Update - personal and impersonal

Had my hernia op last Saturday and I was released to go home the same day.  No heavy lifting for six weeks!  Funniest piece of advice I received was don't sign any legal document during the first 48 hours.  Apparently one's judgement can be seriously affected.  I had a slightly iffy reaction to either the anaesthetic or the morphine and kept having to be told to breathe!  Body temperature went down  34 degrees C, which is equivalent to 93.2 F.  Brought me this thing called a bear hug - brilliant!  Soon brought my temperature up to normal.

We will move out of this house in about two weeks and stay with my daughter until our new house is ready.  It's not really new, but we are getting an old one renovated and then things can return to normal, but until then no wheel work can be attempted, because I aint got anywhere to do it! Verification has turned into a collaboration for now, so I guess some will say it's failed but hang in there for bit longer, and all will be revealed.

I read many theories, mostly old ones rehashed on BW forum, and some which I know are so wrong, and yet you have admire people who keep on trying to get the answer.  Pet theories abound, and that name explains it all, "pet" theories - someone's favourite explanation, to many of us, seems completely bananas.

My own theories seem to me to be the epitome of logic and common sense, but they can't be if they don't work.  Doubtless if my work is not verified soon, once it's published there will be some who will dismiss it without the slightest consideration - but one thing I am confident about is this; when the work I've done on deciphering a large number of clues is published, it will provoke much discussion and I think that someone will take my work forward and succeed.

Once we are out of here and settled with my daughter I will try to entertain with more interesting topics for this blog, but until then there is so much to do, it leaves little time for writing.

My account of the clues I have discovered and solved is comng along and I cannot wait to share the amazing work that Bessler did in revealing so much information right there, under our eyes, without anyone suspecting that there was anything to see.  I guarantee you will be amazed.

JC

Weights and measures relating to Bessler's wheel; what to use and what to leave.

It is a curious fact that many people seem bent on designing and building their Bessler-wheels whilst labouring under the misapprehension that picking weights and measures relating to any one or more of the wheels, from a variety of sources without applying simple logic to the process, is sure to result in success.

Some insist that there were eight weights or eight mechanisms.  This figure arose from the report by Fischer von Erlac to J.T. Desaguliers, Sir isaac Newton's curator of experiments.  Doubtless the writer recorded accurately what he thought he heard and perhaps he was correct, but these figures applied to the mighty Kassel wheel, one that was able to turn in either direction. The problem as I see it is that this was a far more complicated wheel to build, as Bessler himself admitted. 

Why would anyone hoping to repeat Bessler's success begin with the most complex wheel ever built?  The logical starting point would be to try to copy his first wheel, or even the second one.  Each of these started spontaneously and only turned one way.

A lot of people have suggested that perhaps Bessler preloaded the wheel to make it start spontaneously as soon as the brake was released.  This is an example of picking and choosing what to believe and what to discard when considering Bessler's claims or the reports about his wheel and its performance.  If you believe Bessler's wheels were genuine, and you accept many of the things he said or were reported about the wheel, why would you then reject other parts of the record, simply because you don't believe it or you think it was a trick designed to impress a gullible audience.

Take his first wheel for example.  4.6 feet in diameter; thickness about 4 inches, speed unloaded 50 RPM.  Always began to rotate as soon as its brake was released.

Second wheel; 9.3 feet in diameter. thickness 6 inches; speed umloaded more than 50 RPM.  This one was mounted on a six inch axle.

Utterly different sizes yet output speed about the same.  The same speed might indicate a more powerful lift in the second one, but we don't know.  What we do know is that the third and fourth wheels were bi-directional and needed a gentle push to get them rotating, from which start they steadily accelerated.

It seems obvious to me at least that there must have been major differences between the two versions.  Not in the basic concept that enabled them to take advantage of gravity, but in their individual configurations, in which case it simply does not make sense to use the information about second type of wheel to make the earlier version.

I have suggested that the first thing that might have occurred to Bessler to prove that his wheels weren't clockwork driven, was to make them able to turn in either direction.  To me the logical first step would be to see what would happen if he mounted two wheels on the same axle, each designed to turn the opposite way.  I'm sure this is what he did.  I carried out a similar experiement myself but with two Savonius windmills mounted on the same vertical axle and the result was exactly similar to Bessler's experience.  The Savonius windmills spun im different directions when detached from each other, beginning to spin as soon as the wind from the fan hit them.  But when they were linked, they remained stationary; they needed a slight push and then they began to spin in which ever direction the push came from, but they were unable to achieve much more than half the speed they spun when separated.

