As I'm sure you all know, I'm Bessler's biggest fan, but I think that when he set out to market his wheel he must have found it difficult to list the many benefits he hoped it could offer. He suggested raising heavy loads up the sides of high buildings; pumping water out of flooded mines; driving a carrilon; pumping air into a submarine; crushing rocks etc. Not a real attention-grabbing list! The truth is the wheel represented little more than a novelty item, mostly attractive to rich princes and just the kind thing that Andreas Gärtner - his number one enemy - had made a career out of, making novelty toys for his ruler.
Bessler's wheel could never have pumped water out of the mines. Thomas Newcomen's beam engine had it beaten before it started. The Newcomen Beam Engine at Elsecar in Yorkshire, England, ran from 1795 until 1923 when is was replaced by Electric Pumps. It also ran briefly in 1928 when the electric pumps were overwhelmed by flooding. At its peak it could draw 600 gallons a minute from a depth of almost 200 feet.
Newcomen's engine were heavy users of coal at around 12 to 20 tons per day. Cheap enough when it was used in a coal mine but expensive to run in Cornwall's copper and tin mines. But although the running costs were prohibitive they were regarded as a worthwhile expense.
Besslers's wheel, on the other hand, equired an enormous initial cost and then no return to speak of, regardless of how large it was. The implication was that a larger version of his wheel would do even more work than the Kassel wheel. In fact some people regard Bessler's suggestion that his wheel could easily be built to 20 feet and more in diameter and have several wheels in series on one axle, with considerable scepticism. They think that that was too big and could not be built at the time, but consider John Rowley's tidal wheel for pumping water from the river Thames to Windsor Palace which measured "twenty-four foot diameter and twelve foot broad; for the new brass engine with brasses to the crank, forcing rods," etc, and of course the mighty Newcomen engine itself, whose balance beam measured, in some cases twenty feet or more in length and over a foot thick, with a weight of several tons. The whole thing housed in a specially built and strengthened building. That was large.
So Bessler was, as we have noted before, some 300 years ahead of his time. There was no point in producing a machine for which there was little demand. Newcomen's machine were made in their hundreds all over Europe in the 18th century and despite their heavy consumption of coal regarded as indispensable for removing flood water from mines.
The truth is there was no real interest in buying Bessler's wheel, disregarding the fact that it was suspected of being a scam, it is hard to think of any genuine use for it at that time - but things have changed - turned full circle (apologies for an obvious pun!) - no longer is the potential for a gravity-enabled wheel zero. Bessler's time has come.
The obvious use is to generate electricity, maybe not on a large scale - who knows - but certainly by household or by street. There is no need to enumerate the potential for alterntive uses.
The materials that Bessler could use were limited to wood, iron, brass and lead, but now the range is enormous and there may be some with properties that might work perfectly with an electric wheel. Changes in the design, taking into account the special configuration necessary to obtain continuous rotation, might result in huge improvements to output, just as the Boulton and Watt improvements to Newcomen's engines in Cornwall in 1778 resulted in an increase in depth to 300 feet in mining and 75% less fuel consumption.
There are two major advantages in developing Bessler's wheel; free energy anywhere on the planet - and no pollution. Certainly worth striving for.
There are two major advantages in developing Bessler's wheel; free energy anywhere on the planet - and no pollution. Certainly worth striving for.
JC
On topic this time John!
ReplyDeleteWith regards to the material available to build the wheel, I seem to remember my old history teacher telling me that, in Bessler's time aluminium was worth more than gold.
So I imagine using it was out of the question.
Oops!
Deletealuminium the metal wasn't found until after Bessler's time, should have googled it first, however, it was at one time worth more than gold.
You had me going there for a minute Stevo!
DeleteJC
Note: we Americans pronounce element #13 as "aluminum", not "aluminium"!
DeleteSorry about that John,
Deletelike I say, I should have Googled it first, instead of relying on a memory from 45+ years ago!
However, another memory of Mr. Hatch, the history teacher, is about Bessler,
the story of the wheel was on the front of a comic at the time. I can't remember which one, although the artist did depict it as a barrel, and the castle guards were running away screaming at "the Devil's work".
