There are a number of images taken from Johann Bessler’s books which appear to support my previous post on Bessler’s Wheel Revealed. I shall occasionally post some here.
One of the things that caught my attention in my physical build is the appearance of the mechanism reminding me of a peacocks tail. It’s just one mechanism but it does bring that image to mind. I’ll post a picture of one of the mechanisms which demonstrates that.
The second thing is the clues which I know many people dismiss, but Bessler must have thought it worthwhile to include them, and he had a purpose in doing so. Here is an example of one of them.
JEEB, (his initials), J is the 10th letter, two letters E, which are the 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 is the 18th letter. W 23rd letter which doesn’t seem important but it might appear to be there for the following reason, W is composed of two Roman numerals, V meaning 5.
Apart from that the letter ‘J’ seems almost superfluous. He gave us two ‘E’s which gives is 5 and 18, and the pentagram, why the letter ‘J’.
He often, (dozens of times) hand wrote the letter W as shown below as two Roman numerals linked together, and you can see it twice in the accompanying passage. Why did he want to show them linked?
The last picture I included include the ‘W’ in the scissors and although it may not look very obvious from my drawing it is very clear in my physical build.
I always thought it unnecessary to add the ‘J’ and therefore the ‘W’ when he had already informed us of the importance of the two ‘E’s, but the ‘W’ as shown in the printed extract shown above mimics the W in my drawing. Notice how the centre of the ‘W’ has crossed lines as in the drawing.
Bessler used any opportunity to put a veiled reference to these numbers. I should also point out that the 2G’s, refers to his enemy in chief Andreas Gärtner. The 2 W’s refers to another enemy, Christian Wagner, the two B’s refer to the third enemy, Johann Gottfried Borlach.
NB - I only noticed the presence of the ‘W’ in my last picture a couple of weeks ago but I’m certain that it is one of the reasons he included the letter ‘J’ in his initials.
JC
I would still like to know what the advantage is of 5 mechanisms vs. 4 larger ones or say, 6 smaller ones. Thanks, Justsomeone
ReplyDeleteUse five mechanisms, with each one pairing with an adjacent one, each pair operates at exactly the same time which moves the centre of mass from one mechanism to the other. This leaves three mechanisms being rotated.
ReplyDeleteBessler implied that four would scarcely turn the wheel. Even numbers like six, leaves four mechanisms to be rotated.
This is difficult to explain but if all else fails I’ll take Bessler’s word for it. I’m building a model so perhaps I’ll be able show you?
JC
"Bessler implied that four would scarcely turn the wheel."
DeleteWhere did he "imply" that?
In AP he wrote, “ I arrange to have just one cross-bar in the machine, it revolves very slowly, just as if it can hardly turn itself at all, but, on the contrary, when I arrange several bars, pulleys and weights, the machine can revolve much faster, and throw Wagner's calculations clean out of the window.”
DeleteThe word he used was “creuze” which means “cross”, not cross bar. “Nur ein creuz”, means “only a cross”. In other words four.
JC
Amazing how you turned the word translated into English as "several" into the word "four" in your retranslation!
DeleteI think like many others you are incorrectly interpreting this important Bessler clue. I think a better translation of "creuze", as Bessler used the word, would be "cross piece". These cross pieces, however, do not refer to any parts actually located inside of the drum of one of his wheels. They refer to the short metal pins that could be added to an external compound pulley's frame so that extra pulley wheels could be installed in it. The frame was hung from the ceiling near a wheel and a rope attached to the wheel's axle then went up to the overhead frame, around its various pulley wheels, and finally down to the load to be lifted.
This was done to increase the mechanical advantage of the compound pulley so that the axle of one of Bessler's wheels could lift a heavier load. However, if the pulling force that needed to be applied to the rope leading up to the overhead compound pulley lifting a particular load was decreased by adding more pulley wheels to the compound pulley's frame, that would then allow one of Bessler's wheels to increase its speed of rotation during the lift.
If one misinterprets this cross piece clue as referring to some parts that were actually inside of the drum of one of Bessler's wheels, then, imo, it can only result in him chasing after a design Bessler never used and that will only result in more failure to reverse engineer the actual design he used.
No, the word creuz is cross, the word you translated as several is actually on the next line and refers to the second use of the word creuz this time with an ‘e’ on the end which makes it pleural, crosses. But it doesn’t matter, it is what ever you wish to make if it..
DeleteJC
John wrote:
ReplyDelete"He often, (dozens of times) hand wrote the letter W as shown below as two Roman numerals linked together..." and "Notice how the centre of the ‘W’ has crossed lines as in the drawing."
John, SoS already did a nice job of explaining the numerological meaning of those weird W's Bessler made. They are made from two Roman numeral V's that each have a value of 5 and the X shape that was formed by overlapping parts of V's is a multiplication sign. Bessler wants us to multiply the two values of the V's to get 5 x 5 = 25. The 25th letter of the alphabet is Y and that was a hint about the shape of the levers he used in his pm wheels according to SoS.
