Breaking Through the Wall of Scepticism

On 9th February 2020, this blog will be eleven years old.   621 blogs and goodness knows how many comments have been posted, and there have been  nearly 1,500,000 visitors. My original intention was to try to draw more attention to Johann Bessler’s wheel; I’m not sure how successful that has been but I’ve enjoyed writing my blogs and reading the comments.

I was thinking about the difficulties we face in convincing people that Bessler was not a fake.  For much of my life I have researched Bessler and his wheel, and I have remained convinced that his claims to have built a genuine continuously moving wheel, enabled by gravity, cannot be refuted.  I didn’t need to think about it for long before I realised that the maidservant lied.  So it often surprises me that no one, out there in the ‘real’ world, would spare me one minute of their time to look at the evidence or consider my point of view.

Throughout the last eleven years I have avoided discussing politics and religion because each has its own adherents and devotees, who remain committed to their beliefs and I have no desire to tread on anyone’s toes.  But it has always seemed strange to me, as an atheist, that there are sensible, down-to-earth realists who dismiss any chance that Bessler’s wheel might have been possible, and yet believe that a man performed impossible miracles, was born of a virgin, came back to life from the dead etc etc.  I’m not belittling anyone’s beliefs and I respect their right to believe in a particular religion or branch of politics, but why is it so hard for those same people to at least consider that it is possible for a weight driven wheel to spin continuously as long as it is within the gravitational field?  There is more evidence for the latter than  there is for the former.

Of course I know the answer, and only today I heard a discussion in which a celebrity expert on astrophysics told how a famous American solar physicist, Eugene Parker, who in the mid 1950’s, developed his theory of super sonic solar wind and predicted the Parker spiral shape of the solar magnetic field in the outer solar system.  His theory was not accepted by the astronomical community and when he submitted the results to The Astrophysical Journal, the two reviewers rejected it.  The editor of the Journal overruled the reviewers and published the paper.  His work was resoundingly verified years later.

In 2017, NASA renamed its Solar Probe Plus to the Parker Solar Probe in his honor, marking the first time NASA had named a spacecraft after a living person.^[3] In 2018, the American Physical Society awarded him the Medal for Exceptional Achievement in Research. It is not uncommon for scientists to present new ideas which are at first dismissed by their peers, as in Parker’s case and then subsequently accepted.  So many times the experts have later been proven wrong and their own ‘expertise’, dismissed, rubbished and scorned!

I put the words ‘belated recognition’ into google and it found that there were dozens and dozens of examples of belated recognition in a variety of fields and subjects.  There are too many to mention, but none as delayed as Bessler’s.  

One day someone will reconstruct Bessler’s wheel and, whoever it may be, and then their efforts will win belated acknowledgement for Bessler’s amazing discovery.

JC

Bessler’s Wheel and Obstacles Encountered During Build.

As you will know I have been striving to finish my Bessler’s wheel.  Given several requests to finish the wheel or shut up, I thought I’d try to give some idea of why it is taking so long and the difficulties to overcome.  If I give away some small clues along the way, I don’t have a problem with that.  You may well find that what follows is utterly confusing as I try to describe some problems I encountered, without illustrations, but perhaps you’ll get some idea of the difficulties I’m trying to resolve and recognise them from your own builds.  These same problems are typical in this kind of research if you actually do  hands-on builds.

The concept I’m working with is very simple and I can understand why Bessler feared that once people knew how it worked they might think the price he was asking was too high.  In addition there is Karl’s comment about it being so simple a carpenter’s boy could make one if he was allowed to study it first.  However I think his comment is misleading; even though it may be easy to understand, designing the mechanisms so that they operate correctly is another matter altogether.  You might look at the workings of a clock and understand how it works, but making a copy would be difficult and you might not understand how different parts interact and their purposes could easily be misunderstood. Imagine trying to do that without the device available to you, just some brief descriptions explaining how it worked. That is what we are trying to do.

