Find Out How Bessler’s Wheel worked by Deciphering his Drawings.

I and some of my fellow researchers, believe that Johann Bessler intended  to leave a number of clues which once deciphered would reveal the workings of his wheel.  This was to protect his invention, and still have his name immortalised, should he die before he was able to sell it. I have studied all of his drawing over the last several decades and it has been difficult, to find the exact information needed to replicate Bessler’s wheel, but I have found a lot of clues, mostly not immediately helpful.  The clues are fairly easy to find but their meaning is not so obvious.

After his death, a piece of paper was found upon which the inventor had scribbled a  message. It reads,

Further demonstrations regarding the possibility and impossibility of perpetual motion. 

‘N.B. 1st May, 1733. Due to the arrest, I burned or buried all the woodcuts that prove the possibility. However, I have left all demonstrations and experiments since it would be difficult for anybody to see or learn anything about a perpetual motion from them or to decide whether there was any truth in them because no illustration by itself contains a description of the motion; however, taking various illustrations together and combining them with a discerning mind, it will indeed be possible to look for a movement and find the Besslerwheel action in them'.

I’ve posted a copy of the note below.  It’s rough and hardly legible but the meaning is clear

This is another example of Bessler sowing confusion by providing ambiguous 

Pinformation. On the one hand he’s telling us that he has burned or buried certain woodcuts which prove the possibility of perpetual motion. I assume he burnt all the drawings that were on paper, but buried the actual woodcuts from which he could print.  But he then he suggests that someone with a discerning mind might still find the solution by studying various illustrations.

I understand why many people assume he was referring to MT, because the message was written on the back of one of pages from MT.  But in my opinion I think he was hinting that there was another source of information leading to the answers and it could be found by studying other illustrations.  This note was written in 1733: long after GB, AP and DT had been published, but MT wasn’t even finished and he had no plans to publish it.  So he didn’t necessarily mean just those in MT. I refer to the ones in GB, AP and DT. 

At the end of his hastily scribbled note, I believe I see the word for ‘infinite’ or ‘unending’, which seems to have been omitted in the English translation.  So that phrase should read ‘… t will indeed be possible to look for an unending movement and, finally find one in them'. 

I also see what appears to be Bessler’s favourite icon or symbol, the circumpunct, representing his wheel.  This suggests that the last line might be intended say,  ‘….it will indeed be possible to look for a movement and, finally to find my perpetual motion wheel in them'.  See the circumpunct as Bessler’s wheel in the image at the top of this page.

Bessler wrote in his book, Apologia Poetica, “Those who are keen to ask questions should ask them of this little book. My work will not be revealed prematurely.”  He wrote this hint about hiding his secret in the AP book way back in 1717, so I doubt that he was alluding to his MT.

There are a number of different clues which are designed to point anyone who seeks to solve this puzzle, in the right direction, but they don’t necessarily form part of the solution.  They are framed to concentrate the mind in the correct part of one or more of the drawings, from which you must extract the right configuration. All of the drawings contain valuable information but it is not easy to make the correct choice or know what is useful and what is a deliberately inserted clue to confuse or divert attention from the right interpretation. There are almost invisible lines, hinted at but not drawn in, so the images require extensive and prolonged study to understand what Bessler was showing us.

Apparently every picture tells a story and although the GB one seems similar to the first one in DT, there are subtle differences which seem to point in other directions.  I don’t want fill this space, detailing all the nuances of the pictures, suffice to say, I have described many of the clues I have found over many years both here and on my other websites.  But to be honest I’ve never described the way to decipher the drawings, but I believe I’ve made enough headway to complete my latest model.

Of course I don’t know if it will work, but this configuration is new to me. So fingers crossed……again!

JC

When Will a Working Bessler’s Wheel Appear for Testing?

Recently I was reading the predictions of various ‘accredited’ forecasters, soothsayers and futurists and superforecasters (their terms, not mine). These days, serious predictions come from data scientists using AI studying climate change and economics. But is there anyone apart from our own homegrown soothsayers who are predicting the emergence Bessler’s wheel in the near future?

There are famous seers such as Nostradamus who cleverly embedded his predictions in a number of four line verses, which made his meanings notoriously difficult to extract and has led to large amount of confirmation biased suggestions which can be dismissed or not, according to one’s own gullibility factor. He didn’t predict Bessler’s wheel, although Bessler too, made use of four line verses to hide his secret information, rather in Nostradamus’s fashion! Perhaps he was familiar with the old seer?

