Saturday 21 December 2019

A Guiding Hand - or Predictable Evolution of Humankind.

Admitted ages of some visitors to this blog;

71,  47,  49, 52, 65, 67,  79, 49, 23, 69, 60, 64, 36, 74 1/2 and I’m 74 5/6ths!


I noted in my last blog, that most of us who continue to seek the solution to Bessler’s wheel seem to be in our 50s, 60s and 70s. I know there are some who are younger but this subject does seem to be occupied mainly by this age range.  But I don’t think it’s specifically our age that accounts for it, because most have been on this quest for many years, so it isn’t necessarily something we have turned to later in life.

Maybe it is the effect of the internet that younger people don’t feel the pull of curiosity to try to find out how Bessler did it 300 plus years ago. I’m not aware of any kind of publication that actually presented Bessler in a positive light before I published my own book.  Yes there is a huge history about all those poor misguided inventors who believed it possible to make a perpetual motion machine, but in every case the author either dismissed their work as impossible, sad, ridiculous or as the much respected Rupert Gould, suggested, “we must assume an imposition”.  It may be my imagination, but I detected some regret in Gould’s words, as if he wanted to believe it but could not say so for the risk of ridicule.  He went on to restore John Harrison’s incredible marine chronometers and he continued to investigate unsolved mysteries of all kinds.

Perhaps the internet with its complex coverage of all things weird and wonderful, mysterious and amazing provides such a plethora of subjects both real and imagined, that the legend of Bessler’s wheel gets lost in the avalanche of information.  This tremendous treasury didn’t exist in such a convenient form when many of us first became curious about perpetual motion and Johann Bessler.  It was there in libraries around Europe, but largely inaccessible. So in 1996 when I completed my research prior to self-publishing my biography on Bessler those who might have been curious would need to have been adults I guess, so later in the age of the established internet my work probably got subsumed among all the other wealth of information. 

I noted some pleasing connections between Gould who repaired Harrison’s clocks, and Gould’s accurate  account of Johann Bessler; Harrisons description of John Rowley as the finest craftsman in England; Rowley’s absolute conviction that Bessler was genuine; Bessler’s price for his secret exactly the same as the British government’s reward for the inventor of a method of establishing a ship’s longitudinal al position  at sea - £20,000; the prize won by Harrison.

It was 1712 when Bessler first exhibited his wheel, and in that exact same year, in Dudley, England, Thomas Newcomen set up the worlds first successful steam engine used for pumping water out of mines.  Talk about bad timing!  But actually it was just that Bessler’s wheel arrived about 300 years too early.   The steam age had to run its course first, and then the internal combustion engine, each consuming vast quantities fossil fuels, readily available without concerns or realisation of the damaging output of these various forms of power generation.

But now Bessler’s time has come.  It’s almost as if there was some guiding hand prompting the advances in industrial technology, only Bessler arrived too soon, out of his correct place in the timeline. Electricity arrived in time to take advantage of the steam engine, the petrol engine, the windmill, solar energy, hydroelectric power - it’s a long list and electricity has been there for most the time, just waiting for the right moment for Bessler’s wheel to arrive.

Although it had a long lead-in time, about 2500 years, knowledge of electricity eventually resulted in electric motors towards the end of the 19th century, but the steam age lingered on along side the petrol engine, which is still with us along side the electric motor.  But events are conspiring to make us find new ways to generate electricity, due to an excess of carbon dioxide, according to “experts”, caused by all the fossil fuel being burned. Electricity seems to be the ultimate power source for all things, but finding a method of generating enough in a clean, inexpensive way without affecting the world we live in, be it cities or the rainforest and everything in between, is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

The effects of global warming, only now being taken more seriously, have applied pressure to the world of science and technology.  But the old pressures of peer review, job security, research funding and potential social embarrassment guide the researchers and technology experts into the straitjacket of toeing  the line, and avoiding at all costs any idea of challenging the established opinions of past “experts”. Anyone who proposes the possibility of a gravity-enabled device which is in continuous motion is assigned to the lunatic fringe.

I mentioned a “guiding hand” suggesting that now was the perfect time for Bessler’s wheel to make it’s triumphal entry on the world’s stage, and even though I’m an atheist, sometimes one can almost sense the actions of some guiding principle in humanity’s progress towards some future state invisible to us now.  Perhaps if Thomas Newcomen had had an accident in his workshop, say a boiler blew up killing him and all of his research, Bessler would have been available to take over the reins of progress in his own field of expertise. Or perhaps if Peter the Czar of Russia hadn’t died on his way to visit Bessler to buy his machine, would the steam age have taken off the way it did?  Actually I don’t think much would have changed, only the detail and emphasis on certain types of power generation.  So perhaps Bessler’s machine was a fall back position in case Newcomen failed to deliver? Maybe, but now is the time, it’s perfect!

