When Karl the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel described Bessler’s wheel as simple and expressed surprise that it hadn’t been invented before, I think that gives a misleading impression about the wheel’s construction. Yes, it was easy to understand when you could see it in action, but without that information available to one’s eyes, even with a written description it would be difficult to get the details correct. When you add Bessler’s disguised hints and clues it confuses what one thinks one understands or knows.
Bessler also embedded pieces of information in some of his drawings, but again these were designed to inform but also to deflect instant conclusions from their eventual true meaning.
Thus we find ourselves with so many pieces of information which can be pulled together resulting in a mishmash of half right and half wrong constructions which fail over and over again.
But in the end we can remind ourselves that the inventor succeeded in building a gravity-enabled wheel which rotated continuously for 54 days in one test and numerous short runs over many years. It is clear that he intended us to find the correct solution, dropping hints that the information was available to anyone with a particular interest in looking. But he made it so damned difficult, that even though we believe him and we study every word and image he left, we still can’t seem to find the solution….yet.
His primary intention should he fail to find a buyer for his machine, would seem to have been achieving acknowledgement for inventing his perpetual motion machine. Even though he occasionally referred to it, as just that; a perpetual motion machine; he pointed out on more than one occasion, that his machine could run continuously but may be brought to a stop for a number of different reasons; worn parts, broken parts, external influences or just that everything wears out in time. It could run continuously but not perpetually, but per se, as if it were a PM machine.
What was in his mind when he originally placed coded information in Gruendlicher Bericht, which was his first publication? It looks like an advertising booklet and although there is little or no sign of coding, it does contain his first published image of his wheel, and that definitely contains embedded information about the design of his wheel. Obviously he planned to hide information in plain sight to coincide with his first certified attestation that his machine was genuine. The first public test was witnessed and signed by several people of more than local importance
Here’s a curious fact. Bessler sent Karl a special greeting each year, on his name day, full of thanks and praise for the Landgrave, these were full of his favourite chronograms, each including the date of the document. One curious feature was the discovery that he composed special editions dated 1519, 1619, 1719, 1819, 1919 and 2019! Perhaps he anticipate that it would take another 300 rears or so to decipher his clues and produce a working model of his wheel?
I have never studied these documents other than in a cursory manner because I did not have my good friend Mike Senior who did all the translation for my books available, because he passed away before I obtained them. It is obvious from studying them that Bessler spent a lot of time and effort in designing them and I’m not sure if Karl would have had the time and inclination to do more than admire Bessler’s work. This begs the question, why did Bessler take so much trouble?
One thing is certain; every single document issued and received by Karl, was duly recorded and saved, and I think that Bessler had this in mind when he created these items addressed personally to the Landgrave. What better way to ensure any information hidden within the documents is still available every year until now?
I plan to publish pictures of them here as soon as I can do so. I may have to post small versions of the originals as they are a little larger than A4. I’ll try to make them as sharp as I can to allow downloads which can be enlarged. There are in total twelve pages some containing text and other chronograms with Bible references
My purpose in this is to make them available to as many people as possible so any attempts at translating and deciphering the content can be posted here or elsewhere. The encoding appears to include some pages of chronograms with Bible references attached and that leaves the widest possible option for codes of varying kind, for deciphering.
NB A chronogram is a word, phrase, or sentence with specific letters that are interpreted as Roman numerals to represent a date. These inscriptions can be found in various contexts, from historical monuments and poetry to modern applications like a type of phylogenetic tree with branch lengths proportional to time. The word itself means "time writing," combining the Greek words chronos and gramma.
NB Karl’s nameday is not a standard historical record for him. However, he was born on August 3, 1654, and his baptism date was August 17, 1654, which may be related to a name day celebration.
There are examples of Bessler’s chronograms in all three of Bessler’s published books.
JC
I think that Bessler was just imitating Nostradamus who wrote his "Centuries" in the 16th century that Bessler would have read. Karl, being interested in prophecies, would have read it too and those chronograms in his birthday cards was Bessler's way of amusing his patron. Each of Nostradamus' centuries was a collection of 100 quatrains (four verse lines) that were supposed to make predictions about what would happen in each year of the hundred years in a particular century. Unfortunately, all of the predictions only become apparent AFTER they happen which kind of makes them worthless before they happen.
ReplyDeleteBessler's chronograms start with the year 1519 and, from Wikipedia, we see that "Ferdinand Magellan set sail from Spain on September 20 with a fleet of five ships, aiming to find a western route to the Spice Islands. This expedition would later become the first to circumnavigate the globe" I think that Bessler was fascinated with nautical navigation which we see from his globe in the second DT portrait and his bad experience at sea during a storm. Also, he adjusted the asking price for his invention to match the value of the prize amount that the English government was offering in 1714 for some way of accurately determining longitude at sea while sailing east or west of England (IIRC, 100,000 silver reichthalers was equal to the English £20,000 at the time which were gold coins called "sovereigns").
Each of the years in Bessler's chronograms probably had special significance for him and Karl based on their study of history and the Bible. 1719 was the year Bessler published DT. Who knows what he predicted for the remaining years and it may not be relevant to the construction of his wheels (however, I just noticed the year 2019. Isn't that the year Ken B published his Bessler book?! Probably just a coincidence...or is it?).