Johann Bessler’s (Orffyreus) School of Wisdom.

There is much discussion on the BWF, about the Rosicrucian codes which Øystein and others have found embedded within many of the drawings in Maschinen Tractate.  There has also been some revelations about Euclid’s geometry.  I’m no expert in these matters and certainly the evidence of their presence is persuasive, but I do not see how they will assist us to reach the solution that Bessler found and which might reveal the design inside his wheel.

Bearing in mind the fact that it was Bessler’s intention, should he acquire the money he sought from the sale his Perpetual Motion machine, to establish a School of Wisdom, supported by non-denominational Christian teaching, such arcane clues seem irrelevant.  He aspired to train apprentices in many of the crafts skills he had acquired during his wandering years.

The term, School of Wisdom, always seemed to me to be a misnomer as it was in reality a school designed to teach a trade to aid young men to provide for themselves and their families.  However for the first time I googled the words School of Wisdom, and was surprised to find a number of references linking modern spiritual, intellectual and also historical association including the Illuminati, the Masons, the Royal Society, Euclidean geometry and of course the Rosicrucians. Prague and Bohemia are mentioned several times. This seems to link with Bessler’s home town which was within the borders of Bohemia and of course he did spend some time in Prague studying with both a Jesuit priest as well as a Rabbi. 

So what ever meaning we can attribute to  Bessler’s School of Wisdom, it seems possible that there were two activities being considered; firstly the education of the apprentices in their trades, and secondly perhaps the sharing of knowledge through the use of the Maschinen Tractate about the existence of an older knowledge combining Masonic and Rosicrucian thought with those Bessler believed might benefit.

Bessler also mentioned that the rabbi taught him Hebrew and there are some handwritten examples present in his papers, but also he claimed knowledge of “the language of Angels”, a subject that has a more controversial history.  It was known as “Enochian” and was apparently first recorded by Dr John Dee, in collaboration with Edward Kelley, a spirit medium.  Years of respearch and many attempts to prove the language was invented by either Dee or Kelley, have not proved entirely conclusive, although the suspicion remains that one or both did create it.  They both visited  Prague and endeavoured to obtain the benefits of the friendship of the emperor Rudolph of Prague.

These visitors left a lasting impression on the city of Prague and it may be that Bessler’s reference to language of angels is linked to John Dee’s “Enochian” texts.

Finally I should point out that Dee was lecturing on  the geometry of Euclid at the University of Paris while still in his twenties.  He was an ardent promoter of mathematics and a respected astronomer, as well as a leading expert on navigation, having trained many of those who would conduct England's voyages of discovery.  He seems to have been a genuine polymath but they can still be fooled by a convincing hustler?

So perhaps Bessler left behind him two skeins of thought; firstly the secret of his perpetual motion machine’s construction, and secondly a number of clues relating to these secret societies.  But for the latter, to what end?  Was it just to declare his knowledge of these esoteric matters or did he invite attention from others who might have progressed further along the path of “wisdom”?

JC

Code Embedded in Chapter 55 of Bessler's Apologia Poetica

I note the current interest in the Mascinen Tractate codes and I am interested in the discussion as but also slightly puzzled as the they were bnever published. I published my own thoughts on the code in Chapter 55 of Apologia Poetica on my web site at www.orffyreus.net, but my explanation was very long and detailed and it had a few transcription errors which appeared after publication, so here is a much abbreviated explanation.

Chapter 55 was designed to be the last chapter in Apologia Poetica originally, but Bessler added part two to provide space to argue against the accusations of his enemies.  Every one must be familiar with the ubiquity of the number 55 in Bessler's works so we can assume it was important in Bessler's eyes, so chapter 55 had a purpose beyond its declaration of faith.

The whole book is written according to the AABB rhyming scheme, the first line rhyming with the second line - rhyming couplets. However part of the way into chapter 55, the rhyming changes to ABAB, the first and third lines rhyming, and the second and fourth, producing a four line stanza instead of the two line ones. The text reverts to rhyming couplets before the end of chapter 55, so this implies that the text within the four-line stanzas section is of significance and because it is the only part with this rhyming scheme it I suggest that this section which is encoded.

There are actually only 54 four line stanzas, but Bessler tricks the unwary decoder by inserting four blank lines which when included, total the 55 we've come to expect.  I numbered each of the 220 lines..  

The Bible references don’t relate to Bessler’s adjacent comments. There are many different versions of the bible and the text and verse-numbers vary from one to another which make it impossible to make sense of the references.  In my opinion the Bible used is not important, therefore the text indicated by the references is also to be ignored.

Therefore the Bible references themselves point to letters and spaces, which are more likely than words because the appearance of a whole word in the comments, such as ‘weight', would be too obvious.

Using the numbered lines I found the first and only quote on the first page appeared on line 19, along with the Judae 19 Bible reference, but no verse number.  But there were spaces in the adjacent comment, which suggested that this clue included blank lines and spaces. And the actual quote used did in this case seem highly relevant saying “These are they who separate themselves, sensual men, having not the Spirit.” I think the important point here is that these refers to the spaces and blank lines which are they who separate themselves. No verse number here meant that the quoted text here mattered.

I believe the name of the book chosen indicated by the alphanumeric position of the initial letter, the position along the lines  for the desired letter.  I discovered that counting backwards from the end of the comment, I arrived at a space, 9 from the end, J is the 9th letter of the 24 letter alphabet. This supports the conclusion that spaces were to be included.

But there about 30 places for letters, spaces and brackets in each line so a 24 letter alphabet was not sufficient and Bessler was not able to use every letter of the alphabet because he had only the first letter of each book from the Bible to choose from.  He uses just 13 letters which are all he had available. In order to provide himself with more options he chose to alter the spelling of some books.

The very next two Bible references demonstrate this. Math short for Matthew in the first example; Matth in the next one.  So in this case M is the 12th letter of the alphabet, add 3 for the first example and 4 for the second one.  One addition for each letter.

So we have a section of clearly defined text; a means of selecting specific line; a way to indicate a letter, bracket or space and possibly a punctuation mark.  So why haven't I deciphered the whole text?

There is another Bessler fail-safe, just in case it all seemed too simple.  The text for decoding is shown in fraktur font, a kind of Gothic font; the bible references themselves are in Latin font, not unlike font you see today, but there are a few places where the Bible fonts are in fraktur font, and the first one is not even a Bible reference but the one immediately below appears to be a Bible reference.  One might dismiss these aberrations as typos except that Bessler did not make mistakes.

If there is interest in this subject I'll add some more on a future blog post.

JC

Johann Bessler’s Wheel and the Orffyreus Code

On 6th June, 1712, in Germany, Johann Bessler (also known by his pseudonym, Orffyreus) announced that after many years of failure, he had succeeded in designing and building a perpetual motion machine.  For more than fourteen years he exhibited his machine and allowed people to thoroughly examine it.  Following advice from the famous scientist, Gottfried Leibniz, he devised a number of demonstrations and tests designed to prove the validity of his machine without giving away the secret of its design.

