Latest News about Bessler’s Wheel Reconstruction.

My version of Johann Bessler’s perpetual motion machine, his “wheel” as many people refer to it, proceeds at a snail’s pace, seemingly! But in fact it still proceeds. The main problem, apart from my procrastination, is constantly having to revise the five completed mechanisms. Yes I’m confident that there has to be five mechanisms.

I’ve said before that the mechanisms needed to be rearranged in order to stop them interacting with each other, or more often sticking during their action. There is a small amount of lateral motion which causes two pieces to bump into each other. I’ve tried bending the levers a small amount to force them away from their nearest part but that is not effective. But this lateral motion can be reduced by tightening the locking or stiff nuts holding the parts together. But tightening them reduces the ease with which they rotate about their pivots. However, including thin, rigid but wider washers has improved things.

To explain how and why this happens is difficult to do without picture, but at this point so close to the finish, I’m unwilling to use a picture, at least not until either I’ve finished or run out of options. One way to imagine it is to think of each of the assembled mechanisms as being in two or three layers, sometimes one layer operating above or below another. What I’ve been doing is swapping some layers so that, for instance the top layer has been placed below the others and this seems to have improved things.

So once again I am back at my previous point, and I have to install the ten pulleys or screw eyes, to feed the cord through so that as one weighted lever falls it lifts the another fallen weighted lever. All cords are under tension which is a vital feature to provide continuous motion.

JC

Overunity or Perpetual Motion or…..Underunity?

People sometimes suggest that Perpetual Motion (PM) is an example of Over-Unity and it seems implied that there is a difference.  But what does it mean?  Obviously the two terms are meant to refer to Bessler’s wheel, but when I google it I’m given this. 

“Over-unity refers to a hypothetical device or system that produces more energy output than its energy input, a concept that contradicts the fundamental law of conservation of energy, which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed. Claims of over-unity devices often involve hidden energy sources, misinterpretations of efficiency, or pseudoscientific explanations, leading to their widespread rejection by the scientific community. While true over-unity is considered impossible, the underlying concept reflects a desire to find new energy sources beyond conventional ones.”

So it’s obviously impossible.

Here’s another definition, “ From over- +‎ unity (the number "1”, referring to the fact that an over-unity device should produce more kinetic energy than whatever potential it receives as input. Coined to avoid patent rules that prevent impossible technologies such as perpetual motion machines being patented.”

Cunning, but it’s still wrong.  The idea that a “device should produce more kinetic energy than what ever potential it receives as input”, is obviously wrong because it still violates the conservation of  energy principle. Let’s reconsider this idea.

If Bessler’s wheel was, as he claimed it to be, a perpetual motion device and the weights it apparently contained, were enabled to fall by gravity.  I note that  Bessler referred to his machine, using the expression “per se”. There are several nuanced definitions of this phrase but the meaning my original translator opined was “like or similar to, a perpetual motion machine”; or even “as if it it were a PM”. It seems to me to imply that Bessler understood the reluctance in the scientific world to accept the possibility of a PM machine and hinted at its similarity if not the actuality.  In other words it could run continuously with no input of energy other than that supplied by gravity to the weights.

Another impossibility?  Not necessarily, because all potential configurations have not been discovered, other than by Bessler.

I asked myself two questions. Was the falling weight the initiator of the beginning of rotation? Or was it the built-in imbalance already present in the wheel? It doesn’t matter actually, because we know the wheel would begin to rotate as soon as the brake was released.  Could the wheel begin to rotate, even before a single weight fell, if so then the wheel must have been out-of-balance, regardless of where it stopped? But that would not rule out the action of a falling weight contributing to the start of rotation even after it had been brought to a halt.  Where it landed must have created an imbalance and the start or continuation of rotation.

Maybe we should reverse the over-unity idea?

Consider this.  The only energy available is that produced by either imbalanced or falling weights. That’s all there is.  Configure the device to spend less of the kinetic energy that it received as potential energy and yet still be able sustain rotation.  Therefore it would need to generate enough potential energy from the kinetic energy it receives to rotate the wheel and yet still have some left to raise one weight sufficiently to rotate the wheel a little, to reset the wheel

Bessler told us this, “ a great craftsman would be he who, as one pound falls a quarter, causes four pounds to shoot upwards four quarters.”  This is one Bessler’s more devious clues.  What Bessler sought to do was to tell us what to do but disguise it from the casual reader; however it has turned out more difficult than perhaps he anticipated.

