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
A blog about Johann Bessler and the Orffyreus Code and my efforts to decipher it. I'll comment on things connected with it and anything I think might be of interest to anyone else.
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Tuesday, 23 September 2025
The Return of the Mysterious Xs in Johann Bessler's Apologia Poetica!
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It's not that unlikely. In the 1870s, two inventors, Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell, both independently designed devices that c...
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On 6th June, 1712, in Germany, Johann Bessler (also known by his pseudonym, Orffyreus) announced that after many years of failure, he had s... -
When someone finds the solution to Bessler’s wheel I don’t know how, or even if, it will affect the world we live in, but I do know that con...
Assuming that Bessler did not set the type himself for his AP book's pages, it's possible that all of those X's were inserted by the printer. Maybe in his original handwritten text, Bessler may have ended the poetry lines with dot's (like ...) or dashes (like ---) and it was the printer who mistakenly interpreted them as meaning "et cetera" and then inserted all of those X's without telling Bessler in advance. Once it was done, it was then too expensive to reprint the entire book to remove that glitch. If so, there's no code in them and looking for one will be a complete waste of time that's better spent working on one's wheel.
ReplyDeleteBessler did his own type setting, because there were too many pieces of individual code which would not have been inserted correctly, if left to the printer. There are too many to trust to the printer not making mistakes. The few errors he found were corrected by hand in every copy he published. If the printer had done it, Bessler would have been present for the entitle print run in order to check each sheet as it was hung up to dry
ReplyDeleteJC
You claim that B had to do his own typesetting for AP because those X's must be clues that had to be carefully placed. To me that just sounds like an assumption you are making. Is there anything in B's writings where he specifically says he did the typesetting on AP? If so, I haven't been able to find it.
DeleteI looked at the original AP and I don't see any printer's name on it. That does not prove Bessler set the type for it, but it's a bit unusual, imo. Maybe Bessler did hire a printer, but did not let him put his name on it because, as John says, the etc.'s are clues and Bessler did not want the printer to be able to later say it was his invention and that he was the one that put the etc.'s into the text to describe the secret of the wheel? Then again, maybe this is just another false trail that can waste one's time pursuing. I prefer to work with results of the tests that were done with the wheels. Those wheels were all overbalanced when running. How do you keep a simple wheel with levers and end weights overbalanced as it turns?
DeleteIf it was just the ‘X’s being placed as Bessler needed, I’d accept that maybe he could let the printer do the type setting, but there is so much more embedded coding that he would have to be in the printshop all day and every day to check the whole of every single one of nearly 100 pages. Check out my other web sites for some more information about more codes, at
Deletewww.the orffyreus code.com. And also at www.orffyreus.net
JC
I'm surprised that John does not talk about all of the "NB's" that are in AP. I would think if there were any hidden clues in the verses that those would be more important than the "X's". Like anon 02:37, I also find it curious that a printer's name does not appear on the original work. It was considered a sign of the printer's pride in his craft and the quality of a book he printed that he put his name on the title page of a work. Bessler either printed AP himself or maybe he hired some beginning printer to do what was his first book. That guy could have been so happy just to get the job that he agreed not to put his name on it.
DeleteYes anon 07:08. NBs 20 + 176 some in italics other not. Much discussed elsewhere.
DeleteJC
In light of what you say Anon, if it was some beginning printer who did the work at the start of his profession, that could be due to Bessler's lack of finances, and could also be a legitimate explanation of many of the errors and anomalies throughout his books that many here thought were clues, such as the padlock 24 being written as 42 on the other side, even though in the previous book both sides are labeled correctly as 24. Also that later book had fewer lines darkening the wheel, and also unlike the previous book, it has the pendulum pivot outside the holder. I've always thought that was due to sloppy carelessness rather than an intended clue, due to it appearing correctly in the previous book but erroneously in the later one.
DeleteThose examples you have pointed out, anon 12:29, are not mistakes but are indeed clues as I shall explain once my wheel is finished, tested and either works or doesn’t.
DeleteJC
Here is a new mechanism to be simmed. Consider a geared Roberval balance except that the stationary center gear is double the diameter. Next, one side of the main beam lever is longer than the other, and the gear in between the center and outer gears is made larger as required to span the extra length. With the longer side positioned upwards, an arm attached to the outer gear points downward. The shorter side of the main beam, pointing downward, has an arm connected to the outer gear, pointing downwards. Weights are attached to the two arms. In this position, the weights should be equally distanced from the center of the stationary center gear on the main beam. As the beam turns a quarter turn in a clockwise direction, the arm on the right extends far out to the right, and the arm on the left contracts inward to the axle.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a variation of this nonrunner:
Deletehttps://i.pinimg.com/originals/2d/32/dd/2d32dd3ad180a590dd83877abd1d9b8a.jpg
I once built the above split offset axle wheel to see if there was any potential for imbalance. The sims said no with weights in any position on the tray which was confirmed by the build. It had a huge amount of twisting stress and binding points unless made very accurately. In the end it was just an interesting variation on a Roberval. It had no torque because it could not lose any Potential Energy.
Delete@anon 18:57
Delete"Sounds like a variation of this nonrunner"
Nope. It's quite different from that. Notice the geared balance by Simanek. It is balanced, of course, and doesn't rotate. But now change it to my variation which shifts one of the pivot points farther from the other. Now it must rotate.
