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 the outside of it, but it’s internal workings were kept hidden. This was because the inventor feared that his design would be copied and someone else might obtain credit for all his years of hard work looking for the solution. He followed the advice from the famous scientist, Gottfried Leibniz, who was able to examine the device, and recommended 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. Several official examinations were carried out and each time the examiners concluded that the inventor's claims were genuine.
Over a number of years Karl aged and it was decided that after so long it was time the inventor left the castle and he was granted accommodation in the nearby town of Karlshafen. 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 thought only affordable by kings and princes, and although many were interested, none were prepared to agree to the terms of the deal. Bessler required that he be given the money before the buyer was allowed to view the internal workings of the machine. But 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.
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 77). 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.
Once I was able to read the English translations of his books, I became convinced that Bessler had embedded a number of clues in his books. These took the form of hints in the text, but also in a number of drawings he published and I found suggestions by the author that studying his books would reveal more information about his wheel.
For some ideas about Bessler’s code why not visit my web sites at
Take a look at my work on his “Declaration of Faith” at
Also please view my video at
It gives a brief account both the legend and some more detail about some of the codes.
The problem of obtaining a fair reward for all his hard work 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 posthumous 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 confident 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 - and my own account of Bessler’s life is also available from the links. It is called "Perpetual Motion; An Ancient Mystery Solved?" It includes numerous letters about Bessler’s wheel and the negotiations to buy it it and certificates issued, subsequent to several extensive examinations.
Bessler's three published books are entitled "Grundlicher Bericht", "Apologia Poetica” and "Das Triumphirende...". I have called Bessler's collection of 141 drawings “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 use them in his planned school for apprentices.
You can order copies of the books from my website at http://www.free-energy.co.uk/
Printed books direct from the printer can be obtained from here:-
Or from the top of the right side panel under the heading ‘Bessler’s Books’.
There are also links lower down on the right side panel.
The solution to this device is needed now. By providing cheap, clean electricity it will help cleanse the planet of pollution and help to reduce green house gas emissions, and help to counter global warming.
JC
Ho notato che dai precedenti blog sono scomparsi alcuni disegni del report RV, forse questi disegni erano troppo espliciti ? e fu' cosi che la tanto denigrata RV fu la chiave di svolta della soluzione al problema, questo lo scopriremo il giorno che JC pubblicherà il suo progetto.
ReplyDeletePG's Italian comment is translated into English as:
Delete"I noticed that from previous blogs some drawings of the RV report disappeared, maybe these drawings were too explicit? and so it was that the much denigrated RV was the turning point of the solution to the problem, this we will find out the day that JC publishes his project."
No PG, the whole RV report is there in full! Complete with all the drawings posted. August 5th
DeleteJC
In 1712, Bessler appeared in the town of Gera in the province of Reuss and exhibited a "self-moving wheel," which was about 6+1⁄2 ft (2 m) in diameter and 4 inches (10 cm) thick. Once in motion it was capable of lifting several pounds. Bessler then moved to Draschwitz, a village near Leipzig, where in 1713 he constructed an even larger wheel, a little over 9 ft (2+3⁄4 m) in diameter and 6 inches (15 cm) in width. That wheel could turn at fifty revolutions a minute and raise a weight of 40 lb (18 kg).
DeleteIt's amazing that he initially manged to fool some people using his twisted theories and explanations. At one point, even Robert Erskine, physician and advisor to Russian Tsar Peter the Great.
However, with the passing of time, Bessler and his machine vanished into obscurity.
"However, with the passing of time, Bessler and his machine vanished into obscurity."
DeleteIf that's the case, then why are we all here today THREE CENTURIES later talking so much about them?
There is zero proof of deception on Bessler's part, and substantial evidence of the wheels validity from scientists and nobles of the day.
Delete"It's amazing that he initially manged to fool some people using his twisted theories and explanations."
DeleteWhere is your proof for fraud ?
Talk about sentencing someone without proof.
He didn’t try to fool anyone and the evidence is very clear that his claims were genuine. Read my account in my biography for all the documentary evidence, in my book, “Perpetual Motion; An Ancient Mystery Solved?”
DeleteJC
This guy thought B's wheels were genuine. He tested one of them for several hours.
