A Short Preview About My Planned Reveal of Bessler’s Wheel.

I’ve taken some photos of my wheel, and I’m colouring the parts to make the descriptions more readily understood.  This is being done on the assumption that either it isn’t finished by February 5th, this year, or it doesn’t work.  There could be two or three reasons why it doesn’t work.  Firstly,  maybe I’ve made a mistake in some calculations causing it to lock up; or secondly it doesn’t work because my whole concept is totally wrong.  Obviously I don’t seriously believe that, but I have to admit it is a possibility, however convinced I am that I’m right. 

The most likely reason why it might not work is simply the difficulty of building it the way I have.  Many excellent models I have seen over the years have gained my admiration, not so much for the attempted solution to Bessler’s wheel, but for the craftsmanship exhibited in the way they have been constructed.  If I had built in  three dimensions the whole structure would have been much more robust and rigid and not, like mine, prone to lateral sway and/or locking up, amongst other faults.  My wheel consists of a single three foot diameter of MDF, (Medium Density Fibreboard). Every anchor and pivot is a bolt fixed through the MDF. Each weighted lever rotates about a single bolt fixed through the MDF.  The levers should be double to rule out lateral sway;  the pivots should be supported at top and bottom, not just the bottom.  I got into the habit of thinking; check the design first by building something cheap and cheerful, and if it works then build something of better quality. Anyway, time will tell if it works and then others can test the design.

So it seems to me that I should explain the concept first, explaining  what is usually referred to as the work-around.  By this I mean overcoming the age old problem of producing a device which is made to rotate and do work.  This is to be achieved by designing a unique configuration using the fall of a limited number of identical weights, attached inside a wheel, which cause it to rotate continuously.  The work-around requires that the device is able lift the fallen weights back up to their pre-fall position, with no external input or assistance and no subterfuge.

There are many people who have studied this problem and built endless models, who believe there is a special configuration still to be found which will prove to be the answer, and also confirm Bessler’s claims to have found the solution and proved it over 300 years ago.  I believe I’ve found it, thanks to Bessler’s clues, but if it fails please don’t dismiss the “work-around” it’s correct even if the build doesn’t  work.

JC

UPDATE and Progress Report.

I’ve finished writing the text of the full explanation of how I believe Johann Bessler’s gravity-enabled wheel worked.  I’ve read and reread it umpteen times and I don’t think I can improve it much more.  But it definitely needs drawings and/or photos added, to make it fully understandable, which is what I’m working on at the moment.

I only got into my workshop a few days ago after being away over Christmas with my family, visiting my granddaughter, Amy.  She is a disabled TikTok influencer with over 4 million followers.  She has always supported me, in my efforts to solve Bessler’s wheel and in fact she only recently lost her beloved Hungarian Vizsla whom she named Bessler!  He was ten years old but had health problems. 

So, I’ve got a bit longer before I have to share what I’ve got, (yes I know - whether it’s finished or not and whether it works or not).  I will share my solution, as promised and include several photos of the wheel.

Anyway back to the task in hand.  I’m adding some short pieces of aluminium screwed into the backplate but bent over to catch and guide any weighted levers which are still subject to lateral sway - and occasionally miss the stop, ending locked up and immovable.  Same problem at the other end of some of the levers, which sometimes lock up in their contracted position, in their case a suitably placed bolt stops their over contracting.

I mention these minor but annoying matters because these additional features will probably be visible in the photos and add confusion to what might appear to be an already complex mechanism.  It’s not that complex and the once you see it in action, you will understand how it works.

So I’m confident about the design but not so much with the build, but I’ll do my best to finish it so you can all get to understand it, and make simulation or actual models.  Imagine being the first since Bessler to make a successful gravity-enabled continuously rotating wheel, capable of doing work.

Thanks,

JC

How Bessler’s Clues Hold the Wheel’s Design,

I’ve always been surprised that, given the huge number of clues I have found, deciphered and published, apparently nobody has ever taken my information about Bessler’s codes any further.  Of course I realise that without a drawing showing the exact configuration of the internal mechanisms, no one could know exactly how it worked and therefore no drawings have appeared.  

One of the things I revealed was the pentagram hidden in the first drawing in Das Triumphirende. (DT).   I thought that the obvious way forward with that knowledge would be to assume that at least one segment of the pentagram could hold vital information. It does but you have to work at it.  

There are other factors which have to be appreciated and worked out but the information is all there.  There is also vital information in the other three images in (DT).  The image in Apologia Poetica also contained information but was limited to having a pentagram secreted within it.  There are numerous other pieces of information buried within all three of his books, but I don’t include Maschinen Tracte (MT) because it was never published and any encoded stuff was included for discussion purposes among his future students.

Examine the picture below.  It demonstrates what I mean by ‘hidden in plain sight’, a favourite’ technique used by Bessler in many places.  This one appeared in Johann Bessler’s Das Triumpant Orffyrean Perpetual Motion book. It was a second version of the original design which was included in his first booklet, Grundlicher Bericht. There are a few differences between the two versions but mostly I use the second drawing to illustrate my finds.