When I asked Mr. Hatch if such a thing was possible, he said, "Even if it was, it would eventually wear out".
@STEVO: Mr. Hatch was right, of course. Being "perpetual" in the strictest meaning of the word not only means being able to output energy forever, but also being forever immune to wear and tear so that can happen. No machine ever invented or which will ever be invented that contains separate moving parts will be able to fulfill both of those requirements, imo. Bessler's wheels were, therefore, not truly "perpetual". As they tapped the energy content of their active parts, the weights and levers, and outputted that energy, those parts would continuously loose mass and, eventually, none would be left (yes, that means the parts would wind up becoming totally massless in time). That, theoretically, could take billions of years. But, even with the best construction using the best available materials, I double if one of Bessler's wheels could have run for more than a few years continuously before it experienced a critical part failure that caused it to stop. The weakest parts, the coordinating ropes, would most likely have been the first to to fail. However, we can all still continue to loosely refer to Bessler's wheels as "perpetual" because, compared to the results we've been getting all of our lives, they were a lot closer to meeting that description than anything we came up with!
DeleteTo maximize the torque and power output of an imbalanced pm wheel one needs to have the ascending side weights rise vertically toward the axle and away from the rim at the drum's 6 o'clock position and then, 180 degrees of drum rotation later, again rise vertically away from the axle and back toward the rim of the drum again. This will then displace the center of mass of the weights directly horizontally away from the axle and onto the drum's descending side. Attempts to make a wheel like this work using ramps at the bottom and top of the wheel all fail because the weights on the descending side do not lose gravitational potential energy at a rate greater than that needed to raise the two weights simultaneously at the drum's 6 and 12 o'clock positions. In order for this type of design to work, an extra source of energy must be available to help raise those two weights. Sometimes that energy is provided by solenoids powered by batteries and the inventor hopes that the wheel can then drive a generator which will, after the wheel has started running, recharge the batteries and then take over the job of providing the power needed to keep using the solenoid "boosters". When this is done, however, one finds that the energy of the generator is still not quite enough to both recharge the batteries and thereafter power the solenoids and the wheel will eventually stop.
ReplyDeleteBessler found a unique way to make such a design work. To do that, however, he made the ascending side weights "rise" toward the axle as their levers traveled from the drum's 6 to 9 o'clock positions. But they were not really rising, just swinging inward toward the axle. As they did that, they also stretched steel springs attached to the levers. Any gravitational potential energy lost by the ascending side weights was immediately stored a potential elastic energy in the springs. Rather than make the weights immediately rise vertically from near the axle to near the rim at the drum's 12 o'clock position, Bessler's design began moving all of the weights from the 9 o'clock to 3 o'clock positions a little closer to the rim during each 45 degree segment of drum rotation. The ascending side weights were the only ones actually rising toward the rim, while those weights on the descending side were dropping toward the rim. Thus, the ascending side weights rising toward the rim were assisted by their rope connections to the descending side levers and by the various suspension springs involved that were contracting and releasing their stored potential elastic energy. In such a system, the rate at which dropping weights and contracting springs released energy actually exceeded the amount needed to raise the ascending side weights moving from the drum's 9 to 12 o'clock positions. Unfortunately, the amount of difference was not that much and that is why the torque of Bessler's wheels was so low. At this point in time I can not see any way to improve the situation, but that may change as Bessler's original design is studied. Perhaps some way can be found to use the gravitational potential energy being lost by the weights moving between the 6 and 9 o'clock positions of the drum to immediately raise a weight near the 12 o'clock position right up to its position against the axle. This is what Bessler was hinting about in MT 13, but he never found a way to do it. Anyway, my primary interest in Bessler's wheels is mainly concerned with just knowing how they worked regardless of how inefficient they were. I will leave it to others to decide if they can ever become a viable source of energy for the modern world.
I respect your opinion Ken although I fear that sometimes you make your point as if it were fact rather than surmise. I too, have been accused of mixing up speculation with fact before and I know its difficult to separate the two sometimes, when one has convinced onesself that argument is correct, but then maybe you are?
