A real Bessler documentary on the cards?

Wow! You guys have been busy, it's taken me an hour just to catch up on all your comments. I hate to interrupt the flow with a blog but perhaps you can continue here or on the previous blog?

I'm back after a delightful week in sunny Spain, and among the emails awaiting me, I received an interesting one from an Italian documentary maker, who wishes to produce a film about Johann Bessler.

They say that they would use me as the main narrator (God help them!) and intend to film in the Trivulziana Library of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan. Interestingly for me, somebody on the Bessler forum kindly brough to my attention the existence of another copy of Das Triumphirende which is held at that this particular library.  I was able  to obtain high definition copies of their portraits from the library. This is the only other example that I'm aware of which includes the double portraits with the hole in one as did my own copy, which I used to have but which I passed on to another, safer pair of hands.

I assume (at this early stage I have no details) that if we are to film in this famous library, that I shall be able to see and examine this copy and I am delighted at the prospect.

The company, FarmStudioFactory, are an Italian film and television production company, but appear to make films for other people so it will be interesting to try to get some background on this to see where the idea originated.  I scraped up a few details on the library as I was so interested in it and this is what I found:-

"Along with the Cathedral - Milan's most famous and much beloved monument - the big Castle is linked to the vicissitudes and dramatic events that the city has experienced over the past centuries. For many years, in fact, it has represented a symbol of the power in the hands of the Dukes, as well as of the foreign dominators. Only at the beginning of the 20th century the Castle assumed its distinctive role, becoming a place of culture, which hosted numerous Lombard art collections. The Castle was named after Francesco Sforza, who transformed it into a ducal residence in 1450. But its origins date back to the second half of the 14th century, at the time of Galeazzo II Visconti.

Hosted inside the Castello Sforzesco is the revered Trivulziana Library. The library can be accessed to examine parchments, documents, records and prints. The Historic Archive preserves all the acts of the Municipality of Milan and of the Duchy dating back as far as 1385."

I also would like to know the history, the provenance,  of this particular copy of the Das Tri and how it came to reside in Italy. I have always believed that the other countries of Europe might hold some further accounts of Johann Bessler and it seems to me that a documentary about him could engage the attention of the right people to bring such information to the surface.

I'll tell you more when I know more. I should not get too excited as this kind of thing has happened to me before, more than once, and the project has always gone out like a damp squib!

JC

Pendulums again.

Still trying to find the time to make my latest mechanism, unfortunately another week in Spain looms close, so it looks as though I'll be delayed again! Who am I kidding, I love it there! This week has seen the hottest October since records began, with temperatures of 29 degrees Celsius( that's 84F deg in real money!) - I know that's not particularly hot but for October its just amazing. It's all going downhill again on Tuesday so it looks as though my trip is timed to perfection. I will be connected there so I can keep any eye on things and maybe even write a blog about the wine, beer and sangria!

I'm tangled up in thoughts about the second drawing in Das Tri at the moment, and trying to discern exactly what Bessler was trying to tell us with the double drawing. The large triangular pendulum is intriguing and the three different angles seem to point, in my opinion, to the thirty degrees at the bottom - maybe its critical? I have the thought that a weight about to fall through 90 degrees ( a quarter) would need to be leaning a little in order to begin its fall as soon as possible. Each number on the clock is seperated by thirty degrees, so one o'clock is thirty degrees from twelve o'clock. Should we start the fall at one o'clock to stop at three o'clock?

JC

Do the pendulums regulate or obfuscate?

Many among we 'Bessler's wheel' researchers have our own pet theories about different aspects of our self-appointed task, and they can be as diverse as the numbers of people involved. So it comes as no surprise to find my own theories treated with as much indifference as I treat many other people's - no offence intended and none taken. But one theory I have subscribed to, among a couple of others, for most of my life is the one about the pendulums indicated in two of Bessler's drawings; I refer to the drawing in Grundlicher Bericht published December 1715 and the one in Das Triumphirende published in October 1719. Both depict Bessler's Merseberg wheel and include a complex pendulum and according to Bessler they could be used to regulate the speed but, if not required, could be dispensed with. However as at least two reports comment on the extreme eveness and regularity of rotation of the wheels, there seems little or no requirement for their use.