In the picture note the six columns or pillars, not including the main one supporting the wheel.  The tops of two of them (numbered 4) are drawn in three dimensions, numbered 4, but the other four, numbered 12, are two dimensional and their tops are indicated by my short red lines. The latter act as datum points. The two on either side of the central pillar provide pointers to enlarge the circumference of the wheel. 

The green line which is extended from the left side of the picture and aligns with the centre of the wheel, indicates one of two possible diameter lines. Two lines each drawn 18 degrees apart from the lower end of the green line conform to Euclid’s pentagram construction advice. The yellow line at 18 degrees from the green diameter line crosses the wheels edge at exactly the point where the hidden rope emerges from behind the wheel.

Confirmation is provided by the other two datum points which align with the purple 18-degree line and the hatching lines on the wheel and the capital letter M. If you draw a line similar to the purple line but aligning the left sides of the two red lines, the alignment is perfect with the hash marking in the wheel. I think that both lines finish in the same place but obviously they can’t both do that as well as align perfectly with the hash markings.

Notice that the outer circle now includes the left side of the ‘T’ pendulum, the point of the padlock, and touches the bottom and right edges of the rectangular border of the drawing.

The padlock in this version is numbered 42 instead of 24; a typo?  No, it indicates that the drawing must be turned upside down.  

While we are on that subject,  notice the shadows under the main wheel drawing are shown on the left as they should be, given that the window is above the wheel to the right, but why then are the shadows under the sideways-on wheel shown on the right as if the window was above it on the left, which it clearly isn’t. This tells that the wheel needs to be turned upside down but also from left to right or right left, to create a mirror image which would place the shadows  correctly. The division point where the two half images separate is at the foot of the left hand pillar, numbered 12.

That’s all for now.

JC

Meaningful Numbers?

I know there are some who comment here in this blog on apparently meaningful numbers, relating to Bessler and his wheel.  

Here are some other apparently meaningful numbers -  5, 2, 55

Tomorrow is my 52nd wedding anniversary. 

Next month is my birthday 5th February, another 52

Bessler added two more forenames to give JEEB, alphanumerically 10, 5, 5, 2

Using the Caesar shift as Bessler did gives WRRO, alphanumerically 23, 18, 18 , 15.

The O represents his wheel, the two Rs can be seen supporting the wheel in the picture at the top of this page, notice they point in two different directions to indicate two-way wheels. In confirmation of this the word “RATH” meaning Councillor is written backwards. There other pieces of information hidden in the picture

The W has two purposes; firstly it is composed of two Roman number 5s, a favourite game he played in his many chronograms,  double 5.  Secondly it has an extremely important role in his wheel, enough said for now!

Apologia Poetica was planned as one book, but he added part 2 to defend against his enemy’s accusations. Part one ended with chapter 55. It included a code embedded in this chapter composed of 55 verses.

The 5s relate to the number of mechanisms in his wheel.

The 18s relate to the pentagram/pentacle embedded in his wheel, all of the angles in the pentagram are multiples of the number 18.

The O with its small inner circle is the wheel and axle. “It is also known as a circumpunct, The circumpunct (☉) is an ancient, universal symbol of a dot within a circle, representing concepts like the sun (Ra in Egypt, Apollo), gold (alchemy), God/the divine (Stoicism, Gnosticism), the universe, or a vector pointing outwards. Its meanings vary widely by context, from representing the unity of the cosmos and consciousness to a simple directional sign, making it one of humanity's oldest and most significant symbols”. (Courtesy of google.)

In the picture you can see Karl’s crown overseeing everything.

The two grasses are actually Arundo donax commonly used in organ reeds.  Bessler’s brother, Gottfried helped with thecconstruction of Bessler’s wheel, being an apprenticed organ maker, hence the inclusion of a reference to organs.

D.M.M.P.M I don’t have any confirmation of this, but I guess it stands for Doctor of Mathematics, Medicine, Perpetual Motion.

The number of letters used in the picture number 5 on the left including the central O, but on the right Bessler has cheated by making the double F of Orffyre into one letter, but also conjoined the two letters Y and R of Orffyre into one letter to total 5 including O again.

So I seem to have a numerical connection to Bessler and the timing seems just about right. Of course it’s just a coincidence - isn’t it?

JC

IT’S 2026 - HAPPY NEW YEAR TO MY CONTRIBUTER0

 

I wish all of us the best of luck this year, in our continued quest for the solution to Besslers Wheel.

I joined the Besslerwheel forum on November 5, 2003, and I suspect that in the New Year of 2004 I predicted that the solution Bessler’s wheel would be found in that year.  I also predicted success on this blog in every Happy New Year blog, probably since I started it.  I was always confident and yet beneath my confident manner, I didn’t actually know what the solution was or even if there really was one, but as George Michael sang it “you just gotta have faith!”