After more than thirty years he died in poverty.  He had asked for a huge sum of money for the secret, £20,000 which was an amount only affordable by kings and princes, and although many were interested, none were prepared to agree to the terms of the deal. Bessler required that he be given the money and the buyer take the machine without verifying that it worked.  Those who sought to purchase the wheel, for that was the form the machine took, insisted that they see the secret mechanism before they parted with the money. Bessler feared that once the design was known the buyers could simply walk away knowing how to build his machine and he would get nothing for his trouble.

This problem was anticipated by Bessler and he took extraordinary measures to ensure that his secret was safe, but he encoded all the information needed to reconstruct the machine in a small number of books that he published. It is well-known that he was prepared to die without selling the secret and that he believed that post humus acknowledgement was preferable to being robbed of his secret while he yet lived.

I became curious about the legend of Bessler’s Wheel, while still in my teens, and have spent most of my life researching the life of Johann Bessler (I’m now 73).  I obtained copies of all his books and had them translated into English and self-published them, in the hope that either myself or someone else might solve the secret and present it to the world in this time of pollution, global warming and increasingly limited energy resources.

In addition there is a wealth of letters to and from Bessler or about him which I have included in my book about the life of Johann Bessler, see below how to obtain a copy of my book.

It has recently become clear that Bessler had a huge knowledge of the history of codes and adopted several completely different ones to disguise information within his publications.  I have made considerable advances in deciphering one of his codes; the simplest one, and I am confident that I have the complete design. I hope to complete the wheel sometime during the summer and publish details of the design.

Johann Bessler published three books, and digital copies of these with English translations may be obtained from the links to the right of this blog or from this link,  www.free-energy.co.uk

In addition there is a copy of his unpublished document containing some 141 drawings, entitled Maschinen Tractate.  This document was intended to form a teaching aid to be used by Bessler in a school for apprentices which he wished to found with the money he hoped to obtain for his invention.

My own account of Bessler’s life is also available from the links.  It is called "Perpetual Motion; An Ancient Mystery Solved?"

Johann Bessler three published books are entitled; "Grundlicher Bericht", "Apologia Poetica" and "Das Triumphirende..."

I have also published Bessler's collection of 141 drawings and I have called it Maschinen Tractate, but it was originally found in the form of a number of drawings of perpetual motion designs. Many of these have handwritten notes attached and I have published the best English translation of them that I was able to get. Bessler never published these drawings but clearly intended to do so at some point.

For some ideas about Bessler’s code why not visit one of my web sites at www.theorffyreuscode.com

A separate web site deals with another piece of code found in his book Apologia Poetica, at www.orffyreus.net

One last thing.  Perpetual Motion machines have been utterly proscribed and Johann Bessler’s claims ridiculed - however, it seems that more than a handful of scientists have now come to the conclusion that it might theoretically be possible to design a mechanical system which is continuously out-of-balance and therefore will turn continuously using the repeated fall of weights for energy.  Gravity but not directly.  These open-minded people remain tight lipped for now, awaiting proof of their hypothesis.

JC

Johann Bessler's Life to be Celebrated at Bad Karlshafen

Thanks to Georg Künstler and his post on the Besslerwheel forum, I have become aware of the impending celebrations in Bad Karlshafen, due to take place 24th May to 2nd June 2018.

See:http://www.bad-karlshafen-tourismus.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1142:theater-anu-perpetuum-mobile-eine-stadt-im-rausch&catid=17:st-mitteilungen&Itemid=401

Karlshafen, as it was known then, was the place Johann Bessler retired to and lived in a house courtesy of Karl the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, former patron of the inventor.  For those who don’t know the word ‘Bad’ in front of the town’s name simply stands for ‘Spa’. It has thermal springs.

The town tourist board are putting on a play each day, telling the story of Johann Bessler, and intriguingly have reported the discovery of an airtight package locked in a sealed box found in the harbour basin during renovation work.

See the old harbour below.

They claim that within the box is the world’s only surviving blueprint of Johann Bessler’s perpetual motion machine.  They ask, “will this solve the world's energy problem once and for all and make Bad Karlshafen world famous?

Now I do not know what is in this box, nor do I know whether it has any connection to Bessler, but it certainly could do. The discovery of this box may be the reason for the decision to celebrate the life of Johann Bessler in this particular year, although it might also be because he came to live in Karlshafen in 1718, exactly 300 years ago. But  I also note that the 'Hugenots and Waldesian Trail  has been awarded with the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018 for the following activities related to “In the footsteps of Huguenots and Waldensians" project'.  This particulat piece of history related to the founding the town of Karlshafen (formerly called Sieberg) by escaped Huegenots who were welcomed by fellow Protestant Karl.

I considered attending these celebrations but I have no German and my experience of Germany during a visit a few years ago, to all the places related to Bessler’s life, is that few people speak English.  I may have just been unlucky in my contacts with local people but that was my experience then and it has coloured my expectations in the future. Although I enjoyed my visit and Karlshafen is an extremely attractive place, I see no point in sitting through a production which will be all in German, naturally.

Speculations about the mystery box have occupied my thoughts ever since Georg's notification of the event.  Bessler's house was literally less than a stone's throw from the harbour basin, which I believe was completed in 1717.  Given Bessler's obsessive compulsive desire to protect his secret  for as long as he lived, it is quite possible that he did indeed hide his secret within a waterproof and air-tight box and sink it into the water of the harbour basin - maybe only days before he died.

If that was indeed the case then he would know that from time to time the basin would need to be dredged and perhaps his box found, in which case it would need to be of sufficient sturdiness to withstand the rigors of recovery, while remaining watertight.  It maybe that it is possible to drain the basin in which case recovery would be relatively simple.

All this speculation can be resolved once the contents of the box is published, but I am not denying that although the box may be genuine it might be that its attribution to Bessler could be more of a publicity stunt, and speculation by the town tourist board encouraged while the contents of the box is not divulged.  Hopefully all will be revealed during the celebrations in May and June this year.

What if it does turn out to be blueprint for Bessler’s wheel? Someone will doubtless be asked to rebuild it and if they do and it works, what then?  Patent or released freely to the world at large.  Could it even be patented?

We wait with bated breath for the announcement of the box's contents.

EDIT, It seems my excitement at the prospect of discovering what lies within the mysterious box reputedly found in the harbour renovation was somewhat precipitate, as it now seems that the mystery box was a fictional element added to Bessler's life story, due to be enacted at the special event in May and June this year.  My apologies for this error which I blame on the ambiguous translation of the web page by google.

JC

Construction of My Version of Bessler's Wheel Re-Started.

My family's health probems having ameliorated a little, I no longer have to go to hospital every day, and that leaves me time to return to building Bessler's wheel!  It has been several months since I actually worked on it and in fact I had barely made a start when things began to deteriorate.  My plans for 2018 were put on hold, but I am confident that now things are improving, but never forget,  "Homo proponit sed Deus disponit".

The basic wheel or wooden disc upon which everything is mounted measures just three feet in diameter, and it will be no surprise to learn that it is divided into five equal segments.  Each pivot point has been marked and drilled and each stop point located.  I have fitted the pivot axles to all the necessary points, and can now begin construction of each mechanism.

These are complex for me to build but not that hard to understand.  Each mechanism has two equal weights attached to it and there are additional features which I prefer to keep to myself for now, but as I have said many times, all will be shared once it works or even if it doesn't.

This wheel is designed to turn in one direction only; it will start to spin spontaneously once the brake is released.  It would be tempting fate to fit a brake before I've tested whether it works - but it will of course!