How many are even using Bessler's Y shape levers in their designs? That lack by itself will guarantee they will get nowhere with their efforts to duplicate one of his wheels. To duplicate Bessler, you have to follow his instructions as exactly as possible. Misinterpretation of important clues will only keep a Bessler pm wheel chaser running around in circles getting nowhere for the rest of his life.
My alternative meaning fwiw .. Initials changed to J E E B = X V V O in Roman Numerals for 10, 5, 5 & where there is no zero, therefore visually rearranged to give i.e. a Storksbill, inside an O for the wheel - wrt. the importance for something special behind SB's said by B. in JC's MT notes .. therefore JC is still on track where he interprets VV as 55, the double V or W to support his Pentagram hypothesis etc, or a SB that is part of his final POP design configuration ..
ReplyDelete-f
Thanks for that fletch, I missed that additional meaning! Good job.
DeleteJC
My reasoning was simple John .. B. was just 32 when he had success - young by our standards - - soon after, he changed his name adding the extra names and using the initials .. this had to have a significant and direct meaning and tie-in to him .. this was well before he wrote his books that you have had translated .. so I figured that any initial (pun intended) name code would be less complicated and less convoluted than his later ones in his published books when he was 5 years older, selling them, and he and his story more widely known ..
Delete-f
You'll also get interesting results if you skip the rot13 and Roman numeral interpretations and just use regular alphanumeric values.
DeleteSince his family name was Bessler, remove the B from JEEB and only use the JEE part. We then follow SoS's advice to multiply the regular alphanumeric values of EE and get 5 x 5 = 25. That represents the 25th letter of the alphabet or Y and the Y shaped levers Bessler used in his wheels. We could also get the same result by just using the letter J. Most people don't know that the German consonant J is actually pronounced like the English vowel Y at the beginning of German words like Ja, Jahr, Joghurt. If Bessler spoke some English, he would have been aware of this coincidence so in his mind he may have considered J to be equivalent to Y so that to him the letter J also represented the Y shape of his wheels' levers.
Next, you can also take the 25 and add the alphanumeric value of the letter J to it. That gives us 25 + 10 = 35. The digits in 35 sum to 3 + 5 = 8 which is the number of levers he used in a one way wheel (sorry, John, I'm a firm 8 lever wheel believer).
For those who also insist on using the letter B that I first ignored, use its alphanumeric value of 2. This tells us Bessler's two way wheels contained two of his one way wheels. If you multiply the previous value of 35 we got by 2 we get 70 which can be written at 7 x 10. 7 is the luckiest of numbers and we can, if I understand SoS's methods correctly, change 7 x 10 into 0.7777777777. That's "Bessler's Lucky Ratio"!
Paul
Interesting speculations .. thing is, B. well after the name change used a real and provable Roman Numeral code - in his heading to his books published in 1717 where the capital letters are substituted to give dates - and also in the chronograms he wrote in subsequent birthday cards to Karl after he gave his patronage .. in my speculations of B.'s 'initial code' at an early age early in his career of using Roman numerals the process is reversed whereby letters are substituted for numbers which in turn are arranged into a visual of a mechanism .. at least there is some basis for it set in reality ..
Delete-f
Almost forgot the last B. poke .. The AP Wheel - 'are you without understanding' ..
DeleteMatth. XV.V.16
Matt 15:16: "And Jesus said, Are ye also yet without understanding?"
DeleteJesus rebukes the apostles for not being able to understand a previous parable he delivered about what really defiles a person (which was not eating something the high priests considered unclean, but rather the words that came out of his mouth which started in his evil heart).
Bessler, I think, uses this quote to tease the readers of AP who still did not believe his pm wheels were genuine and, of course, were clueless about how they work if they thought they were genuine.
Imagine the ego trip of KNOWING that you was the ONLY person on planet Earth who ever achieved pm and knew HOW it was done! Truly a god-like feeling, but, then again, Bessler firmly believed he would not have achieved that without a miracle from God. I suspect many a Bessler pm chaser that spent a lifetime trying to duplicate his feat and got absolutely nowhere with his quest might, indeed, agree it takes a divine miracle to do so!
Bessler's (JEEB) bible reference .. Matth. XV.V.16 - - your bible reference Matt 15:16:
Deleteanon 03:24 writes:
Delete"Imagine the ego trip of KNOWING that you was the ONLY person on planet Earth who ever achieved pm and knew HOW it was done!"