So now, when I say that I’m confident that this year, we will learn that there is a solution and I really do know what it is, I won’t disappoint!  I’ve written a complete description of how and why it is the solution, and I’m still working on finishing my Proof-of-Principle model,  which I hope to show working before my 81st Birthday, 5th February.  I am still adding some images to the description, because text is not enough.  When the wheel is finished I’ll post some pictures working or not.  This is the first time in my life, I know have the complete solution and I will share it as soon as possible.

I haven’t done much work on the PoP model, over Christmas, because of other activities.  As well as Christmas and visiting our far-flung family, all gathered up north, I’ve taken my wife to have surgery on a skin cancer on her face, to a hospital about an hour away, five times since the beginning of December.  The last appointment is next Monday and the surgeon has stated that she will have a 99% cure and full recovery.

If the solution is correct or some other person’s is better, or beats me to it, it will only be the second time in the whole of recorded history that the correct configuration has resulted in a working model.  If it’s mine, it will actually be Bessler’s wheel, and it will then be the only one ever recorded.  Yes the design is recorded in the four drawings in Das Triumphirende  (DT) but you just have to work through all the clues to eventually find it.  It’s taken me about 65 years since saw the first picture, although I didn’t start to really examine them until about 2010, 15 years ago.

Best wishes to you all,

JC

MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

 I probably should say Happy Holidays, but I’m in the United Kingdom, a Christian country and my King is head of the church, and I like tradition, so I chose this greeting, but it’s for everyone anyway.

I have plans to share everything I have concerning Johann Bessler’s so-called perpetual motion machine, as soon as possible in the New year 2026.    I am busy refining the text of a document I will be posting,  while trying to put together some quality diagrams showing  the details of the machine I’m building at present.  Knowing and understanding the concept underlying Bessler’s machine, is one thing; putting it together to complete a working model is something else entirely.

All five mechanisms, each with a single weight. are fitted, but I’m adding some refinements not necessary in a professional model.  I’ve had problems with the levers locking up due to over extending and also they are still suffering from lateral looseness.  I hope these additional fixtures will solve the problems.  Once they are working as designed I will add the cords and screw-hooks (instead of pulleys) and release the pent up energy!

JC

Update and Fingers Crossed!

My wheel build is approaching its final iteration and when it’s finished I’ll publish everything. Anyway, I can’t afford to keep my designs to myself much longer, I’ll be 81 next year and who knows what’s around the corner. I can’t swear that it will work, but I believe it will, and if it does …. great! If it doesn’t I’ll post the design and maybe someone else can make it work.

I’m very confidant that I know and understand the basic concept and as far as I can tell, the current configuration fits within that concept and matches Bessler’s machine

I know http://Karl said the mechanism was very simple, but it’s not so easy to design and configure the correct construction, when you haven’t seen it in reality. The last piece of information came to me about two weeks ago and yet the answer was in front of my eyes for many years! My advice to those using his clues to find the solution should examine any puzzling bits of information and try to imagine how they might fit.

There were things that had to be done to improve the actions of the various parts, mostly loosening the stiff nuts to allow some limited lateral motion and then retightening just a little. I have tried to reduce friction but not at the risk of lateral motion interfering with overlapping mechanisms. I’ve already added washers to increase the spaces between the various parts, where their actions overlap adjacent ones. I counter my fears of too much friction by reminding myself that this wheel is supposed to be able to do work, which of course means it should be able overcome minimal friction.

I’ll make the connections via the closed loop screws using my venetian blind cord. The lifted weight has to move quickly, as I demonstrated in my old web site at http://www.besslerswheel.com/ and proved that this was Bessler’s instruction in my web site at https://www.gravitywheel.com/ - and was in agreement with Bessler’s advice.

Even though I believed I’d found the solution a couple of years ago, it has proved extremely difficult to get to this point and I’m still apprehensive that I may have missed something or got it wrong. It’s for this reason I’ve only posted deciphered codes and clues and not pictures of my models. But I have few doubts that this is the right configuration and all that’s needed is to connect the mechanisms and keep my fingers crossed that I’m right.

As I’ve said before; there are five mechanisms with five equal weights and Bessler’s connectedness principle controlling their actions. The cord is always taught and the wheel will be permanently out of balance. I thought I’d proved to everyone that at least five mechanisms were needed, at my old web site, but I cannot say at this time whether eight would work but I would point out Bessler’s hint in MT numbering which I detailed in my website at www.theorffyreuscode.com The Orffyreus Code back in 2009.









There is an oddity about the numbering of the woodcuts in MT. Bessler included the number of each illustration in his woodcuts, like those in the above illustrations. These are present up to and including number 104. They are of a similar style except for the numbers 52, 72, 92 and 102. In each of these cases the number two is drawn to look like a Z. All other examples of the letter two are shown in the usual curved way.