I am well aware after all these years that gravity is not a source of energy, but I am still convinced that the overbalancing weights, provide the drive, as Bessler said, and you may tell me that gravity cannot provide energy, but without it there is no motion.

It’s a bit like saying petroleum provides the energy for the automobile, it doesn’t until it has been ignited and forced a piston upwards. Without the petrol you would get no action.

When I first researched the science which governs this subject, I realised straight away that a closed loop could not provide the energy from one falling weight, but several working together could in theory maintain an open loop, thus cotinuous rotation.

Initially I chose to experiment with over-lapping actions, and when it became too congested, I tested arrangements on both sides of a disc.  Then it became necessary to test arrangements on two and even three discs on one axle.  I knew that Besser’s first wheel was very thin but it seemed a logical step forwards if it gave me a clue to how he did it.

I tried to put myself in his shoes, designing wheels which might work but which could be refined and reduced to one disc once success had been achieved.  Later I returned to the single wooden disc because the other methods were too complex and tests showed that the multiple discs weren’t necessary.  But since those early experiments I have gradually broken through Bessler's smoke screens of misleading and ambiguous clues and I'm convinced that I have obtained the design which I believe will work.  If it does, I will explain how and why it is identical to Bessler’s design.

People have asked me many times over the years how sure am I that I finally have the right  design and I have always said, oh about 90 percent sure, but my certainty has always evapourated in the cold light of reality.  But this time .................................?



JC

The Möbius Strip and Bessler’s Wheel.

I recently posted a little piece about my search for potential clues to Besser’s wheel, among ancient symbols, in particular the yin yang symbol.  Another of my favourites, not so old but intriguing nevertheless, is the sign for infinity in mathematics, the lemniscate. It has the appearance of a sideways figure eight, and although there are variations they are all similar.

This was introduced by John Wallis in 1655, and although he did not explain his choice of this symbol, it has been conjectured to be a variant form of a Roman numeral for 1,000 (originally CIƆ, also CƆ), which was sometimes used to mean "many", or of the Greek letter (omega), the last letter in the Greek alphabet, can also mean, infinity.

Lastly and most fascinating of all is the Möbius strap or band.  A simple device to make; take a long rectangle of paper or just a longish strip,nd join one end to the other, but put a half twist in before connecting two ends. I don’t want to bore you with all the quirks attached to this remarkably simple design but you can find plenty of information on the internet.

The interesting point for me is the apparent similarities to be found between the infinity symbol and the Möbius band. Admittedly the lemniscate doeasn't usually have a half twist in the path of the strip but I have seen some drawn like that and I wondered of the artist got confused or was it just an additional twist!

This brings me to the Toys page MT138.139.140 and 141.

G
Note the lower pair of figures labelled 'D'.  are shown in spiral or twisted design whereas the upper pair labelled  'C', are in straight stripes.  I've always wondered if that is meant to convey that the lower pair have a half twist in their relative positions somewhat like the infinity symbol of even the Möbius band?

I did try to manipulate my drawing of the figures 'D' to demonstrate what I meant but it ended up just confusing, so if anyone wants to try their hand at it I'll gladly post their pic here if its better than mine! So the right half of the ‘D’ figures needs turning up side down and flipped horizontally to complete the spiral move. To me the spiral is suggesting a upside down move as well as a horizontal flip.

This is not necessarily the right explanation but it needs some kind of examination and it has the typical look of a Bessler clue.

I believe I have discussed some of this many many years ago but I can't remember where or when, so apologies if we have been here before, but I definitely didn't associate the Möbius strip and the infinity symbol together along with the figures 'D' in the Toys page at that earlier time.

There may be some way of introducing Möbius-like mechanical configurations into Bessler's wheel?

JC

Was the Prime Mover the Weight-Lifter or the OOB Weights?

There was a brief discussion about the Prime Mover in Bessler’s wheel on the Besslerwheel forum recently and I came away still unsure of exactly how we can define it.

Some people argued that since the wheel had to be Out Of Balance (OOB) in order to turn, the OOB arrangement of weights meant that that was the prime mover.  Others said it was what ever made the weights OOB was actually the prime mover.

A prime mover can refer to tthe device which extracts mechanical energy from an energy source or it can mean the engine which pulls the train.

Bessler's wheel was a prime mover because it extracted power from falling weights, but really I would like to say gravity!.

But within Bessler's wheel there must also be a prime mover which gets the wheel moving in the first instant.  What part converts the source energy into mechanical energy?  It must be the OOB weights. The wheel will rotate some amount as long as it is  OOB, but the weight-lifter part of the mechanism won’t directly effect rotation, that effect only takes place after is has lifted the weights.

On the other hand, ovyyus made a good point when he said, “Bessler’s first two wheels remained always OOB, even when held stationary. These wheels contained something (a prime mover) capable of lifting weights prior to any wheel rotation...”

So when the wheel was held stationary, the OOB weights were already in position to overbalance the wheel and we know that the biggest problem we all face is how to lift the weights.  Somehow something within the mechanism lifted the weights BEFORE the wheel could rotate.

But although I think the mechanism which lifted the weights was a vital part of the machine, it did not of itself, drive the machine around. That was due to the overbalancing due to the OOB weights, so which one was the prime mover?

Is the weight lifter the prime mover, or is it the OOB weights?  You can’t have one without the other - not if you want a continuously rotating wheel.

JC

www.theorffyreuscode.com most visited site.

I was looking at my blog’s stats today and was surprised and pleased to discover that my web site at The Orffyreus Code web site  is the most visited of all my web sites.  I can put some of it down to links from this blog but many of them have come from other places too many to list, lots of forums and links from other web sites.

The reason I’m pleased is that I never, or hardly ever, get any feedback from the site, so to see so many visitors means a lot to me. For those who have not visited it, it describes a number of pieces of coded information to be found in Bessler’s publication, along with my interpretation of them.  So for instance there are about 23 links to separate pages detailing the codes and what they mean.

I was going to provide links to each page on this blog but then I realised it was filling the page with links without further information about each link.  So I put a brief explanation of each link in between the links, and ended up with page about four times longer than usual and it might have the effect of sending everyone to sleep or to some less boring site. So I reduced this blog to a minimum.

So if you haven't visited the site please do so you might be pleasantly surprised.

theorffyreuscode.com

JC

Was Johann Bessler the First Successful Perpetual Motionist?

Given that in my opinion, at least, Johann Bessler’s wheel had, as an optimum number, five mechanisms, and  it was therefore designed on a plan of a pentagram, I wondered if perhaps there might be something in the pentagram that might have some association, historically with continuous-turning wheels.

Perpetual Motion machines seem to have engaged man’s curiosity for hundreds of years.  There are written records going back to the twelfth century describing at least one machine, and it’s unlikely that no one else considered the possibility long before that.  There are no earlier written records currently available but maybe something will surface later.

But are we to believe that Johann Bessler was the only man ever to succeed in this ages-long search? I hope that one day some proof will emerge that demonstrates that the matter was researched and solved well over two thousand years ago.  But because the design and concept do not lend themselves to a complete description in prose, we should probably be looking for some kind of drawing depicting the concept of an over-balancing wheel.