JC

72 comments:

  1. John Collins, I became well aware of energy or rather the lack of it at a very young age. We didn't get electricity until 1950. Every thing had a hand crank on it. I especially remember the bench grinder; my brother and I would take turns cranking it while our older brother would sharpen tools. I would crank until I thought my arms would fall off.

    I expect that most young people have never lived without electricity, so don't really worry about it, or the great need for Beesler's wheel. Sam Peppiatt

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    1. Same here Sam, we lived on a farm with no electric and no mains water, just a well. We had an ancient diesel electric generator, but it was very prone to cutting out.

      JC

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  2. The average of the fifteen ages you show is 55 years! Bessler's favorite number twice! Aside from Gould's book, many probably read a chapter titled "Bessler's Wonderful Wheel" in a Frank Edward's book. Anyone who hasn't read that chapter yet can do so here:

    https://www.besslerwheel.com/forum/files/bessler_s_wonderful_wheel.pdf

    It contains numerous errors about the sizes of the wheels and Edwards' version is probably largely fiction. He seems to be completely unaware that it was only Bessler's largest 12 foot diameter wheels which were two directional and required a push start while his earlier smaller wheels were only one directional and self starting. But at least he helped maintain interest in the wheel as did Gould.

    JC wrote: "Talk about bad timing! But actually it was just that Bessler’s wheel arrived about 300 years too early."

    I think the problem was that his wheel arrived 300 years too LATE! If he had lived and demonstrated the wheel in 1412 and sold it, then, after three centuries of use and refinement, they would have been in wide use and no one would have even thought of going to the trouble of boiling water to make steam to push pistons around inside of tight fitting cylinders for motive power and we today never would have heard of Savery, Newcomen, or Watt. Now, assuming we had working Bessler wheels tomorrow, they would still need decades of refinement at a minimum to be able to compete with today's other renewable energy technologies. By the time that happened, we could be using fusion generators for electricity which would then make everything else immediately obsolete.

    I think the real reason to find the secret of Bessler's wheels is mainly for the satisfaction of knowing what it was, making duplicate wheels, and then being able to tell everyone who thought we were just delusional nut cases to be pitied that we were really RIGHT all along! Getting the "last laugh" can give one MUCH satisfaction! Also, it will be nice to prove that Bessler was not a charlatan as history has labeled him, but a highly skilled craftsman with incredible persistence. If his soul is up there floating around in heaven now and he is aware of what's going on down here, then I think that would greatly please him.

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    1. Frank Edward’s book is full of inaccuracies and some poetic license, and is best ignored. He was a journalist with habit of sexing up all his stories if he thought they needed it. I suppose he was useful for bringing attention to Bessler’s wheel.

      JC

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    2. "A" Are you suggesting that a windmill would be better than a gravity wheel? Like John Collins I grew up on a farm with a windmill for pumping water. I don't believe it for one minuet. Bessler's wheel would run circles around a windmill. Sam Peppiatt

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    3. Sam,

      There's a working Dutch windmill that outputs about 18 kilowatts of usable mechanical power as you can read about here:

      https://www.sciencefocus.com/future-technology/how-does-the-power-output-of-a-traditional-windmill-compare-to-a-modern-wind-turbine/

      I've read estimates that Bessler's largest wheel, the 12 foot diameter one at Kassel, only constantly outputted about 50 watts of power. That means that Dutch windmill in the article, when the wind is blowing, is outputting 360 TIMES as much power! Obviously, Bessler's most powerful wheel could not begin to compete with this windmill or most of the ones that existed when he built his Kassel wheel. Of course, those interested in purchasing his invention were well aware of this deficiency, but Bessler would have kept promising them that larger versions would be able to match the performance of a conventional windmill back then. Unfortunately, those larger versions would have been either gigantic in diameter or, if smaller, really massive. They would have been expensive to construct and a headache to maintain and operate compared to the conventional windmills of his day. To make Bessler's wheels practical today will require that their basic mechanics be greatly improved to boost their power outputs and it will have to be by a factor of hundreds of times! Whether that will be technically possible remains to be seen.