DeleteJC
DeleteThis is my first attempt to make a reply using my gf's new Amazon "Fire" tablet. It's painfully slow compared to a laptop keyboard.
Anyway sorry if I sound so sure about how I think Bessler's worked, but my opinions are based on thousands of hours of research. This is a pivotal year for me. If I don're crack this nut this year I probably never will.
This reply took me ten minutes to make. Back to the laptop for me!
Well done Ken. I have the same problem usin my ipad, it's way to small for large hands, so I continue to use my PC.
DeleteJC
I find the trend away from laptops and notebooks and toward smart phones and tablets a bit disturbing. The latter devices, because of their cramped virtual keyboards tend to discourage lengthy replies and encourage the user to make twitter-like one liners. Perhaps this is further evidence of the "dumbing down" of the planet? A stupider populace is less likely to question the actions of their political leaders and more likely to mindlessly obey their edicts. Unless full keyboards return, I see the real danger that, in a few decades, we'll all be communicating with each other using words of no more than two syllables and our "written" language will eventually be made mostly of emoticons and smilies. It will look like ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and consist of no more than, perhaps, a hundred easily learned symbols. The digital device makers will always cater, in the name of profit, to the demands of the marketplace. Seems like that marketplace now consists of people wanting to do as little reading, thinking, and writing as possible. When my gf's tablet showed up in the mail, it did not even have a user's manual with it! People don't even want to be bother reading them anymore! I guess one is supposed to push every button and tap every icon he can find and, eventually, figure out how it all works. Incredible!
DeleteWell, now it is getting off-topic bu, no others seem to be speaking to the topic itself so, why not? . . .
DeleteI have an acquaintance with whom I have attempted to communicate by the old e-mail way. (He has one of those thin small tablet thingies which he carries and abides as if the Holy Grail itself.)
Long story short, after three months of trying, I've now given up as I would only receive back one MAYBE two lines for every eight written, sent works of my own. A week ago, while speaking to him face-to-face, he stated the following utterly mad outrage "E-mails are not for communicating!" with seeming perfect sincerity!
It went by really quick and it was off to another topic but, the point being that I shall ask of him next in-person, something like "Well then if not, then for what IS e-mail?" The belated answer should be interesting. Dutifully, after materialized it shall be reported to the entire world forthwith.
We two are now reduced to communicating by 160 character text messages which does work, and any simple questions that I've posed do get answered. There is this, at least.
As relating to all of this miniaturization of communications happening ever more quickly, I have a bad feeling as in "something wicked this way comes"?
Why such an apprehension?
There is something about it all that seems to pervert actual real vegetative environmental contact, as in if converted to that purely intellectual and posing as IF that actually, and mistaken by such users likewise.
The devices may well be destroying their user's ability to empathize, like-false beliefs now substituting for that real.
Sorry for not addressing directly what you said, Ken, but I go off onto my own tangents, sometimes. I have a BIG DESKTOP, with which I can do anything I want in terms of mods, analyses and etc. It is not a nasty miniature inhuman sized deal that requires jeweler's tools and eye loupes to service. Excepting for prototype Bessler wheels, give me BIG every time!
- James -
I agree. When it comes to computers, big is better. But, so is a low operating temperature and weight. I notice that microsoft has a new line of tablets called the "Surface". They are, basically, oversized touch screen tablets that can also be used with an attachable wifi keyboard and they claim they can replace one's laptop. They look a bit too thin to contain a disc drive though so, maybe, they need to have an external one plugged into them. Seems the new trend is to just directly download whatever software / apps you need and then store everything in a "cloud" somewhere which is just a collection of servers owned, usually, by the company that supplied the browser one uses. Eliminating a hard drive from a computer helps reduce its weight. Also, the latest generation of lithium ion batteries are lighter and flatter than ever.
DeleteThis is an especially interesting topic, I find.
ReplyDeleteAssuming a working wheel: Power output per cubic area utilized (utilised?), I think is what this matter-instant boils-down to?
Also John, when you listed the materials that Johann had and did not then available to him, I would have included as well the lack (I believe?) of ball bearings.