Deletehttps://orffyre.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/gravesande01.jpg
Thanks for that link to the 's Gravesande portrait, anon 02:43. I hadn't seen it before. Is that supposed to be a box containing his remains below the portrait?!
DeleteYou can tell a lot about a person by studying his face. When I look at that image of 's Gravesande I see someone who had a good sense of humor and was not an extremist when it came to his beliefs. He was open minded enough to at least take a closer look at Bessler's wheels and test one of them. But, he was no one's fool and if he'd found anything even slightly suspicious about Bessler's Kassel wheel, then he wouldn't have hesitated to expose it which would have made Bessler's critics like Wagner quite happy. He found nothing suspicious.
I found out that when 's Gravesande later published material that said he believed the wheel was a genuine pm, he immediately became a target for criticism by a small group of elitist European scientists known as the "Newtonians". They were all big believers in Newton's laws for gravity and motion and saw the claim of any kind of a pm wheel as a threat to those laws. Needless to say, they had little tolerance for anyone like 's Gravesande who promoted such a pm wheel.
Even though he triggered the rage that made Bessler destroy the Kassel wheel, 's Gravesande, I think, should be honored for changing his mind about the possibility of pm and having the courage to publicly defend that possibility after he personally tested that wheel. It's too bad we don't see more of today's scientists having that kind of flexible attitude. But most of them adopt the "go along to get along" philosophy and will continue to promote the "pm is impossible" narrative despite their opposite personal opinion about the possibility of pm. Unlike 's Gravesande, they are just cowards.
PM Dreamer
I found this info about 's Gravesande online.
Delete"In 1721, 's Gravesande became involved in a public controversy over whether the German inventor Johann Bessler, known as Councillor Orffyreus, had created a genuine perpetual motion machine. 's Gravesande AT FIRST argued for the feasibility of perpetual motion based on the conservation of the scalar quantity mv (or the momentum of an object that is equal to its mass multiplied by its speed), which he ERRONEOUSLY believed was implied by Newtonian mechanics.
However, in 1722 he published the results of a series of experiments he did in which brass balls were dropped from varying heights onto a soft clay surface. He found that a ball with twice the speed of another would leave an indentation four times as deep, from which he concluded that the correct expression for the "live force" of a body in motion or what is modernly called its "kinetic energy" is proportional to mv^2 and NOT mv. (Note that the actual equation for the kinetic energy of a moving object is KE = 0.5 mv^2, so he was close to having the correct equation).
Even though those results INVALIDATED his original argument for the feasibility of perpetual motion, 's Gravesande continued to defend Bessler's work, claiming that Bessler might have discovered some NEW "active principle" of nature that allowed his wheels to keep turning. Similar views were defended at the time by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Johann Bernoulli, and others, but the modern CONSENSUS is that Bessler was perpetrating a deliberate HOAX. Russian Tsar Peter the Great was interested in Bessler's wheel and sought 's Gravesande's advice on the subject."
I also found this:
"Most of the people who met him, including supporters such as 's Gravesande, reported that Bessler was eccentric, ill-tempered, and perhaps even INSANE. From the beginning, Bessler's work generated accusations of fraud from various people...
In November 1727, Bessler's maid, Anne Rosine Mauersbergerin, ran away from Bessler's household and testified UNDER OATH that she had turned the machines manually from an adjoining room, alternating in that job with Bessler's wife, his brother Gottfried, and Bessler himself. It was around the time of Mauersbergerin's confession that Bessler destroyed his wheel, left Hesse-Kassel, and drifted into OBSCURITY.
's Gravesande refused to accept the maid's testimony, writing that he paid "little attention to what a servant can say about machines". He believed that Bessler, though "mad", was NOT a fraud."
What?! I just tried to check out that "Declaration of Faith" mentioned in this blog but when I clicked on the link for it all it did was reload THIS same blog page again. I also discovered the same thing happened when I clicked all of the other links you give. They all just reload this same blog page. If anyone wants to use those links, he's going to have to manually copy and paste them into the search field on a new tab or window. Do you even bother checking links before you post them?
ReplyDeleteAlso, when I finally made it to the webpage to view the "Declaration of Faith" I discovered it is NOT Bessler's declaration, but rather YOURS and just talks about the number 5 and pentagram shapes and how important YOU think they are to understanding how Bessler's wheels work! Maybe you should let people know in advance that the "declaration" is not Bessler's? It's misleading, imo.