So why try to build a dual direction wheel within one wheel when two opposing ones were used by Bessler.  Obviously this is just my opinion but I believe that this is correct.  The Kassel wheel rotated at 26 RPM, less than half the speed of the first two wheels, just as my Savonius windmills did.  But there is a fly in the ointment; the Merseberg wheel, his third one, was also dual directional but it achieved a speed of 40 RPM.  This demonstrates again that you cannot make any assumptions about the size and number of weights, even though we have Christian Wolff's estimate of four pounds for one weight, we have no idea how many there were.  We simply do know what differences formed part of each wheel.  

So keep it simple, try to build a one way wheel capable of turning up to 50 RPM, which starts to turn spontaneously as soon as it's brake is released.  Forget the number of weights which Fischer von Erlach is supposed to have heard, that was a different wheel with potentially a reversing set of weights making additional sounds. Recently I have seen ideas suggested which involved using eight weights to represent the eight planets supposed to have been known about in Bessler's time; it doesn't matter how many planets there are or were; it has nothing to do with Bessler's wheel.

We know that cross-bars, weights and pulleys were used in the wheels, because Bessler said so.  The presence of pulleys suggests rope or some other flexible material was present too.  He implied that there were springs although he didn't say so definitely, which to me says that some kind of spring was present but there are several different ways of using springs as well as many different kinds.

Finally, my own research suggests that Karl, the Landgrave who examined the interior of the Kassel wheel, was overly optimistic when he said that the interior was so simple a carpenter's boy could copy it if allowed a short time to study it. 

JC

Update - Verification Still Pending.

One of my hypothesis evaluations came back with a high approval rating but, as he put it, without a working model it's still so much hot air.  He was more convinced by the concept than the actual configuration, citing areas of conflict which he believed required further work, but which he thought could be overcome successfully.  That opinion was backed up by my second evaluator.  He has proved really useful, simulating the design on his computer and pointing out where deficiencies lie.  Even though I thought I'd covered everything there were still further clues to be deciphered but I've found them and interpreted them and revised the document and I think progress is being made.

These responses to my hypothesis make me glad that I got some feedback before publishing it.  I know that people will say 'publish it and let everyone do their own work on it', but the closer it is to the answer the less likely people are to reject it with out further consideration.

With the house move taking up so much time, any chance of getting back to work on my wheel is becoming vanishingly small.  The hypothesis document relates most of the design to specific clues I have deciphered and which  seem to be theoretically verifiable, but without the working model I am stumped hence the need for publication of my efforts and to let others try to build it.

The idea of publishing my findings is still uppermost in my mind but a book detailing everything is a strong possibility too, even if my current efforts don't lead to a working model, somewhere.  The book would obviously include the design as well, in order to relate the clues to specific parts of the design.  It's almost like duplicating the hypothesis document but in a lengthier form and would need to include all the textual clues as well. But if I include those pieces of text which relate to clues I have deciphered, how do I engage anyone not familiar with the legend of Bessler's wheel, if they are simply extracted from the original book, out of context? I don't know the answer so I will just publish what I have so far, once I have the final word from my other evaluator.

A simple question on BW forum reminded me of the importance of getting what any of us know, out into the wide world.  The queston is , " If Someone Discovered How To Do It, Would You Be Angry?"  This question or similar ones have arisen before and my answer is the same now as it was on the previous occasions - no.  Why would I be angry?  I'd be pleased because my efforts to inform the world of all things Bessler would see fruit and blossom.   

That someone else should succeed before me - or any of us - is obviously a daily possibility and therefore one I have considered many times over the years and my considered response has always been, good let's get these things out to the world at large so they can start doing some good. And that also applies to hesitating to publish what I know.  Why have I delayed for so long?  Obviously my priimary reason was to try to finish my own version of Bessler's wheel, but time is racing by - it does at my age as others will verify.  So as soon as I can I will ...................... publish!!

Things move slowly here.  Still in my old house; still haven't found a new one, although it is early in the year for people to put their houses up for sale.  So I must just wait.  We should be out of here in the next two or three weeks and living with one of my daughters and her husband and our youngest grandaughter plus Coco, the golden lab.   Then who knows?  Maybe we'll rent for a month or two in sunnier climes.

Next Saturday I have to go into hospital for a hernia operation, my second one.  My first was at age seven and this second one will be at age 71! No lifting for a couple of weeks afterwards so I don't know who is going to do all the work moving house!

JC

Update - My Hypothesis is being Evaluated.

Owing to the imminent (I hope!) house move, my work on my wheel has been suspended for now.  Maybe I will return to it once we have moved. In the mean time, I have at last finished the document I was writing, in which I lay out in detail my hypothesis about how Bessler's wheel worked.

If I had anticipated what would it would take to describe what was in the wheel and how it worked and which bits related to Bessler's clues, and how many drawings I have to make, well,  I might have gone with the simpler idea of a video of a working wheel.  But that has not materialised to date, possibly because I am wrong but also due to my limited manufacturing skills and equipment.  Yes I know, plenty of excuses for not producing the required evidence!  So now I have put my money where my mouth is, or something to that effect.