To solve this puzzle we need to look at the identified numbers to see what is special about them with relevance to Bessler. The twos help to point to their accompanying partners, namely 5, 7, 9 and 10. The first and most obvious fact is that the number 5 is identified. The only other numbers are the following odd numbers, 7 and 9. Why would this be done, I wondered. These numbers are similar to those internal angles in the pentagram, namely, 54, 72 and 90, it seems to me that ever since I discovered the pentagon and the ubiquity of the number 5, that Bessler seemed to be suggesting that his wheel would not work with an even number of weights and that 5 was the ideal number. So 7 and 9 weights would also work but it might be difficult to fit in to a wheel. The number 10 might include a double 5, I don’t know?

If you were to use my configuration with an even numbers of weights……it would fail. Bessler tried it with four and it could barely turn.You need to get the message and stop ignoring the elephant in the room - and also please forget the ‘Y’ shaped levers, they weren’t in Bessler’s wheel, and were a product of Ken B’s imagination. The suggestion that Bessler secreted his supposedly lucky number 7 in his drawings is ridiculous, and that’s not just my opinion. There is no evidence that Bessler even thought of the number 7 in any special way - in fact there could be a much stronger argument that 5 fulfilled that role. He was only interested in providing numerous hints and clues to anyone wanting find out how he did it. I think he loved the fact that he had everyone fascinated and mystified by his invention.

So this is my last attempt at completing Bessler’s wheel, after 65 years (if I include the simple balsa wood, glue and ball bearings I began with at the age of 15!). I sincerely believe this is the closest anyone has come to success and even if this fails I believe my explanation revealing how and why it does not conflict with any physical laws will lead to a successful conclusion- a working model of Bessler’s wheel.

I will describe I’ve how believe Bessler’s worked without conflicting with the laws of physics and used the force of gravity.

That’s the plan anyway! I’m trying to get this done and tested before the end of the year. Announcement planned on or about or around New Year’s Day, win or lose!

JC

The Future of Bessler’s Wheel.

Assuming a working model of Bessler’s wheel materialises very soon,  apart from generating electricity, I’m always interested in other potential uses /benefits arising from the design.  The world will be looking for ways to use it.  We have discussed many times the potential for energy generation and there are as many doubters as proponents of the potential for useful electricity generation.  For me it's simply a matter of scale; if you can produce a tiny amount of electricty from a small machine then a bigger one will produce more.  How much bigger the wheel would have to be remains to be seen, but as I have often said, several wheels in series, on one axle obviously has a much larger capacity to produce multiple amounts of power than a single wheel.

There are other possibilities for its use.  In third world dry climates there is the potential to pump water from wells, irrigation of crops, greening of deserts, air-conditioning and refrigeration units.  In cold climates there are a number of ways to produce pwarmth into suitably insulated buildings. But what of the actual mechanical design, might it be adaptable for other mechanisms?

I mentioned many years ago that because a working Bessler wheel would be changing linear motion into rotary motion, there could be potential for using the Bessler mechanism in a similar but alternative way, a reversal of the action.  So a device which converts rotary motion into a linear one. I'm thinking of an inertial thruster but not a reactionless drive.  So the mechanism is driven in reverse by, say, a small electric motor which rotates a disc with a weight on its circumference to produce a linear force on one side of the rotating mechanism.  Such a device mounted on wheels should cause it to move in the direction of the force.  It might even offer a space drive. Who knows if it would work, but logically if Bessler's wheel worked then so should this.

Once the technique Bessler invented is known, better ways of achieving the same thing may well  be invented and his design relegated to the history books, but that is progress and highly desirable. 

JC

Johann Bessler’s Annual Greetings to Karl the Landgrave of Hesse Kassel.

At the beginning of November I posted a ‘curious fact’, about how 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 promised to post photos of all twelve greetings in case anyone wanted to study them and see if they could find evidence that there was hidden information in them.  The quality is not good but at least they are in public view and perhaps copies of the originals can be obtained.

The quality is not brilliant but you can enlarge them and maybe find the key to unravelling any kind of information hidden in the page.  I might be wrong of course in which case these pages can remain available for future consideration or not.

Anyway I’ve wanted to publish these for a long time. Good luck.

JC

                                                                     JC

My Interesting Career up to and Including Bessler

Following recent comments about my suggested Bessler codes and my interpretations of them, here is a brief resume indicating my expertise and experience in this field of research.

Having studied Bessler and his history for many years before I wrote a biography about him, I self-published it on the internet.

My first web site went up in January 1997, 28 years ago.  I wasn’t very computer literate then and I was helped by my son-in-law who did have a degree in this very early days of computers and the internet.  Here’s a screen shot from the wayback machine.