If Bessler's wheels used no gears or wound up coil type springs, iwo just levers, cords, and maybe stretched extension type springs, then I think it possible that his design was found many times in the past like thousands of years earlier during the bronze age and even earlier. But, somehow each of those working wheels got "lost to history" for one reason or another. Bessler was convinced only he had found a working overbalanced type pm wheel design based on him not seeing the same design published by anyone else. He must have read a lot of the books on mechanics of his day and probably most of them had a chapter on pm machines. But, the earlier inventors of that wheel either did not record their discovery or, if they did, the record disappeared. A lack of evidence does is not always evidence of lack.
My question is was the design Bessler found the only one that can achieve mechanical pm or are their more than one and, if so, how many? A dozen? A hundred? A thousand?
If as Bessler seemed to believe, only his design could achieve pm, then that means finding it will be a very, very hard thing to do. Kind of like finding a steel needle in a haystack without have a powerful magnet to help!
I agree that the best thing Bessler could have done, for both himself and humanity, would have been to just publicly reveal the design and not try to charge anyone to build it and use it. The change it would have produced in society, if it could be used globally, would have made Bessler famous worldwide. With that kind of recognition, he would have been in demand on all sorts of projects and could command huge salaries from various european monarchs. But, he chose a different path...a quick sale for an enormous price which virtually guaranteed his invention would never sell.
When I think about it, it seems to me that he was one of those people who is described as being "his own worst enemy"! But he could not realize that. So here we all are discussing him, yet maybe 9,999 out of 10,000 people on this planet have never heard of him. That is what can happen when one makes a poor choice at a critical time in his life. The train of one's life that was heading down the track toward fame and fortune suddenly hits a switch that sends it down another track toward obscurity and poverty.
Yes indeed, I too wondered if the letter/number and vice versa substitution also held a visual of the mechanism. The exact reference is Matth XV verse 16. Using your idea the full substitution would be Matth XVXVI
DeleteI feel that this is a good time to take another look at my work at www.orffyreus.net where I have managed to break down some of the code in AP where he provides us with 141 Bible references. There is certainly a code to be deciphered and I can’t wait for someone to do it a!
JC
@anon 03:24 asked:
Delete"My question is was the design Bessler found the only one that can achieve mechanical pm or are their more than one and, if so, how many?"
Many think because of this AP page 339 quote:
"I have many other machines of various types – some with weights, others without."
that Bessler must have had dozens of pm machines he could have build all using different principles and designs. BUT, notice that he does not say those "many other machines" were pm machines! FAWK he could have been referring to various non pm machines that he could attach to the axle of his one and only working pm wheel to run such as the stamp mill, the waterscrew, and all of the many nonrunner designs he showed in his unpublished MT. Bessler pm wheel chasers have an unfortunate habit of reading into his quotes what they want them to mean. Some have even tried to turn poetic descriptions into pm machines! All this can result in them wasting years chasing after useless designs and becoming even more burned out when they finally give up.
@ anon 17:27. I agree, it seems highly unlikely that Bessler would have many different kinds of PM machines , I too think he was simply referring to the many machines he had become familiar with before he found his PM device.
DeleteJC
Bessler wasn't the best of writers. He often leaves important qualifiers out of his sentences and used idioms that only roughly translate into modern English. We're lucky, due to JC, that we have as much of his pm writings as we do. However, I'd bet dollars to doughnut holes that there's a lot more he wrote about pm that we haven't seen yet and may never see. Not that it would really reveal his secret, but perhaps provide a few more tantalizing clues for us to ponder. Leibniz supposedly maintained correspondence with about five hundred of his fellow scientists. If there's a collection of that correspondence anywhere, then maybe some of it was with Bessler. But, trying to track it all down and then translate it into modern English would be a Herculean, not to mention expensive, task. Let's hope there's enough information in what we already have to find a solution.
DeleteAlso, on another matter. I see occasional discussion of Bessler's "prime mover" as though it is the secret of his pm wheels. It is made to sound like some separate gadget that could be added to any of the nonrunners in MT to immediately power them. That might be true, but I'm convinced that when Bessler used the term, he was only referring to his one working pm wheel. In other words, the "prime mover" IS Bessler's wheel.
Paul
Calling B's. standalone runner mechanics a "gadget" is a bit dismissive and harsh (I know its simple but - -) .. the discussion was always whether the absent "Prime Mover" mentioned in MT15 is the same "assembly" as the missing apparatus and structures (plural) B. mentions in MT's 44 and 48 .. the detail of the argument is primarily about hierarchy of possibilities - and goes that logically and firstly B's one-of-a-kind standalone runner could be bolted to just about any OOB non-runner to make the combined mechanics a runner i.e. the non-runner is just another load (not actually required) - this is a compelling and easy to understand argument for a separate Prime Mover "assembly" i.e. B's. runner wheel is both the Prime Mover and the separate apparatus and structures .. a counter and second but perhaps less plausible or intuitive argument, is that the Prime Mover et all is not a standalone runner entity in-and-of-itself (B's. one-design runner), and must be combined with a second non-runner OOB entity to make the combined whole a runner .. Ockham's Razor suggests the first option is probably the simplest and correct one ..