All sliding surface type bearings will detract from precious portions of energy that any designer here working in such an endeavor, is trying to maximize (and, adding liquid lubricants cannot help as viciousness is then factoring-into any equation) however, rolling type frictions are greatly the lesser, as I understand to bee the case?
In my physical hands-on experimentation (about which I have never spoken tangibly, essentially) I have found that, no matter how good the sliding friction bearing, a loss of around 5-8% can be expected (when the forces it is attempting to sustain go up) whereas with BB's it is but only around a half percent or a bit more, or an order of magnitude less.
About such things and their like I wanted to find out for myself.
Others can and do go directly to the most abundant literature and find there ALL of what I have by observation and experiment and of far better quality/dependability because strictly scientifically derived.
So . . . WHY do I go over the mountain when it is THAT EASY to not?
Very simple: It is so that it will become for myself "KNOWLEDGE CERTAIN AND TRUE" to which I could attest as being actually-so in, say a law or equity court while under oath. (Or, as put otherwise, so that I might speak of such a thing with authority.)
Very many of us in variously disparate areas of inquiry believe we are dealing with knowledge whereas we really are not, but rather are only with one quality or another (dependability - certitude) of reportage of others.
All of this above, as I have written it, (and much more for which I have not) is a product of my OWN origination as based upon observation and thinking, and not as learned from others nor from their books.
Some rightfully might charge that such an approach is but time-waste but, with all respect due them, I demur, as various of things taht I have found are not literature-listed and have proven of real, tangible use. (And, such DO add-up. Eventually, I believe, a critical required mass as aggregated, will be attained, for example as in that lane game having become self-apparent on account.)
Also, to all experimenter/seekers: As I have found it to bee, it is essential to bear ever in mind that when conceiving of schemes appertaining energy production, lateral mass displacements will buy one NOTHING; it is all about LIFT (vertical displacement requiring of WORK to so-effect). For this purpose the two must not be intermixed conceptually. Also rather often, there is perceptual difficulty in cases regarding centers of mass and balance, where "appearances can be deceiving" and very often are.
Get over and above those two, and your wheels will have a markedly improved chance of perpetuating whether of themselves purely, or by gravity's favored attraction.
(See? On-topic throughout, John!)
- James -
Nicely put James and not too different a finding to that I appended under Ken's post. We become convinced by empiricism and are guided by practical experience rather than precepts or theory. Sometimes we are right and sometimes "they" are.
DeleteJC
Dear John,
DeleteAh but there IS divergence and it is a quality relatively vast.
I re-read what I posted before and I would say in all fairness to myself (for myself) that there is nary a speculation in it which has not been proved before variously, excepting of course for the intimation that I have knowledge" of the lane game to which Johann was referring, but really it was fair as I revealed it as being a product of belief, but not yet fact. (That business re rolling and sliding friction I stated as being approximate, essentially, giving a possible range for all? The well stocked literature on the old subject revealing actual found percentages of loss for this or that type etc. which I do not possess.)
Could I 'prove' this as fact (the lane game) by demonstration to be so-absolutely? No. Not yet.
Is it per se to be found in the scientific literature? Well, yes and no. (". . . where others had looked.") Does it logically as a proposition (as supposed) that same promise to be the source of extra energy? Absolutely yes.
Why this? Because the science says it must be so.
All of the others that I referred-to might I be able that the same?
Yes, because they were found later by my self to be backed-up by science SUBSEQUENT the discovery I made by observation/experimentation, this attained by going over that mountain first. (In that law or equity court when as testifying, could my word be taken as being so? Yes, as to the fact(s) that I had done such-and-such experiments and observed and noted this all and presuming an unblemished reputation with the court as to consistent veracity but, lacking that no, as in a liar or dissembler. As an expert? No, not if unaccredited as such by and to the court. It really is quite simple. Memorize the law maxims and you will be able to comprehend most that are but only argumentative entanglements to others rather handily.)
For instance< the business about vertical vs. lateral displacements of masses: This is not speculation at all, but rather is a way of understanding potential and kinetic energy forms if present. The reason I cited it particularly was because I found that it is a deceptive thing to the "comprehending" eye - the intermixing of the two in statically viewed displacements, these being not at all much apparent to most. (Note here that I condition the matter by addition of "most"? Some few might not be deceived at all, myself being not one of their likely slim number.)