Note that within the quote he mentions that there are five weights, one plus four, and each one is equal to one pound.  Secondly, one pound falls a quarter.  How do we define what he meant by a quarter? In this case he was referring to a clock - something he also embedded invisibly in the first drawings in both Grundlicher Bericht and Das Triumphirende - and a quarter of an hour or fifteen minutes covers 90 degrees.  But how could this single right angle fall cause “ four pounds to shoot upwards four quarters”? 

In the first  part of this riddle the word ‘quarter', referred to, not just 90 degrees but also to a clock.  In the second part the word ‘quarter' also refers to a clock but this time he has confused us by using the words ‘four quarters’. ‘Four quarter’s equals ‘one whole hour’.  Each hour on a clock is divided into 30 degrees, so the words ‘four quarters’ meaning ‘one hour’ as used here equals thirty degrees.  To paraphrase Bessler’s words, “a great craftsman would be he who, as one pound falls 90 degrees, causes each of the other four pounds to shoot upwards 30 degrees.”  

You might think the 30 degree suggestion is wrong, but it is not, he alludes, silently, to this particular piece of information in two drawings.

That still didn’t show us where the extra energy which was sufficient to shoot each of the four remaining pounds in turn, upwards 30 degrees, and why was it only 30 degrees?

I know the answer and I will share it very soon and I can tell you that I’ve never seen this exact concept suggested or tested before.  I’ve almost finished my last attempt to build Bessler’s wheel, and I should know very soon if it works or not. I’m confident that I have the correct solution, but as I’ve said before, I’m not happy with the build quality!

JC

The Return of the Mysterious Xs in Johann Bessler's Apologia Poetica!

When I first wrote my biography of Johann Bessler (Perpetual Motion; An Ancient Mystery Solved?) I mentioned the existence of what I termed X's throughout Apologia Poetica (AP),  at that time I had a suspicion that they weren't actually X's but something rather more mundane. - and it turned out that the character is actually a well-known abbreviation for Et Cetera. written not as we do etc, but as et   - meaning, and the rest, or so on and so forth. Modern German also uses an alternative which is "und so weiter" abbreviated to use but in print in Bessler's day the fraktur type was used, and the abbreviation was et, which does not immediately resemble the two letters it represents. 

If there had been just an occasional use of the abbreviation then nothing remarkable would be inferred, however in hisApologia Poetica it is used so many times that one can only conclude that either the author had no idea of its proper use - or he was attempting to transmit a secret message via the X's and hinted at by the over-abundance of this abbreviation.  In total he uses 684 so-called X's, in some places he uses two X's at the end of a line.  In others he has ten consecutive lines each with an X at the end; but then he can go for twenty pages without a single X.  On the other hand his other publications both before and after AP use no more than ten X's or etc's.

There was much discussion a while back on the Besslerwheel forum about the possible meaning of the X's and how to decipher them and the consensus was that the reason for the presence of so many could not be other than some kind of code.  Given the sheer numbers plus the use of two on a line at times, seems to imply the possibility that each X indicated a letter within the particular line.  I had already ruled out the possibility of each X meaning a word, because I went through the whole book looking for any kind of word within or near to any of the X'd lines which might be applied to the description of a wheel part - such as weight, lever, rotate, etc.  - but none appeared. 

One potential path worthy of investigation, I feel, are the passages which contain X's at the ends of several consecutive lines.  I have done some work in this area without any success, but the potential to discover a significant letter within the indicated line seems possible.  Given that Bessler would not have included this code unless he anticipated someone trying to break it, there has to be some kind of clue to aid someone in beginning to decipher it.  One way to look for such clues is to find the unusual occurances of the mysterious X.  So there are the passages with consecutive X's; the lines bearing two X's, presumably indicating the same letter twice; there is the presence of the X's even at the ends of some of Bible references which might seem the oddest place to put them.

What message might Bessler have hidden within the X's?  Given the numbers of  X's is 684, and assuming an average number of letters per word, as being five (taking into account one or two letters as well as longer ones) leaves us with about 135 words, which is actually quite a short message - about half the Gettysburg Address.    