A carpenter’s boy, meant apprentice, and in those days it was a way for young men to acquire skills in various trades.  Apprentices were formally bound to Master craftsmen for several years, without pay but provided with board and lodging. Upon release from his service to his  master, an apprentice would have become a highly skilled craftsman so we shouldn’t dismiss Karl’s comment as implying the wheel was easy to make, I think he was suggesting that the concept was easy to understand.

In my version there are five mechanisms, which I know goes against current opinion.  The mechanical action is quite complex, but nothing as complicated as a watch for instance, but seeing a working version where all the parts have been perfected to work together, would make it easy to copy, whereas only knowing the concept and designing it to work is not as easy.  I found that the mechanical arrangement leads to some parts interfering with the each other, so I needed to provide more room for each part to operate.  The extra room has to be found within the thickness of the wheel rather than its diameter.  This requires longer or taller pivot points than one might at first assume, because one part of the mechanism needs to be separated and held apart the other part of the mechanism.  If viewed upright on its axle, then there needs to be enough room within the thickness of the interior to allow all parts to operate without touching each other.  But to do this one has to get the moving parts in the right order through the thickness of the wheel so that each piece can operate smoothly without interfering with the other parts.  I know, this is hard to understand without seeing a drawing.

I believe I’m in between the point at which Bessler said he had found an action but it still took him time to design the whole working arrangement and the finished wheel He made a similar point in his message on the front of his Maschinen Tractate (MT)

There are a number of nuts and bolts, some of which have to hold two or three pieces together without allowing them to rotate against each other, whereas other nuts and bolts have to allow the pieces they are holding together to rotate against each other.  This is easy enough to arrange, but in some cases two of the pieces being allowed to rotate against each other cannot be allowed to rotate in such a way that the bottom of the nearest bolt is not clear of the moving part during the path of its rotation. So even these have to be separated a little.

His first wheel at Gera, was only four inches thick which leaves little room for the mechanisms to operate.  But although I did not concern myself with trying to fit everything within the limited space of four inches, in the process of avoiding mechanical interference I found a solution, which was to apply a slight double bend in the levers which altered their path at a particular point along their length thus avoiding the collision.

In addition to these factors some mechanical actions have to be designed to work in one direction only, so that they thrust in one direction but then return as a consequence of the wheel’s rotation.

Dealing with cords, ropes, string, cables, chains or belts - what ever you wish to call them - requires more ingenuity because there are points during rotation where the connecting material is taut and others where it is loose and in danger of fouling other mechanisms, or parts of them.  So keeping the cords out of the way means they need to always have a small amount of tension in order to keep them clear of all other pieces.

We know that Bessler was familiar with the workings of the church organ, so such concerns as outlined above, might well have been customarily encountered and for which there were remedies.  In my opinion, Bessler’s response to the question of springs indicated that springs were used to maintain tension in the cords, but had no part in helping the mechanisms.

Fitting the mechanisms on to the backplate or wood disc which I use, is simple but I found that the wood disc was never big enough.  The path of the mechanical actions can be estimated but for some reason although I always tried to place the mechanisms where I had worked out that they needed to go, I would then discover that the mechanisms were shooting over the edge of the disc and either catching onto the side edge of the disc or striking the floor when it was attached to the axle and it’s stand.

These are routine problems I have encountered from time to time over many years, but I am getting there.  Soon I hope to finish, but my fear is that my wheel won’t work properly without my having to unstick a mechanism or help a rope to move or some other snag which may cause problems because I lack the necessary skill and equipment.  If that happens I’ll just have to publish everything, but I was hoping to avoid the problem Ken had in publishing the design of an unproven device. But I will of course publish my design freely and without charge.

One more thing, as a consequence of comments in the preceding blog, I would just point out the difficulties described above would not show up in a sim, so although it might show a successful build, the detail for the build would still require considerable experimentation, trial and error.

JC

The Legend of Johann Bessler’s Perpetual Motion Machine.