After that I posted a number of web sites, each including unique information about Bessler.  Eventually I had to let some of them lapse as they were proving too expensive to maintain.  I obtained every scrap of documentation connected with Bessler, including his publications, and found a fascinating polymath with an incredibly eclectic range of interests and abilities who kindly translated everything I threw at him.  Mike was a genius but unfortunately no longer with us. It is to him we all owe our thanks and I would ask you all to recognise and realise thst every quotation you use from this subject and published me, was originally translated by Mike.

The other web sites still active are listed below and if you wish to know more I recommend you visit each.

One more thing; the search box at the top of the right hand panel is a good way to find and read any posts I’ve made on a subject.  For instance, ‘pentagram’, ‘Five’, ‘golden ratio’, ‘137’,I ‘codes’ to mention just a few.  Each page comes complete with all the comments.

I began my interest at age fifteen, but did not get into research until I was about 30.  I joined the British Library and had my first experience of actually handling a copy of ‘Das Triumphirende’ (DT). I knew Bessler’s own hands had touched the book where my hands had. Subsequently, during a visit Karlshafen I managed to buy a copy of that book!

I was in the BSAP for two years, before joining the RAF for seven years as an aircraft engine fitter before moving to the British Aircraft Corporation where I worked on the Concord. Later I became a consultant engineer.

I’ve been interviewed on the radio several times,  mostly  in the U.K., although I did experience a memorable interview on a Redneck radio.  Also I was flown to Rome by RAI 1 TV, to take part in a discussion about Bessler, and which was broadcast as a documentary.  I did not perform well as the discussion was in Italian and the ‘experts’ all spoke in Italian!

The following web sites contain much information and are well worth a visit.

Besslerswheel.com………………….my hypothesis

The Orffyreus Code. Com…………..a few of the real codes deciphered

orffyreus.net/ chapter 55 decoded…chapter 55 in DT, partially decoded.

Bessler’s Windmill …………………the extant ruins of the original windmill.

https://www.gravitywheel.com/…….where I’ll post a successful wheel, 

………………………………………or the remnants of my failure!

https://youtu.be/5BWVKtpuzn0…….my old YouTube video about Bessler’s wheel.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LpCRxk4YPaI …………the Italian documentary.

JC

Read My Hypothesis On Johann Bessler’s Wheel.

Over the last few years I have tended to spend a lot of time and effort in finding Johann Bessler’s clues and seeking the correct meaning and intention.  I hoped that armed with as  much information as possible and shared as widely as possible, I or some other person or persons would finally find the solution and share it worldwide.  At this time the numerous ways of spreading this kind of information could not be better, thanks to the internet and all its variants.

I know I’ve come in for a bit of stick for not sharing my designs but hopefully my work on this old website will prove interesting. Click on each button on the left side of the page for more information.

www.besslerswheel.com

So in  2009 I began this blog and the following year I published my latest thinking about Bessler’s wheel.   Since 2009 my blog has managed to publish 869 posts and receive 30958 comments, 2862932 views.  I also made a YouTube video about Bessler in 2009 Viewed 19321 times.

The numbers look impressive until you realise they cover 15 years or so!

Fifteen years ago, I published some of my  ideas about how I thought Johann Bessler’s perpetual motion machine worked.  You can read them on my website at www.besslerswheel.com.  Back then, I had some interesting thoughts and I tried to express them with what I thought were valid points and apart from several details, I have more or less continued to support them.

My apologies for the fact that the text slightly overlaps its boundaries which makes it necessary to move it with two fingers in order to read the whole line, sometimes.  This happens on my iPad but not my laptop. I’m trying to alter the boundaries of the text but it’s not so simple.  

Briefly, I will first mention the words Bessler used to describe his machine thus, “according to the laws of perpetual motion, so arranged that certain disposed weights once in rotation, gain force from their own swinging, and must continue their movement as long as their structure does not lose its position and arrangement”

I will also point out that MT contains two illustrations containing swings.  MT 85 and 86.

You will discover my reason for sticking to the need for five mechanisms.

It was I, who introduced the ancient art of “kiiking” to the world of Bessler, as a curiosity. Just google the word “kiiking”.

You can read my theories on how Bessler’s wheel worked, they have moved on a bit since 2010, but I still believe they hold the key to success.

JC

Did Johann Bessler Find Another Place to Secure His Coded information?

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

A Brief Reminder About Bessler’s Machinen Tractate - The Toys Page.

I think most of us are familiar with Bessler’s Maschinen Tractate (MT) and in particular the ‘Toys’ page and its curious numbering.  At the foot of the page the numbers 138, 139,140 and 141.   This totals 558. The 55 seems a popular number for Bessler, but what of the 8?  Well the three numbers in 558 total 18 and that is the basic number in the pentagram, all the angles are multiples of 18.  So that might be his intention., but later we’ll see further information about this suggestion.

MT 137 comes just before the toys page, as it should, but before that is MT 136 which contains a mechanical construction and is the last figure containing any such thing.  MT137 shows a duodecagram, which is easily identified as circles of fifths, a well-known term used in musical theory. It is believed to point to the importance of the number 5. It also reveals the reason for the choice of number MT137.