It was this thought in mind that many years ago led me to examine and consider, among many others, the yin yang symbol. I won’t go into the various meanings associated with the yin yang, there are many websites providing everything you could wish to know.  I no longer think that this symbol carries anything of significance for the perpetual motion researcher, but I do like the image itself and I use it as my avatar occasionally.

The idea resurfaced recently when I came across some old Freemason images dating back more than 200 years, all based on the pentagram. It reminded me that the pentagram was used in Sumerian script some 3500 years ago. No signs of its use as a machine, but it was also used extensively in Ancient Greece and Babylonia too.

Further reading revealed that the pentagram appears in both Bronze Age and Iron Age art, and interestingly in Neolithic and earlier times.  The Neolithic age began about 10,000 years ago and followed the old Stone Age. It’s appearance in those earlier eras is more prevalent than those following.

The interesting question for me is what was it that generated the idea of the pentagram all that long ago?  Several examples of rock art include images of weaponry along with the pentagram, others show sun and star images.  But none as far as I can tell give any further information about its purpose then.  Later of course the Pythagorean developed a school of thought which included the pentagram and was based on mathematics and mysticism,which influenced Aristotle and Plato, but it doesn’t get us any nearer to why it might have held such interest so long ago.

It seems highly unlikely that anyone could build something as complex as Bessler’s wheel before the early Greek era, although there are reports of some ingenious devices both in early Egypt and Babylonia.

I can only conclude that as Bessler said, he was probably the only person in history with enough free time, ingenuity and perseverance to accomplish the task.

JC

The Number FIve and Phi and Bessler’s Wheel.

Over the last few years I have posted many pieces of encoded material along with my interpretation of what they mean, but none have been of help in finding the design inside Bessler's wheel.  Not posting anything that might be of help was, I admit, a deliberate move on my part for two reasons; firstly, to try to interest others in looking, finding and interpreting other pieces of code, but secondly to retain for my own benefit anything which I believed would help me to find the actual solution.  What follows is a little bit of information which could lead to discovering some of the requirements of the wheel. There will be more to follow.

Because of the presence of the pentagram in many of Bessler’s drawings and his apparent obsession with the number five and 55, it’s been a bit of an obsession of mine too, to try and find some information  concerning these apparent clues, that would be helpful.

The number five is intrinsically related to Phi and the Fibonacci series. Phi represents the Golden Ratio, 1.618 and in the Greek alphabet looks like this, ⏀.

It has been suggested that the ‘0’ part of the Phi symbol represents ‘nothing’, and the short vertical line is the number ‘1’, or unity. Therefore adding one to nothing leads to the Fibonacci series; 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, towards infinity and Phi, or the golden ratio 1.618, an integral part of the pentagram.

You can start the Fibonacci series from 0 or 1, and starting from 1 the 5th letter is 5, and the 10th letter is 55 and outside of the Fibonacci series the numbers 1 to 10 total of 55. Bessler uses these numbers in different ways in several of his drawings.  The square root of 5 = 2.236 although there are at least 10 billion digits after, according to Wikipedia, despite  that, a close approximation can be achieved by 161/72 which gives 2.23611. Curious how 72 shows up there, being as it is a fifth part of the pentagram.

Nearly every angle inside Bessler's wheel is based on the angle of 18 degrees, the smallest angle used in the pentagram.  Others include 36, 54, 72, 90 and 108, all multiples of 18, except one which is 30 degrees.  All the angles including some covering angular movement not normally required for a pentagram are also derived from the angle of 18 degrees.

Although Bessler stressed the need for five mechanisms it is clear that he also considered using the odd numbers 7 and 9. This gave him the alternative to fit more of them into the wheels without compromising the effectiveness of the wheel. To fit more mechanisms inside his wheel would require them to operate further out from the wheel’s centre, and make them smaller. But given the huge size of the Kassel wheel, that might have been an option he chose to make. Despite it being almost the same diameter as the Merseberg wheel it only turned at half the speed which might be because it contained more smaller mechanisms, with reduced length of movement in those parts which were designed to move.

Having 7 or 9 mechanisms might help support the idea that the witness, Fisher von Elach, did hear the sound of ‘about’ eight weights landing on the side towards which the wheel turned.  In Bessler’s Maschinen Tractate document you can see that some drawings are numbered in an individual way, and have a special characteristic which the others don't have and you can read more about it on my web page at
http://www.theorffyreuscode.com/html/mt_numbers___letters.html
Those numbers above 50 which contain the number 2 show the 2 as a Z rather than a 2, but only if they are odd numbers.  So in the numbers 52, 72, and 92, the 2 is appears as a Z, but all the remaining numbers use a curved number 2.  Notice that number variants start after number 50, this supports the notion that a minimum of five mechanisms are necessary.

I can't prove any of this until I have working model, but I firmly believe that the single number 5 denotes five mechanisms, and the 55 denotes two weights in each mechanism.  So in the above image the odd numbers mean you can use 5, 7 or 9 mechanisms, and the Z-like 2s can be read as 2 - or two horizontal Roman numerals, V, representing 5, something Bessler does in numerous other examples.  He also uses the letter W to convey two 'V's or 5s.

There are other implications in the above text which I have not touched upon which may help others to make progress in discovering some of Bessler's construction details.

JC

Johann Bessler's Secret will be Published this Year.

Today, 5th February, and I’m 73! Still scratching my head over Johann Bessler’s wheel, but confidence is high that the solution is in sight, and that it will be me who publishes the secret, this year!

Johann Bessler wanted fame and fortune so that he could pass on all his technical knowledge to people from poorer backgrounds.  He said that his school for apprentices would have a religious environment, but be non-denominational. He hoped to raise enough money from the sales of his so-called ‘Perpetual Motion’ machine to fund his plan.

I described his machine as a ‘perpetual motion’ machine but he preferred the term self-moving machine.  As he mentioned in his publications, calling it ‘perpetual motion’ was wrong because there was no way his device could run for ever, without breaking down through wear and tear or damage from external influences.

In those days a perpetual motion machine was defined as having a closed system, meaning it had no input of energy from outside the machine.  It was recognised as impossible back then just as it is now. But in those days they did not understand or even know of the force of gravity but thought that the reason things fell was due to something inherent in all things of mass, which they described as ‘heaviness’.  This ‘heaviness’ was part of the mass and not due to the force of gravity, it was intrinsic to the matter of which the mass was formed.

Now if they had known and understood that the force of gravity was the attraction between all things of mass and that this force was the cause of things falling down, then they would have accepted Bessler’s claim that the wheels were driven by falling weights, why?  Because they would have realised that the energy driving the wheels came from outside the machines.  They were not closed systems and therefore not impossible.

Because Sir Isaac Newton wrote his book, ‘Principia’, in Latin, he used the Latin word for ‘heaviness’, which was ‘gravitas’, and this was subsequently translated into English as ‘gravity’. Attached to this word gravitas was the full explanation that Newton gave and this gravity, which used to be ‘heaviness’,  became the new force and ‘heaviness’ was consigned to history, along with all its inaccurate assumptions.