I know, these are all fine points, the very point of interest itself being (to and for myself) that I try very hard to not state as fact what I do not know to be "KNOWLEDGE CERTAIN AND TRUE."
If otherwise, you (and others) will always find a 'conditioner' referring oppositely the previous high, scarce mark unless done by my mistake. (Contrary to popular opinion, I do not 'know it all' and am not perfect.)
I hope all that verbiage serves to clarify rather than to cause the opposite?
- James +
K.B. I find to be a very great repository of facts and knowledge. There seem to be very few subjects about which he does not know at least some truly useful thing. In this regard, he leaves little moi behind in his dust. (There are very few things about which I possess true expertise, Egyptian Philately and music being two but . . . who cares?)
OMG! I was looking for the latest pm machine videos and came across the following one. It's a comedic look at pm chasers and it's so funny, imo, that you might need to have an oxygen tank handy because you will be laughing so much you'll need it! Note how their moods slowly change when they realize they don' have pm! Lol!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFtrn4vvTkk
Okay, I've got some news to report. Over the last few days I stumbled upon a new interpretation of some of the clues contained in part of the second DT portrait that pertain to the mass of the levers Bessler used in his wheels. I am now in the process of modifying my present standard wm2d model for Bessler's one direction, 3 foot diameter, table top prototype wheel that will use that newly derived value of the lever mass in its 8 levers. If this lever mass is correct, then it will mean that I now have all of the correct parameters for the "pm structures" inside of his wheels where a complete pm structure consists of lead weights of a certain mass (4 lbs for the Merseburg sized wheel) affixed to the ends of a lever of a certain mass and at a certain distance from its pivot which attached it to the drum at a certain distance from the center of its axle. That lever is then attached by a spring of a certain spring constant value between two precisely placed points, one on the lever and the other on the drum. When all of the levers are in the drum and interconnected by ropes of an exact length between certain points on the levers, something most wonderful should happen: the center of mass of the entire collection of weights and levers should, despite the rotation of the drum, remain on the drum's descending side and that will then cause a constant torque on the axle. There are also several other coordinating ropes involved in this design, but I'm starting to realize that they really perform a sort of continuous fine tuning of the relationship between the ascending side levers that guarantees that the center of mass of the system stays projected as far out onto the drum's descending side as possible so that the torque will be maximized. The balancing of the various levers in the design the portrait clues have led me to is incredibly delicate and even the slightest loss of precise coordination between the ascending side levers can immediately cause the torque to drop toward zero. Over the years I have seen many designs using weighted levers that were interconnected with ropes and one only has to view the contents of MT to see some typical examples. None of them, however, has the extra feature of additional secondary coordinating ropes that Bessler employed in his design. This feature, imo, is unique and, most likely, is what allowed him to succeed in building a working imbalanced pm wheel while everyone else failed with their attempts. In any event, I should know if I've finally got "it" in a few more days. I was expecting success this year, but did not anticipate it would come in the first month of this year!
ReplyDeleteAnd I am a lurker of several years who has been working on Besler designs for more than 6 years. I have always looked forward with excitement to Colln's next posting and progress. I never had a computer that could respond until now, but alas it is a tiny iPhone. Me? I now have a working mechanism. I too believe 2016 will be the year. Thank you all for being here in the shop, I feel we will all share in whatever success any of us finds.
ReplyDeleteI agree John, so what are you waiting for?
ReplyDeleteNo offence intended!
Sounds like a lot of pm chasers are now on the verge of achieving final success! But, to put the matter in perspective, I suppose most free energy sites continuously enjoy the same situation with their own set of inventors "on the verge" at any moment in time. Sadly, none ever seem to pass that line and, if they claim to, it is only a matter of time before they are forced to admit they were mistaken or others expose them as hoaxers. Desperation, overwork, the will to believe, and delusion can be a potent mix when it comes to making predictions about one's soon to be achieved results. It's probably been much the same since the wheel was invented many millennia ago.