Below is the image MT137, with the number 5 linked to 12.  

On a clock face the time at 5 o’clock looks like the image below.

The angles between the hands is shown in the picture below.

Thus we see the reason for numbering MT137 as he did.  

We can also see that he also embeds the golden ratio or mean as described by Fibonacci and Plato, in the picture below. This version comes from Euclid, 300BC.

To inscribe an equilateral and equiangular pentagon in a given circle….”

It seems as though Bessler intended there to be 141 images but having hidden or destroyed many of them that  revealed the secret of his machine he was attempting to fill in the gap between his last image of a mechanical construction, MT136, and the Toys page image to total 141.  But there was more to this than meets the eye. What  other reasons might there be for choosing to accentuate the number141 ?  Why else load the last image (the “Toys” page) and add four numbers to the bottom of the page?

The only factors of 141 are 3 and 47, and I’ve shown how Bessler embedded Euclid’s 47 th proposition describing how to construct a pentagram.  So was this yet another hint.

See the image below, of the Toys page.

The items are lettered ABCDE, but C and D appear twice.  To add to the confusion there is a plainly written 5, which might match the five lettered images but doesn’t seem to as there is rough drawing of a spinning top, lacking its string pull.  Confusing?

Splitting the drawings into five parts reveals some information.  In each division in 'A', you can see, drawn vertically, two uprights surmounted by a single one.. They bear a striking resemblance to the figures labelled 'C' and 'D', which are shown horizontally.  But why two 'C' and 'D's?  I think only one hammer is needed in 'C' plus the parallel rods.  The same in 'D' but the hammer used is rotated around the other way to point outwards or to the left, because of the spirals and it also lacks arms.

So for me ‘C’ is an active part at the same time ‘D’ is passive.  ‘A’ shows ‘C’ figures connected by a single rope or cord when ‘C’ falls it pulls ‘D’ up.

The item marked 'E' is the storks-bill, lazy tongs, scissor jacks or whatever you prefer to call them.  Item '5' is a spinning top, just in case no one makes the connection that this is all about a rotating device.  Without its cord or string it can’t work, just the same the other items on the Toys page. Maybe he’s suggesting the missing string, is present in Item ‘A’?

Item ‘B’ in my opinion represents the storks bill looked at from above with the alternate blobs showing the pins holding the storks bill together.  Looking along the drawing the red lines connect two of the outer pins and two inner ones plus one more for the weight.

The top end of item ‘A’ shows the weight attached to the end of a lever.  It shows two positions; one when the storks bill is closed and shortened;  the other with the storks bill extended.

JC

Don’t Just Simulate, You’ve got to Fabricate.!

 

Looking back I see I wrote something along the lines of this post back in 2009, 2012, 2019 and 2022!  Why am I so hooked on making working models, after all a working model can be simmed and will be if one ever materialises? 

But a suggestion on the Bessler wheel forum yesterday prompted me to re-examine my model and I saw a simple but crucial error that I  might have missed on a sim.

Anthony (a newbie) has this signature “it’s not where you see the weights on the wheel that matters, its where the wheel (FEELS) the weights thats important”.  Now that is a fact I learned so long ago that I almost forgot how important it is.

Imagine you place pendulum on a wheel with its pivot just below the axle, so the weight hangs downwards.  If you rotate the wheel a few degrees clockwise, the pendulum rotates anti-clockwise relative to the wheel.  The pivot bears the weight of the pendulum and as long as the pendulum moves relative to the wheel, the weight is pulling down on the pivot.

But if you place a stop in the path of the pendulum forcing it to stop and remain motionless, the weight is no longer felt on the pivot, but rather where the weight actually is, resting against the stop. 

As soon as the pendulum is free to move again the weight is again felt at the pivot.

The error I found was a simple mistake. A supporting rod I had fitted into the mechanism was too short,  meaning the part it was supporting did not have its pivot close enough to the axle to gain a big enough advantage?  Unless you keep the fact mentioned in Antony’s signature in mind you might not even realise you’ve overlooked it.  Like I did!  

Actually I didn’t forget about it, but I was so intent on correcting what I saw as an unnecessarily long lever in a drawing, I  shortened it too much.

JC

Did Bessler’s Perpetual Motion Machine Arrive Before ItsTime?

There has been some discussion about the potential power available from Bessler’s wheel.  Comparisons have been made between the Merseburg wheel and the Kassel wheel.  The two wheels were of a similar diameter but the Kassel wheel was 18 inches thick compared with the Merseburg wheel’s 12 inches.  The Kassel wheel, which turned more slowly than its predecessor, the Merseburg wheel, was designed to complete a long endurance test, of over one month of continuous rotation, which it easily achieved.  Clearly a slower speed of rotation would withstand wear and tear to a greater degree than a faster rotation.  The design had to be modified to achieve the slower rotation speed but the machine was still able to lift similar weights to previous machines and I suggest the extra thickness of the wheel satisfied this need.