JC

Johann Bessler had Five Mechanisms in his One-Way Wheels

I may have mentioned this once or twice before (!) but it’s a recurring bone of contention with me that researchers trying to find the solution to Bessler’s wheel, continue to stress the importance of having eight weights.  This is usually in a design using eight mechanisms.  I have tried over the years to point out that the only reference to eight weights occurred in Fisher Von Erlach’s report to Sir Isaac Newton about his two hour examination of the two-way wheel in the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel’s castle.  The words used were ‘about eight weights were heard...’. Given that the examination lasted for two hours one might have expected von Erlach to be more precise about how many weights he heard.  This implies that the sounds he heard were confused by the presence of a lot of other noise.

We know from other witnesses that the rotation of the wheel was accompanied by considerable noise, and we also know, because he said so, that Bessler deadened the sound of some falling weights with felt.  It is also worth noting that Bessler frequently expressed concern that people might somehow find out how his wheel worked and it seems perfectly understandable and reasonable that he would take steps to disguise any sounds coming from the wheel which might give a clue to someone with a discerning mind.  He could have added an extra weight designed to fall with a loud noise but no mechanical advantage/disadvantage, or he might have sound deadened one or more.

Some people have claimed to be working on a two-way wheel from the start, why would you even consider that?  The logical place to begin is surely with the one-way wheels as Bessler did.  He only researched the two-way wheels to try to disprove the accusation that his wheels were clockwork driven.

So we know that about eight sounds emanated from the two-way Kassel Wheel.  We don’t have any description of the sounds coming from the one-way wheels apart from the fact that they were noisy. So is there a way of discovering the minimum number of mechanisms required in the simpler one-way wheels? I say ‘simpler’ because Bessler complains at the difficulty he had in getting the Kassel wheel to work, because it was a more complex design.

There are clues which in my opinion reveal the number of mechanisms required.  Most people are aware of Bessler’s inclusion of the pentagram in more than one drawing.  They may also be aware of the numerous pointers to the number five in his name, pieces of text and other places too numerous to mention.  I have included below, some details from the ‘Toys’ page but there are many more examples where Bessler includes broad hints that there are five mechanisms in his one way wheels.

Notice that I have separated the items in the part labelled A by drawing red lines across, revealing that there five pieces of identical mechanisms. Part B looks similar but twisted and it too has five parts. Items C and D look roughly the same as each other and they bear similarities to each part of item A.

I should also point out that Bessler has added his usual alphanumeric clues by labelling the items A, B, C, D and E - and letter E also represents five, and not content with that, he labels the hand drawing as a number 5, when it should be labelled F,  This gives him his number 55 or 5 and 5.

I should point out that the order of the letters is deliberate and to read the clues correctly we must start with A and move through tto F and don't forget the spinning top labelled 5.

I don't want to say anything more about the Toys page other than that it contains almost every clue you need, to know what parts are required for his wheel, although the exact configuration is not obvious.

JC

The Secret to Bessler's Wheel is There for Anyone who can Decipher the Orffyreus Code

Given the powerful evidence supporting Bessler’s assertion that he had built a working gravity wheel,  I think it highly unlikely that Bessler would have gone to his grave without leaving some clues revealing the secret of his machine.

He mentions in more than one place that those who seek further information should study his books and drawings. He also provides evidence that he was familiar with codes and there are numerous examples of their use throughout his publications.  He also states quite clearly that if he fails to sell his machine he will be content with post humus acknowledgement,  This could only happen if the information on how his machine worked was available after his death and only he could provide this information. What evidence is there that he used codes to hide information?

The following can only be a brief summary of the many codes Johann Bessler used, but it does give some idea of them and gives strong support to the idea described above.  The first is of course his adoption of the pseudonym, Orffyreus.  This demonstrates his familiarity with both the ancient Jewish method encoding, known as the atbash cipher, and also the Caesar shift cipher, or alphabetical substitution.  He also uses alpha-numeric substitution in various places.

Studying his drawings reveals that many of them contain a pentagram, but it is not obvious and has to be sought, although once suspected it is not difficult to find.  The purpose of the pentagram is obvious once you know what look for.  Other geometric designs are also present in some drawings from which one can conclude he was familiar with the work of Euclid and Pythagoras.

All his drawings in one of his publications contain labelled parts, some alphabetical and some numerical, and totalling the numerical ones reveals further information pointing to another encoded section.  This section is too complex to describe here but further details can be seen in my web site at www.orffyreus.net

Bessler’s extensive use of chronograms is designed to convey certain dates which in themselves provide further hints about where information may be found.  These chronograms are usually biblical quotations and traditionally, by using some upper case letters which can also represent Roman numerals,  can be added up to indicate ta certain date.

Extending the lines of perspective in one of his drawings reveals a hidden clock.  The eight o’clock line is confirmed by the presence, actually on the line, of two weights each labelled with the number eight.  The labelled numbers add up to 660.  Dividing this number by the twelve clock divisions gives 55.  This number appears frequently through out all Bessler’s books.  Besides the number five being such an important part of the pentagram, it represents certain information relating to the mechanism inside the wheel.

More evidence of Bessler's codes may be viewed at another of my web sites at www.theorffyreuscode.com

Describing all the codes used by Bessler is beyond the scope of this article, but I hope it gives some indication that there is a prize to be obtained whose value may be immense given the state of the energy resources and the pollution and its associated global warming.  Who ever deciphers Bessler's information and reconstructs Bessler's wheel, will become not only rich and famous but will also become a hero to our children and their children.

JC

Johann Bessler and the Orffyreus Code

On 6th June, 1712, in Germany, Johann Bessler (also known by his pseudonym, Orffyreus) announced that after many years of failure, he had succeeded in designing and building a perpetual motion machine.  For more than fourteen years he exhibited his machine and allowed people to thoroughly examine it.  Following advice from the famous scientist, Gottfried Leibniz, he devised a number of demonstrations and tests designed to prove the validity of his machine without giving away the secret of its design.

After more than thirty years he died in poverty.  He had asked for a huge sum of money for the secret, £20,000 which was an amount only affordable by kings and princes, and although many were interested, none were prepared to agree to the terms of the deal. Bessler required that he be given the money and the buyer take the machine without verifying that it worked.  Those who sought to purchase the wheel, for that was the form the machine took, insisted that they see the secret mechanism before they parted with the money. Bessler feared that once the design was known the buyers could simply walk away knowing how to build his machine and he would get nothing for his trouble.

This problem was anticipated by Bessler and he took extraordinary measures to ensure that his secret was safe, but he encoded all the information needed to reconstruct the machine in a small number of books that he published. It is well-known that he was prepared to die without selling the secret and that he believed that post humus acknowledgement was preferable to being robbed of his secret while he yet lived.

I became curious about the legend of Bessler’s Wheel, while still in my teens, and have spent most of my life researching the life of Johann Bessler (I’m now 72).  I obtained copies of all his books and had them translated into English and self-published them, in the hope that either myself or someone else might solve the secret and present it to the world in this time of pollution, global warming and increasingly limited energy resources.

It has recently become clear that Bessler had a huge knowledge of the history of codes and adopted several completely different ones to disguise information within his publications.  I have made considerable advances in deciphering one of his codes; the simplest one, and I am confident that I have the complete design.  Due to unfortunate family circumstances I am currently unable to complete the build I have undertaken but shall return to it as soon as possible and I sincerely believe that 2018 will see the reconstruction of Bessler’s wheel.

