The common explanation for the failure of a perpetual motion machine to run continuously, is often explained in a simple phrase - energy in, equals energy out.
As Dr. Donald E. Simanek, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania, explains, https://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/museum/peopl/people.htm
"all motions of the wheel and its parts are repeated exactly during each complete revolution. So if a weight moves to a larger radius once per cycle, it must also be pulled back to the original radius later during the cycle. The work done in changing the radius by a certain amount from large to small is equal and opposite to the work done in changing the radius by the same amount from small to large. We gain no net energy per cycle."
This is true and demonstrates why all the 'experts' refuse to accept Bessler's claims to have designed and built a working perpetual motion machine. But the description he gives above does not cover all possibilities. I know of at least two alternative concepts that will avoid his conclusion. In fairness to him I know he showed a number of historic designs which clearly did not work and perhaps he was only referring to them. The designs all depend on the use of gravity as an enabling medium, as do mine and many others - notice I did not say energy source!
I know (and have known and believed for at least 40 years!) that gravity does not provide the energy for a theoretical gravity wheel, but the falling weights do. It's a curious fact, this assertion that gravity is not an energy source, because we tap it every day in the form of falling weight clocks, falling water to generate electricity and possibly a hundred other ways we depend on upon its existence.
It isn't a source of energy, but if it isn't then what is it?. If, as I and many other here believe, Bessler used the falling weights to drive his wheel, they provided the energy to make it rotate, but without the force of gravity to make the weights fall, then the wheel wouldn't turn.
Current energy sources include solar, wind, water, geothermal, nuclear energy and of course coal, oil and natural gas. Some of these terms describe the source before conversion to usable energy. Our potential use of falling weights also uses gravity energy before conversion. Yet gravity is not a source of energy but the others listed above all are.
My personal opinion is that those who criticise the notion that the energy comes from gravity are being pedantic. Even though I knew that gravity isn't an energy source way back in the 1970s I still believe that because it causes objects of mass to fall, that action can be turned to advantage. It's like criticising the term 'petrol' or 'gas' or 'diesel' engine because it isn't the liquid fuel that supplies the energy, but rather the heat or explosive force that the fuel provides when it ignites. The fuel, like gravity is an enabler. One thing I'm sure of is that 'gravity wheel' or 'gravity engine' is how they will be referred to in the media, once they are verified as legitimate.
On the other hand we refer to water wheels, as driven by water and not as gravity-enabled. But by implication we assume that the steam engine is driven by steam and not by water, we still have to heat the water to get the steam which expands to drive a piston. We might call it an external combustion engine as opposed to the internal combustion engine referred to above.
We know what we mean by these energy terms so when I say the gravity wheel taps the energy of gravity you know what I mean.
We know what we mean by these energy terms so when I say the gravity wheel taps the energy of gravity you know what I mean.
Any way be assured that Mr Simanek is right as far as he goes but he has not considered any possible work-arounds, and they hold the key. I look forward to the day he discovers the true Bessler's perpetual motion machine
JC
An extremely sound argument John, on my 8 ft wheel I was shocked to discover the amount of energy that was transferred to a weight in a slot from the axle to the perimeter. It was incredible. How fast that the weight would rise at the 12 o'clock position from the axle to the perimeter. So, that being said, there is more than one force that we are dealing with. Likewise if a weight is on the perimeter it has force. The same weight at the axle does not have the same centrifical force as the weight on the perimeter. In the same light, the same weight at the at the 9:00 position has more energy at the perimeter than at a position 1 inch from the axle. It is differentiation of those weights , their position and their speed that has more energy.
ReplyDeleteHydrocarbon fuels store solar and geothermal energy, the former generated by fusion of simpler matter into more complex elements, the latter by fission of the unstable proportion of those elements generated by the former.
ReplyDeleteThe ultimate source of this energy is somewhat relative to wherever we decide to draw a line under it - however a good argument can be made that it is indeed gravity, since the only elements that existed as the early universe cooled were mostly hydrogen, with a tiny amount of helium and even less lithium - these were the first atomic nuclei that condensed out of the quark-gluon plasma. Being the most basic elements already, they have no potential to be broken down into even simpler matter, and so do not represent 'fuel' insofar as the way we usually consider it - ie. matter which can be broken down into simpler matter, releasing stored energy in the process, and causing a net increase in entropy.
On the contrary, the universe began in a maximal, high-entropy state, with zero chemical potential energy. Diffuse hydrogen, with trace amounts of helium and lithium - the universe was basically chemically inert. There was simply no potential for anything else to happen...
...But for gravity.
