Bessler’s Wheel - Two Solutions?

Recently I suggested that Johann Bessler might have invented two solutions to his perpetual motion machine. I considered this possibility because of the history of the Landgrave’s offer of patronage to help Bessler try to sell his machine.  Bessler had been invited to show his machine to Karl the Landgrave of Hesse, but the distance now, between Draschwitz and Kassel is over 130 miles now and journeys could take weeks for distances covered in hours today. Travellers relied on personal carriages, walking, or local wagons.  Stagecoaches had begun to connect a few major towns, although service was infrequent and slow due to poor road conditions.

There is no mention of a carriage being sent to fetch him, and there would be no chance of Bessler showing the Landgrave his latest machine in his own home.  It must, therefore, have been a small model of his perpetual motion machine, small enough to fit in a case on the stage coach or on horseback.  Or possibly, the model he showed Karl could have been a disassembled version but whatever the truth, it had to be portable and still convincing enough for Karl to give it his seal of approval.

If Karl formed his initial opinion of Bessler’s wheel, from his examination of a small version of the PM machine, then its apparent simplicity might have been misleading.  I always wondered if the inventor, having found the solution, subsequently improved it to make it more powerful. He did improve the design of the Merseburg wheel making it able to rotate in either direction and I expect that each version incorporated improvements

Karl was reported as expressing surprise that no one had discovered the solution before and Bessler himself, commented that when the secret is revealed, he is afraid that people will complain that the idea is so simple it is not worth the asking price.

This leads me to the conclusion that I, at least, am probably overthinking the problem.  I’m trying too hard to use every clue he left us.  Maybe they refer to his larger more complex models? All we really need is working model achieved with a simple concept, possibly eliminating scissor mechanisms, ropes and pulleys.  Some may now suspect I’m underthinking the problem!

So I do have an idea that might work, but I’ll share it once I’ve tested it.  

JC

More ‘Hidden in Plain Sight’.

 I used the picture below a few years ago to share some of Bessler’s ways of hiding information in plain sight.

In the above picture Bessler used the alphabet to label the various parts.  In previous images he numbered all the parts and designed them to add up to a significant total. In this one we are required to convert the letters to numbers and add them together to arrive at another significant total.

The labels on the left side converted alphanumerically total 190

Those on the right similarly treated, total 170.  Addend together they total 360.

So with a total of 360, we then count the number of letters used, they run from ‘a’ through to ‘t’ and ‘t’ is the 20th letter.  As was done with all the drawings in DT, 360 divided by 20 gives us 18 again, the angle at the base of every single one in the pentagram.

But in place of the lettter ‘j’, Bessler places the number 10, which confusingly could be read as the letter ‘w’ - red-ringed in the above picture.  This must have been deliberate as ‘w’ is the RoT 13 version of the letter ‘j’, and ‘j’, of course is the alphanumeric version of the number 10.  So ‘j’, ‘w’ and ‘10’ are interchangeable.  ‘W’ is used by Bessler to indicate two letter ‘v’s and show them as linked together.

All this is supported by the frequent pointer to the importance of the number five and the geometric figure, the pentagram.

The reason for the pentagram is to tell us to use five mechanisms - or seven or nine.  It also allowed him to embed the pentagram in his drawings which was demonstrated by his inclusion of Euclid’s instruction on how to draw that figure.  It is also a convenient way to contain the important parts of the drawing, leading us to extract the important information.   I believe Bessler included two versions of his perpetual motion machine hidden in plain sight within that drawing and it is down to us to find the right configuration, the one that will work. 

This is all old stuff but I’ve published it again because either my visitors are new to the blog and unaware of all that’s gone before - or, frustratingly, all my efforts to lead people to the right answers is ignored, overlooked or dismissed as my obsessive, paranoid personality.  

Anyway I’ll continue to publish what I know and hope that one day someone will prove me right.

JC

Why Did Bessler Add the Name Johann to His Forenames?

One of Bessler’s clues which may have slipped past our attention is this one, it begs the question, why did he add the name Johann?

We are familiar with his use of the atbash code, the Caesar shift and the RoT13 code, and his addition of an extra two initials J and E to his original E for Elias Bessler.

He adopted his pseudonym, Orffyreus, by using the RoT13 code, which was a well-known code system in his time.  I think he knew this and expected those people who were curious would search for other clues within his published works, just as we have.

His use of a variety of codes included - alphanumerics, Caesar shift, chronograms (a sentence containing certain letters which can be interpreted as Roman Numerals and stand for a number when rearranged.) Steganography (the practice of hiding information within a different media such as embedding it invisibly within a drawing) - plus a few of his own invention.

I asked the question, why did he add the name Johann? He had already got two E’s to give two 5s, alphanumerically; then from the E to the R via the Caesar shift; and to 18 from R again, alphanumerically.  These all fit in perfectly to confirm the pentagram.  So why did he think it necessary to add the J.

J is the tenth letter alphanumerically, or W by the Caesar shift.  W is the 23rd letter.   I can’t think of a convincing reason for the number 23, so its purpose may be the fact that the W is composed of two  Vs.  But we already have two 5s, but the W which does however, provides two linked Vs. This might reflect Bessler’s statement that the weights worked in pairs

His use of the W was definitely an important clues and conceived as a clue right back in the beginning when he adopted the name Orffyreus,  

His initials after his forename additions were JEEB, and after the RoT13 change became WRRO. 

 But when converted to Roman numerals, before the addition, JEEB in Roman numerals 10, 5,5,2,, which then becomes XVVII.  If we stick with his chosen pseudonym, Orffyreus, then XVVO is the interesting result.

So we have a W which is composed of two linked Vs.

But there’s more.  Throughout his Apologia Poetica Bessler inserts numerous examples of rhyming couplets containing three Capital letters being the three initials of his ‘enemies’, Wagner, Gartner and Borlach - W,G and B.

 

Although the W looks a little like part of a scissor mechanism, I think its primary purpose is to confirm the linkage between each V.  Each V shows the action of a single lever, but indicates it’s starting and finishing points.  

In MT there are several examples of the letter A, some with a straight cross bar and others with a bent one, see the image below.

The letter A shown above might be part of scissor mechanism….or the two arms of the letter V?  I hope this post provides some interesting thoughts

Curiously the picture in DT showing the Weinstein wheel attached to an Archimedes pump, has three items labelled in a confusing way. For a start each part is labelled with a letter, running from the letter ‘a’ to the letter  ‘t’.  For some reason the letter ‘j’ is missing. The last letter listed is ‘t’.   But … there is what appears to be three items labelled with a W. Further examination of the letter W in this case, suggests it might actually be the number 10!  The missing ‘j’.

Back again soon.

JC 

Update and Apologies for the Hiatus.

 Sorry for my disappearing act, I’m still alive and kicking!  I was busy dealing with events unrelated to Bessler, but forgot I’d stopped the comment facility.  Hopefully it’s back on and working.

I’ve got some interesting posts lined up and I think they will generate a lot of comments.

I’ll try to get the first one posted tomorrow.

Thank you for your patience - normal service will resume today.

JC