Maschinen Tractate 137, and Some Important Numbers?

The subject of this blog might seem a bit unusual but perhaps it might spark some new ideas?

Some of you may be aware of the work I've published on www.theorffyreuscode.com  Three of the pages refer to the dodecagram on MT 137, which precedes the 'Toys' page, MT 138. 139. 140 and 141. I wrote that Johann David Heinichen, 1683-1729, a German musician, introduced the concept known as the ‘circles of fifths’ in 1711 (he called it Quintenzirkel). I suggested that MT 137 being similar to his quintenzirkel was designed to point to the circle of fifths, thus being another pointer to the number 5.

That has all been discussed before, here. This time my interest was directed to the MT number itself, written clearly on the bottom of the page - 137. I know Bessler was fascinated by the history and the relationship between numbers and letters and their hidden meanings and of course all the popular codes of the era, and it seemed to me that he had included the number quite deliberately, even if it was somewhat roughly executed. We know he had to add the Toys page in a hurry due to a possible impending arrest, and replaced the existing pages which gave the secret of the wheel. My guess is that he also added the MT 137 at the same time. As it had no mechanical resonance I think it was a deliberate inclusion along with in the Toys page.

MT 137, is the only illustration in the MT which doesn’t appear to show any mechanisms. One reason for this was, as I suggested above, to provide a hint towards the circle of fifths, but as Bessler usually included two or even three pieces of information in each of his clues I felt there could be something additional, that was invisible to me. A Google search of the number 137 for anything connected to his work produced the following information, but I’m still not sure if it’s relevant. Hopefully you will find it interesting, and in particular my final piece. Most of what follows is way over my head, but I include it because of the perceived importance of this number, both now and historically.

So, in the world of physics, it has been suggested that the number 137 could lie at the heart of a grand unified theory, relating theories of electromagnetism, quantum mechanics and gravity.

There is something called the ‘fine structure constant’, a physical constant with no dimension is approximately 1/137, and it’s reciprocal was said to be the integer 137, although later work suggested it was closer to 137.036.

Richard Feynman wrote the following about the number 137.

‘It has been a mystery ever since it was discovered more than fifty years ago, and Pauli famously quipped, “When I die my first question to the Devil will be: What is the meaning of the fine structure constant?” Unfortunately Pauli died without accomplishing his goal in the Red Cross Hospital of Zurich in Room 137—and he was aware of that synchronistic irony before he died. Theoretical physicists put this number up on their wall and worry about it. It’s one of the greatest damn mysteries of physics: a magic number that comes to us with no understanding by man. You might say the ‘hand of God’ wrote that number, and ‘we don’t know how He pushed his pencil.’

In the Hebrew Kabbalah, the word has a Gematria value of 137, symbolically, this word indicates the threshold between the physical dimension and the utterly spiritual dimension. In other words, at the boundary line of the physical world, the number 137 emerges. The wisdom of Kabbalah is to find correspondences between the mundane and spiritual levels of reality.

Here are some quotes from some web sites.

“In his Nobel lecture delivered in Stockholm on 13 December 1946, Pauli expressed his goal was to establish a theory “which will determine the value of the fine-structure constant and will thus explain the atomistic structure of electricity, which is such an essential quality of all atomic sources of electric fields actually occurring in nature."

Cosmologist Robert L. Oldershaw argues that “137 is the relationship of the strength of the unit electromagnetic interaction compared with the strength of the unit gravitational interaction. That sounds pretty fundamental to me.”’

‘In the Bohr atomic model, the innermost electron of a hypothetical atom with atomic number 137 would be orbiting just below the speed of light, and the next heaviest element would be impossible because its electron would have to exceed c. Atoms close to the theoretical limit of 137 are unstable and not found in the universe’.

https://www.secretsinplainsight.com/why

The following is skimmed and abbreviated from my forthcoming book, which will be published later this year.

I was intrigued by the possibility that the number 137 was recognised to have special properties in Bessler’s time. There are websites devoted to such things as the properties of the three main pyramids which allude to the number 137, plus the Kabbalah, numerology, Freemasons, etc.

