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
"...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?"
ReplyDeleteThey have been told, rightly so, that you cannot create energy out of nothing which is what most of the pm chasers are trying to do with their machines whether they know it or not. As long as they try to do that, they will be dismissed as delusional crackpots by the skeptics. The pm chasers need to provide a different source of energy for Bessler's wheels. Just saying "gravity powered them" is no good either since we're taught that you cannot get any energy out of gravity by moving weights around in a "closed path" within a gravity field (or any force field for that matter). To convince the skeptics, you will need to suggest another source for the energy Bessler's wheels put out. To do that, however, you need to know what was going on inside of the drums of his wheels.
I think it's all about self esteem. They can insult, belittle, and ridicule others, in an attempt to bolster there self esteem, until they are proven wrong, of coarse. To put it in different words, it's a way to save face, so as not to admit to there ignorance. If you say Bessler's wheel worked; you have to admit that you don't know how it was done, and that makes them feel inferior.
ReplyDeleteIt's all about being smart!! Sam Peppiatt
The skeptics think that all pm chasers are just plain ignorant when it comes to science. They really couldn't care less about B.'s wheels and only view our efforts to duplicate them with a mix of amusement and pity. Most likely they "insult, belittle, and ridicule" us in an effort to shame us into learning some mechanics and physics so we won't continue to waste our lives chasing pm machines that can never work. They see their skepticism as a good thing that can only benefit us. They aren't concerned about how B.'s wheels worked because they KNOW they were all hoaxes even if they cannot explain exactly how they were hoaxed. They would say that there are many magic tricks we see nowadays that we cannot explain but we don't automatically believe they prove magic is real so why should anybody accept B.'s wheels as real just because we can't explain how they were hoaxed? However, a working wheel would throw their thinking into chaos. But they are not worried about that happening because they are very confident one will never come along. So far they are right! It's up to us to prove such a wheel is possible and not up to them to accept them as possible as we pm chasers do just because some witnesses saw a hoaxed wheel they could not explain three hundred years ago and managed to get us to share their belief it was real after we read about it in a few books. Right now, unfortunately, the case of the skeptics seems much stronger than the case of the B. wheel believers. It will remain so until a working wheel comes along, if ever.
DeleteWhy do I get the feeling that you are a scientist----------------I would love to prove you wrong!! Sam Peppiatt
DeleteRegarding the wheel width and the mechs interference etc. Assuming the cylindrical weights shown in the handkerchief where drilled through, would you have your weights radially in the wheel using up the least width, or 'across' the wheel with a support each end and the space in between available for another element to swing in? regards Jon
ReplyDeleteKen B claims cylindrical lead weights were only used in the Merseburg and Kassel wheels and that Bessler's earlier wheels all used single blocky ingot type weights at the ends of their levers that he probably cast himself. A cylindrical lead weight had a long narrow shaft drilled out along its center axis and was then mounted with a steel bolt between the ends of two parallel arms of each wood lever. The cylindrical lead weights were not mounted radially but mounted so that their central shafts and the mounting bolts inside of them were parallel to the center of a wheel's axle. This is the reason that during the official test of the Merseburg wheel Bessler covered the weights removed from the wheel with a handkerchief and wouldn't let anyone touch their ends. He did not want them seeing or even feeling the holes at the ends of the weights which might give them clues about how the weights were mounted and about the shape of the levers.
DeleteHenry L.
Radially, at least in my prototype, Jon. Relative to the size of the wheel my weights are not large.
DeleteJC
Jon, Neither FWEIW The previous page shows a wheel with swinging weights. Looks like; by swinging all of the weights to the right, the wheel would turn C.W. The great part about it, (if it would work); is, you never have to lift, shift, or reset the weights. It would be continuously OOB. Sam Peppiatt
ReplyDeleteFor that wheel shown in the previous blog, the weights have to be continuously lifted by rotating their platforms CCW as the wheel turns CW. That's why it cannot work!
DeleteNo, You are wrong. The pendulums don't rotate. And once they shift from one side or the other, you don't have to lift them, you don't have to do any thing to them, just hold them in place. This is exactly what John is pointing out. When ever a good idea is suggested, invariably, every one else, clams it's wrong. Sam Peppiatt
DeleteSam,
Deleteyou are right, I've long believed that the extra force that turned the wheels came from pendulums that want to hang straight down.