Thanks anon 17.30, I simply copied and paste a previous blog, so apologies for getting the links circular! I’ll fix it.
DeleteAs for Bessler’s Declaration of Faith, that’s what he called it. I always assume that people who visit my various code page have already read the originals including the English translations, which are discussed there. If you haven’t then I can see how that might puzzle you.
JC
"I always assume that people who visit my various code page have already read the originals including the English translations, which are discussed there."
DeleteA false assumption leads to a false conclusion!
So exactly where on any of your various websites can someone actually read BESSLER'S "Declaration of Faith"? I want to know what HIS "Declaration of Faith" was and not yours. If someone can only finally read Bessler's declaration by buying your translation of the Bessler book containing it, then you should prominently state that somewhere and give the title of the book.
Putting the phrase "Take a look at my work on his “Declaration of Faith” at:" above the link without actually showing us his declaration does not make much sense because no one who is new here like me will know what you are talking about!
Btw. Those links still do not work!
Okay, I've checked the links and they finally work. You must have fixed them while I was working on my comment and before I posted it.
Delete@anon 20:22
DeleteBessler's "Declaration of Faith" is just a list of religious exhortations made by him along with the 141 Bible verses that inspired them which he put into the originally intended ending of Apologia Poetica which then became the end of Part 1 after he decided to add a Part 2 to the volume in which he tries to refute many of the criticisms against his wheels made by his various enemies, the major one being Christian Wagner. Imo, those exhortations and their Bible verses have little to do with the actual mechanics of his wheels, but only reveal his deep interest in Christianity or at least his version of it. I don't think John has that list of exhortations to read for free on any of his websites.
However, if you are truly broke or really cheap, you can read the English translation of Bessler's Declaration of Faith for free on Google Books. Just go to:
https://books.google.com/books?id=cQUAytJ5JeIC&q=bible+verses#v=onepage&q&f=false
Then click on the "Search inside" link on the left side of the page and, finally, go to page 310. You'll then get to see the English translations of most of Bessler's religious exhortations in his Declaration of Faith along with at least 130 of the 141 Bible verses that inspired them.
To see the original German poetry lines in Apologia Poetica for Bessler's exhortations and the particular Bible verses that inspired them, go back to page 122. You can also go ahead to page 355 to find an Author's Appendix where John provides all of the 141 verses that inspired Bessler various exhortations in the form of several tables. But you'll have to go to your own Bible, look up the verses, and then try to figure out why those particular verses inspired his various exhortations.
I wouldn't let Bessler's hyper religiosity turn you off to actually purchasing the complete English translation of Apologia Poetica that John sells. It contains a lot of non religious information about Bessler and his wheels and some of it hasn't shown up on the web for free yet. It's well worth purchasing for the serious student of Bessler and his wheels.
Thanks for that info anon 05:22. I read all of the English parts of Apologia Poetica that were shown and I've decided I will be ordering a copy.
DeleteAll the links are working now, sorry for the problem and thanks for letting me know.
ReplyDeleteJC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZzq2Sk3vWA
Delete@anon 22:47
DeleteYour animation is nice, but I think you have misinterpreted what Bessler actually wrote about his wheels. Nowhere does he mention that his swinging pendulums will "take a weighted wheel to an unbalanced state".
No, his two direction wheels became, AFTER being given a gentle push start, suddenly unbalanced and would then drive the two pendulums IF they were attached to its axle. His wheels could also run without the pendulums attached to them and at an even higher speed. The attached pendulums put some sort of inertial drag on the drum to slow it down and that was probably to reduce wear on the parts inside the drum when a wheel was allowed to run for a long time.
Also, you don't really have the pendulums properly attached to the axle cranks so that they swing correctly with respect to each other. Here's a short video of a simulation done years ago that shows the correct swinging action of the two pendulums. The red pendulum is in the foreground and channel owner made the drum transparent so you can see through it to the blue pendulum in the background.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNEPcYlDENM
Notice that the little black and white marker for the location of the CoG of the TWO pendulums above the axle just glides horizontally from left to right and back again over and over (the separate CoG of the weight containing drum is not shown, but would be to the right of the center of the axle so as to produce clockwise drum rotation). The CoG of the two pendulums does not rise or fall vertically as it moves and thus the swinging pendulums take no rotational kinetic energy from the drum as they continue to swing (actually, they do take a very small amount because of the air resistance they must overcome, but the constantly overbalanced drum produces more than enough free power to compensate for that).