Delete-f
Anon 23:55 said .. "I think when one of B's wheels is finally made, we are going go have to invent a lot of new words and concepts to describe how they worked!"
DeleteFair comment .. I take the complete opposite view - nothing exotic ..
200 pounds of lead, 50 4 pound weights, in a wheel rotating on quarter inch bearings! Dramatic yes, but realistic? No - I sense the ghost of KB present!
DeleteJC
@JC
DeleteI assume that you got that figure of one quarter of an inch from the December 19th, 1715 Christian Wolff letter to Leibniz about the examination of the Merseburg wheel. The part of the letter is: "The diameter of the wheel is about twelve feet, and as well, the bearing was quite thin, about one quarter of an inch and only a sixth of its length was subject to friction."
He does not tell us exactly what was "about" 1/4 inch. Was it the diameter of the steel pivot sticking out of the end of the wooden axle as you seem to think? Or, was it the radius of the pivot which would then make its diameter "about" 1/2 inch? Maybe he's not even describing the pivot itself but the brass bearing plate that the pivot rested on!
@anon 05:55
I saw an estimate that there are currently about 10,000 cities on Earth. That means those 200 pounds of lead contain enough energy to destroy each one of them 13.59 times according to your calculations!
I think if the Merseburg wheel weighed about 500 pounds then it's unlikely that its end pivots could be just one quarter inch in diameter. That's about the diameter of a screwdriver! Imo, it would be dangerous to have such a heavy wheel spinning away at 40 rpm's supported by pivots that small. Even if they were made of the best steel available back then, they would be constantly flexing if there was the slightest imbalance in the wheel. Didn't someone say they saw one of the Merseburg wheel's axle support pillars bouncing up and down as the wheel spun during a demonstration? The constant flexing that would cause in a one quarter inch diameter pivot would cause tiny stress fractions to form in it and eventually it would snap in two. I wouldn't want to be standing anywhere near that spinning wheel when that happened!
DeleteFrom ‘sGravesend to Newton:-
Delete“ Through the centre of this wheel or drum runs an axle of about six inches diameter, terminated at both ends by iron bearings of about three-quarters of an inch diameter upon which the whole thing turns. I have examined these bearings, and am firmly persuaded that nothing from without the wheel in the least contributes to its motion.”
So 3/4 of an inch.
JC
Who has the credibility? First person witnesses who were there, or speculations 300 years later from an anonymous source that the witnesses were confused and maybe quoting radius and not diameter ,when they say diameter.
DeleteChristian Wolff, letter to Leibniz, 19th December, 1715, examination of Merseburg wheel.
".. the bearing was quite thin, about one quarter of an inch and only a sixth of its length was subject to friction.'"
Willem Jacob 'sGravesande, letter to Sir Isaac Newton, 1721, examination of Kassel wheel.
.. terminated at both ends by iron bearings of about three-quarters of an inch diameter.
I agree that the described measurements can vary but in Bessler’s description of the Kassel wheel he says,
Delete“ The axle, which passes through the centre of the wheel, is 6 feet long and 8 inches in diameter, and in its movement is supported at each end by an almost one-inch thick steel bearing. The bearings taper somewhat.”
So I assume he knows what size the Kassel was.
But we have no idea of the weight of the wheel, with or without weights but in my book about Bessler I tried to make a careful estimate of the weight of the Kassel wheel. I suggested that including the 6 foot, 8 inch thick axle, it might be about 300 to 400 pounds and when the weights were added as much as 700 pounds.
That was more than 20 years ago, now I’m leaning more towards a lighter unladen weight of about 200 pounds. I think anything heavier than that would have proved too heavy for Bessler and his brother to carry out the many translocations they performed for their audiences.
With the weights added, I suggest a total weight not exceeding 400 pounds. I think four weights of four pounds each, added 5 times to each side for two directions adds up to an extra 160 pounds. This gives total a combined weight of less than 400 pounds..
This is purely speculative but I think the figures being discussed elsewhere, are too high for the extended test.
JC
In his Bessler book Ken B gives an estimate for the total mass, which includes 48 cylindrical lead weights, of the Merseburg wheel (which used 4 pound weights) as being 550 pounds and the Kassal wheel (which used 8 pound weights) being double that or 1,100 pounds. His estimates take into account everything like the two steel axle pivots, the wooden axle, all steel springs, all connectedness principle ropes, all steel lever pivots, all brass bearings, all wooden drum frame pieces, and even the linen covering the sides of the drums! I've never seen such an elaborate inventory of parts for Bessler's wheels.
DeleteMany people will know of my opinion on KB’s estimates. You say, “His estimates take into account everything like the two steel axle pivots, the wooden axle, all steel springs, all connectedness principle ropes, all steel lever pivots, all brass bearings, all wooden drum frame pieces, and even the linen covering the sides of the drums! I've never seen such an elaborate inventory of parts for Bessler's”.