 The Truth Behind the Legend of Bessler’s Wheel and the Orffyrean Code

On 6th June, 1712, in Germany, Johann Bessler (also known by his pseudonym, Orffyreus) announced that after many years of failure, he had succeeded in designing and building a perpetual motion machine.  For more than fourteen years he exhibited his machine and allowed people to thoroughly examine it.  Following advice from the famous scientist, Gottfried Leibniz, he devised a number of demonstrations and tests designed to prove the validity of his machine without giving away the secret of its design.

Karl the Landgrave of Hesse permitted Bessler to live, work and exhibit his machine at the prince's castle of Weissenstein.  Karl was a man of unimpeachable reputation and he insisted on being allowed to verify the inventor's claims before he allowed Bessler to take up residence  This the inventor reluctantly agreed to and once he had examined the machine to his own satisfaction Karl authorised the  publication of his approval of the machine.  For several years Bessler was visited by numerous people of varying status, scientists, ministers and royalty as well as hundreds of  local inhabitants.  Several official examinations were carried out and each time the examiners concluded that the inventor's claims were genuine.

Over the years Karl’s health began to deteriorate and his sons decided that it was time for the inventor to leave the castle and he was given five years salary and accommodation in the nearby town of Karlshaven. Despite the strong circumstantial evidence that his machine was genuine, Bessler failed to secure a sale and after more than thirty years he died in poverty.  His death came after he fell from a windmill he had been commissioned to build.  The windmill was an interesting design using a vertical axle which allowed it to benefit from winds from any directions.  

He had asked for a huge sum of money for the secret of his perpetual motion machine, £20,000 which was an amount only affordable by kings and princes, and it’s no coincidence that this sum matched that being offered by the British Government as a reward for the invention of a way to establish a ships longitudinal position  at sea.  Bessler clearly believed his invention was equal in value.  Many people were interested in Bessler’s wheel, but none were prepared to agree to the terms of the deal. Bessler required that he be given the money and the buyer take the machine without viewing the internal workings.  Those who sought to purchase the wheel, for that was the form the machine took, insisted that they see the secret mechanism before they parted with the money. Bessler feared that once the design was known the buyers could simply walk away knowing how to build his machine and he would get nothing for his trouble.  He said that a bag of money should be put on the table and the buyer could take the wheel there and then.  He swore that if he was found cheating he should be beheaded, a not unlikely result if he was found to be a fraud and deceiving his ruler.

I became curious about the legend of Bessler’s Wheel, while still in my teens, and have spent most of my life researching the life of Johann Bessler (I’m now 74).  I obtained copies of all his books and had them translated into English and self-published them, in the hope that either myself or someone else might solve the secret and present it to the world in this time of pollution, global warming and increasingly limited energy resources.




This problem of acceptance by his potential buyers was anticipated by Bessler and he took extraordinary measures to ensure that his secret was safe, but he encoded all the information needed to reconstruct the machine in a small number of books that he published. He implied that he was prepared to die without selling the secret and that he believed that post humus acknowledgement was preferable to being robbed of his secret while he yet lived.


It has recently become clear that Bessler had a huge knowledge of the history of codes and adopted several completely different ones to disguise information within his publications.  I have made considerable advances in deciphering his codes and I am cautiously optimistic that I have the complete design.


Johann Bessler published three books, and digital copies of these with English translations may be obtained from the links to the right of this blog.  In addition there is a copy of his unpublished document containing some 141 drawings, his account of the search for perpetual motion - and my own account of Bessler’s life is also available from the links.  It is called "Perpetual Motion; An Ancient Mystery Solved?"  

Bessler's three published books are entitled "Grundlicher Bericht", "Apologia Poetica" and "Das Triumphirende...". I have called Bessler's collection of 141 drawings his Maschinen Tractate, but it was originally found in the form of a number of loosely collected drawings of perpetual motion designs. Many of these have handwritten notes attached and I have published the best English translation of them that I was able to get. Bessler never published these drawings but clearly intended to do so at some 


I and thousands of others around the world believe that Johann Bessler’s claim to have designed and built a perpetual motion machine, or a continuously rotating device enabled purely by gravity, was genuine.  The circumstantial evidence is compelling.  This device if reconstructed now, could potentially provide cheap clean electricity, and by reducing the need for fossil fuels, provide a huge step forward in reducing carbon emissions in a very short time.