You need to change the swinging action of the two pendulums in your video animation if you want it to be accurate.
Bessler wrote: ""there's always the danger that a surreptitious shove would knock it out of balance and bring it grinding to a halt." - pg 297
ReplyDeleteIf being out of balance is something that brings the wheel grinding to a halt, then it can't be an out-of-balance (aka "overbalanced") wheel.
Some people may think that since some of the weights gravitated to the rim while others gravitated to the axle, that this means the wheel was overbalanced. However, it says that the weights did this in pairs, so that, on the same side of the wheel, one weight was going out, another coming in. The same thing occurred on the other side of the wheel, where one weight went out, and another came in.
The actions of the pendulums and as they are depicted in Maschinen Tractate also display two heavy weights in each pendulum mechanism, where one goes up while the other goes down. Each mechanism had a pair of equal weights, and if you have eight mechanisms (or five according to John) then you have 16 weights (or ten according to John).
From such an appearance the wheel is in perfect balance, just as Bessler indicated that it is. A surreptitious shove might prohibit this action and make an out of balance condition that is contrary to the desired rotation operation.
The obvious question now, is, how does a balanced wheel rotate? This is where Bessler helps us some more. He says one has to use lateral thinking, where you think outside of the box. He also indicated that when he discovered the secret, he saw why all the other ones were wrong. That's because all of the other ones were overbalanced; his new wheel, on the contrary, was perfectly balanced.
This also may help explain the ability of his wheels to rotate in two different directions when desired; and it also explains his other wheel that had no weights at all in it, but only springs. If a wheel needed to be overbalanced, then a wheel without weights couldn't work. Of course Bessler said that one lacked weights because it operated on a different principle altogether from his other wheels, but I think it was more similar than not.
@anon20:11
DeleteSorry, you're totally wrong.
The balance of the pendulums was to show that a one-pound weight falling a foot could lift a four-pound weight up four feet high.
That's why he also said that a great craftsman can "lightly" throw up a heavy weight, just like you can "lightly" swing around heavy weights that are balanced.
Stewart said this in the forum:
He doesn't say anything about knocking it in or out of balance. Here's the original German text from chapter 45 of AP (page 85):
Daß von einem heimtück'schen Stoß
Etwas im Wercke würde loß/
Und es still stünde ohngefehre/
(Wenns schon das wahre MOB'LE wäre.)
Here's my translation:
That from a malicious push/shove
something in the work would come loose,
and it would accidentally stop,
(even though it were the true MOBILE.)
@anon 20:11
DeleteYou seem to be ignoring the fact that all of Bessler's smaller, one direction wheels were always out of balance and would immediately start running whenever their drums were released from a tether attached to the floor near them. There is no mention of any of them needing to use external pendulums in order to run.
A two direction wheel would be in balance if it was made from two back to back, one direction, out of balance wheels that had their individual centers of gravity on opposite sides of the axle. That would result in their combined center of gravity being located right under the wheel's axle and no torque to turn the drum. Giving such a two directional wheel a push start, however, quickly changed that and caused that combined center of gravity to swing over to one side or the other of the axle which would be the side that became the descending side of the rotating drum.
I agree with anon 20:20's translation that a sudden and excessive push start or "malicious shove" could cause something to come undone inside of a two direction wheel that then disabled it too much for it to run after start up. If Bessler's wheels used weighted levers connected together by ropes, then maybe a sudden shove of a two direction wheel could break one of the ropes between levers which then prevented those levers or maybe all of the levers from shifting properly so the combined center of gravity of the two one direction wheels would stay on the drums descending side? That center might then just ride up onto the drum's ascending side and slow the drum to a stop. Finally, it would just settle down below the axle and the wheel would remain stationary until Bessler opened the drum up and manually fixed the problem.
When someone testing his wheels gave it a shove that caused such damage to happen despite Bessler warning him not to do it, Bessler must have been really challenged to keep himself calm and not throw the guy out of the wheel's room head first!
jason