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    4. I disagree, windmills may have been more powerful than the Kassel wheel, but they were and still are a night mare to maintain. But the quote output of 50 watts of power is pure guesswork. For a start it was designed go turn both ways, which may have reduces its effectiveness. The Merseberg wheel was the same size but slimmer but turned at nearly twice the speed, but could also turn on either direction thereby possibly reducing its potential power output. We have no idea of the size or number of weights or mechanisms involved. We know that Bessler said he could make the wheels turn fast or slow with greater or lesser power. Have you ever taken a look art a diesel generator designed to provide electricity to an average size house, it’s dammed big and heavy, no need for Bessler’s wheel to be much bigger?

      Don’t dismiss the potential of Bessler’s wheel before anyone has even made a working model.

      JC

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    5. I think that estimate of 50 watts is based on the Kassel wheel running that screw type water lifting pump when the wheel's speed dropped down to 20 rpm's. It's really not that much power.

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    6. "A" I always get my self into trouble, by failing to qualify things. I certainly did not mean a 300 old prototype made out of wood. But rather a modern wheel made of steel with linear ball bearing with weights sliding on hardened and ground steel shafts. You wouldn't believe the amount of iron you could pack into a four foot wheel. Plus the wind is never blowing just right. And as far as maintenance; you could stick one in a closet and forget about it. Windmills only demonstrate how desperate the need is, for more energy. Sam Peppiatt

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    7. Anon 16.53 wrote, “ I think that estimate of 50 watts is based on the Kassel wheel running that screw type water lifting pump when the wheel's speed dropped down to 20 rpm's. It's really not that much power.”

      I agree, the estimate does not show much power, but as I said before, we know nothing about the interior design, nor even why it rotated half as fast as the previous one. In the absence of such information perhaps we can accept the inventor’s statement that various machines could be designed with different sizes and outputs.

      JC

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    8. "...we know nothing about the interior design..." I think that Ken guy would disagree with you. I've studied his wheel video and if its really Bessler's design then one way to move its weights center of gravity farther away from the axle center to get more power would be to have its 7:30 and 9:00 weight arms hanging straight down and then have the 9:00 lever weight arm swing cw through 45 degrees as it reached the drum's 10:30 position. That's a lot of swinging and I don't think the other weights could swing down enough during the drum's rotation to lift that weight so much. That changed design would not work for the same reason mt 13 does not work. Bessler's wheels probably already had their centers of gravity as far away from their axle centers as possible. The only other way to move the cog farther from the axle center for more power would then be by using bigger diameter drums with bigger levers which is what Bessler looks like he did as well as also using heavier weights in the bigger wheels. Its really amazing that he got something that worked at all. For every Bessler that comes along there are maybe hundreds of thousands or even millions of others who got nowhere with their wheels after working on them for years and who we never hear about. Bessler was a very lucky guy.

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    9. I think you know my opinion of Ken’s interpretation that he claims gave him the design of Bessler’s wheel....

      JC

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    10. Ken claims the secret of Bessler's wheels is contained in the two DT portraits in the form of carefully hidden alphanumeric and geometric clues. He then says that these clues can be used to build working Bessler replica wheels by anyone who can "properly" interpret them. The real question is, assuming that those clues are actually there as he claims, whether or not he has properly interpreted them? If so, then he's solved the mystery and something real should come from it. If not, then he has wasted a tremendous amount of effort and time as so many others have in the past and nothing real will ever come from it. We probably won't know what the case is until several years from now. I'm hoping he's right because this subject needs to finally make some real progress for a change.

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  3. I also believe that the new second stage "internet" or rather "Intranet" of social media has something to say. Today information has to come with a punchline..Like twitter...facebook, Instagram etc. It has become about attention through single "punch". You have not time to wonder or getting caught up while scrolling by 200 flashy pictures of half naked people screaming for attention.. New today is read through the Facebook feed. Payed for and manipulated by big media and/pr presidents or governments. The information is chewed ready for you, and the question AND answer should be goving in one punchline. When I discovered Bessler, and went on the Internet to discover the mysteries of history and nature.. A search engine was my "platform", and all information was digested and evaluated by my own brain. Today it has to fit in a pre-payed Facebook commercial and it shouldn't make you think or do much.. Just to smile or cry.. to click..to buy.. Even as a IT-security and support technician, the young people ask me for the solution--- I Google it and e-mail them the answer, if I haven't already thought it out.. They don't Google themselves anymore..They are used to get it served.. by school/teaching or swiping or given a direct link.. You should think that the young was better at using the Internet, but they don't think of a search engine as a portal of knowledge. Only Intranet/social media or dedicated app-sites.. So that is the main reason for why Bessler is less discovered these days I think. Internet is used differently, and information are received and processed very differently..