Bessler wrote that he could make wheels of greater or smaller size and with various speeds.  He went on to suggest that the useful output of the machine could be multiplied by increasing the size of the interior workings, or by making wheels of up to 20 ells in diameter, about 37 feet! In 1700, John Rowley built a tidal wheel to pump water from the Thames to the Royal family at Windsor which measured 24 foot long by 12 foot high, so Bessler’s estimate was quite possible.  An alternative number of identical wheels could be mounted on a single axle thus multiplying the power of the resulting assembly many times.

These suggestions make good sense, so deriding the potential power possible from Bessler’s wheel without considering how one might increase the output and versatility of this remarkable invention seems like “throwing the baby out with the bath water”, an old German proverb.

Bessler’s suggestion that his wheel could help pump water from water flooded mines was never developed due to the Newcomen steam engine, but increasing the power of his wheel was never examined due to the distrust built up by the maid’s false accusations.

This does raise the question, what could have his perpetual motion machine be used for?  He suggested mills, and irrigation but satisfactory alternatives were in daily use and there was little call for his invention to be brought in to test the market.  Of course electricity generation would have provided an excellent use for his machine, but he was about 300 years too early! But not now - the time is right, with global warming, pollution from fossil fuels, lack of affordable, low tech ways of generating  electricity Bessler’s wheel is needed today.

JC

Johann Bessler’s Coded Secret Information is Ignored.

I expect everyone knows I believe Bessler’s wheel had five mechanisms.  Before you move on and dismiss what I’m going to write, just hang on for a moment.  I’m satisfied with my current and long held belief for excellent reasons, the majority of which you don’t know.

Imagine you are Bessler and you have this amazing secret which you believe is worth a fortune, but you can’t tell anyone anything about it, because you want to sell it first.  You decide that you are going to publish details of the secret but hidden in such a way that no one will ever find out unless you reveal the way to decipher it.  You believe that there are three possible outcomes.

Firstly you sell the machine and it’s secret and you decipher all the ciphers and publish the coded information and the world will gradually realise how exceedingly clever you have been.

Secondly, you never find a buyer and you die with the secret intact.  But you have sold many copies of your books.  You have inserted various comments that the books contain secret information about the Perpetual Motion machine and a clever person can study the books and eventually decipher the clues and discover the secret.

Lastly, someone else discovers the same solution and publishes it.  You prove your priority by demonstrating the clues and codes published in your three books containing all the information, from years before.

It wasn’t just the money he wanted, Johann Bessler sought recognition, which is why he went to so much trouble encoding information in various ways, adding secondary codes for confirmation in many places.  He stated that he would rather die without having sold his secret, than just give it away.

To continue imagining you are seeing things as if you were Bessler; before you even go public with your invention, you have planned everything.  First you adopt a pseudonym, but it’s not just an assumed name, it’s a clever contrivance, ostensibly to disguise your real name, but actually since everyone knows your real name, it appears to be a stage name.  Simple codes were in popular use at the time, and it was very obvious that Bessler chose an easily deciphered code name, using a well known code such as the Caesar shift, to call himself Orffyreus.

Why?  Because the use of a simple code in his assumed name, plus the few words of encouragement to readers of his books to search for the encoded secret, was intended to make people like myself and others, search for the coded information and decipher it. Exactly what we have been trying to do for many years.

At the end of the day, we know that Bessler invented a way to obtain continuous rotation enabled by the force of gravity.  We know he left secret information which was designed to show us how his machine worked.  Why on earth would we ignore this wealth of clues and codes and hints and struggle onwards dismissing this treasure trove of information?

I’ll post some of the clues I’ve uncovered and deciphered in another post, most of which I haven’t shared before.

JC

Latest News about Bessler’s Wheel Reconstruction.

My version of Johann Bessler’s perpetual motion machine, his “wheel” as many people refer to it, proceeds at a snail’s pace, seemingly! But in fact it still proceeds. The main problem, apart from my procrastination, is constantly having to revise the five completed mechanisms. Yes I’m confident that there has to be five mechanisms.

I’ve said before that the mechanisms needed to be rearranged in order to stop them interacting with each other, or more often sticking during their action. There is a small amount of lateral motion which causes two pieces to bump into each other. I’ve tried bending the levers a small amount to force them away from their nearest part but that is not effective. But this lateral motion can be reduced by tightening the locking or stiff nuts holding the parts together. But tightening them reduces the ease with which they rotate about their pivots. However, including thin, rigid but wider washers has improved things.

To explain how and why this happens is difficult to do without picture, but at this point so close to the finish, I’m unwilling to use a picture, at least not until either I’ve finished or run out of options. One way to imagine it is to think of each of the assembled mechanisms as being in two or three layers, sometimes one layer operating above or below another. What I’ve been doing is swapping some layers so that, for instance the top layer has been placed below the others and this seems to have improved things.

