Bessler’s Obfuscation to Hide Meanings

Obfuscation - the act of making something unclear, dark, or difficult to understand, usually intentionally!

Since my last offering, which failed to impress, I have been reconsidering the use of the scissor mechanisms or storks-bills.  One comment suggested that my scissor mechanisms were too large, or cumbersome.  This comment echoed my own thoughts and my initial reaction was to try to design a linkage which achieved the same action in a simpler way with less friction and an altogether lighter construction and a quicker reaction to changes in attitude.

I kind of succeeded but I’m still testing various ways to find which is best. Before I explain more; I reconsidered Bessler’s writing about scissor mechanisms and realised that he doesn’t actually say, “use them,” he merely points out that they are useful especially as they work sideways or horizontally in either direction.  My reading of this is that something with a similar action, but not scissors, might be the answer.  It must be simple and able to move freely in either direction, actioned by gravity

I said I kind of succeeded because a new thought was sparked by a curiously contradictory passage I came across, while looking up the exact wording of one of Bessler’s well known passages..  I’ll post the passage in a moment, but at first sight it seems to be recommending opposing views.

In his Apologia Poetica, Bessler wrote, “ So then, a work of this kind of craftsmanship has, as its basis of motion, many separate pieces of lead. These come in pairs, such that, as one of them takes up an outer position, the other takes up a position nearer the axle. Later, they swap places, and so they go on and on changing places all the time. At present, as far as I'm concerned, anyone who wants can go on about the wonderful doings of these weights, alternately gravitating to the centre and climbing back up again”.

Further on he wrote, “ Many would-be Mobile-makers think that if they can arrange for some of the weights to be a little more distant from the centre than the others, then the thing will surely revolve. A few years ago I learned all about this the hard way. And then the truth of the old proverb came home to me that one has to learn through bitter experience.”

So what ever ingenious configuration we propose, it won’t work if it falls into the old trap described by Bessler above.  But we all know that and yet the same fault keeps reappearing, and yes I’m also guilty!

So the point I’m making is that in the first quote above he described the weights as working in pairs, so they are linked in some way. He wrote,  “…….as one of them takes up an outer position, the other takes up a position nearer the axle. Later, they swap places, and so they go on and on changing places all the time.”  But in the second quote, he seems to be saying that such an arrangement won’t work. “…they can arrange for some of the weights to be a little more distant from the centre than the others, then the thing will surely revolve. A few years ago I learned all about this the hard way. And then the truth of the old proverb came home to me that one has to learn through bitter experience.” 

An ambiguous text, seemingly offering opposing opinions, and difficult to extract the truth.  

Another curious feature of the quotation describes “ ... the wonderful doings of these weights, alternately gravitating to the centre and climbing back up again”.  “Falling to the centre and then climbing back up!”  Is that an instruction to place the weights above the horizontal centre line and allow the weights to fall towards the centre? And then arrange their lift  to ….where? 

I copied the original German into google and got this! “ At this time, everyone can still guess what wondrous deeds this one’s heavy journey to the center and that one’s high journey. I may not speak of the devil here, nor open all the windows.” This one and that one, referring to the two weights which work together.

So one weight moves to the centre while its twin move upwards or high - more or less what Bessler and my translate wrote. No sign of the word “gravitating”, because, I assume, it meant the same thing, but gravity wasn’t a term familiar to most people then. Sir Isaac Newton published “Principia” in 1687, Voltaire famously remarked that in the Principia, Newton "walked where others could only crawl" many years later. As a chief champion of the Scientific Revolution in France, he viewed the text as a pinnacle of human reason, though he candidly admitted that its intense mathematical complexity meant "very few" in Europe could truly understand it.

JC