ReplyDeleteThere's something about an ever turning wheel that humans have a hypnotic fascination with. Perhaps as ancient man viewed and studied the night sky, he noticed that all of the stars seemed to be slowly turning about a point in the north marked by the proximity of a bright star that became named "Polaris" for obvious reasons. There was a time in the second century where an astronomer named Ptolemy concluded that all of the distant stars were just lights attached to an immense black sphere that slowly rotated about a fixed Earth at its center. Obviously then, the nearer wandering lights or "planets" were also each attached to their own crystal spheres so as to form a sort of onion layered arrangement of concentric spheres about the Earth all slowly pivoting about an axle located near Polaris. For over a millennium this model of the heavens represented humanity's best guess as to what was taking place "out there". In the 16th century things changed drastically when a Polish astronomer named Copernicus declared that the Ptolemaic model of the cosmos was nonsense. By placing the Sun in the middle of the cosmos and letting the Earth as well as the other planets orbit it, he found the mathematics of predicting what the night sky would look like at any time in the past or future to be much simplified. But, all of these models required the ceaseless rotational motion of a wheel like structure. Even in the 20th century when galaxies were discovered, it was realized that most of them are wheel shaped and in continuous rotation about their centers.
With all of these rotational models of the cosmos embedded in the human psyche, it is any wonder that humanity would become obsessed with making a wheel turn continuously? This of course can be done to a degree with such things as wind and water mills which can deliver considerable power. But, these constructions only take energy from one part of the world and transfer it to another part. How nice it would be to have a wheel that could output energy continuously, but yet would not require an obvious external source of power. Yes, it is possible, as Wagner showed, to make such a wheel by equipping it with wound up spiral springs. But, his device was still only transferring energy from one part of the external world to another: from his muscles to the wheel's springs and then to the wheel. Only Bessler found a way to make a wheel output energy by utilizing a source of energy that was completely unknown in the 18th century and of which scientists of the 19th century were only just beginning to become aware.
Bravo, Ken!
DeleteI thought this a fine and inspirational small article, actually.
As I find it to be as well with J.C.'s periodic, superb editorial offerings, it too seems evocative of both thought and wonderment.
Truly, this. I shall copy and re-type face it, and print the result out for permanent archiving.
Some comments ago I suggested that you might consider doing a certain book, to which you responded that you had already done-so and referenced it. I guess I was being obtuse in the way I inquired originally. What I meant to convey as that suggestion, was a work particularly addressing the movie we like so much "Just Imagine."
I think you could and would do a exceedingly fine job with it both analytically and artistically. (Such a production, as I conceive it in my mind's eye, would demand to be graphics and design intensive all throughout including, say, silver on blue aerienne motif end papers & etc.)
Such a production would SELL WELL. Of this there I have no doubt whatever. Just thought I'd straighten out that little misapprehension while at the other.
- James +
Thanks for the kind remarks regarding my last post, James. It's really amazing how many times the revolving wheel concept shows up in human history from the Hindu mandala to the dial of a clock to that swirling spiral seen at the beginning of the early "Twilight Zone" tv episodes. It is the very motion of a living cosmos and, no doubt, embedded into the very functioning of any sentient being's neuronal circuitry. We seem to have to find the secret of Bessler's wheels as an expression of our inner being. There's a lot more, imo, to the quest for rotary pm then just finding a new source of power or proving it can be done.
DeleteOh, yes, that excellent movie "Just Imagine". No doubt it would take a book length treatment to provide a full analysis of its various symbols and predictions. Unfortunately, I now have two possible projects for my next writing effort: either a book on Bessler in which I provide what I consider to be "the" solution, or a volume that will contain some early scientific papers I authored years ago, but which were never published (not that I did not try at the time, but because they contain concepts which then made the scientific orthodoxy somewhat uncomfortable they had zero chance of making it into an academic research journal). I'm not sure which direction I will go. I really want to do the ultimate Bessler book, but I can't wait forever for my research to be "complete" so that can happen. My other researches which are complete yearn louder and louder to see the light of day in print. I should know in another month or so in which direction I will be heading.