Gravity caused these diffuse clouds of hot gas to coalesce into ever-larger clumps. This, in turn, caused this matter to stratify - self-organising itself into density-dependent layers, with heavier stuff working its way towards the center, and lighter stuff floating on top.
This initiated the stellar fusion sequence, crunching hydrogen into more helium, and subsequently, all the other elements up to iron, which then seeded the second and third generations of stars that we now inhabit.
In short, rather than an entropic gradient, which is the type of energy gradient we're most familiar with, gravity caused a 'negentropic' energy gradient, releasing energy while decreasing the universe's entropy in the process, filling it with ever-more complex elements. Supernovas, caused by the death throes of the first generations of giant stars, generated all the elements heavier than iron - including most of those responsible for generating Earth's geothermal energy.
So energy from gravity isn't necessarily all that controversial. Likewise, energy from negentropic, rather than the usual entropic, gradients.
The only energy source more fundamental than this is probably the energy of the Big Bang itself, with which the universe first came into existence. So you could say that Big Bang energy is all the energy we have today... but equally, the same could be said of gravity.
...so whether our hydrocarbon fuels are biotic or abiotic in origin, and regardless of whether the former depended upon a supply of sunlight, or simply geothermal heat in anoxic subterranean conditions, it is ultimately all energy from gravity.
ReplyDeleteThe contention arises however when we attempt to generate more energy from it using nothing more than mechanical displacements against it.
Energy, or equivalently, work, is defined by force magnitude times displacement, or distance. Hydrogen nuclei have the potential to be forced together, overcoming the coulomb barrier, and so releasing energy from another field - the strong nuclear force, mediated by the gluon force carriers. And so placed in the proper perspective, gravity performed work against the strong nuclear force, releasing energy from the gluon field. At which point we're no longer looking at energy from gravity...
Similarly, the decay of radio-isotopes is caused by the weak nuclear force, mediated by the W & Z bosons. So again, our geothermal energy is also actually of nuclear origin, albeit via the interaction of this third field.
And so all this potential energy that has been released, only ever existed in the interplay of gravity with these other fundamental forces. The Coulomb barrier is electro-magnetic in origin, and likewise electromagnetism is the ultimate arbiter of all chemical potential energy, and so the full suite of four fundamental forces are required in order for gravity to generate any potential energy at all.
With a Bessler wheel however, we're not performing work against any of these other three fields. We're not harnessing chemical interactions, and certainly not nuclear ones. All we're employing is gravity, and mass / inertia / momentum.
The strength of gravity, at human size and time scales, is constant, as is the value of mass and thus inertia / momentum. And a closed-loop trajectory through stationary fields yields zero net energy. This is just mathematical, logical fact.
An energy gradient would only be possible if one of these fields becomes time-variant.
Since it seems most unlikely that gravity could ever fulfill this requirement, we must look to mass and inertia / momentum. Here, we DO have som eglimer of flexibility, due to the fact that in angular systems, mass and inertia are superceded by moment of inertia, which IS variable, as a function of changing radius.
Of course, radial excursions are still subject to energy symmetry, but yet offer us this added degree of flexibility not found in gravitating and linear systems alone. This is why i've been so determinedly trying to break this symmetry over recent years. I remain convinced it's our best - if only - chance of success.
I'd much prefer to think a gravitational asymmetry may be possible, but unless you can furnish some reason to hold out such optimism, it just seems redundant in the face of the hard facts. Bessler was undoubtedly using gravity, but since both rest mass and gravity are invariant, the gravitational interactions within his machines must've been energy-symmetrical, and the excess energy, i can only surmise, must've been the result of an effective violation of Newton's 3rd law - principally, generating momentum, and thus with it, energy.
John,
ReplyDeletejust nit-picking, but wasn't the diesel engine named after the guy who invented it, and not the fuel that powers it?
Yes, Stevo, but here in the UK we refer to the fuel as diesel.
DeleteJC
For the moment, assume the earth has a very low mass, comparable to the mass of one of the weights John C refers to, but keep the gravity the same. Both the earth and the weight would both move towards one another, bang into each other and move away then back and keep on repeating this until they end up touching. This is not how we perceive the motion of weights due to the relative extreme massiveness of the earth. The point I am trying to make is, we might be able to come up with a device that appears to create PM, when in actuality, energy is taken from the earth, but in such small amounts that the effect on the earth is not measurable. If this is true, as science dictates, then Bessler created what appeared to be a PM wheel, when in actuality, was as device that stole energy from the earth. Just an idea worth considering.