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    1. And of course..in this also lies the answer to how Bessler and his mystery of historical code-breaking and groundbreaking invention could reach some of the younger generation.. A competition starting in social media.. click..likes.. mini-mystery, a task..rewards..likes.. attention..a new task..likes..rewards.. media attention.. challenging known names.. rewards..likes..pictures of the "winners".. articles on social media.. challenging known names again..

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  4. To@, There seams to be a kind of censorship surrounding COLLINS book. For instance; I've been working on perpetual motion sense 1962. I first learned of the book in 2014; through an obscure web site by Peter Lindymann, seventeen years after the book was written! Except for the computer I might never have heard of it. It's like a taboo subject, to be avoided, or shunned. Just like on this blog. It can only be discussed anonymously. Sam Peppiatt

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    1. It’s because I had to self-publish the book Sam. The only way I could get any advertising was by writing hundreds of letters and emails to scientists, magazine publishers and radio. I’ve done dozens of radio interviews but their audiences are relatively small for this kind of thing which keeps the info about the book to a small group of interested people. Now the situation is so much better, but I’m not so bothered about the books now, I just want to finish the wheel and then spread the news. Without the backing of a publisher it was difficult to get noticed.

      JC

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    2. John, I see what you mean. Maybe if we got a wheel to work; it would be accepted----------------Sam

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    3. In 2018 about one million new self-published books appeared. Without expensive advertising though one's book just becomes another grain of sand on the literary beach with, at best, a free listing on Amazon that results in a dozen or so sales a year for the first few years. Radio advertising is a near total waste of time. People listen to the radio because they don't like to read or can't read! Internet website and spam email book ads are now routinely deleted by ad blockers. One somewhat effective approach is to make one's own book ad video and put it on a site like youtube. Over the years it will get a few thousand views, but they will be from people with an actual interest in the book's subject who are most likely to buy a copy. A book's sales can really take off if it deals with some subject being discussed in the media. If a perpetual motion machine is ever built and verified as real by some reputable scientists then that would create a lot of media interest and the sales of books that deal with the subject would increase. I think both John and Ken's books will benefit when that day arrives if it ever does. I wish them both the best of luck as they await that day.

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  5. Bessler seems to be more popular over in Germany than the US. I found this weird trailer on youtube for a play performed over in Berlin last August that uses Bessler's wheel. I don't understand the German language, but I think it's a musical about how life would change if the secret of Bessler's wheels had been discovered. I wish I could see a video of the whole thing in English.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kLfVnWEW8E

    It uses a nice full size model of one of Bessler's wheels at the end, but I think it should have had cloth on the sides instead of wood boards to be accurate and keep the weight down.

    Henry L.

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    1. Yes it’s still a small audience but like everywhere else, growing all the time.

      JC

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    3. @SG Once a genuine working wheel appears we can count on the Chinese toy manufacturers to flood the world with small working toy versions of it. They will be used as desktop novelties for executives to play with, as educational kits for kids to build and learn about mechanics with, and as images for use all over the internet. Expect to see them in tv commercials, tv shows, and movies. Serious engineers, inventors, and scientists will obtain them to study and try to figure out how to improve and use as larger versions for energy production. We should see a lot of patents being filed for improvements to the basic design of the toy wheel.

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  6. Hey Gravittea and Sam. Found some interesting work at www.besslerwheelquest.com also see "external link" at bottom of johann bessler wikipedia.Enjoy and Merry Christmas to all.

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    1. Looks like he's pushing mt 24 as the solution to Bessler's wheel and added a pulley on the axle for the rope. Ken B. uploaded a short video over three years ago showing mt 24 is a nonrunner and just adding a pulley to it won't make into one. Guess he didn't see it.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD-fJ-VoDCg

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  7. I did like the quality of the drawing on the besslerwheelquest site. Even the writing was immaculate. Does anyone know of someone or some software that would allow me to present some drawings in a similar style other than MS paint?

    JC

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    1. Maybe this online graphics program called "Vectr" can help you?

      https://vectr.com/#

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    2. You might also check out some of the free line drawing programs listed here:

      https://listoffreeware.com/best-free-drawing-software-windows/

      These are all user friendly alternatives to MS Paint.