But I was unable to find anyone predicting the imminent appearance of Bessler’s wheel.  I guess there’s a mountain of negative confirmation bias against such a prediction. Several years ago I contacted one of the largest gambling/betting companies in the U.K. and asked about betting on the appearance of Bessler’s wheel in the next ten years.  My bet was rejected but the guy’s reason for the rejection was that such machines were impossible and went against the laws of physics, and anyway if I was placing a bet on it, how did he know if I might or might not, have already built a successful machine!

A soothsayer or predictor might one day pronounce on the success of  a Besslerwheel, but given the universal rejection of such a device it seems unlikely and possibly foolish for anyone to do so.  But "we few, we happy few, we band of brothers…" (from Shakespeare’s Henry V) continue relentlessly to seek Bessler’s solution. Why?  Because we know that Bessler succeeded in building a gravity-enabled wheel which turned continuously. It has been argued that he must have deceived all the people who examined the device, but no one has been able to offer any suggestions about how he was able to fake all the demonstrations.  

The sole purpose of those tests that were carried out was to eliminate any way of deceiving the public and that has proved to be a major stumbling block for those to make claims of deception or fraud.

And so we continue to seek the answer, how did Bessler do it?  

The most likely source of information leading to the solution, is to be found in Bessler’s many clues, both graphic and textual.    A solution needs to be found now.  Not because Bessler’s wheel could reverse climate change, it took over 300 years to bring about climate change, but a multitude of uses may be found for Bessler’s wheel, but what can we do about OIL?  Well it has huge number of uses none of which involve burning it in car engines.

Without burning it, oil is used as a chemical building block to make plastics, synthetic fibers, and rubber. It also serves as a mechanical lubricant, a base for skin lotions and cosmetics, a protective coating to prevent rust on metal, and an ingredient in asphalt for roads.  The possibilities are endless, as someone once said.

JC

August Update - Getting the Right Configuration for Bessler’s Wheel.

I understand why those who dismiss my suggestions about Bessler’s wheel, such as the importance of the number five, do so.  I have never filled in the blanks convincingly and without a working model incorporating all of those interpreted ‘clues’, no words of mine are ever going to persuade people that I’m right,

Recently I began working on yet another design but still based on my interpretation of those infamous clues that I’ve ‘obsessed’ over for many years.  My experience with this particular design has proved quite difficult because getting the pivots in the right place is only part of the problem.  Getting the length of the levers involved and placing each one’s connecting pivot correctly was difficult, also it was necessary to restrict a portion of the arc of each lever as .it moved, in order to stop it locking at either end of each action. This reduced the effectiveness of the actions, but this limiting factor can be overcome by adjusting the pivot position and the length of each lever.  Another problem occurs when adjoining levers clash during their action because they’re too close to each other.  Again this can be overcome by using longer pivots which raise the lever in contention, or just bending them upwards to clear the offending one.  This can solve an immediate problem but ultimately requires an improved layout to maintain actions.

So it’s a trial and error process, or rather a case of comparing several variations to discover which obtains the best result.  I also I have to ensure that I don’t overt-tighten the fixed pivots to avoid slowing or limiting the free movements of the whole assembly.  So I  always loosen each locknut by about three-quarters of a turn from fully tightened. This tends to lead to some looseness of all parts but it’s better than having everything too tight.

In this particular case I have come to the conclusion that when Bessler said he awoke from an inspiring dream, but still had to work on it for a long time before he got it right, I can fully appreciate those difficulties.  I still think it will prove almost impossible to build a successful working Besslerwheel without a fully hands-on approach, but I would be delighted if someone were to prove me wrong.

I work with a sketch pad, drawing ideas that I think Bessler is describing and trying to fit them into a coherent combination that might contain an overbalancing advantage but include a natural reversal mechanism, operated by the same parts which caused the initial action. 

I know I always think I’ve finally got the answer, but that is an important part of the research.  The optimism generated by the idea that I know the secret is a vital ingredient in wanting to carry on.  The knowledge that Bessler succeeded and was determined to leave information about his wheel and my own certainty about the clues he left, is enough to maintainer my appetite for building new designs and keep my enthusiasm continuing.

When I moved house about four years ago, I threw so much stuff away, thinking it was of no use because it was all failed mechanisms. There were more than 20 assorted round wood blanks with hundreds of small perforations drilled for insertion of various pivots; a huge 8tangle of discarded levers of all shapes and sizes.  Now I wish I’d kept some but they’re gone now, and of course I have a few new ones to modify.

One day my interpretations will lead to a successful wheel and I believe that, if not by me then by someone else using my interpretations of the clues.  There are so many clues I have never mentioned because detailing them all would be too tedious and time consuming, and they need to be taken as whole, not little bits here and there.

JC

.