ReplyDeleteHhhmmm - interesting thought Anon. I need to think about it, some more.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteAnon, what you're describing is an N3 violation - if Bessler's wheel was generating momentum and energy by harnessing a force without a counterforce, and so inducing momentum without incurring counter-momentum, then the earth itself could be accelerated or decelerated.
DeleteAs such, the uncontrolled mass deployment of such devices 'in the wild' would risk wreaking the most devastating form of pollution yet imagined.. day lengths and year lengths would be subject to drift, with apocalyptic geological upheavals due to disturbing the tidally-locked lunar orbit, which would become increasingly elliptical.
Since an N3 violation is the only way to generate excess momentum and energy mathematically or logically, my opinion is that we'd be playing with fire, and if successful, bear a profound responsibility to ensure such risks are fully addressed before letting the genie out of the bottle..
Well I knew I would not present my idea correctly. The point I was trying to make is, the earth pulls you toward it, and allows you to bounce off it or rotate around it (or fixed point) as if it is an immovable object due to its relative massive size. This would not be the case if two similarly sized objects were interacting in space. For all practical purposes, the earth acts like a fixed object in space with an attractive force - but we know the earth does move in minute (non measurable amounts) and so maybe those small undetectable movements make the energy gain in the wheel seem like free energy. I hope this makes more sense.
Delete@JC - sorry for my previous overly-verbose reply. One quick point tho - in his works, Bessler only ever speaks of applying overbalance insofar as bringing a wheel into self-sustaining motion - his focus is not therefore upon perpetual overbalance per se, but rather in using it to initiate a self-perpetuating movement.
ReplyDeleteThe most consistent interpretation of his words centers on efforts to generate motion from motion. On the specific issue of perpetual overbalance, he seems to explicitly deny such a possibility. Thus i believe that in his designs, perpetual overbalance was an epiphenomenon, and not the prime mover.
He was generating momentum and energy by leveraging an effective N3 symmetry break, and then applying that gain to raise a weight - basically, converting rotational kinetic energy (RKE) into gravitational potential energy (GPE).
Any system of rising and falling weights can only be energy-neutral. The form of his gains had to be kinetic energy sourced from an acceleration applied without a corresponding counter-acceleration / deceleration. This is the only theoretical juncture where excess energy and momentum become available.
I wish you'd share your findings so that, if real, we can move forwards with working out how to apply them. While i'm skeptical of the pentagram stuff you've already shown, if you HAVE come up with anything potentially useful, you'll be wasting further time and efforts trying to engineer a gravitational asymmetry from it..
Perhaps I misunderstood your explanation V? I thought you were saying that Bessler's wheel must have created a gravitational asymmetry, in which case I believe that is what I have in my design,
DeleteAs for Bessler denying that his machine was perptually overbalanced, I think he was implying that the usual method of trying to obtain overbalanced did not work, but it seems obvious to me that wherever his wheel stopped it was in a condition of overbalance, hence the spontaneous rotation once the brake was released.
So my design also produces permanent imbalance, and therefore it too, will begin to spin spontaneously. Is that not a condition of gravitational asymmetry?
JC
A true gravitational asymmetry would be a situation in which the raising of the weight responsible for the overbalance was caused by the dropping of another weight - ie. dropping 1 unit of weight while raising 4 (per his "to lightly cause a heavy weight to fly upwards!" remark).
DeleteHis following comment about arranging "for some of the weights to be a little more distant from the centre than the others" is another angle on this same approach - all such attempts are futile. No form of gravitational leverage can manifest unequal input / output force / distance integrals, due to the constancy of mass and gravity, and the conservative exchange of force for displacement; the very possibility of a gravitational asymmetry depends upon factors beyond our human sphere of influence.
He DOES say that his system maintains overbalance - indicating this in multiple places - but look at precisely how he phrases this in his introduction to AP:
"In its interior it gains - for how else does it grow out of balance?"
Transliteration notwithstanding, this phrasing COULD be consistent with a successful gravitational asymmetry... ignoring the fact that he later refutes such a possibility. But it ALSO seems to allow the for the possibility that the "growth" of overbalance is powered by a "gain" of some other form (ie. other than GPE).
So the issue boils down to what pays for the over-balance. OB is the form of torque, but cannot be the form of energy gain that pays for the OB.
In a nutshell, OB can't buy more OB than it's paid for. Rather, OB torque generates motion, which in turn is used to generate energy, which THEN gets converted back into OB - almost certainly, by converting an RKE gain, from a reactionless acceleration, into GPE.
Outwardly, it looks and smells like a gravitational asymmetry, but we know it cannot be, which he himself confirms. Overcoming this conceptual hurdle is half the battle.
