Yes I’m 76 today. How long have I been chasing Bessler’s solution? It’s been about 60 years and I’ve hardly stopped thinking about Bessler’s wheel in all that time. I was about 15 when I first encountered the legend of Bessler’s wheel - in a book called ‘Oddities’ written by the famous Rupert T. Gould - and I was immediately certain that the maid lied. Of course I also realised that that opinion was not sufficient to prove the inventor’s claims to have invented a perpetual motion machine were genuine. I told my physics teacher about Bessler and asked him if it was possible - big mistake! I couldn’t even hear his response because of the gales of laughter which erupted after my question. Everyone knew such claims were fake. I learned then, not to discuss my ideas with anyone else.
Afterwards, one boy who I had always thought of as clever but boring said to me, ‘don’t take what you’re taught as gospel, check it out for yourself, so you know if it’s true. Don’t believe everything you’re told until you have satisfied yourself what is the truth.’ Sound advice and I’ve applied it through out my life.
I did consider trying to get more information about Bessler but at that age and without the internet, I had no idea how to go about it. So I postponed any decision to investigate further to a later date, a year or a decade!
Over the next few years, from time to time, I drew sketches and plans of perpetual motion machines, and resolved to build a few when the opportunity occurred. But you know how it is when you’re young and busy, I had no time or inclination to build. But when I was 29, I was browsing in a second-hand book shop and I came across the book, ‘Oddities’ by Rupert Thomas Gould again - and I bought it, and I still have it. That book reignited my search for the truth about Johann Bessler. You know the rest.
So here I am, some 60 years later, am I further on towards the solution? Yes. You might think, ‘I knew he’d say that anyway, if only to justify a lifetime’s effort’. But I am. Even though my design failed the sim test. I remain confident that I know enough of the design to succeed in building a working model. I do realise I’m an incurable optimist, you have to be in this field of endeavour, and it certainly helps if you have the determination to succeed, and I have. I just hope I’m right.
JC