Johann Bessler published three books, and digital copies of these with English translations may be obtained from the links to the right of this blog.  In addition there is a copy of his unpublished document containing some 141 drawings - and my own account of Bessler’s life is also available from the links.  It is called "Perpetual Motion; An Ancient Mystery Solved?"  Bessler published three books; "Grundlicher Bericht", "Apologia Poetica" and "Das Triumphirende..."

I have also published Bessler's collection of 141 drawings and I have called it Maschinen Tractate, but it was originally found in the form of a number drawings of perpetual motion designs. Many of these have handwritten notes attached and I have published the best English translation of them that I was able to get. Bessler never published these drawings but clearly intended to do so at some point.

For some ideas about Bessler’s code why not visit one of my web sites at www.theorffyreuscode.com

One last thing.  Perpetual Motion machines have been utterly proscribed and Johann Bessler’s claims ridiculed - however, it seems that more than a handful of scientists have now come to the conclusion that it might theoretically be possible to design a mechanical system which is continuously out-of-balance and therefore will turn continuously using the repeated fall of weights for energy.  Gravity but not directly.  These open-minded people remain tight lipped for now, awaiting proof of their hypothesis.

JC

HAPPY NEW YEAR. 😀

This  blog was inspired by a recent comment on the Besslerwheel forum in which a poster questioned the motive of a critic. As was pointed out, a forum is a place for query and cross examination. Many of us tend to use the forum as a place to express our optimism about our imminent success, and yet tempered criticism can wound our pride and bruise our egos and lead to corner-sulking or worse, overheated accusations of questionable motive on the part of the critic.

I have suffered in the past from a bruised ego, and have at times over-reacted, but successive failures leads to a pragmatic attitude to criticism which at best results in reconsidering the analysis and judgement of the offending words, or alternatively the cultivation of a water off a duck’s back persona. In other words you have to grow a thicker skin!

I have a motive to succeed but I know it wouldn’t support criticism of another person’s pet theory purely out of envy or jealousy.  No, my motive is to try to produce a working model of Bessler’s wheel, or failing that, help someone else to do so, either by providing the necessary information or working with them to achieve the same end.

Contrary to some opinions I think it will be perfectly possible to build a working model which, it will become clear, is obviously the same design as Johann Bessler’s wheel.  The reason why I believe this to be so is because, with unfailing optimism, I think I have solved enough of Bessler’s clues to build a working model, and if it proves viable then the proof of Bessler’s design is there for all to see.

Is it conceivable that Johann Bessler, having spent years trying to solve the problem, and more years trying to sell the solution, would really have gone to his grave without making provision for the post humous acknowledgement of his invention and his part in it?  To my mind the answer is obvious.  He planned from the start to arrange to publish documents which would reveal the secret mechanism- and where better than in his published drawings?  He dropped so many hints that the answer was there for someone to find, and it has been mainly due to the absolute disbelief that his claims were possible.....and the difficulty of interpreting his clues that so far no progress appears to have been made.

But perhaps this year, 2018, the secret will be revealed.  I hope so.

HAPPY NEW YEAR.

JC

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL

The last few weeks have been difficult for family reasons but confidence is high that my daughter will come through her illness and we can return to our normal cheerful lives.

We are lucky in so many ways and any hiccups we meet along the way just have to be dealt with and thanks be given for each beneficial step forward.

We will have a good Christmas and there will be joy and laughter and of course some tears but some rest and relaxation will be good too.

I will post something before the New Year.

Thank you to all those hundreds of people who drop by here from time to time, I appreciate your visits and comments more than words can say.  May I wish you all a Merry Christmas.

John Collins and family

Perpetual Motionist Keep Going!

Perpetual Motionists never, ever give up!

I first became aware of Johann Bessler when I was about 15 years of age, now I’m 72.  I’ve spent at least 50 years persuing  the truth about Bessler, why?  Because even at the age of 15 years I knew that the maid’s story was a pack of lies.  Her account of how the wheel was turned formed the most damming part of the evidence that Bessler was a fraud, but if it was so obvious that she lied, why was the inventor not celebrated for his wonderful accomplishment ?

The thing is, just because I knew that she lied, doesn’t mean that Bessler’s claim to have designed a true gravity-enabled wheel, also known as a Perpetual Motion machine, was true.  But gradually over many years studying the facts, letters, witness reports.....and the laws of physics, I came to the conclusion that in fact there was a way to avoid the problem so well described by 300 years of institutional “expertise”, summed up the simple phrase, “perpetual motion machines are impossible, you can’t get more energy out than you put in.”

So the maid lied.  Did anyone ever see how the machine worked apart from the inventor?  Yes Karl the Landgrave of Hesse Kassel. His evidence has to be accepted for two reasons; he offered Bessler his patronage on one condition, he must be allowed to verify to his own satisfaction that the wheel was genuine and Bessler was not a fraud; the second reason lay in Karl’s character. He was widely respected for his honesty, integrity and loyalty.  No hint of scandal ever surfaced to tarnish Karl’s reputation.

So what are we to make of the situation?  Many will say that Karl was fooled by a clever fraudster but history described Karl as a very intelligent man, tough too, given his difficult accession to the throne which involved turning his decimated country into thriving nation, admired by his neighbours. Karl was no fool; and.......the demonstrations of each wheel provided further evidence of Bessler’s sincerity.

It’s a paradoxical situation for me, but not for the scientists and teachers, who each follow the rules taught correctly but within a straitjacket of conditions relating to specific circumstances. The paradox lies in the fact that tradition says  ‘impossible’, but the evidence says ‘not impossible’.

The paradox has been resolved.  Bessler’s wheel did work exactly as the inventor claimed.  My own fear is that I might shuffle off this mortal coil before I have proved my theory, for theory is all it can be without proof. So my intention is to continue building my wheel and when it’s too cold I'll retreat inside and continue to try and draw a detailed diagram of the wheel as I see it.  I'm also trying to complete the booklet which explains in more detail how the wheel worked and the clues I found which reveal the design.

That is or was my intention, but my elder daughter was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma stage 4 about 5 weeks ago.  She is undergoing chemo therapy which for any parent is a devastating thing to see.  She has completed two chemo cycles and is due home for Christmas, and then she has two cycles more to suffer in the new year.  She is making good progress apparently but the sheer pain, sickness and depression she is enduring is emotionally draining for the whole family and I have simply abandoned all wheel work for the time being.  I may have to temporarily close this blog as we are spending every day at hospital taking it in turns to sit with her, but at least while she’s home she has the rest of her family around her.  The prognosis for her recovery is very good and she is lucky to be at one of the top performing hospitals in this field, so fingers crossed, things can only get better!

JC

A Perpetual Motion Machine Must Consume Energy.

When ever I read an opinion on perpetual motion machines there is always included a basic assumption which is stated in an off-the-cuff manner and which is really quite irritating and pompous and irrelevant!

Recently I read that, "the laws of physics and nature tell us that it is impossible for a machine to produce more energy than it consumes, which creates a very real impediment to obtaining a patent. Such a machine is characterized as a perpetual motion machine and when claimed as such it is ordinarily and routinely rejected by the United States Patent and Trademark Office".  This paragraph deserves a Homer Doh!