Whether or not it was his intention to beguile and obfuscate, or simply an inevitable consequence of the necessity of using weights (maybe gravitating systems are essential to generating the effective N3 break), the fact is, our eyes are drawn to the raised weight as the 'first cause', rather than whatever internal sleight of hand was responsible for raising it. But whatever this trick, it HAS to be something other than dropping / lowering a weight.
...a further point regarding the number five; you've previously mentioned that the useful principle depends not so much upon the inherent 'quintupleness' of the number five, so much as odd numbers generally - that a tripartite system would also manifest such useful properties, but that division into five is a more optimum implementation..
ReplyDeleteHave you considered however that it mightn't be odd numbers per se that he was interested in, so much as primes?
He speaks esoterically of "the elements"... he calls his wheel the "primus" mobile, powered by a "prime mover", making vague allusions to "elemental influence" - "the properties of the elements are required to keep things moving" (primes are analogous to 'the elements' of the composite integers)..
He seems to introduce new concepts in Machinen Tractate at prime intervals - ie. MT 37, which he says otherwise belongs amongst MT 14-16, "inserted here only because it slipped past at the beginning", then MT 39 - a "very special style of storks bill", MT 41 with "something special behind the storks bills", just as a few examples.
If this is a meaningful pattern, then MT 55 is not in itself so significant, as all MT numbers intermediary between the primes would be composites of those concepts introduced in the prime-numbered ones, and '55' is of course not prime.
If, as you've suggested, odd-numbered internal parts of the wheel do confer some mechanical advantage, perhaps it lies with the indivisibility of primes, rather than odd numbering per se?
In Apologia Poetica, writing in 1716, he mentions an intention to attempt to patent the invention the following year, but rather than saying so directly, describes it as "the year denoted by the number 17 written twice" - perhaps this awkwardness was merely for poetic reasons, but it also seems potentially significant that 17 is prime - so would've neatly fitted into his little prime-mania, that his primus mobilis, powered by the principles of the heavenly elements, would be published to the world on a doubly-prime year...
...in consideration of the previous point, MT 17 for example is where he introduces the concept of attaching the masses to springs...
I suspect a focus upon fives alone may be missing a trick or two..
I'm not ready to give anything away just yet, but the occurence of the number 5 and 55 throughout Bessler's works is relevant to each place it occurs but is not a vital ingredient. It is however a vital ingredient of the wheel itself, but forget the word pentagram, it has nothing to do with the wheel, in any esoteric sense. But he uses 55 to point to the encoded parts of chapter 55 of Apologia Poetica.
Deleteemail me V?
JC
Will do..
DeleteThe prime thing is pure conjecture, but the more i consider it, the more plausible it seems - he called himself a mathematician, was schooled in the classics and evidently knew of Euclid and Plato etc., so any such correlations would not be lost on him, and so perhaps, neither on his intended audience for any encoded revelations..
As such, another similar example would be that the prime factorials of 55 are 5 and 11, and both MT 5 and MT 11 introduce the same concept of doubling up the outer system of moving weights with an identical inner system; balls in MT 5, weighted levers in MT 11.
Maybe coincidence, or maybe there's something here..
The thing about seemingly hidden patterns in numbers etc, as you've suggested V, is that once the pattern is thought of by the author he then becomes a slave to it. It is almost impossible to set it aside and unlearn it. You can't choose to switch the pattern or numbering sequencing on or off periodically. That offends all sensibilities. So you arrange all things (such as in MT) to conform to the pattern including MT37 which could have easily been shifted to where it belonged. Also for a guy like Bessler he may have had multiple patterns in his MT arrangement, and the more times the different patterns land on a number (like reinforcing wave patterns) the more important the clue that MT seemingly contains. Natural order and structure are hard to escape or deny once found, IMO.
ReplyDelete-fletcher
Nicely put fletch and so true.
DeleteJC
John, would you say(without of course giving anything away) that you current design contains a ‘unique’ element, as such something that we haven’t (generally) seen before, or is your design merely a combination of weights levels etc, arranged in a particular combination that has not reproduced before(since Bessler)?
ReplyDeleteMany thanks A.N.Other
That's a difficult one to answer because I could say yes to both alternatives. I think there is are two unique elements within the design which I haven't seen used in this particular way before.
DeleteJC
Morning John,
ReplyDeleteYou talk about this design - is it your design or Bessler's?
Bessler's, not mine.
DeleteJC
Donald's page that explains what you've referred to is here, about halfway down:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/museum/overbal.htm
Near the bottom of the page is an example that shows the same fallacy of all pm wheel attempts.