So once again I am back at my previous point, and I have to install the ten pulleys or screw eyes, to feed the cord through so that as one weighted lever falls it lifts the another fallen weighted lever. All cords are under tension which is a vital feature to provide continuous motion.

JC

Overunity or Perpetual Motion or…..Underunity?

People sometimes suggest that Perpetual Motion (PM) is an example of Over-Unity and it seems implied that there is a difference.  But what does it mean?  Obviously the two terms are meant to refer to Bessler’s wheel, but when I google it I’m given this. 

“Over-unity refers to a hypothetical device or system that produces more energy output than its energy input, a concept that contradicts the fundamental law of conservation of energy, which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed. Claims of over-unity devices often involve hidden energy sources, misinterpretations of efficiency, or pseudoscientific explanations, leading to their widespread rejection by the scientific community. While true over-unity is considered impossible, the underlying concept reflects a desire to find new energy sources beyond conventional ones.”

So it’s obviously impossible.

Here’s another definition, “ From over- +‎ unity (the number "1”, referring to the fact that an over-unity device should produce more kinetic energy than whatever potential it receives as input. Coined to avoid patent rules that prevent impossible technologies such as perpetual motion machines being patented.”

Cunning, but it’s still wrong.  The idea that a “device should produce more kinetic energy than what ever potential it receives as input”, is obviously wrong because it still violates the conservation of  energy principle. Let’s reconsider this idea.

If Bessler’s wheel was, as he claimed it to be, a perpetual motion device and the weights it apparently contained, were enabled to fall by gravity.  I note that  Bessler referred to his machine, using the expression “per se”. There are several nuanced definitions of this phrase but the meaning my original translator opined was “like or similar to, a perpetual motion machine”; or even “as if it it were a PM”. It seems to me to imply that Bessler understood the reluctance in the scientific world to accept the possibility of a PM machine and hinted at its similarity if not the actuality.  In other words it could run continuously with no input of energy other than that supplied by gravity to the weights.

Another impossibility?  Not necessarily, because all potential configurations have not been discovered, other than by Bessler.

I asked myself two questions. Was the falling weight the initiator of the beginning of rotation? Or was it the built-in imbalance already present in the wheel? It doesn’t matter actually, because we know the wheel would begin to rotate as soon as the brake was released.  Could the wheel begin to rotate, even before a single weight fell, if so then the wheel must have been out-of-balance, regardless of where it stopped? But that would not rule out the action of a falling weight contributing to the start of rotation even after it had been brought to a halt.  Where it landed must have created an imbalance and the start or continuation of rotation.

Maybe we should reverse the over-unity idea?

Consider this.  The only energy available is that produced by either imbalanced or falling weights. That’s all there is.  Configure the device to spend less of the kinetic energy that it received as potential energy and yet still be able sustain rotation.  Therefore it would need to generate enough potential energy from the kinetic energy it receives to rotate the wheel and yet still have some left to raise one weight sufficiently to rotate the wheel a little, to reset the wheel

Bessler told us this, “ a great craftsman would be he who, as one pound falls a quarter, causes four pounds to shoot upwards four quarters.”  This is one Bessler’s more devious clues.  What Bessler sought to do was to tell us what to do but disguise it from the casual reader; however it has turned out more difficult than perhaps he anticipated.

Note that within the quote he mentions that there are five weights, one plus four, and each one is equal to one pound.  Secondly, one pound falls a quarter.  How do we define what he meant by a quarter? In this case he was referring to a clock - something he also embedded invisibly in the first drawings in both Grundlicher Bericht and Das Triumphirende - and a quarter of an hour or fifteen minutes covers 90 degrees.  But how could this single right angle fall cause “ four pounds to shoot upwards four quarters”? 

In the first  part of this riddle the word ‘quarter', referred to, not just 90 degrees but also to a clock.  In the second part the word ‘quarter' also refers to a clock but this time he has confused us by using the words ‘four quarters’. ‘Four quarter’s equals ‘one whole hour’.  Each hour on a clock is divided into 30 degrees, so the words ‘four quarters’ meaning ‘one hour’ as used here equals thirty degrees.  To paraphrase Bessler’s words, “a great craftsman would be he who, as one pound falls 90 degrees, causes each of the other four pounds to shoot upwards 30 degrees.”  

You might think the 30 degree suggestion is wrong, but it is not, he alludes, silently, to this particular piece of information in two drawings.

That still didn’t show us where the extra energy which was sufficient to shoot each of the four remaining pounds in turn, upwards 30 degrees, and why was it only 30 degrees?

I know the answer and I will share it very soon and I can tell you that I’ve never seen this exact concept suggested or tested before.  I’ve almost finished my last attempt to build Bessler’s wheel, and I should know very soon if it works or not. I’m confident that I have the correct solution, but as I’ve said before, I’m not happy with the build quality!

JC