@anon 19:50
The wheel in the pinimg posted by Anon 18:57 is a nonrunner indeed. However, that doesn't prove anything concerning my design proposal, which is quite different, as I explained previously. I would be interested in seeing a sim of my specific design, as it incorporates something that Bessler hinted at often, albeit the action was accomplished by other mechanical means.
If you want someone to sim it for you then post a picture of your design so it can be followed accurately. Simple.
Delete@anon 21:59
DeletePicture:
https://tmpfiles.org/dl/1958392/mechanism.jpg
"Here is a new mechanism to be simmed. Consider a geared Roberval balance except that the stationary center gear is double the diameter. Next, one side of the main beam lever is longer than the other, and the gear in between the center and outer gears is made larger as required to span the extra length. With the longer side positioned upwards, an arm attached to the outer gear points downward. The shorter side of the main beam, pointing downward, has an arm connected to the outer gear, pointing downwards. Weights are attached to the two arms. In this position, the weights should be equally distanced from the center of the stationary center gear on the main beam. As the beam turns a quarter turn in a clockwise direction, the arm on the right extends far out to the right, and the arm on the left contracts inward to the axle."
Delete@anon 04:43...your link to the picture only returns a "File 404 Not Found" message. You need to check any links before posting them to make sure they work.
Deletehttps://limewire.com/d/JDMjR#peuqgiEo4p
DeleteIf the two little black weights rise to the 12:00 position as shown in the right side of the drawing, it will only be due to the overbalance of the system caused by the greater masses of the large orange gear and the longer end of the beam whose COG's both start out to the right side of the stationary blue gear's center. Once the weights rise to 12:00 the system will come to a stop. No need to sim this one because it's obvious what will happen.
Delete@anon 16:27
DeleteI am well aware it will not rotate more than 180 degrees, but the question is will it rotate at all or remain still in balanced equilibrium? Also, consider the weight of the gears to be negligible. The idea that the system will have overbalance from the long end of the beam until the weights reach the resting point is what I need to test. There is another possibility, that the thing doesn't rotate at all, no matter where it is. I need to know what happens when it starts out the way it is shown on the left hand side.
P.S.
Delete(Continuing from above)
As I stated in my original comment, this is not a standalone wheel. This is only a mechanism within a wheel. Do not expect the gears to rotate continuously because that's not what it's supposed to do. However, if it does exhibit overbalance when oriented in the way it is depicted at the left, I would need to know how much torque it is exerting in that position. That is key.
If all of the gears and the beam have negligible weight, then the weights will still not move even though their center of gravity is to the right of the center of that stationary gear. You can't have them suddenly gaining gravitational potential energy from nowhere. If they do rise, then that gain in gpe will be have to be paid for by an equal decrease of the gpe of something else which will probably be the gears and the beam since they cannot have zero mass. As we learn from the Roberval balance, just because a mechanism's weights look like they are overbalanced does not guarantee they will move when released.
DeleteWatch the Center of Gravity wrt Potential Energy converted to Kinetic Energy and back to Potential Energy.
Delete[url=https://postimages.org/][img]https://i.postimg.cc/J08F3m6K/Anon2-26-09-2025.gif[/img][/url]
Ok it's not coming up. Here are the relevant details to the sim. All parts other than the levers black end weights are negligible. The 2 end weights are the same mass. In the right hand side (rhs) drawing when all is aligned vertically the 2 end weights are colocated at the same position on the y-axis. This means the lhs drawing in horizontal orientation is not to scale because the rhs lever must be far longer for them to occupy the same location when vertically aligned. Starting the sim in the horizontal position the gear assembly connected to the red fulcrum rotates CCW, while the lever weights both rotate CW. The lever weights fall downwards and swing through vertical and then swing upwards so that the rig is horizontal again except the levers are now pointing west instead of east. If allowed to continue it would oscillate like a pendulum. It moves because as the gear train goes CCW and the lever weights go CW the rigs Center of Gravity falls from the x-axis down to well beneath the 0,0 coordinate before recovering its PE, just like a pendulum. The lever weights do not rise upwards, they fall downwards.
Delete@anon 1:35
DeleteThank you for the sim, much appreciated! This confirms a certain theory I had which I now must look into further. Both weights rise/fall the same height as each other in each rotation. However, the weight on the long lever, in its orbit, extends outwards more, almost an oval shape, increasing its overall torque (due to length from pivot) in contrast to the other weight, which has a flattened orbit going nearly straight down, which means it's torque is less in its swing. The difference of course with Bessler's mechanism is that one weight lifted the other, and he didn't use gears. I haven't figured that part out yet. Much more work still to be done.
Thanks again for the sim, I appreciate it!
Here's a cleaner version tracking the weights.
Deletehttps://i.postimg.cc/KY2BDC9z/Anon2a-26-09-2025.gif
@anon 4:48
DeleteOk, I have designed this modification here:
https://limewire.com/d/3ZXdc#APJ3n84v69
This is slightly more complicated, but it's the only way I can think of how to do this unless you can engineer a better way. In essence, both sides of the main beam are now on the same side of the center fulcrum (fulcrum is the stationary blue gear). What this is supposed to accomplish is shown on the diagram on the right hand side. As one of the weights goes down, the other goes up. The picture is not to scale, of course, all the sizes are the same as you made them before. When the thing is vertical, one weight will be above the blue gear, and the other below it, both equidistant from it., as the diagram shows. The question now is, does it turn in this configuration (either option 1 or option 2), or does it stay still in equilibrium and not rotate at all?
Here's an animated gif of what it should do:
Deletehttps://limewire.com/d/584Bx#0cYkJKJ1Vq