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    3. Thanks again, that should keep me busy! JC

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    4. John, Microsoft is very expensive so I can't recommend that, but if you use Google Chrome, you can download a free app called LucidChart. While it is often portrayed as an org chart creator, it is really just a basic shape and line drawing app with text capabilities.

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    5. ...sorry Microsoft Visio is very expensive...

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  8. RAF Greetings John,Did you ever publish Leibniz' last letter on Orffyreus to Buchta (in French) dated 29 May, 1716 ? It is 4 small pages and was shown at the Leibniz Library in 2016. The letter was bought at auction in 2013 in Berlin for 35,000 Euro!! See notice at bottom of the Library website .

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    1. I’d have to check in my book, RAF. I’ll get back to you.

      JC

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    2. Ok, got a copy of the original, but like all hand written letters in those days, almost illegible. I’ll check in my book to see if I had it with its English translation. JC

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    3. That letter is not in my book, unfortunately. I’ll see if I can get a translation.

      JC

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    4. This is all I could find about that letter RAF.

      “With the help of the Ministry of Culture and the Lower Saxony Foundation, the Leibniz editors nevertheless managed to get hold of an as yet unexplored letter at an auction in Berlin in 2013. Stephan Meier-Oeser reads from it that evening in the Neustädter Hofkirche. In the letter, the Leibniz researcher from Münster explains to the delighted audience, the scholar inquires about a perpetuum mobile.

      Written negotiations on the Orffyre wheel

      Stephan Meier-Oeser: “Mr. Orifraeus is said to have destroyed his machine because a tax was levied on it. Isn't it strange that someone who has made an extraordinary discovery is not only neglected but also harassed? ”

      The lines that Leibniz addressed to the councilor Georg Enoch Buchta in Zeitz on May 29, 1716 sound like a fine irony. His fellow inventor Johann Bessler, better known under the stage name Orffyreus, designed the machine. The wheel, towering a good three meters high, which turned as if by magic and incessantly, was the great fascination of that time.

      In his letters to Buchter, the Orffyre wheel recognizes Leibniz as “one of the most beautiful inventions”. He had personally inspected it in 1715, stimulated a meticulous autopsy of the mechanics. And according to the Leibniz researchers' knowledge, they even tried to look for wealthy buyers in the promise of a handsome commission from their colleague.

      Meier-Oeser: “We are informed that Leibniz actually negotiated in writing directly or indirectly with some potentates of the time about this Orffyre wheel. He had his fingers in there intensely. ”

      From ...https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz-gelehrter-blick-fuers-ganze.1001.de.html?dram:article_id=314577

      JC

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  9. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all! May the coming year be a happy, healthy, prosperous, and successful one for all "seekers after perpetual motion"!

    Henry L.

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  10. Indeed, I too would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and success! 💕

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  11. The year 2020; sounds like some thing from a science fiction movie! Thank you all for the kind thoughts, Sam Peppiatt

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    1. Thank you Stephen for those wise and encouraging words.

      JC

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    2. "The lesson of this is the very reasoning on how the machine works, everything is connected as it was in his time. Past present and future it is a reflection all the way two the beginning we all have the ability two see."

      Can someone please translate this into something that makes sense? Right now it just sounds like "word salad".

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  13. RAF GREAT JOB John!! Thanks for sharing that letter of May 29 ,1716. It is encouraging to read that Leibniz' faith and conviction was just as unwavering clear up to just six months before his passing beyond the veil!! Reading this renews the commitment of this fellow builder. Happy New Year !

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    1. Leibniz was impressed with Bessler's Merseberg wheel. But he never saw the interior of the wheel and had no idea how it worked. I don't think he was convinced it was genuine pm. He just thought it was using some unseen environmental power that Bessler discovered. Like a windmill using invisible wind that only the wheel could respond to and humans could not feel.

      Henry L.

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    2. You are right Henry L., Scientist have to either condemn it, or admit that they are too stupid to figure out how it was done. Which will never happen.
      So, PM has to be impossible; in order for them to save face. Sam Peppiatt

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    3. It's not so much that they are too stupid. They just don't bother to try to figure it out because either they've never heard of Bessler and his wheels or, if they have, they automatically assume that his wheels had to be hoaxed. Most haven't given much thought as to what happens when a wheel remains out of balance as it rotates and probably assume that is not mechanically possible. I think Bessler proved it is possible though!