For some ideas about Bessler’s code why not visit my web sites at

www.theorffyreuscode.com  and

www.besslerswheel.com      and

www.orffyreus.net.                and

www.orffyreus.org

For more information go to www.free-energy.co.uk

JC 

Global Warming or Overawing.

Cambridge Dictionary,  Overawing - to cause someone to feel a mixture of respect and fear. to feel threatened, intimidated, alarmed and frightened.

I’ve just been looking at the subject of global warming and it’s alleged causes.  I don’t think anyone is arguing that the earth is not warming, it’s the cause that is in dispute. I know that it is said to be due to an accumulation of greenhouse gases caused by the activities of humans in the last 100 years or so.  This allegation is by no means proven, it's a theory supported by an assortment of assumptions.

The major greenhouse gases are water vapour, which causes about 36–70% of the greenhouse effect; carbon dioxide (CO2), which causes 9–26%; methane (CH4), which causes 4–9%; and ozone (O3), which causes  3–7%.

To me at least and according to the above figures, 36-70%......the biggest culprit is water vapour, which is surely caused by global warming, but not necessarily the cause of it.  You must have more warming to increase the level of water vapour. Next we are told carbon dioxide is to blame for 9-26%.  Compared to water vapour it doesn’t seem amount to much.  Methane 4-9%, ok it has a more powerful, warming effect than CO2, but 9% maximum is not a lot.

The energy output from the Sun has increased significantly during the 20th century, according to a new study. Many studies have attempted to determine whether there is an upward trend in the average magnitude of sunspots and solar flares over time, but few firm conclusions have been reached.

Now, an international team of researchers led by Ilya Usoskin of the Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory at the University of Oulu, Finland, suggest the answer. They examined meteorites that had fallen to Earth over the past 240 years. By analysing the amount of titanium 44, a radioactive isotope, the team found a significant increase in the Sun's radioactive output during the 20th century. Over the past few decades, however, they found the solar activity has stabilised at this higher-than-historic level.

Prior research relied on measurements of certain radioactive elements within tree rings and in the ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica, but these can be altered by terrestrial processes, not just by solar activity. The isotope measured in the new study is not affected by conditions on Earth. 

The results, detailed in this week's issue of the journal Astronomy etc; Astrophysics Letters, "confirm that there was indeed an increase in solar activity over the last 100 years or so," Usoskin told SPACE.com

So if global warming is the result of natural cyclical increases in the sun’s output, obviously the earth will warm up; the ice caps begin to melt, water vapour increase, green house gases build up.

I note several favourite phrases littering the public announcements from IPCC, such as, “ long-term warming can be explained by ...” - “ extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature” from 1951 to 2010 was caused by human activity”,  what, only half by human activity, who caused the other half?  “Natural variability in the Earth’s climate is unlikely to play a major role in long-term warming”.  You can read these documents and be persuaded, but once you take a note of the vagueness of the language, you should be suspicious of their conclusions.

None of these theories, suspicions, opinions are as firmly stated as the opinions, theories and suspicions that Johann Bessler was a fraud!

This begs the question, if they (the powers that be) are wrong or lying about the cause of global warming, why? 

Further research indicates a number of discrepancies in the claimed 97% of scientists in agreement with the IPCC.  For instance only those who publish their science are in agreement, but we know all about publishing science and how it has to pass the peer review test.  This automatically rules out every scientist who hasn’t published or failed to get published because his work did not pass the peer review.....or in other words, went against the current climate of opinion.  Excuse the pun, but I liked it!

BUT....if the truth be known, it doesn’t really matter what reason is offered for the climate change, the arguments demanding  the reduction in the use of fossil fuels, the target of carbon zero, the discovery of finding new forms of energy and its generation is a good thing, in my opinion.  I just don’t like the feeling that we are being led by the nose by the so-called experts.  We know them well and we don’t trust them.

JC