My very first thought was that they were included to add interest to what was after all, pictorially a pretty dull subject matter without them. This thought was supported by the later drawings in Das Triumphirende which show an archimedes screw being turned. However not content with that drawing, Bessler also added another one which shows a large triangular pendulum with three bobs. As we have already dismissed the need for pendulums to regulate the wheel's speed why would he include yet another one, four years after the first?

I therefore dismissed the idea that they were there as mere decoration. I took the view that they were intended to convey information about the inner structure of the wheel; the mechanism in fact. I have expressed this thought elsewhere but my opinion has been largely ignored and it seems that most people attempt to make the case for their use as governors, something I would argue against.

Following my belief in the true purpose of the pendulums, I have over the years, played with a number of mechanisms designs loosely based on the pendulms, several with interesting properties, but nothing that subscribed to the concept which I have favoured for some years now - the actual way that gravity alone was able to drive Bessler's wheel.

But, as I've been unable to get on with my Bessler wheel experiments for the last few weeks, due to other commitments, I have been restricted to just thinking about it and studying the drawings - and I think I have discovered something interesting in his main wheel drawing. It's extremely obscure and I'm fairly confident that you are unlikely to find it unless you've followed my own train of thought over the last three or four years. Having said that I wouldn't be surprised to learn that others have made the same connection, but I should think that if I am right then so should they be and therefore we would surely have heard about it by now - in which case either I'm wrong about this particular aspect of ther drawing - or no one else has made the connection.

I hope to make an experimental mechanism to test my thinking next week and if it works I'll follow it up with a full prototype - and that may test my basic hypothesis to destruction!

JC

Disenchanted with Bessler's wheel? Energize - Invigorate - Revitalize!

I'd be interested to know how people became aware of, and interested in, Johann Bessler.

I fear that the enthusiasm for Bessler's wheel is waining. I don't mean those who are already 'on board' so to speak but 'newbies' seem to be few and far between. I note that the majority of those who frequent the websites devoted to Bessler with an open mind are retired or approaching retirement, I apologise to those to whom retirement is still a long way off, but there does seem to be a lack of interest in this puzzle among younger people. I assume it has something to do with the public perception of 'perpetual motionists', as we are seen to be. The facts about Bessler are completely swamped by negative opinion and a humorous/scornful approach to descriptions of those who are dedicated to finding his solution.

When I began this journey in 1997, by publishing "Perpetual Motion; An Ancient Mystery Solved?", I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of interest worldwide, I don't mean that it became an instant best seller (I wish!!!) but there were emails from all around the world and lots of interest from academics as well as engineers and people from many varied professions and as well as educated amateurs. Now there is nothing. I see that posts on the forum have largely dropped to armchair discussions - few people have any input on possible solutions any more. Do we think we have we exhausted every possible concept or design? I know I haven't and in fact I'm working on something that I feel more confident about than I have for some time.

Of course I was helped in the early days by articles about my book, appearing in Nexus magazine, Infinite Energy magazine, the Journal of Free Enery and others. This may have triggered interest in my book - I don't know. But I do think that this subject does not appeal to younger people and I regret that. When you look back at the history of great scientific discoveries, many were made by people in their intellectual prime, usually their twenties and thirties, and the majority were not 'professional' scientists but educated amateurs. Some, such as Michael Faraday, had only the most basic education yet his achievements in the fields of chemistry, electricity and magnetism were huge. I feel that we need to find some way of attracting the interest of younger people to inject some new thinking into this ancient topic.

When I finally get around to finishing my book on Bessler I will court the advertising media again as I did in 1997 but I have nothing to offer them at this point so there is nothing to new to engage them. I don't know how we can engender new interest but we must keep trying.

PS. Note the American spelling in the title - I love all those 'z's!  As did Bessler.

JC