DeleteYou obviously haven’t read mine!
I have heard of those Ken B weight estimates for the Merseburg and Kassal wheels and I give him credit for his precision and hope they are accurate.
DeleteIf he's right about the Merseburg wheel weighing 550 pounds and containing 48 four pound lead weights, that means the total lead mass in the wheel was 48 x 4 pounds = 192 pounds. After the weights were removed from the drum so the wheel and its axle could be moved to new supports, they would have weighed 550 pounds - 192 pounds = 358 pounds. Unfortunately, we don't have any details about how the Merseburg wheel was moved from one set of supports to another during an official examination.
If Bessler and his brother grabbed each end of the Merseburg wheel's axle, they'd each have to push up with a force of 358 pounds / 2 = 179 pounds to lift the axle off of its brass bearing plates in the supports. If they were in good physical shape, they could have done that and then lowered the wheel's drum about a foot until it rested on the floor on its outer rim. If the drum was rigid enough to support itself, they could then have just slowly rolled it along the floor like a giant wheel until they reached another set of supports. Then with a careful lift, they could have positioned the axle on the new supports.
To me this sounds possible, but I don't see it possible for the Kassal wheel which would have weighted 716 pounds after its 384 pounds of lead weights were removed (assuming its drum contained 48 weights each of which weighed 8 pounds like Ken B assumes). I don't recall reading about the Kassal wheel being moved to different supports after it was moved up to the top floor of Weissenstein castle and placed in a set of supports there and that could have been because of its greater weight. Still, if two of Karl's servants helped Bessler and his brother lift the axle of the emptied drum, then it would be possible. It might even have been easier to roll its huge drum along the floor because it was about 50% thicker than the Merseburg wheel drum.
@anon 19:51
DeleteI'm in good shape for my age and I doubt if I could lift 179 pounds farther up over my head from a standing position. I think if only Bessler and his brother lifted that Merseburg wheel off its supports, then they would have used some sort of overhead pulley hoist to do it. There's mention that they had a compound pulley with a mechanical advantage of 4 to 1. That means that after attaching some sort of strap harness to both sides of the axle, they would only need to pull down on the rope up to the pulley hoist hung from the ceiling with a force of 137.5 pounds if the drum still contained all of its weights or 89.5 pounds if the weights had been removed from the drum.
Maybe during an official test of the wheel Bessler did everything by himself to send the message to everyone there that he, and not he and his brother, was the sole inventor of the wheel? That would explain why he had to remove the lead weights prior to moving the axle to the new supports. He then only needed to pull down with 89.5 pounds of force on the rope and that would be easy to do as long as his body weight exceeded 89.5 pounds which it would have.
Rolling the 12 foot diameter drum along on its rim to the new supports by himself would have been difficult though. There would be the risk of the drum falling over on one side and maybe damaging its attachment to the axle. However, if he kept some tension on the rope which then applied upward force on the strap harness on the axle ends, that would have helped keep the drum vertical as he slowly rolled it along.
There's also another reason to remove the weights if he was going to roll the wheel's drum along the floor aside from reducing the force he needed to use to lift the axle off of its supports. Suppose he did not remove the weights and was rolling the drum too fast? That would make it take off on its own and result in it crashing into something or falling over on its side! Removing the weights prevented that possibility from happening.
For such a rolling movement to be done as quickly and easily as possible, Bessler would have carefully positioned the second set of supports so they were not too far from the original ones and would be aligned so that the drum's rolling direction did not need to be changed much once its rim was contacting the floor and the drum was in motion. Any big change in the drum's rolling direction might have damaged the rim of the drum as well as tangled up the ropes coming down from the overhead pulley hoist to the axle straps (although if the hoist was held to the ceiling by some sort of swivel hook that would not be a problem). If the drum was rolled too far from its original supports, then Bessler would have had to use a second overhead hoist to lift the wheel's axle onto the second set of supports. He might have had to roll the drum some distance without any ropes attached to it to stabilize it and that would increase the danger of an accident even more.
From all of this it's obvious why the change of supports was not attempted with the even heavier Kassal wheel. It's greater weight made it riskier to move it and, perhaps, there also wasn't another location in the room where a second set of supports could be securely located?
Responding briefly to the above two comment.
DeleteThe Kassel wheel was built in the room it was displayed so no need to carry it anywhere else other than a second set of bearings. The maximum weight Bessler and his brother could have lifted together would have been a lot less than 200 pounds let alone 179 pounds each, so the unladen wheel must have weighted less than 200 pounds.
48 weights is too many. In an exhibition of the wheel it would take too long to remove all of them, move the wheel to a second set and then replace them all.