But I discovered that Bessler was hinting at the relationship between 137 and the golden angle or the golden mean, well known to the ancient Egyptians and the Greeks who called it phi, after the Greek sculptor Phideas. Phi, the golden ratio, is equal to 1.618, plus an unending succession of numbers. Plato discussed the subject at length in his Timaeus and of course there are the Leonardo Fibonacci series of numbers, and the laws of nature also dependant on the gold mean!

In geometry, the golden angle is the smaller of the two angles created by dividing the circumference of a circle according to the golden ratio, thus creating two arcs so that the ratio of the length of the smaller arc to the length of the larger is the same as the ration of the larger arc to the full circumference of the circle.

This provides two radii with angles of two particular degrees. The golden angle is 137.508. I suspect that using the number 137 for his dodecagram seemed like a good idea to the inventor, but he couldn’t name it MT 137.5, that would be too obvious. Bessler used the golden ratio routinely in his drawings and it was more commonly integrated in works of art than it is today. A search for the subject on the BW forum throws up many links.

Why did he add this page? Much of the work I have done on finding and interpreting his coded work was useful, but not a first sight and it was hard to explain when out of context. 

Bessler’s clues, if solved in isolation, get the confirmation of their validity from solving other related clues. This clue of the number MT 137 is an example of this. I have found, subsequent to the investigation of this clue, confirmatory examples of at least two precisely executed angles of 137.5 within his drawings. The connections I pointed out in my orffyreuscode.com web site also a showed a heptagram within the dodecagram, which, as well as the pentagram, includes numerous examples of the golden mean or ratio.

But there is a further mystery - or am I becoming even more paranoid than before?

The Toys page is numbered at the bottom as 138, 139, 140, and 141, but why? The page is labelled with A, B, C, D and E, and these five letters were obviously on the page before he added his four handwritten numbers. So four page numbers for five labelled itemss? It has been suggested that the Toys page replaces four pages which were burnt or buried, but why did he need to remind himself by numbering the page in this way?  He could just dig up the ink blocks he buried when he needed them. Maybe he decide to add MT 137 at the last minute so he could use the number 137 with the do-decagram and add a pointer to the golden angle, there rather than on the Toys page? But if he then added the other four numbers to the Toys page why not end with 142 to cover the five items on the page, instead of number 141? Perhaps he needed to end with 141 and he had already used 137. He had a record of including more numbers than necessary to reach a significant total.

141 is the product of two prime numbers 3 and 47. Coincidentally (maybe) there are 141 bible references in chapter 55, within the 55 verses of his Apologia Poetica.  The number 47 brings to mind Eulclid's 47th proposition but which can exhibit the properties of the golden ratio with some additional extras.  It describes the 345 right triangle with its accompanying squares. That particular figure was adopted by the Freemasons a while ago, so perhaps he is demonstrating his knowledge of the craft. Apparently the Euclid’s 47th proposition is discussed in the Freemason 33rd degree, and a Masonic publication, Anderson’s “constitutions”, was published in 1723, it mentions that “ the greater Pythagoras provided the author of the 47th proposition of Euclid’s first book“

In 1723 Bessler was well established at Kassel, a centre of Freemasonry, and I’m sure he was familiar with the “Constitutions”.  The history and use of the 345 right angle is described in detail and a number of its additional features described which I was unaware of.  One of the angles produced in the additional features is 108 degrees which looks uninteresting but 360 divided by 108 equals 3.3333, the 33rd degree? 108 is the largest angle in the pentagram, all the angles in pentagram are multiples of 18, the smallest angle in the pentagram 18, 36, 54, 72, 90 and 108, so I’m sure that there is a golden ratio in there. The Kepler triangle also exhibits the golden ratio.

I prefer to think that although Bessler was using the language of Alchemy he was actually disguising mechanical processes. It makes more sense than him going off at a tangent and talking about things of a magical nature.

All comments welcome.

JC

The Search for the Secret of Perpetual Motion Continues.