I have sent copies of the document to two people for whom I have the utmost trust and respect, and they are attempting to find something positive in my ramblings.  Actually I have tried not to ramble too much about the hypothesis, cutting it down to a minimum and eliminating unecessary verbiage, and yet the result is a document barely contained in 35 pages with 21 illustrations.

This has given me pause for thought, it's amazing that Bessler managed to hide so much information inside two publications?  Of course I suppose you could more than halve my document because much of it has to relate to Bessler's clues and my interpretation of them.  I suspect that chapter 55 of Apologia Poetica contains the text which describes how his wheel worked and perhaps once his wheel has been proved by someone, work will begin in earnest to wrest the information from Bessler's coded version.  

So now I wait, and the longer it takes the better, in my opinion.  I don't want to hear that they have dismissed my hypothesis too easily, but I'm open minded about the result.  When you have obssessed about something for as long as I have, it's hard to get an objective view of the picture.  A fresh pair of eyes will doubtless see through the mass of speculation and find the truth - positive or negative, I don't worry any more.  It has actually been something of a relief to at last share what I know and ultimately get some feedback.

I'm 71 next Friday, a good day for good news!

JC

The Legend of Johann Bessler's Wheel.

I have replaced my usual blog with a brief account of the legend of Bessler's wheel.  I'm currently unable to maintain the frequency of my blog due to commitments which are keeping me exceedingly busy!  Once I have found and bought my house, I shall return to the blog plus I shall have published my interpretation of a large number of Bessler's clues, none of which relate to Bessler's portraits.

4th April 2016

JC

The legend of Bessler’s Wheel began on 6th June 1712, when Johann Bessler announced that he had invented a perpetual motion machine and he would be exhibiting it in the town square in Gera, Germany, on that day.  Everyone was free to come and see the machine running.  It took the form of a wheel mounted between two pillars and ran continuously until it was stopped or its parts wore out. The machine attracted huge crowds.  Although they were allowed to examine its external appearance thoroughly, they could not view the interior, because the inventor wished to sell the secret of its construction for the sum of 10,000 pounds – a sum equal to several millions today.

News of the invention reached the ears of high ranking men, scientists, politicians and members of the aristocracy.  They came and examined the machine, subjected it to numerous tests and concluded that it was genuine. Only one other man, Karl, the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, was allowed to view the interior and he testified that the machine was genuine. He is a man well-known in history as someone of the greatest integrity, and  the negotiations between Bessler and Karl took place against a background in which Karl acted as honest broker between the warring nations of Europe; a situation which required his absolute rectitude both in appearance and in action.

There were several attempts to buy the wheel, but negotiations always failed when they reached an impasse – the buyer wished to examine the interior before parting with the money, and the inventor fearing that once the secret was known the buyer would simply leave without paying and make his own perpetual motion machine, would not permit it.  Sadly, after some thirty years or more, the machine was lost to us when the inventor fell to his death during construction of another of his inventions, a vertical axle windmill.

However, the discovery of a series of encoded clues has led many to the opinion that the inventor left instructions for reconstructing his wheel, long after his death.  The clues were discovered during the process of investigating the official reports of the time which seemed to rule out any chance of fraud, hence the  interest in discovering the truth about the legend of Bessler’s wheel.

My own curiosity was sparked by the realisation that an earlier highly critical account by Bessler's maid-servant, which explained how the wheel was fraudulently driven, was so obviously flawed and a lie, that I was immediately attracted to do further research. In time I learned that there was no fraud involved, so the wheel was genuine and the claims of the inventor had to be taken seriously.

The tests which the wheel was subjected to involved lifting heavy weights from the castle yard to the roof, driving an Archimedes water pump and an endurance test lasting 56 days under lock and key and armed guard.  Bessler also organised demonstrations involving running the wheel on one set of bearings opened for inspection – and then transferring the device to a second set of open bearings, both sets having been examined to everyone’s satisfaction, both before, after and during the examination.

So the only problem is that modern science denies that Bessler's wheel was possible, but my own research has shown that this conclusion is wrong.  There is no need for a change in the laws of physics, as some  have suggested, we simply haven't covered every possible scenario in the evaluating the number of possible configurations.

I have produced copies of all Bessler's publications, with English translations.  They can be obtained by clicking on the appropriate links on the right.

JC

2016 Update

Still working on my wheel in the garage, despite the imminent move from this house to another one.

Recent discussion on BW forum mentioned, once again, that  nothing on paper will convince anyone of any claims to have found the solution to Johann Bessler's wheel.  This has been my stance for many years and now I find myself having to (possibly) eat my words!  I have some how convinced myself that I know how the wheel worked blah blah blah!  