Any suggestions what the message might say?

JC

The Legend of Bessler’s Perpetual Motion Machine.

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 80). 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.

Not long after I was able to read the English translations of his books, I realised 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 enough information about his wheel,to allow “someone with an acute and discerning mind, to build one”.

For some ideas about Bessler’s code why not visit my web sites at 

http://www.theorffyreuscode.com/

Take a look at my work on his “Declaration of Faith” at 

http://www.orffyreus.net/

Also please view my video at 

https://youtu.be/5BWVKtpuzn0

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 also my own account of Bessler’s life is also available from the links. It is called "Perpetual Motion; An Ancient Mystery Solved?" 

This biography contains a wealth of information about Bessler himself, as well as many quotes by Bessler and letters to him or about him from many interested parties. It tells of his life up to and including his years with Karl the Landgrave of Hesse Kassel, and what happened to him later.

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

https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/johncollins

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.

These books contain the most important information available if you seek to find the solution to Bessler’s wheel.

JC

Some background on my search for Bessler’s Perpetual Motion Machine.

I made the decision to try and build Bessler’s Perpetual Motion machine about 30 years ago.  I had dabbled with the idea for many years but it was my experience gained from reading the translations of Bessler’s books and the many documents connected with my research, that finally convinced me of two things.  I had already accepted his claims factually, but it was also the pain he endured at the public reaction by his so-called enemies that confirmed in my mind that he was absolutely genuine.  It also lent credence to his implication that he left behind some clues as to the design of his wheel.  In the end it turned out to be, not just vague clues but an unbelievable assortment of numerous clues, revealing in detail, all of the important features of the design.

Through many years I’ve searched and studied every clue and found countless more.  I’ve worked out the intention behind some of them but as an example I remember one simple clue I at first didn’t notice.  But when I thought it was a clue I was unable decipher its meaning so eventually dismissed it as not important. I suspected that it was intended to convey information but I couldn’t understand what its purpose was, so I ignored it.  I included it within my current design even though I didn’t know its purpose.  A few weeks ago finally only recently I fully understood it and its ramifications.  It was only because I included it in my own design, that it became obvious.  It was a vital piece of information without which the mechanism wouldn’t operate correctly.  It’s not always obvious why something was included and it takes trial and error to fully get the purpose.

At the beginning, some 30 years ago, I ordered a number of metal strips which I had designed with the purpose of building a wheel, configured on paper initially which I hoped might work.  I had incorporated some pieces of evidence which I believed might lead to success.  How wrong I was - and again and again, despite numerous reconfiguration, always the same result..  But gradually more information was revealed, but still not enough. I felt like an archaeologist scraping away layers of dirt, looking for a hidden treasure!

Below I have posted a picture of some of the mild steel and aluminium strips I ordered long ago and have used on every wheel I’ve built. It also shows some of the ones I have altered to fulfil some purpose.  The aluminium ones are easier to drill and cut.  Lastly my nuts, bolts and washers.  Two kinds of nuts, one is a stiff nut, very useful to attach parts to other parts and either locked tight or left very slightly loose to allow for rotation if required. Also included is a pulley and a screw hook and two kinds of weight.

My problem which is common to most of us in this field of research, time after time we think we’ve found the answer, a ‘eureka’ moment, only to find failure.  I don’t know what word is opposite to ‘eureka’, but maybe “oh sh-t’, not again!”

So the slow accumulation of information continues up to the present day, which is why I often promise to reveal everything and then discover I don’t know it all!  I don’t see any point in showing failed designs, even though I have, because of mounting pressure to share my designs occasionally gets too much to resist!  The desire to tell everything but decide not to, is hard to explain.  My experience in showing something that’s not finished simply leads to a dismissal of all of the design.  

My opinion that five mechanisms is an essential feature of a successful wheel, has attracted scornful dismissal and yet I believe it will prove to be correct.  Time will tell, of that I’m confident.  I will try to show why it is a necessary inclusion in the design.

Two recent revelations have spurred me on to return to building, having intended to stop.  But I’m now trying to complete this last attempt.  I will show what I’ve done, even if it fails, but this time, for the first time in my life I’m confident that I know the correct configuration. If my build fails I’ll publish the design.

 Copyright ©️2025 John Collins