Besslers wheel could not possibly have produced more energy that it consumed - neither could any other machine, perpetual or not.  To suggest that some people are claiming that Bessler's wheel produced more energy that it consumned would be laughable, if it wasn't so serious.

This same article tells us that you will need to produce the working prototype before the Patent Office is going to engage in any examination.  "The prototype will be tested thoroughly and if the output is more than the input then a perpetual motion machine has been achieved and the applicant may move forward through the patenting process."

I accept that a working model of a perpetual motion machine is an essential part of the patent process.  But the above is a circular argument.  First they say that a machine that producs more energy than it consumes is a perpetual motion machine.  Then they say that a working model has to be produced and IF it does produce more energy that it consumes, you move forward through the patent process.  What a ridiculous statement!  Obviously it is impossible to produce a machine which will produce more energy that it consumes, and yet we see them seriously arguing about this being a necessary function of the machine in question.  Failing to produce a working model proves their argument.

They seem to have totally missed the point because they are so wrapped in their own explanation. They have set the definition of perpetual motion to their satisfaction and then explain in simple terms why the machine is impossible. They almost seem to be humouring us by taking what they have established as a definition of a perpetual motion machine, and explaining to we simpletons why it won't work, while at the same time talking down to us as if we are imbeciles incapable of understanding.

The truth is that Bessler's machine could not produce more energy than it consumed, how could it?  The actual fact which no one will accept is that Bessler's wheel must have consumed energy, in order to rotate continuously, otherwise how could it then have performed all the work it did?  Where did this energy come from? Gravity or rather the falling of weights caused by the force of gravity.  Like it or not, that is the only possible source and the sooner people come to accept it as fact the sooner we can light up our world with free energy.

The next step is to work out how it could use the energy inherent in weights to rotate continuously.  The one valid concept is so simple it is hard to believe that no-one seems to have considered it.

So first you need a simple system of weights to create imbalance in the wheel.  Secondly you need a separate system of weights whose purpose is to raise the fallen werights back up to their prefall position.  So immediately we resolve the argument that you can't use the falling weights to both overbalance the wheel as well as designing them to raise the fallen ones back up again.  Each weight in both sets  responds to gravity once per rotation.  The first set is raised back into position ready to fall again, that would be analogous to raising them back up with your finger every time, with no cost to gravity.  But in our scenario we are using a second set of weights to raise the first set and this does use gravity. How do we reset the second set?  In fact it is quite simple, the second set are in a neutral position until they fall in order to raise each of the first set; then they rotate backwards as the wheel rotates forwards until they are back in position to repeat the exercise.  So no conflict with the laws of physics.

I have provided some general details of how Bessler's wheel worked, but there are other features which are not apparent at this point.  I do know exactly how it worked so let me throw in another detail, scissor mechanisms.

BTW If I see a certain person plagiarising one of my posts again, I will point it out in embarrasing detail, unless of course he acknowledges my original authorship.  There is a copyright notice right at the bottom of this page as well as a statement to that effect at the top

JC

Permanant Imbalance and Spontaneous Rotation

I noticed yet again the suggestion on the Besslerwheel forum that the reports that Bessler’s wheel was able to begin rotation as soon as the brake was released must be wrong because it was impossible for the wheel to be permanently out of balance.  So - several points here.

The first thing to say is that all eyewitnesses described the first two wheels as beginning to rotate as soon as the brake was released. They accelerated up to their full speed of  over 50 RPM.  These first two wheels could only turn in one direction.  People have suggested that perhaps Bessler stopped the wheel at a particular point in rotation so that as soon as it was released it would begin to spin.

Why would anyone think that?  It was reported that many people were allowed to screw a bolt in and out to slow or stop the wheel as often as they wished and then allow it to spin up again, by loosening the bolt.  Why was it thought that Bessler cheated to create the effect of spontaneous rotation?  There are some who believe that it is impossible to design the wheel to spontaneously begin to spin and therefore Bessler was cheating, but the whole idea of a perpetual motion machine is said to be impossible so why focus on such a debatable detail for which there is no evidence? 

If, as Bessler claimed, his wheel did begin to spin spontaneously upon the brake’s release, then of course he had to apply a brake otherwise it would have continued to spin until the bearings wore out. So there had to be a brake.

Let us now examine the matter a little more closely. In order to begin to spin as soon as the brake was released, the wheel must have been out of balance before the brake was released.  So it had to be out of balance even when it was brought to a stop, which of course it had to be otherwise the brake would not have been needed.  It was out of balance when it was allowed to start, and it was out of balance when it was forcibly stopped, therefore it was therefore permanently out of balance.

For this condition to be present the weight which fell and overbalanced the wheel, must have also reversed the action of the preceding weight.  In other words it created a condition of imbalance when it fell, thus prolonging the overbalancing effect permanently.

Although the chances of creating a mechanism which effectively achieve the action described in the paragraph above, seem vanishingly small after 300 years of trying, I am confident that this solution will be found.  I can’t say unequivocally that it has been found because I don’t have a working model yet, but I am aware of the specific Bessler clues which demonstrate how Bessler did it.

One more thing; the mechanism was described as simple,  well it may look simple to understand, but it isn’t so easy to build.  Each mechanism, of which there five - and there is no doubt about that - consists of ten separate pieces metal, plus two weights.  There are no springs and there is nothing odd about the weights, so I think the weights which Bessler allowed to be examined were wrapped a handkerchief for two reasons, firstly they were greasy and secondly it added to the mystique surrounding the whole event.  Mine are simple lead discs with a hole through the centre.  I can put several on one bolt to produce the desired weight.

JC

Premature Prognostication, Speculation but No Working Model...Yet.

Just a quick blog while I prepare to share my next clue.

How many miles of text has been written on or about Johann Bessler, aka Orffyreus? This is my 515th post on this blog, plus I have posted 2254 times on the Besslerwheel forum ... but not all of these other ones were by me, 252639 posts on 6530 topics.  I arrived there 5th November 2003 and here we are 14 years later and no nearer in real terms than we were back then!  I can’t even guess how much has been written on other forums.  Good job I'm an incurable optimist!

Too much hot air, too much bandwidth, too much repetition, too much speculation, too much expectation, too much prevarication and too much procrastination..... did I miss anything?  So much energy expended for what...infinite speculation?  Yes I'm among the worst I admit, and yet without it we cannot progress.

Even though I must have been told why, a thousand times, I still disagree that gravity did not provide the energy for Bessler’s Wheel.  I see weights fall and I know that gravity made them fall, but I’m frequently corrected because I should say that gravity enabled the weight to fall.  To me this is merely sophistry. (Sophistry is reasoning that seems plausible on a superficial level but is actually unsound, or reasoning that is used to deceive)

I’m not suggesting that anyone intended to deceive but it looks like a way to explain something which otherwise would go against the prevailing opinion; I should probably say that it “goes against the laws of physics”, but they are no more than suggestions anyway, and you can’t be fined or sent to prison for breaking the laws of physics. 

As I see it - Johann Bessler insisted that gravity alone provided the energy for his wheel. And many people believe that he was genuine because the evidence is so convincing. If gravity is even to be considered as the energy provider we should pick apart the reasons why.