Quote:
"This example is worth careful study, for it is an example of the fallacy of all attempts to maintain overbalance of a wheel by mechanical means. The mechanism that produces the overbalance necessarily requires the wheel to exert a force on the shifting weight, and because of Newton's third law, this causes a force, and a torque, that exactly counterbalances the effect of the overbalance."
Gravity is an energy storage field, not an energy field - a subtle difference you don't seem to accept. Rising and falling weights are not Bessler's secret.
Looking for the secret in that 'space' is similar to looking for patterns in his clues. You can't get over it once you've convinced yourself the answer must be there.
Thanks for your post dougs, I am fully aware of the facts about gravity, and I read the article I referred to above many many times over a number of years - and yet I hope to show you how it was done using just the force of gravity. As I said in my blog there is at least one workaround that know of.
DeleteJC
Hi John,
ReplyDeleteWhen you boil a kettle of water the surge is massive, when a automobile pulls away from a standing start it uses a gearbox to reduce the strain on the engine, your wheel is trying to pull away in top gear, I'm sorry but its not going to happen. Believe me it needs a push.
I may consider some arguments as possibly casting some tinge of doubt on the reality of Bessler's claims, but your description in your post is, happily, absolutely wrong, dougs, no offence intended.
DeleteJC
Well, not that it's of interest to anyone, but I've got my gravity wheel built and is as balanced as I can get it. I have one step left, and that is to install the weights. I can only hope that it will perform the way I want it to. I've worked on it for about two and a half months now. So, I'll let you know what happens.
ReplyDeletePerpetualman
anybody who thinks that PMM is not possible should see this simple setup:
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/nSQYjrLBMG4
That video is another fake in a long line of fake videos littered across the internet. You can tell when it crosses two segments at once without stopping in between. You can’t connect a circle of smots and have it run. As soon as you do, it will all balance out and not work the same way. If you had built anything like this you would know what I mean.
DeleteCould of course be faked, but still an interesting video...
DeleteThe SMOT is an infamous little testbed experiment - it is not controversial that the ball drops off the end of the ramp. This is however the first time i've seen a closed loop of ramps.
I'm open to further evidence on this one. Worth a replication attempt or two..
I cannot hold my excitement in check that you are as close as you say.
ReplyDeleteBravo Perpetualman Bravo
I'm pretty excited myself Gravittea! At the same time, I feel nervous about what it will do or, doesn't do. But for now, I'll keep my hopes up!
DeletePerpetualman
John- I perceive gravity to be a constant stream of force such as a river on which one can hitch a ride in the direction of the flow. Bessler's device had to have been propelled by gravity because it was the only inexhaustible force available while utilizing the technology available during the time he was alive. Bessler described the weights acting in pairs and gaining force as a result of their swinging or movement. He said that he caused one weight to be closer to the center of the wheel while the other weight was located near the rim of the wheel and that they kept trading positions. He also said that springs were utilized. A witness saw Bessler press down on a spring before starting the wheel and when he released the spring he heard a clunk. I think the springs were manually pre-loaded and engineered to release their force on the upside of the wheel and then to be reset when the weights impacted and compressed them on the downward side of the wheel. I think his principle of 'excess weight' referred to the inertia contained in a moving weight being in excess of the force required to move an identical stationary weight. I'd enjoy hearing your thoughts concerning these ideas.
ReplyDeleteI agree with most of your post, sojourner. He did not say springs were used so much as implying that they were - 'not in the way you mean', can be interpreted in many ways and I don't feel that professor Wolff, who heard the sound of a spring being operated is necessarily right (or wrong for that matter). It's too subjective to put much faith in their importance. My personal view is that they had a minor role assisting with the smooth operation of the mechanisms. But I could be wrong.
DeleteJC
aah springs.., personally and for many reasons I believe you underestimate the importance of the springs.
ReplyDeleteRegards
Jon
No springs. The Bessler weel is just not possibly, John will soon know.
DeleteWell, I've got two of the eight weights installed. They're opposite of each other and make a little noise when the wheel rotates, as expected. It's almost 11pm my time, so I'll continue tomorrow or Friday. It's very exciting and I'm still optimistic about it working this time.
ReplyDeleteI'll keep you posted!😃
Perpetualman
Well, I couldn't wait any more. So, I installed all the weights but to no avail☹️ But hey! I had fun building it!!!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, just thought I would let you guys know. Talk to you later😁
Perpetualman
Oh please won't you post a photo of it?! And how you thought it should work.
DeleteI would do that if I could figure out how to do it.
DeleteThis blog does not support photos. You can do it over on www.besslerwheel.com.
ReplyDeleteemail it to me as an attachment and I'll post it here.
DeleteJC