So making the wheel would obviously be the next step, but all sorts of excuses are available - the house-move is restricting my time and access to the wheel; my workshop tools are out-dated, suffering like me from old age; my drill has seized up and I should buy a new one but I borrowed my father-in-laws old one which has been lying in a pool of water for the last seven years and I am nervous about plugging it into the electricity, so it continues dry out on a radiator!  Its too cold to work out side at the moment . . . . .and so on and so on.  

All of these excuses are real (Really! Honestly!) so I am considering the other ways of getting my design verified.  I have an idea which way to go, so please don't feel the need to advise, I have plans but in the mean time I must try to continue the build and hope for warmer weather, and do not worry I shall not be testing the water-logged drill, I shall dump it at the earliest opportunity and buy myself a shiny new one.

**********************************************

I wrote this a couple of weeks ago and since then I have made my decision about my next step.  I left the above as it is because I think we all go through these procrastinatory steps and I thought it worthwile to describe it for the benefit of those lucky people equipped with superb workshops and all the right equipment and no lazy habits which lead to dilatory outcomes.

In the end I have solemly promised that, come what may, my theory will be published this year, wheel or no wheel.  And because a paper hypothesis would be ignored I am taking steps to marshall some impressive supporting evidence for my hypothesis which hopefully will not be ignored.  But in the end a wheel must appear.. . this year.

JC

It's About Time for Bessler's Wheel to make an Appearance.

As I'm sure you all know, I'm Bessler's biggest fan, but I think that when he set out to market his wheel he must have found it difficult to list the many benefits he hoped it could offer.  He suggested raising heavy loads up the sides of high buildings; pumping water out of flooded mines; driving a carrilon; pumping air into a submarine; crushing rocks etc.  Not a real attention-grabbing list! The truth is the wheel represented little more than a novelty item, mostly attractive to rich princes and just the kind thing that Andreas Gärtner - his number one enemy - had made a career out of, making novelty toys for his ruler.

Bessler's wheel could never have pumped water out of the mines.  Thomas Newcomen's beam engine had it beaten before it started.  The Newcomen Beam Engine at Elsecar in Yorkshire, England, ran from 1795 until 1923 when is was replaced by Electric Pumps. It also ran briefly in 1928 when the electric pumps were overwhelmed by flooding. At its peak it could draw 600 gallons a minute from a depth of almost 200 feet.

Newcomen's engine were heavy users of coal at around 12 to 20 tons per day.  Cheap enough when it was used in a coal mine but expensive to run in Cornwall's copper and tin mines.  But although the running costs were prohibitive they were regarded as a worthwhile expense.

Besslers's wheel, on the other hand, equired an enormous initial cost and then no return to speak of, regardless of how large it was.  The implication was that a larger version of his wheel would do even more work than the Kassel wheel. In fact some people regard Bessler's suggestion that his wheel could easily be built to 20 feet and more in diameter and have several wheels in series on one axle, with considerable scepticism.  They think that that was too big and could not be built at the time, but consider John Rowley's tidal wheel for pumping water from the river Thames to Windsor Palace which measured "twenty-four foot diameter and twelve foot broad; for the new brass engine with brasses to the crank, forcing rods," etc, and of course the mighty Newcomen engine itself, whose balance beam measured, in some cases twenty feet or more in length and over a foot thick, with a weight of several tons.  The whole thing housed in a specially built and strengthened building.  That was large.

So Bessler was, as we have noted before, some 300 years ahead of his time.  There was no point in producing a machine for which there was little demand. Newcomen's machine were made in their hundreds all over Europe in the 18th century and despite their heavy consumption of coal regarded as  indispensable for removing flood water from mines.

The truth is there was no real interest in buying Bessler's wheel, disregarding the fact that it was suspected of being a scam, it is hard to think of any genuine use for it at that time - but things have changed  - turned full circle (apologies for an obvious pun!) - no longer is the potential for a gravity-enabled wheel zero. Bessler's time has come.

The obvious use is to generate electricity, maybe not on a large scale - who knows - but certainly by household or by street.  There is no need to enumerate the potential for alterntive uses.

The materials that Bessler could use were limited to wood, iron, brass and lead, but now the range is enormous and there may be some with properties that might work perfectly with an electric wheel. Changes in the design, taking into account the special configuration necessary to obtain continuous rotation, might result in huge improvements to output, just as the Boulton and Watt improvements to Newcomen's engines in Cornwall in 1778 resulted in an increase in depth to 300 feet in mining and 75% less fuel consumption.

There are two major advantages in developing Bessler's wheel; free energy anywhere on the planet - and no pollution.  Certainly worth striving for.

JC