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    4. You are right; they aren't stupid. I use the word in order to make a point. Quite the contrary. They are smart enough to cover up the knowledge that PM is possible. The pretense of it's impossibility shall be maintained at all cost. They have done there very best to keep it censored, to avoid admitting to there ignorance of how it worked.

      Thanks to John Collins we know that the wheel did work. Sam Peppiatt

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  14. Hello John C.,
    Over time we tend to forget our designs and move on to new ones. I haven't forgotten my last design. I've always just looked for clues without assuming what the device was or how it was designed, or defining it. I recall arguing that it was not to be considered an "overbalanced wheel" or at least not taken for granted as being one. So what to make of the image at the end of the book with the mysteriously omitted word from the phrase? (for the sake of limiting my audience i admit to being purposely vague). I have a design that constantly loses half of it's weight/s and should easily fit Bessler's description of being half empty, unable to equalize, light here... heavy there... ect. If anyone is interested I am willing to share.

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    1. Hi cwforshort, feel free to share on here. I think we all have our pet ideas and in my experience if you share, expect to be critiqued. This is not necessarily a bad thing but it can be a bit disappointing if your idea is blown out of the water. Not that I’m saying yours might be. Good luck.

      JC

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    2. There's a weird pscyhological effect at work with Bessler wheel researchers. Each thinks he's got the answer while everyone else is a headed in the wrong direction. This makes any kind of working togehter impossible. In that Gould book last blog I found these interesting lines.

      on page 90

      "Among this happy band (one can hardly add "of brothers", for in general one crank hates another most whole-heartedly) an honored place, I think, always will be found for the man who is convinced that he has discovered the secret of "perpetual motion" (which, I ought perhaps to explain, happens to form the subject of this essay). That place is his of right, because, like the King, he never dies. He is always with us---and there are always a good many of him."

      on page 91

      "But the inventor who is, at the same time, nearest of all his tribe to the real idea of "perpetual motion", and furthest of all from realizing it in practice, is the man who attempts to make a machine which will give out more work than is put into it; one which actually creates energy, and does not depend on external supplies of that useful commodity. Apart from occasional dabblings in hydrostatics and pneumatics, he generally looks to some application of gravity or magnetism for the mainspring of his machine; and he goes his way serenely unconscious of the fact that he is really doing his best to produce a working model of a contradiction in terms. He might, no less usefully, devote his time to drawing four-sided triangles.

      I have said that he is usually ignorant of the work of his predecessors. Broadly speaking, this is a good thing. If he were to read up what he could find in print on the subject of perpetual motion, he could not go very far without coming across some mention of Councillor Orffyreus, and the wheel which he exhibited at Hesse-Cassel in 1717. And the more he looked into the story of that wheel, the more he would become convinced that while the secret of "perpetual motion" (in the true sense) might have died with Orffyreus, it had certainly been known to him."

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    3. Ok here's my simple question. If Bessler's wheels did not have external power sources and they were not hoaxes, then where did the energy they deliver come from? It had to come from somewhere unless his machines could actually make energy out of nothing which is supposed to be impossible. Where did their energy come from? Answering that question might be the real first step to figuring out how his wheels worked. So far, I don't think I've read anything by anybody even discussing this part of the mystery.

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    4. Here's a simple answer. Bessler tells us with clarity, that the weights in motion could not find their resting point (balance or PQ point). They must each in turn approach it and then move on past it. The wheel therefore was unbalanced (force or torque imbalance). Since gravity acceleration was the initiator of the motion then it is also the source of the sustained imbalance. The conclusion being that the gravity field (of potential) with the right mechanical arrangement can be manipulated to act as an energy source which is not depleted. Current science can not explain this outcome.

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    5. I agree with some of what you wrote last, The wheel was unbalanced, which agrees with reports of its readiness to turn as soon as it was released. I disagree that current science can’t explain this outcome.

      JC

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    6. Newtonian Mechanics can explain its actions. Conservation of Energy Law can not. Because of one simple scientific edict. That gravity acceleration 'g' is akin to a field of potential. Therefore any mass in that field, free to move, will have x GPE (mgh in J) at a stationary start height. After release, at any height less than the start height and subject to 'g' only, it will have acquired y KE (m/12v^2 in J) equivalent to the y GPE J lost (not considering friction losses).

      And this edict holds true independent of the path taken. Whether vertically downwards or rolling on a ramp for example so having a lateral component of movement as well as vertical. This is the Closed Path Conundrum where weights inside a wheel must replenish their lost GPE to repeat, independent of the path taken.