We've been here before, and more than once, but I still firmly believe that there is a way to use gravity to drive Besser's wheel.  This is what we know ...and a little speculation!  So 'F' for fact and 'S' for speculation

F. Gravity is described as  a force.  

F. It exerts its influence on objects of mass, such as a weight and can cause it to fall.

F. It acts on an object without physically coming into contact with it and is called a non-contact force.

F. A contact force is a force applied to a body by another body that is in contact with it.

F. The origin of all contact forces can be traced to non-contact forces.

F. The energy exerted does not have to result in motion  -  Holding a rope taut is using force. Pulling something along with rope is using energy ...and it could be just. my energy.

F. If there is no movement as a result of the exertion by the force such as occurs in the rope analogy above then the energy is potential energy, and it could be my  potential energy. See next point.

F. There are two sources of energy available to me for the above analogy; firstly there is gravity in the form of my weight and its potential to fall backwards and pull the rope; or secondly I could hold on to something attached to a wall and just pull using my muscular energy and there is no requirement for gravity's help.  

F. The rope does not care where the energy is coming from, but the result is the same.  The rope remains taught and my energy can be described as potential.  If the object to which the rope is attached moves, then in both cases the potential energy is released and becomes kinetic energy..

F. There is a "conservation of energy" law. But there is no "conservation of force" law.  Why? Because the force is continuous, and therefore does not need to be conserved but the very fact that it is continuous is exactly why it will power a perpetual motion machine. The force is perpetual. 

F. The law of conservation of energy simply means that the amount or package of energy being used, is not replaced, but because it can't be destroyed it does change its form into, for instance heat.  In which case it cannot be used to drive a perpetual motion machine, so let me repeat :-

S. Because the force is continuous, and therefore does not need to be conserved, is exactly why it will power a perpetual motion machine. The force is perpetual.

So I think that gravity is the source of energy for Bessler’s wheel and no other source is needed and it can’t and won’t be found. 

Yes I know that gravity is a force and it can’t be tapped directly for energy and the energy has to be obtained via an agent, in this case weights, but to me that is like saying petrol driven cars don’t obtain their energy from petrol, but from the heat produced from the combustion produced by igniting  the petrol in a series of controlled explosions and they are therefore not petrol driven!  So they are internal combustion engines.

You could describe Bessler's wheel as a system of weights enabled by the force of gravity to cause a wheel to rotate continuously, but I prefer gravity-wheel and petrol or diesel engine.

Just my speculation!

JC

Those mysterious so-called Xs, which aren’t 'X's!

This post is highly speculative but if it generates some ideas or thoughts, we might get closer to the truth -  if we haven't already got there!

One of the most overlooked peculiarities to be found in Johann Bessler’s Apologia Poetica, is the excessive use of the abbreviation for etc, which I and many others thought were ‘X’s.  Fortunately Stewart, a long time member of the Besslerwheel forum and a keen student of Bessler’s works correctly identified the true meaning of the character.

As he wrote on the Besslerwheel forum back in December 2005,

“The symbol that is found at the end of many of the lines of AP and what we have been referring to as 'X's are in fact two characters (or three if you count the .) and not 'X's at all. The first character is a round 'r' and the second is a. 'c'. Together they make 'rc', the German Fraktur abbreviation symbol for 'et cetera' which in Latin is '&c' and in English is 'etc' and means 'and the rest'. There is a totally different character for 'x' in the Fraktur typeface. This means we should refer to them as 'et cetera's and not 'X's, and anyone looking for an 'et cetera' code should also take into account all the '&c's that follow lines that end with Latin words in AP. “

The fraktur symbol for 'et cetera'.

The so-called 'r rotunda', is  a special character formed from the letter 'r’ and designed to follow rounded letters which allowed the printer or type setter to squeeze in the letter ‘r’ by closing the gap and leaving out the downward stroke of the R.  It does not represent the letter 'r' in this case, as it is simply a glyph derived from the 'r rotunda' and used in this fraktur abbreviation.

Nevertheless, knowing what the character means is only half the solution. Why would Johann place 184 ‘et ceteras’ at the end of so many lines?  He only used a few in Das Triumphirende, two single ones and four doubles  Given that the meaning of the abbreviation is ‘and the rest’ or ‘and so on’ and is usually used at the end of a list to indicate similar items are included and assuming that Bessler’s education included the correct use of the character, why would he even bother to place so many in completely inappropriate places?  He could read and write in Latin and clearly knew that the Latin version used the ampersand, one must conclude that his use of the abbreviation was incorrectly applied.

So why did he do it?  We do know Bessler compulsively used alphanumeric, alphabet substitutions, at-bash ciphers, chronograms, Rosicrucian and Masonic codes, drawings containing hidden information and some more codes of his own devising such as he used in chapter 55 of his Apologia Poetica - so why not offer an additional code which took the form of the et cetera character?  Such a device used as a part of a piece of coded information is typical of the man.  Did he think it looked like an x? Did he think we might be reminded of an x?

Below we can see an example of six lines each with an 'x' at its end, there are more of these but mostly they are limited to one per line and rarely more than one or two per page.  The one below is taken from the page adjacent to page 3.  One could argue that the use of the et cetera in this example is just about acceptable

I should point out that there are several occurrences where he uses two 'X's at the ends of a line, and of course he does so above the two wheel drawings in GB and DT.  See below for an example of double crosses, or 'etc's. (Page 74 second part of AP chapter 34)

Double crosses!

I recently posted some suggestions about his use of the word ‘cross’ as opposed to ‘crossbar’.  I didn’t point out that the word ‘cross’ might not be as suitable as ‘diamond’  to describe the shape, because ‘diamond’ while describing the shape reasonably well didn't do the job as accurately, because the diamond links two half xs whereas the cross is just one.

He tells us that one cross could hardly turn the wheel and more were needed.  He placed the etc symbol in inappropriate places and in large quantities to grab our attention, which it did.  There can only be one of two reasons, in my opinion; either the symbol related to the subject matter in the line, or the clue was in the form of the character it self.

The use of the double crosses in the above example might be for emphasis.  It reads "Here Wagner praises his turn-spit, of which a copper-engraving has appeared, claiming that it is actually a working Mobile".  But he also used numerous 'NB's to give emphasis, so one might conclude that one or the other character is superfluous.  While we are on the subject his overuse of 'NB's forms another clue which i will offer in the near future, again speculation, but interesting.

Despite the excessive use of the fraktur abbreviation for et cetera it is arguable that it is within the limits of acceptability, but if so, why is not present in his earlier non-Latin book, Grundlicher Bericht?

For reasons I will explain later, I believe that Bessler is hinting at the use of the scissors mechanism and suggesting a minimum of two.  Bessler's first two publications made no mention of scissor mechanisms so if he wished to provide a hint that they might be needed, the fraktur abbreviation might just be the clue he offered, however vague it might seem now.  I have no idea if this is a reasonable speculation because I have been unable to find anything which might connect the 'r rotunda' glyph with any kind of code, hidden writing or anything else of a concealed information nature.

BUT, if he did intend us to interpret the symbol as a cross he could not use the letter X as that would be too obvious, so the 'etc' might have seemed a safe substitute

If I'm wrong about the reason for the large number of fraktur 'etc's, then I must accept that they were simply there because Bessler used them incorrectly and was subsequently taught how to use them properly.  Or do they represent some so far identified method of information concealment?

JC