May I beg your indulgence?
If you take a simple cartwheel, and attach a pivot where a spoke joins the rim, and from that pivot you hang pendulum with a solid shaft, you can prove where the power comes from.
If you move the pivot to just before the 12 O'clock position, and then put your finger between the spoke and the rod, turn the cartwheel clockwise, and pretty soon you'll feel the power!
You can counterbalance the pendulum with another directly opposite, and the cartwheel will be balanced, but the force from the pendulum will still be there.
STEVO
Hi STEVO! I'm hoping you are right. It seams to me that they are trying to turn the wheel, but still have to prove it-------------------Sam
DeleteJust for the record, I don't know any thing about any rotating platforms, Sam
Delete@Sam. I think Anon 21:07 was referring to the wheel in the gif and photo of the last blog that you had trouble viewing where the weights are just sitting on eight little platforms that have their corners held to two offset wheels with pivots. The platforms must rotate ccw so that they stay horizontal and the weights don't fall off of them as the two wheels rotate cw together.
DeleteRight. No, I'm talking about a wheel with just swinging weights, no platforms, made by a guy from Russia. He was trying to swing all of the weights to the right. It looked to me like the wheel was trying to turn CW. Which is what I'm working on. If the weights / pendulums could be continuously held to one side or the other the wheel might take off. The great part about it is once they swing to one side you don't have do any thing else to them. The wheel would be continuously OOB. No lifting, shifting, or resetting the weights. This may very well be the secret to Bessler's wheel. Sam Peppiatt
DeleteFollow up: Of coarse,the trick is; how do you hold them over to one side.
DeleteI submit; that Bessler found a way to do just that. However, so far nothing works. Maybe you can solve it! Sam Peppiatt
STEVO, Does the length of the pendulums make any difference? Is shorter better or is longer better? Can you give me any ideas to which would be better, Sam
Delete@Sam P.
DeleteI know what you are trying to do and I tried the exact same thing years ago. In my wheel I had the pendulum weights attached by little strings to eight equally placed points on the rim of a second wheel, also free to rotate on its own separate axle, placed near and parallel to the first wheel with the pendulums. The second wheel's axle was offset to the right and also a little below the axle of the first wheel. No matter how I turned the first wheel, all eight of its pendulum weights were always swung to the right and the CoG of the eight weights was always to the right and below their wheel's axle and that wheel was always overbalanced. What happened when I released the first wheel with its eight pendulums? NOTHING! It did not turn even a single degree.
The problem was that the second wheel only acted like a linkage between opposed pairs of pendulums on the first wheel that forced their pendulum weights to keep swinging to their right sides and rising up as their wheel was rotated cw. It was exactly what was happening in that gif in the last blog only done in a different way. All of the energy that would be lost by the dropping of the CoG of all eight pendulum weights on the first wheel was immediately used to swing them all to their right sides and raise them and no extra energy was left over to turn the wheel. IOW, GPE out equaled GPE in and there was no free energy coming out to accelerate the two wheels. There was no motion even though my offset pendulum weights on the first wheel made it overbalanced. The design I had looked great on paper, was something I'd never seen before, but had no tendency to turn.
A lot of guys out there are chasing "self shifting" designs like the one I actually built. BIG waste of time. If I'd made a sim of it, I would have seen in five minutes that it was a nonrunner instead of wasting about two months actually building it and dreaming I finally found a runner. Just because you have a wheel that is overbalanced does NOT mean it will turn when you release it. It's a hard lesson to learn, but a valuable one, imo. The CoG of the weights in Bessler's wheels would have kept rising as his wheels rotated, but he found a way to do that which used up LESS GPE than the wheel lost as it rotated.
Anon 17:47 wrote: "Just because you have a wheel that is overbalanced does NOT mean it will turn when you release it. It's a hard lesson to learn, but a valuable one, imo."
DeleteOr as Bessler said it in AP:
"I also think it’s a good thing to be completely clear about one further point. Many would-be Mobile-makers think that if they can arrange for some of the weights to be a little more distant from the center than the others, then the thing will surely revolve. A few years ago I learned all about this the hard way. And then the truth of the old proverb came home to me that one had to learn things through bitter experience."