      In science only the vertical distances are considered from an energy from gravity perspective. Vis-a-vis Science can not explain how a working gravity wheel could sustain itself and do external Work, although clearly lateral translocation can produce torque.

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    7. I think that springs are the joker in the deck. I feel it in my bones, that the springs are involved some way but, have yet to figure out how. They are part of the mystery, that current science is over looking.
      But what do I know? Sam Peppiatt

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    8. Follow up; it is an amazing thing!! I'm absolutely fascinated by it and would love to crack it! Sam Peppiatt

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    9. Bessler's MT has over a hundred of failed attempts, including springs usage. I wonder if the spring sound heard by observers at the dual direction translocation test was a movement assist for some part of it? Springs themselves are conservative so they can not give energy to a system.

      Bessler said - "For I put together the very first device which could revolve a little . - I saw that I had finally made the right choice - , - and why the earlier ones had been wrong - . My heart leapt for joy at the sight of this genuine Mobile." - AP pg 271

      He saw why all the earlier ones had been wrong. What he had been doing was the same as everybody else and they didn't work. Then he saw another way to solve the problems of ordinary wheels keeling. And that way was quite different from all previous attempts although they still had weights going moving in and out to create imbalance like ordinary wheels. He augmented his wheels.

      I hope you crack it too Sam.

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    10. I have studied the conservation of energy law and Newtonian mechanics off and on my whole life, trying to see though the fog of disinformation and correct information, and in the end if you believe a Bessler did not lie, and I do believe that, then you have to accept that at some point the conservation of energy law and its consequences can be avoided, either momentarily or fragmentally, or there is a work around which achieves the same object.

      JC

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    11. If CoE Law can be avoided, momentarily or fragmentally, or there is a work around which achieves the same objective, then CoE Law will not be a Law under those circumstances. CoE Law will be broken because it doesn't hold true for ALL examples. Since CoE Law is based on Newton's Second Law then it too must also be broken.

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    12. "Ok here's my simple question. If Bessler's wheels did not have external power sources and they were not hoaxes, then where did the energy they deliver come from?"

      That Ken guy has a simple explanation he pushes that is differnet. He says Bessler's wheels were NOT actually pm wheels! They did stay overbalanced as they turned and put out constant energy as most believe but he says that all the energy they put out was gotten completely from the energy of the mass of their levers and weights according to the E =mc^2 Einstein equation which says mass and energy are the same thing. This can only happen in a wheel that stays overbalanced as it turns because of its unique arrangment of interconnected levers. The Kassel wheel was supposed to produce 50 watts of power constantly to work the water pump and you can use that to figure out how much mass was used up during each wheel rotation which took 3 seconds. If you assume the wheel had hundreds of lbs of mass of lead and wood (maybe around 500 lbs?) just in its weights and their levers to provide all of the energy it could put out and divide that mass by the amount of mass used up per wheel rotation, then you can figure out the total number of rotations that were possible and how much run time it would take for all of them to complete. If you do that you will get a run time that is incredibly huge! Much bigger than one human lifetime or even a thousand human lifetimes! But, it's not infinite huge and the wheel would have to stop running at some far off future time if it did not break down before that due to some part failure. This limit would not have been obvious even if Karl had locked the running wheel away in his castle room for a decade, a century, or a whole millenium!

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    13. I disagree with Ken’s proposal, that tiny amounts of mass are lost in generating rotation, in fact a ridiculous theory in my opinion. Bessler’s use of weights implies the action of gravity to cause rotation. Continuous rotation must be supplied by a constant force, gravity. Although gravity enables the weights to fall, it is said that it isn’t a source of energy, well you can say that if you like, but it is just semantics, because without gravity no rotation could occur. A weight ready to fall has potential energy, a falling weight has kinetic energy. The weight must be raised again ready for its next fall. Bessler must have succeeded in creating a design which achieved that.

      JC

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    14. "...because without gravity no rotation could occur. A weight ready to fall has potential energy, a falling weight has kinetic energy."

      Yes but if the weight has no mass then it can have no potential or kinetic energy whether there is gravity around or not.

