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