The search for the solution to perpetual motion has occupied the mind of man since the earliest times. Two questions; why has it been such a magnet for us?  Why hasn’t anyone produced a working model? Johann Bessler said it was because no one had ever been able to devote as much time, every day, to searching for the solution as he had.  He also said that he had acquired more experience in different trades than anyone else, before or since which gave him a unique advantage.  Both the claims ring true, because we all have to work to earn money these days and time is therefore restricted, and I doubt if there are many people actively researching this subject who have as much ‘hands-on’ experience as Bessler had.

That is the answer to the second question, but why have we spent what must amount to trillions of hours over the centuries, looking for this pot of gold?  Leaving aside answers to do with the more mundane pursuits such as irrigation, grinding flour and corn, draining mines etc, there seems to be something at the back of our minds that informs us that such a device, driven by or enabled by gravity, could turn continuously and do work and do something really clever. It’s something we all know instinctively.  Perhaps it’s in our DNA.

How do female pigeons know that they need to build a nest to lay their eggs in?  How do male pigeons know that they must supply hundreds of twigs for the female to construct a nest?  We are told it’s instinct, but instinct is defined as an ‘innate, typically fixed pattern of behaviour in animals in response to certain stimuli’.  Wikipedia says instinct is genetically hard-wired behaviour that enhance our ability to cope with vital environmental contingencies, so it is in their DNA. Our innate fear of snakes is an example.  A fear of snakes is understandable, but what stimulus made the male pigeons gather twigs for their lady friends?

So if it’s in our genes, but who or what put it there? Experience and survival of the fittest would account for the fear of snakes, I suppose, but why do so many people instinctively ‘know’ that Bessler’s wheel was genuine and knew it hundreds of years before he was born that such a device was possible?

Despite being told, taught, informed, harangued that it is impossible, a very significant part of the population believe it might be possible, but unfortunately the majority of those accept the word of the experts and either dismiss the idea or give up too soon.  It is down to we optimistic researchers who, ever hopeful, persist in  seeing the glass half full instead of half empty.

We are irrepressibly optimistic, overconfident and always have an alternative design we have to try. My own optimism often gets the better of me, but I still think it is a trait that we need to maintain and nurture. 

I’m sure we have each endured the scornful reaction that many people have to our belief in Bessler and we have learned to keep quiet and not discuss it with anyone outside our circle. But when the secret is revealed and has become accepted, maybe some of those who dismissed us as nuts, loonies etc, will revise their opinions of us and congratulate us on our amazing and perceptive thinking and determination.

JC

Update April 2020

I have received a little criticism from time to time, about my apparent inability to produce a working Bessler wheel, plus my book describing the details of the decoded clues with a full set of explanatory diagrams and a video of the wheel.   It’s true that I haven’t produced any of the above, but I’m not going to share my deciphered clues before I’m ready.  The wheel will be ready when it’s finished as will the book. 

I have been so excited about the many clues I’ve solved so far, that I have been tempted, many times, to begin posting them on my blog, but my other half has a wise head and she tells me to be patient, don’t give anything away until it’s all finished and ready.  She said I’d only regret it if I began to share things now and I’d come to wish I hadn’t, later.

My work on the wheel is progressing slowly and I’m also completing the book, at the same time, and I keep going back to improve what I’ve written or drawn already.  The garage is warm enough now so in between working on the book, I’m in there every day, working on the wheel.  One of the reasons for the snail-like progress is the other commitments which engage my time.  I cannot, neither do I wish, to relinquish any of them, but I’m doing my best to cover all exigencies.  I don’t regret the delay in what should be a relatively quick project, but I do offer my humble apologies for keeping everyone waiting, (those of you who haven’t given up on me!)

I have been accused of the same things that I accused Behrendt of,  imagining clues and finding clues which don’t exist.  Fair enough, I have said many times that I know the secret and that I’m going to share all my discoveries, and yet nothing has been published yet.  But it will all be in the public domain as soon as I can arrange it.  However frustrating it may be for you, I can assure you it is just  as bad for me.  I’m brimming with excitement to reveal all,  but I know there is a risk that it will be ignored or dismissed unless I can show a working Bessler’s wheel at the same time, along with a video and a sim.  That will be the proof I need to publish and anything short of that makes a successful outcome less positive.