Rolling the wheel is out of the question and unnecessary. Bessler was helped by his brother.
JC
With the 4:1 mechanical advantage overhead pulley hoist anon 23:18 mentioned, Bessler could have lifted the Merseburg wheel off of its two supports by himself. If the weights were still in the wheel and it weighted 550 lbs, he'd have to pull down on the rope to the hoist with a force of 137.5 lbs. With the weights out of the wheel and it weighing just 358 lbs, he have to pull down with a force of just 89.5 lbs.
DeleteWhy remove the weights if the hoist was used? Maybe Bessler's body weight wasn't much more than 137.5 lbs and with the weights in the wheel the upward pull on the hoist rope would have been close to lifting him off of the floor! With the weights out that wouldn't happen and he'd have more control over the lift.
I also wouldn't so quickly dismiss the drum rolling theory. The bottom of the Merseburg wheel's drum was only about one foot above the floor. With the wheel suspended by a rope from the overhead hoist, it would have been easy to lower it to the floor to rest it there for a while. If the second set of supports was, say, ten feet from the first set, rolling the drum along to get it as close to the second set as possible would have occurred to Bessler and he probably tried it.
Once half of the drum was moved between the second set of supports so it couldn't fall over sideways, Bessler would have attached the lifting rope from another overhead hoist to both sides of the drum's axle and then raised it up until its pivots settled down into their new bearing plates. If the drum was rolled between the supports as some think, then removing its weights would be necessary so that the drum did not become unbalanced and try to turn by itself in the direction it was being rolled. That rotational motion would have made handling the axle more difficult as Bessler and his brother tried to raise the axle up so its end pivots could be seated on their new bearing plates.
I recall reading the Kassal wheel was first built in a garden shed and the count then ordered it to be relocated in a top floor of his castle. That was most likely so they could see the wheel lifting heavy loads of bricks up the side of the castle wall which could not be done in a small building at ground level.
DeleteIt looks like the excitement of the "Big Reveal" in the last blog is starting to settle down now because I notice that JC is back to posting some of his decade old Bessler clues again.
ReplyDeleteLate last year, after SoS found that "Blessing Clue" in the AP wheel for us to neutralize a curse many thought was attached to the dreaded "Severed Head Clue" found earlier in the year hidden in the MT Toys Page, he said he'd be back after the beginning of the New Year to check up on us and also to give us some brand new, never before seen Bessler wheel clues. He's never failed to deliver on a promise to us in the past.
SoS, if you read this, then please don't delay. After that last blog, we need you now more than ever!
I have a simple question for you. If that SoS blessing clue he found in AP was supposed to be so good for this blog, then why did John's big reveal in the last blog turn into a muddled mess?
DeleteMaybe that Blessing Clue didn't work because JC didn't believe in it?
DeleteSoS warned us when he discovered it hidden in the AP wheel that it's effectiveness would be diminished for those who didn't believe it was lucky. In the past, JC has ridiculed having belief in such things. Now it looks like he's paid the price for his skepticism. What a complete difference in attitude from Bessler who credited all of his pm wheel success to God!
Bessler's bad luck started when he began relying less on God for future success and more on getting money from the rich. Imo, that was the real reason for his failures as a businessman. He should have just revealed his design to the world for free, told everyone it was a miracle gift to him from God to help him start a new religion which few would dispute, and he would eventually have gotten enough donated money from the religious to start his own religion and build a dozen of those fortresses of wisdom he wanted to have all over the world. He just needed to "let go and let God", but he forgot how to do that. Maybe he realized that as he was writing "greed is an evil root"?
If only I was super rich and had a time machine, I would do the following:
ReplyDeleteFirst I'd go back to around 1718 and pay Bessler the 100,000 reichthalers or the gold equivalent he wanted for his invention. He'd be happy and say his Kassal wheel was then mine. Bessler and Count Karl would then sign a receipt and give it to me along with a key to the room with the wheel in it.
I'd then buy some large building in Kassal and have my team of workmen, supervised by Bessler, disassemble the wheel and move it into the building and then reassemble it.
I'd then have ads put in every newspaper in Europe for several months continuously, including England, announcing that I had the wheel and everyone including children was welcome to come and see it for free! If the crowds got too big, I'd have duplicate wheels constructed and placed into extensions of the main building containing the original Kassal wheel.
As they entered the buildings to see the wheel, they would see it working without any covering on its sides. Maybe I'd pay Bessler 10,000 reichthalers a year to give a few demonstrations of the original wheel every day except on Sunday for religious reasons. Everyone would be invited, but not obligated, to throw a coin into a collection box and the money collected would then be shared among all of the local churches doing "good works" by providing food, clothing, and shelter for the needy.