Henry L.
Fascinating!! Who ever you are. Not sure if I understand-------I'm okay with 8 pend. on the first wheel with strings tied to the 2nd wheel. After that I get lost. Were there eight pendulums on each wheel? Sixteen total? My level of understanding is pretty low. Sam
Delete@Sam P.
DeleteNo, there were only eight pendulum weights on the first wheel. The second wheel had no pendulums on it and only served as a rotating frame to hold the ends of the eight strings coming from the eight pendulum weights on the first wheel. My great idea was that the second wheel would rotate along with the first wheel at the same speed and direction and always keep all of the eight pendulum weights on the first wheel swung to the right. As I said, it was completely unworkable.
I had tried a design a few months earlier that used eight iron pendulum weights on the first wheel and did not use a second wheel. In that earlier design there were two strong external stationary bar magnets near and a little lower then the wheel's 9 and 3 o'clock positions that were supposed to pull the two iron pendulum weights there to the right and create an imbalance that would keep the wheel forever turning as each new opposed pair of iron pendulum weights on the wheel approached the wheel's 9 and 3 o'clock positions and got pulled to the right to keep the wheel overbalanced. Again it looked great on paper, but did not work in practice. While the two iron pendulum weights did swing to the right and create an imbalance, the torque from the imbalance was never enough to then pull the iron pendulum weights at the wheel's 9 and 3 o'clock positions back away from the outside magnets so the wheel could rotate some more. The wheel just locked into place and would not move. I tried many different positions for the stationary external magnets, but nothing worked. I now use the two magnets to hold notes on our refrigerator! For that they work fine!
I see it, I see it, the lights just came on. The pend. on the left pulled the 2nd wheel one way and the pendulum on the right was pulling the wheel the other way. I'm sorry that it didn't work for you. Sam
DeleteHi Sam,
Deletethe length of the pendulum would be as long as possible, without interfering with the other mechanisms,if you need more power add more weight.
The idea I'm toying with at the moment only has 3 mechanisms, 120° apart,and 3 moving pieces in each.
1: A specially shaped weight.
2: A spring to flip said weight.
3: A pendulum to move the spring's fixing point.
And that's it !
STEVO
STEVO, Thanks for the info, and good luck with your new Idea! Sam
DeleteIt seams like there is always some one pointing out, what an idiot I am; yet none of them have a clue as to how Bessler's wheel worked! Sam Peppiatt
DeleteWho here pointed out that you was an idiot? So far, it looks like several have only tried to give you the benefit of their experiences to better help you find success with your efforts. If they actually thought you was an idiot, then they wouldn't waste time replying to you.
DeleteDerision!! You can't escape it---------Sam Peppiatt
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOMG! He's BACK to further entertain us with his totally irrelevant Victorianesque babblings and rantings. Well, it was only a matter of time...
DeleteAnonymous and PROUD of it!
If he had actually read the anon replies here he would have seen they had mostly been signed by Jon, Henry, Sam, and Stevo and weren't really anonymous.
DeleteThere is absolutely no anonymity on the internet, anyone thinks they are anonymous here are fools.
ReplyDeleteThis is christo4_99 also known as Cwforshort. I had put this away for a number of years and just lately came back to it. I had left off with a particularly interesting and unfinished idea. I have done a little more work animating it and began talking about it with my friends. I think that the reason people search for this device is because we human beings somehow know that or strongly feel that something can move or revolve as a result on it's internal structure.That said, I personally have renewed my interest and am more confident than ever that Bessler was genuinely trying to sell a legitimate perpetual motion device. Additionally I've tried to consider and produce, based on this particual design, an explanation as to why science or the scientific community would/did outlaw such a device. My best guess: because the device converts gravity into movement or momentum/inertia, rather than "creating" anything that does not already exist it simply converts this force into something useful. I don't imagine there are any laws of physics that rule out the possibility of such a thing.
ReplyDeleteI agree Cwforshort, we aren’t saying gravity is the energy source so much as saying it causes movement which we are trying to harness. It’s so difficult to separate the two actions or forces. Even that sentence is ambiguous, but hopefully we all know what we mean?
DeleteJC
"I don't imagine there are any laws of physics that rule out the possibility of such a thing."