      If Bessler's wheels could work aboard a spinning wheel type space station like seen in the old space adventure movies (I'm thinking of that double wheel station in the movie 2001, A Space Odyssey) that means his wheels did not need regular gravity like Earth makes. Think of a spinning space station located out in space and far away from any planet or sun. On that space station Bessler's wheels should work just by using the centifugal forces on their weights caused by the station's spin which does not involve a planet's gravity. If they did work on this type of space station then where would they get the energy from that they would put out? From the spinning space station's rotation? If they worked and the energy they produced was constantly removed and the station's rotation speed did not slow down over time, then there could only be one source for the energy that the wheel put out which would have to be the mass of its weights and levers. The more I think about this the more sense it makes. Once we have working copies of Bessler's wheels it might be possible to test this explanation in some sort of centrifuge on Earth. Something for the physics scientist guys to play with someday.

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    15. John, unless I'm mistaken, it sounds like you are saying that Bessler's wheels actually had an external energy supply which was gravity. If that was the case, then they would really be no difference than a water wheel except they didn't need the water.

      Henry L.

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    16. Except that the weights have to be lifted after they’ve fallen, but waterwheels need a continuous supply of water, but they don’t recirculate it.

      JC

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    17. "Except that the weights have to be lifted after they’ve fallen"

      I think what Ken is saying is that the weights actually released more energy as they fell on the drum's descending side than they had to be supplied with as they rose on the drum's ascending side. That would only be possible if the falling weights were supplied with some extra energy from some source. Ken says that extra energy came from the mass of the weights themselves and John thinks it was supplied by the gravity field that the wheel was located in. If Ken is right then a running wheel's weights should lose mass over time and if John is right then they won't lose any mass over time. But then one has the problem of explaining what happens to the gravity field over time. Does it remain constant and able to supply energy forever which would seem to be a violation of the Law of Energy Conservation or does it slowly weaken over time which would suggest that the planet producing the gravity was then losing its mass over time. I tend to lean toward the mass loss having been from the weights inside of Bessler's wheels especially if his wheels could work while aboard a rotating space station as Anonymous 13:20 suggested above. This explanation also does not require a gravity field to perpetually supply energy which does not seem possible to me. Let's hope Bessler's wheels are duplicated soon so we can find out exactly where they got their energy from. If we can determine that then maybe we could figure out a way to obtain the energy without even having to use a wheel!

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    18. I have no idea if Ken’s idea would work, but what I do know is that it bears no resemblance to Bessler’s wheel. I’ve read accounts of Ken’s design and how he believes he interpreted it from Bessler’s portraits, but it has nothing to do with the real design that Bessler left for us. There is too much conflicting evidence pointing to a design far simpler than Ken’s. Also as soon a design is understood it should be easy to see why it would work, without need to build a PoP wheel. Obviously a PoP wheel is necessary but you get my point I’m sure. Ken’s design has raised arguments on both sides but as far as I can see the weight of opinion is against Ken’s design. Now can we please stop reintroducing Ken’s book..... Ken?

      JC

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    19. A lot of people seem very impressed with that video KenB uploaded to youtube a while ago and think it does match everything we know about Bessler's wheels from their descriptions in his books. You say Ken's version has "nothing to do with the design that Bessler left us" but what design is that? All that the drawings of his wheels in his books show are the outsides of them. Aside from where his wheels got the energy they produced, you and Ken also must disagree about what was used inside of their drums based on your interpretations of the two different sets of clues you both think you've found. I'm trying to keep an open and impartial mind here. He at least has spelled out all of the many clues he's found in the two DT portraits and how he translated them into the parts used inside of Bessler's wheels. He then constructed computer model wheels using those parts that he claims run and which verify the validity of his clues and his interpretations of them. Where have you spelled out the clues you've found and how you translated them into the parts used inside of Bessler's wheels? So far, all we know from you is that you use five mechanisms. That's nice to know, but it really does not tell us anything important about your version. Why are you avoiding revealing anything more while he has already revealed all his information? Seems like he's a lot more confident in his clues and interpretations than you are in yours!

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    20. That is a fair comment and I plan to explain why my own design is so different to Ken’s and why mine is the same as Bessler’s, but if possible I want to finish building my wheel first. My New Year’s Resolution is to concentrate on finishing my wheel, so thst I can release a flood of information about it. Possibly by the before the end of February or sooner if I can.

      JC

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  15. cwforshort, Sure; tell me how to shift the weights. I dying to know. Sam Peppiatt

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    1. He's probably perfected a miniature matter teleporter that's built into the axle and as the wheel rotates it constantly teleports weights from the ascending side back to the descending side. Now why didn't we think of that simple solution???

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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...