a motor, its center of mass slides out much farther onto the ascending side. There is no way that this wheel could ever rotate spontaneously. To me, that means it's a hoax like practically everything else on youtube.

    If you watch the youtube video carefully, you will notice that for the first 14 seconds we see the Lego block wheel being easily moved around on on its small base. Next, the video cuts to a scene in which the wheel is fixed in position. I believe from this point on the base was somehow clamped into place to keep the wheel from falling over as the hoax was carried out and I note that we do not see the base of the vertical supports from this point on. Note that the teen gives a glance to his right side around second 17 just before he pulls the lever over to get the rotation started.

    How was the hoax done? My best guess is that there was a thin black thread wrapped around the gray plastic pulley on the unseen backside of the wheel which is supported by the axle. After his off camera assistant got the signal from him and was ready, he released the weighted lever and the assistant then began slowly pulling on the black thread wrapped around the pulley so as to provide the torque that made the wheel run during its 20 second run time. That thread does not show up in the video because it is too fine for the resolution of the video to show and it also has a dark background behind it.

    So, considering the results of these analyses of the teen's "fun project to see if perpetual motion is possible", I will waste no more time on it. Back to serious Bessler research for me!

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The True Story of Bessler’s Perpetual Motion Machine.

On  6th June, 1712, in Germany, Johann Bessler (also known by his pseudonym, Orffyreus) announced that after many years of failure, he had s...