DeleteDid you forget about the 1st law of thermodynamics aka the law of energy conservation? According to this no machine can exist that sends out more energy than it takes in or has previously had stored inside of it. To do so it would have to make energy out of nothing which would be magic not physics.
No I don’t think anyone has forgotten that law! It’s very hard to do that with the current belief system ruling out Bessler’s wheel. Obviously no one is suggesting anyone would have to make energy out of nothing.
DeleteJC
"Obviously no one is suggesting anyone would have to make energy out of nothing. "
DeleteSo where did the energy of B.'s wheels come from???
Do you know how many years I’ve been having this discussion? Over 20:years on the internet. The answer is so simple. Gravity makes the weights fall, with the right mechanical arrangement that action can be used to turn the wheel continuously. It is complex but perfectly possible as shown by Bessler. So Bessler’s wheel was enabled to turn by gravity.
DeleteJC
How do you explain the energy of the wheel (Joules) that satisfies the mathematics of Newton Physics? Force is not energy. The Work Equivalence Principle to Energy can explain how force x displacement can be the same as energy in normal situations but this comparison can not be used inside a self contained rotating mass-gravity driven wheel. So where do the Joules/second (equivalent of Watts/sec) materialize from?
DeleteIt’s not self-contained, it’s not a closed system, the energy is generated by falling weights. Enough already, there are none so blind as they who will not see.
DeleteJC
I've been sending Ken B emails about some of the drawings in his book. In my last email I mentioned the talk here a while ago about the upcoming date of 02/02/2020 and how it is supposed to be very lucky. In his reply he said that since the one year anniversary of the book's publication is also this February he wants to take advantage of that lucky day for the future success of the book's wheel design by "unveiling a surprise that should interest students of Bessler's wheels everywhere". He says for maximum luck the unveiling will happen at exactly 2 am local time on the morning of Sunday, February 2nd over in Kassel, Germany and that it is "something that was first seen in 1717".
ReplyDeleteThat's all the information I have about his "surprise". I looked up the times and when the unveiling happens on Sunday morning at 2 am local Kassel time it will also be happening on Saturday evening February 1st at 8 pm local New York City time for those living on the east coast of the USA. Since it is something that was previously "seen" it's probably a photo or video he's going to upload somewhere on the web at those times. Because he mentioned the year 1717 and the city of Kassel I think it has something to do with the wheel Bessler built there in that year.
Henry L.
Sounds interesting. Ken has a youtube channel so it will probably appear there if it's a video. I'm going to subscribe to his channel so I can get a notification email if it appears there Saturday night.
DeleteThank you for that Ken.
DeleteJC
KenB. has a flair for the grandiose in case nobody noticed by now. He had to have the most words ever posted on bwf to become the top poster there (prior to his resignation because of complaints there about the frequency and lengths of his posts), the most new designs for pm machines ever uploaded there (none of which worked), the largest Bessler book ever written and published which includes "the" solution (according to him). I also looked up some of his other previous published books and they include the largest single volume book ever done on ufos which is in addition to two other books on the same subject. To put it plainly, he likes to do things BIG so they get maximum attention. I guess that's okay because he does deliver results and I'll forgive any of his personality quirks if he has in fact found "the" solution to Bessler's wheels. Anyway, I am also looking forward to his "surprise" for all of us and I'm sure it will be something spectacular as demanded by his huge ego. Meanwhile, I think we'll also see a surprise or two from John so he can get some of that 2/2/2020 luck for his wheel.
DeleteAnonymous and PROUD of it!
Big egos aren't really bad if they make you push yourself to success where all others fail. Did Bessler have a big ego? You bet he did. He knew he was smarter than the average rich dude back then who had his wealth handed to him on a silver tray because he happened to come out of the right womb. Bessler wanted to prove he could make himself rich the hard way by using his hands and brain even though he was low born by doing something no one else could do such as like Davinci who tried to make pm wheels and gave up after a few tries. Bessler would have gotten his money too except for bad luck which even his big ego couldn't overcome. He never got the 100,000 thalers but he had one really interesting life while chasing it. Someday his story is going to make a great movie.
DeleteYes it would make great movie. Any suggestions for the actor who would play Bessler?
