So often over many years while I’ve been trying to find the secret of Bessler’s wheel, I’ve been asked why? Why did I spend so long looking for the answer to a question which was already known, understood and believed. Johann Bessler’s wheel was faked, such machines were impossible and I should stop wasting my time on a fruitless task.
When I first chanced upon the legend of Bessler’s Perpetual Motion machine I read it and came to the same conclusion as most people, it had to have been a fraudulent exercise by a desperate man. Everyone said, “it’s impossible!”
However, day-dreaming about the story one day, I suddenly realised there was an absurdity or an impossibility in the account I had read. At the time I thought perhaps the records were inaccurate or there was some other explanation, but subsequently I discovered the records were correct but a major piece of evidence was false, which was designed to prove that Bessler was a liar and his claims were false.
This simple discovery set me on a lifetime quest for the truth. I was about fifteen years of age at the time, now I’m approaching my seventy-eighth birthday and my confidence has never been higher because I have at last been given a clear view through the smoke and mirrors that Bessler used to disguise the true configuration of his mysterious machine.
Johann Bessler first exhibited his machine in 1712 in Gera, Germany and he valued the device at 100,000 Thaler's, equivalent to twenty thousand Pounds at that time. Coincidentally in that same year the British Board of Longitude offered the same amount to the inventor of a method for establishing a ship’s longitudinal position at sea. This was won eventually by John Harrison’s marine chronometer, but it must have given Bessler the confidence to ask a similar sum.
Of course Bessler’s insistence on being paid the money before he would release the machine or even allow an internal examination of it, prevented any chance of a successful sale being completed. He had managed to arrange for verification of his claims by a man of impeccable reputation, Karl the Landgrave of Hesse Kassel, who demanded full access before agreeing to certify that the machine was genuine. But despite this excellent endorsement and several expressions of interest no-one could agree to the details of the sale.
The reason for my continued search for the solution is the existence of no less than three books written and published by Bessler plus the discovery of a file containing 141 drawings describing attempted perpetual motion designs. There are numerous clues within the text as well as the drawings included in the three books. In more than one place he has hinted that close examination of the books could lead to the solution for someone with a discerning mind.
It is clear to anyone who reads Bessler’s words in his books, that he is sincere; that he suffers from stress piled up on him by his critics, his “enemies” as he constantly refers to them. If he was false would Karl have backed him? Wouldn’t he be subject to the same punishment as anyone else found to have been trying to deceive his ruler, Karl, namely execution by a beheading? That is a likely outcome for anyone believed to have been trying to cheat his ruler and there was plenty of precedent.
In an attempt to attract more people to begin working within this very niche subject, I arranged to have all three books plus the 141 drawings and their notes, translated into English and then I self-published them through the internet. I also wrote an account of my own about the Legend of Bessler’s Wheel, entitled ‘Perpetual Motion; An Ancient Mystery Solved?”
I’ve recorded a YouTube video, given seven radio interviews; been flown to Rome to take part in a documentary about the inventor. Had articles and reviews written in magazines; gave a public lecture to room full of engineers, and talked to members of a readers club at a local library and yet …. so far none of the thousands of people I have corresponded with has succeeded so far in discovering Bessler’s secret.
In 1712 when Bessler first exhibited his machine, Thomas Newcomen’s steam engine was also being demonstrated for the first time. That two such different machines should appear at the same time, each trying to solve a similar problem - flooding in mines - is an amazing coincidence, but an unfortunate one for Bessler. He was about 300 years too soon, but now in these times of global warming, and high energy costs, his wheel might just supply the energy we need, it’s cheap, clean and simple.That very small niche might develop into the greatest opportunity of this century.
This blog has run continuously for thirteen years and will not end until Bessler’s Wheel reappears and finally refutes the unfair allegations against Johann Bessler, or I run out of time.
JC
NOTE. All the books mentioned are available both in printed and digital formats. See the panel on the right.
