This is a brief return to the Toys page. In past blogs I’ve speculated on the reason for the four numbers which are attached to the bottom of this page, suggesting that they referred to four pages removed, but I doubt that that is the reason, so here is another. Why are the numbers 138, 139, 140 and 141 written on the bottom of the page?
The number of Bible references in chapter 55 of his Apologia Poetica also totals 141. MT 47 contained the number 47 plus a mirrored image of the same number making 3 versions The only factors of 141 are 3 times 47. 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. But apart from the golden ratio what has this to do with Bessler’s wheel?
Well, 138 + 139 + 140 + 141 = 558. Knowing of the ubiquity of Bessler’s use of the two number 5s, 55, and the inclusion of hidden pentagrams in several drawings, I suspect it was another kind of off-the-cuff allusion to his favourite numbers.
5+5+8=18, the basic number in the pentagram from which every other one is a multiple of it, that is, 18,36, 54,72, 90 and 108.
JEEB, (his initials), J 10th letter, two letters E, 5th letter. He added the J and one of the Es to his forename when he succeeded in building his first PM wheel.
JEEB using the Caesar shift becomes WRRO. R 18th letter. W 23rd letter which may only be there for the following reason, W is composed of two Roman numerals, V meaning 5.
He often, (dozens of times) hand wrote the letter W as shown below, as two Roman numerals linked together, and twice in the accompanying passage,
“A Gärtner is a breaker of fences
A Waggoner leaves ruts
Meanness is the root of evil
Bessler seems to have used any opportunity to point a veiled reference to these numbers. I should also point out that the 2Gs, refers to his enemy in chief Andreas Gärtner. The 2 Ws refers to another enemy, Christian Wagner, the two Bs refer to the third enemy, Johann Gottfried Borlach
JC