DeleteJC
Johnny Depp
DeleteJohnny Depp would be great to play Bessler but he would want megabucks to play the part. Better to have an up and coming actor who will work for less and the chance to act in a feature film. Once someone gets a replica Bessler wheel running the news will probably attract some independent filmmakers and that movie will be made with a low budget. It probably won't show in theaters but will just be a direct to video production that appears on Netflix and some cable tv channels. It might also be available on DVD.
DeleteFor those on the east coast of the USA less than 25 hours now until Ken's surprise for us is revealed! I don't have any additional information on it.
Henry L.
Anybody hear the rumor that while the dilapidated Weissenstein Castle was being torn down in the 19th century they found some of the remains of the last wheel Bessler built there in the room where he destroyed the it. Karl is supposed to have kept the pieces in case Bessler wanted to repair it but he never did. The remains of that wheel were then put in another location and there is someone over in Germany now who knows where those pieces are and has access to them. Bessler supposedly took all of the lead weights and springs out of the wheel and then tore off the cloth coverings and chopped up the drum's wood frame pieces and the ropes inside of the drum with an ax. But he missed some of the parts of the levers and there is one that is almost complete that still exists.
ReplyDeleteNews to me. I know William Kenrick visited the machine room after Bessler’s death and saw the remains of the four ceiling bolts to which the pillars were attached. Without any evidence of this story being true, I am sceptical.
DeleteJC
That rumor might be true but we really need to see some physical evidence. Interesting you mention William Kenrick's visit to the machine room. Maybe he saw some of the remains of Bessler's destroyed wheel there? If so he could have removed some of it to study and help him in his own attempts to duplicate Bessler's wheels. He was so inspired by Bessler's invention that in 1770 he published "An account of the Automaton or Perpetual Motion of Orffyreus" and the next year published "A Lecture on the Perpetual Motion". I don't think he mentions seeing the remains of the destroyed Kassel wheel itself in these works but he could have left that out so that if his own attempts to rebuild Bessler's wheel were successful he could then claim that it was his original invention and different from Bessler's wheel. He spent about 15 years trying to build a pm wheel without any success. He eventually drank himself to an early death.
DeleteHenry L.
John,
ReplyDeleteHave you ever entertained the possibility that certain people may have been instructed to claim that the device of subject here was a fake for the secret's sake in case Bessler could not protect it? That is, for example if he was jailed?
No, I haven’t. That seems to me to be too unlikely.
DeleteJC
@cwforshort
DeleteIf the "certain people" you mean were Borlach, Gartner, and Wagner, then definitely no. Bessler hated them all with a passion because he knew their libelous attacks were false and might turn off potential buyers interested in his invention. What good would their protecting his invention with such attacks be if they ruined his chance of selling it?
Not Borlach, Gartner, and Wagner. I'm no noob.
Deletewhy not spell out who the certain people are instead of making us play guessing games?
DeleteMainly proposing the that certain people close to Bessler may have been instructed to lie about the wheel in order to protect it if Bessler was not able to gaurd it. "Who would investigate a fake wheel" is all I'm saying.
DeleteInteresting theory but it couldn't apply to his maid because it was her complaint that got him arrested!
DeleteOk it's 9:30 pm over here in the eastern US and 3:30 am the next day over in Kassel Germany. Where's that lucky palindrome date surprise we were all promised? Anybody got any info? I want to see my surprise from Ken B and I want to see it now! wah! wah! WAH! lol!
ReplyDeleteMaybe the surprise was that there was no surprise and it was just a big hoax to get everyone excited over nothing! But maybe something went wrong at the last minute with the uploading of the surprise. If it exists I'm sure we'll see it eventually.
DeleteHere's my theory. Ken located the guy in Germany with the genuine lever from the Kassel wheel. He paid him a small fortune to make a video of it and send it to him. He was getting ready to release that video to the world through youtube when Big Oil found out about his plan. They then decided to "disconnect" him from the internet...permanently! His mistake was telling people what his plan was in advance. The guy in Germany and his lever are now at the bottom of his nearest major river.
DeleteThe reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself, Therefore, all progress is dependent on the unreasonable man.
ReplyDeleteGeorge Bernard Shaw 1856-1950
Great Quote
Delete