My personal opinion is that as soon as anyone sees the design, they will ‘get it’ and become convinced that it’s correct, even without a working wheel or a sim, but having seen the reactions to other ‘proofs’, I just want to make sure that my work is accepted as quickly as possible and people around the world seize the initiative and develop a fully functioning electricity generator along with other utilities that may become evident in time.  That requires the evidence of a proof of principle wheel.

Finally, I remain convinced that a patent is completely unnecessary and will have the effect of slowing the development of a practical gravity-enabled wheel.

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Finally, finally! Many of you may recall that my granddaughter Amy, is suffering from PTSD and FND and has a crowdfunding page at  www.helpamy.co.uk

I thought I’d add a picture of the two of us to show how lovely she is....

She is a primary school teacher, a keen amateur dancer, and full of energy.  Since the onset of these diseases she had lost the ability to walk, sit up, hold her head up and had to be fed through a tube in her nose.  Thanks to STEPS rehab clinic she has recovered control of her head, she can sit up, eat normally and some of the side effects of these illnesses have significantly diminished.

Unfortunately, STEPS has been persuaded to take a number of corona-19 virus patients and all the non-urgent cases have been shipped out to other clinics.  Amy has ended up 200 miles away from home instead of 100 miles, but none of us can visit anyway because of the lockdown.  Amy is still making progress and has got some limited control in her legs and has made an attempt to stand, which was halfway successful.

Our major concern is what happens next and any donation to her crowdfunding site would still be gratefully received, and can I say a big thank you to the kind people who have already donated.

JC

Bessler’s Wheel vs Water Wheel.

This is somewhat speculative, but an argument against the oft-stated opinion that Bessler’s wheel will  have little real power.

There have been several attempts to estimate the potential power in Bessler’s wheel, but given the paucity of information about the internal workings, we are limited to using the dimensions, speed and a single estimate of the relative mass of one weight.  Even the size of the chest of stones proves little, as we don’t know the limit that could be lifted.  There is another approach which might give some useful idea of the inherent potential in Bessler’s wheel.

There is a restaurant about a mile from here which straddles the river Avon,  called the Saxon mill, records indicate it was a working mill back in the twelfth century.  The first reference to a waterwheel goes back to 4000 BCE and there are the remains of several Roman water mills throughout England.  According to the Doomsday book in 1086 there were no less than 5624 water mills in England.

My idea was to compare the size and speed of the old water wheels used in the mills and also take a look at the current thinking (sorry, cheap pun!) about modern commercial and diy water mills and try to get assessments of power output from wheels of comparable size and speed to  the Merseburg wheel. I’m sure I don’t need to go into the different types of waterwheel, there is plenty about them on google.  There are several varieties each with their advantages. There is also much about efficiency of modern turbines, but that does not concern us just now.

Much of what follows is gleaned from reputable google websites.

Most of the Roman water wheels were vertical and measured between 5 and 10 feet in diameter, not too different from the size of the Merseburg wheel.  In 1764 the first water-powered cotton mill in the world was constructed in Lancashire.  Below is a picture of an early textile mill, from 1770.   Note the huge size of the wheel, and the gearing used.

The principle challenge of the waterwheel is the low rotational speed, which means that significant gearing up is required to match generator speeds.  The same has been suggested as the problem with Bessler’s wheel. However high power gear units are widely available and have improved the economics of modern waterwheel power schemes up to 50kW and more. A 35kW generator is enough to power everything in a home. Water wheels are cumbersome and far less efficient than hydro turbines but the reason for this discussion is to try to get an idea of the kW output of a Merseburg size wheel.

The Merseburg wheel was about eleven feet in diameter and one foot thick and turned at 40-50 rpm. But the old water wheels turned much more slowly, 7 to 10 rpm was common.  The Lacey wheel on the Isle of Man is the largest working water wheel in the world. It is 72.5 feet in diameter and six feet wide.  It turns at just 3 rpm.  It has an estimated 200 horsepower which is about 150 kW. So back to the Merseburg wheel.