All of the scientists in Europe would be invited to see the wheel including Sir Isaac Newton himself. If he was too old to travel, I'd offer to pay for portal to portal transportation for him and any of this friends he wanted to bring with him so they could personally see the Kassal wheel spinning away while running various machines. They would all be provided with free lodging and meals as my guests. I'd have Bessler explain to them in detail how he discovered the design he had that worked and answer all of their questions as completely and honestly as possible. Free copies of all his books would be given out to any who requested them. Upon request Bessler would even sign a copy for anyone who wanted a signed copy.
Within a year Bessler's wheel would be the major topic of conversation around the entire planet and all of the scientists would be writing articles about it. All of the inventors and engineers would be trying to figure out how to improve it and patent their improvements. Sooner or later they would come up with a modified design that made the wheel more powerful than those early steam engines. As a result the Industrial Age would bypass the use of fossil fuels and we would have no Climate Change crisis now. Rather we would now have a completely pollution free electrically powered world. Maybe the abundance created by that would, if fairly shared among all of humanity, have prevented all future wars and humans would never have gone on to develop nuclear weapons or nuclear power.
Yes...if only I was super rich and had a time machine...
Paul
Sheeesh I bet you think aliens built the Egyptian pyramids and ignore the known hieroglyphs that show hundreds of men pulling a huge stone statue over ground on a sled with ropes, while others pour a mix of algae, oil and Nile water in front of the sled tracks.
DeleteIn one of the written accounts for the Merseburg wheel translocation test it says Bessler took 5 or 6 steps to reposition the wheel from one set of supports to the other. That's all it says. NA short distance for 2 men to lift and carry a light framed wheel which it would have been with the internal weights removed.
Anon 03:38, you put your reply in the wrong place. I assume you were replying to either anon 19:51 or 23:18 above because Paul's wishful thinking comment had nothing to do with moving the Merseburg wheel to another pair of supports. Maybe John can relocate your reply to the right place for you?
DeleteAs far as that account about the Merseburg wheel translocation is concerned, did it say Bessler and his helper physically picked up the wheel and carried it those 5 or 6 steps or did it just say that the second pair of supports was located 5 or 6 steps away from the first pair? Big difference, imo.
You could get a lift back in time in one of the pleiadian spaceships, they can travel through time, if you ask them, they do go on the internet, they read the internet, there is one of them has a youtube channel called swaruu oficial and she has one of the time travel ships.
DeleteAnon 5:54 said "As far as that account about the Merseburg wheel translocation is concerned, did it say Bessler and his helper physically picked up the wheel and carried it those 5 or 6 steps or did it just say that the second pair of supports was located 5 or 6 steps away from the first pair? Big difference, imo."
DeleteIf you have read JC's DT and AP you will have come across the various testimonials and certificates. In these it says more than once by different sources that Bessler arranged to have the wheel lifted and translocated across to the second set of supports. There was no rolling on the rim scenario and all done in clear sight of these observers.
From JC's PMAAMS? page 70. Letter from Buchta to Leibniz, 3rd November 1715
Delete'I was in Merseburg, last Thursday, along with Professor Wolff, Mr. Hoffman from Halle, Mr. Mencke from Leipzig, and Council Assessor for the Court of Merseburg, Mr von Rohr, who was designated by His Serene Highness to examine the machine.
'I saw with my own eyes, Mr. Orffyreus transport his entire machine five or six steps, taking it from one support and putting it on another support.
Anon 19:00 quotes from the letter from Buchta to Leibniz dated 3rd November 1715:
Delete"I saw with my own eyes, Mr. Orffyreus transport his entire machine five or six steps, taking it from one support and putting it on another support."
This still does not tell us HOW Bessler transported his wheel. Also, "steps" may only be a measure of distance and does not necessarily mean he was actually carrying the wheel by himself as he walked along from one set of supports to the other. That line could just as easily have been translated as:
"I saw with my own eyes, Mr. Orffyreus move his entire machine ten or twelve feet, moving it from one support and then putting it on another support."
OMG did you read the certificates and testimonials?
DeleteAnon 00:34...where in those certificates and testimonials does it describe the method by which Bessler moved his Merseburg wheel from one set of supports to a second set?
DeleteNot one person in their technical and professional capacities bothered to be accurate and write that Bessler arranged the wheel to be hoisted by a pulley system and swung across to the new supports and lowered into the awaiting journals. Or that Bessler and his help lifted the wheel off its supports and lowered it down to the ground and rolled it across to the nearby second set of supports and was then lifted back up into the journals. No, they say lifted from one set of supports to another, not rolled.
DeleteBuuuuuuurp !
DeleteIt was a Translocation TEST they went to see and report on.
DeleteIf no one wrote about the method of translocation that was probably because they didn't consider it relevant to the operation of B's wheel which it wasn't. It was no big deal to those watching the Merseburg wheel being tested. My bet would be a combination of hoisting and maybe even rolling a short distance. A 12 foot diameter wheel is a very bulky thing to move around and even if B could have lifted it off its supports with an overhead hoist by himself, he would have needed the assistance of a helper to move it around which everyone seems to think was his brother. Maybe he was.
DeleteYou are "projecting" because you want the wheel to be very heavy when the weights were removed, to fit your own beliefs. Hence you come up with fanciful ideas of hoisting across to new supports or rolling it across on its rim. It MUST be too massively heavy for 2 or more men to lift above their shoulders and carry 5 or 6 steps. The witnesses to the Merseburg test were there to see and report on the wheel being translocated, which they observed in plain sight. All any said was it was lifted across to new supports. No mention of how difficult that appeared to be for these men, or even the method used because it was not significant or important. It was simply a light wheel when the weights were taken out that was lifted across to the new supports. Additionally Wagner said in his critiques that the Draschwitz wheel (which he could see through the cracks in its sidings) had 8 spokes and was of LIGHT construction, amongst other things. That wheel was the predecessor to the Merseburg wheel of not widely dissimilar proportions. Consider all the recorded facts in their context before "projecting" new ones. A lawyer in a court of law would chew you up and spit you out.
DeleteI think that lawyer might get a little tongue tied when he tried to explain away how Bessler described his wheels before he removed the lead weights from them:
Delete"...because the wheel with its weights was so heavy it would have needed the devil himself to lift it..."
Maybe anon 21:57 is the one "projecting" his own belief that Bessler's wheels were so light that he could just pick one up and carry it around?
Even after the weights were all removed from the Merseburg wheel, its axle alone would have weighed around 100 pounds. The rest of its drum's wooden frame pieces would likely have added another 100 pounds. That's around 200 pounds WITHOUT the weights in it!
What are you, a girl. 200 lbs is easy for 2 men in their 30's to lift no problems. 2 with 1 each side because its awkward otherwise.
DeleteAll this fantasy started because you could not believe the qualified witnesses who went to see a translocation test who said the Merseburg iron axle was a 1/4 inch diameter and the Kassel 3/4 inch. So it had to have had much larger diameter iron axles to support the obviously massive wheel and weight unloaded. Which of course had to be craned across or rolled across to it new supports that were close by because Bessler and his help couldn't possible have managed lifting it across, even though that is what the witnesses said happen. End of story.
DeleteI can accept the Ken B estimate of 358 pounds for the remaining weight of the Merseburg wheel after its 192 pounds of lead weights were all removed. Two men each lifting half of that 358 pounds would have to each reach up over his head, grab the bottom of his side of the axle, and then raise 179 pounds up an inch or so to lift his axle end pivot off of its brass plate. Then they would have to both move sideways maybe a foot or so to move the axle pivots free of the two supports.
Delete179 pounds is a lot of weight to be continuously supporting above one's head as he then walks a "few steps" with it to another set of supports. I doubt if Bessler and his brother, unless they were well conditioned power lifters, could to something like that. Most likely, without needing to use an overhead pulley hoist, they would be able to lift, hold, and move the axle for only a few seconds before they would need to lower it about a foot down to the floor and rest the drum on its rim.
I see them using the rolling method to get the drum over to the second set of supports. Then, maybe after they rested for a few minutes, they would exert themselves again for a few seconds to raise the axle up over their heads so they could move its end pivots into the supports and then let them settle into the grooves in the brass plates. If they practiced this maneuver before an official examination, they probably could have made the translocation is less than ten minutes. Maybe because they could do it so quickly, that is the reason none of the witnesses considered it important enough to describe in detail? Still, I wish it had been described in detail.
Or - the Merseburg wheel did only have 1/4 inch iron stub axles (as reported) placing into journals and joining to a 6 inch diameter coopered axle shaft extending 3 feet each side of the wheel. As mentioned not an inspiringly robust arrangement on the face of it to handle a lot of weight loaded or unloaded, but somehow it managed.
DeleteThen, also less inspiringly, and mundane, a raised plank was put each side of the wheel from support to support. The men, keeping their backs straight and bending at their knees, put their shoulders under the axle. They lifted it out of the journals and side-shuffled to the new support and reversed the procedure. EASY-PEASY and no thought or comment required by the observers who were there to see it shifted between supports!
I notice in DT that the rim of the Kassal wheel looks much fancier than the one on the Merseburg wheel. I think Bessler dressed it up with curved wooden trim pieces to make it look more like fine furniture and I'm sure that made the rich viewing it happy. They like fine things in their lives.
DeleteWhen you look at the rim of the Merseburg wheel its got what looks like tacks running around it. Bessler must have stretched the linen over the drum face openings and then tacked it all to the rim. He used a lot of tacks!
If I was going to roll the Merseburg wheel on the floor between the two sets of upright axle supports, I'd lay down some thick cloth padding along the path it would follow. That would be to cushion the drum and help prevent its outer wood from being damaged as it rolled along.