The speed and volume of water and height of its fall affects the power output of a waterwheel, but most can work from minimal amounts of each.

Eleven feet by one foot, turning at 40 rpm. Circumference is say, 35 feet. The rim is moving at 1400 feet per minute or almost 16 mph.  16mph is a strong breeze and if you were cycling at 16mph, you would feel it quite strongly.  How much power might be available from the Merseburg wheel?  No idea, actually because for one we don’t know how heavy the weights were, nor how many there were, but there is one thing we do know - the speed of the rim, 16 mph, and more when it turned 50 rpm, nearly 20 mph.

It reminds me of the feeling I had when I read the maid’s account of how she helped turn the Kassel wheel, I couldn’t prove she was lying, but I knew she was, and it’s the same here, the Merseburg had plenty of power and rotated at far higher speeds than any waterwheel.  Add high gearing and you could drive an electricity generator.  Bessler said his wheel could be scaled up providing more power, obviously this must be true, it’s a common solution to limited output in many machines.

I know, this is not scientific or practical or objective, but sometimes subjective feelings are all you have.

One more thing; there has been so much talk about Bessler’s use of pulleys to increase the lifting power of the wheel.  I have suggested that the slower Kassel wheel was deliberately designed to provide a slower demonstration, obviating the need for pulleys.  In the Merseburg demonstration, with an rpm of 40 or 50, each lift would have been over quickly.  We don’t have the height of the lift but it was described as ‘several Klafter’, each of which was six feet.  Several Klafter could be up to about 50 feet,  although I suspect less, which would use 100 turns of the wheel, and last less than two minutes.  Including the pulleys, extended the length of the demonstration.

The demonstrations took some organising and were observed by several people at a time.  Removing weights, translating the wheel, replacing the weights, making sure that as many people as possible could view the lifting process through the windows, plus of course, Bessler’s own brand of showmanship, would take time.  A lift of less than two minutes might even be missed by some and would be received with less interest and requests for several repeats.  The use of pulleys would help the demonstration.

NB. This, in my opinion, justifies the design of the Kassel wheel, which had two requirements.  Firstly it was needed to run slower for the demonstration, and secondly it had to be able to accomplish the lengthy endurance test. Bessler would have been aware of any wear on the Merseburg wheel bearings and made adjustments to the design of the Kassel wheel to slow it’s rotational speed without reducing its power.  If this assumption is not right, how else do you explain the slower Kassel wheel?  Don’t forget that Bessler stated that he could make wheels large or small with varying power output.

In my opinion Bessler’s wheel will prove to have more than enough power to provide useful amounts of electricity.

JC

Save Time and Money, Don’t Patent.

There has always been a question which haunts the back of the mind of the majority of seekers of a solution to Bessler’s wheel, and it is this - how do I earn some kind of financial reward if I succeed in designing and building a working version of Bessler’s wheel?

I know that some think it’s somehow immoral to seek to earn money for their work but it’s no different to earning money from any discovery.  Many researchers believe that a patent is the way to go, but I urge you to think again.  Patents are time-consuming, expensive and they don’t cover the whole planet.  They require policing to try to control patent infringements and these also have time and money costs.  So how do you get any return on all those years of trial and error?

My personal preferences is to make a reasonably good video of the wheel explaining how it works.  Post it on YouTube and select monetise it.  You need at least 10000 hits before you start to earn some money, but a video of this nature could swiftly get into millions of views. I won’t go into how you monetise a video, there is plenty of advice out there, but it is the way to go.  It takes a little effort to accomplish, but it’s much easier than getting a patent and it costs you nothing.

The result is that you have given away the secret to the world at large and made it impossible for anyone else to patent the design.  Someone will always find a way to improve a design and apply for a patent on the improvement, but that can happen even if you have already got the patent on your design.

Forget the patent route just finish a working proof of principle wheel then do the video.  Tell the world that you have significant potential improvement to the problem of climate change, pollution from fossil fuel burning and an alternative means of generating cheap clean electricity

Same instructions to self!

JC