Hypothesis first, then mechanism design

I may be misreading the situation but it seems to me that many people attempting to find a solution to Bessler's wheel are designing new ways of achieving this and they do not realise they are effectively running on the spot,  and I'm not necessarily referring to those who attend this blog but in general.

I read that simulation software is useful because one can test many variations of designs and save hundreds of workshop hours.  While I don't doubt that these variations can be tested quickly and accurately, I think my point is being missed.  I spoke of variations in the design of various parts which occur to you when you are handling the mechanisms, where as the variations being tested in the simulation program really only apply to the changes available to you such as altering the placing of weights, pivot points or dimensions of the parts - it does not mean that the variations being tested in the software will cause an entirely new design to spring to mind just by looking at their animations.

When you have the physical parts in front of you and they don't work, you can see by means of an ability we all have - common sense -  why something doesn't work.  There is no need to run dozens of variations through the simulator when your common sense shows you why it doesn't work, and why no amount of variation in the dimensions or placings of critical parts will improve the outcome.

I often write that I have found and understand the basic concept which drives the gravitywheel, but actually that is too broad a definition.  The basic concept is the actual idea that gravity can drive a wheel continuously through action upon its weights.  All of us who believe this is possible, understand that concept.  So the extra thing that I understand is more than the basic concept.  I understand how it is possible, why it does not conflict with any of the accepted laws of physics, and what the mechanism must do. The key to success for me lies in designing a mechanism that works according to my hypothesis.

So we are looking for a hypothesis initially which will fit within current laws of physics and then all we have to do is design a mechanism which will operate within those laws and fulfil the hypothesis we have thought of. 

So to return to my first point, you must create a hypothesis to explain how the wheel could work and then you can design a mechanism which works according your hypothesis.

JC

Some advice, worth repeating in my opinion - Don't simulate - fabricate!

I know I've mentioned this before here, but from time to time, both by email and through the blog, I'm urged by well-meaning people to test my designs with simulation software, and my response has always been the same; I have tried simulations and I don't get the feedback from it that I do when I build a model, so I don't use them.  For me, there is no substitute for holding the pieces of a mechanism in my hands and, when I find that it isn't working, playing around with it and making all sorts of interesting and new (to me) discoveries.  I enjoyed that experience earlier this January and made, what I think is a momentous discovery and suddenly the so-called 'connectedness principle' was laid bare before me and I understood exactly what Bessler meant.

I am fully aware that there are several people who are equally sure they too understand it, and maybe they do; perhaps we have all made the same discovery... and maybe not.  I would never have made this short leap of understanding using simulation software because I would never have thought of moving the parts in the way I did, and even if I had, I doubt that I would have bothered to go to the trouble of entering that particular variation into the program - and there wasn't just the one variation I tried, but several different ones - who is to say which, if any, I would have tried out in the simulator?  The truth is that you can test variations so much quicker on the work bench than at a computer - and you know that what you are seeing is real and not subject to some bug within the program. Other aspects of the design now find an echo in several different drawings from Bessler and some loose ends have been tied up.

If you have never tried making models to test your design, please try it.  There are many impressive models shown on the besslerwheel forum and I am envious of the skills displayed by their makers but in all honesty there is no need to spend much money to test a hypothesis.  I have often made test mechanisms out of cheap materials such as cardboard, ice-lolly sticks, string, glue, plastic plates, drinking straws, lead weights for curtains and even blutack.  If the test answers the question then you can make something you wouldn't be ashamed of displaying!

I have no idea how many models I've made and if I knew, would I have counted separately all the variations on one design I'd tried?  Bessler suggested he'd made hundreds and I'm sure he did if you include the variations he tried. I would say the same thing - hundreds.

So my advice is, don't depend on just testing the ideas out on simulation programs because you may miss a vital clue if you don't build a model.   I'm sure that the successful machine will be designed by someone who is building models and not by someone who relies on simulation software.

JC

The Italian Orffyreus documentary and the Pentalpha.

RAI, the Italian state owned public service broadcaster who commissioned the "Orffyreus" documentary, have said that FarmStudios cannot send me a DVD of the finished documentary as they don't want anyone outside of production to see it before it's aired, which is fair enough in my opinion. But it does mean that I won't be able to offer copies to anyone for the time being.  Of course should pirated copies appear at some point in the future, then there is nothing one can do about that.  I am to be given a preview in the next few days, so I'll report about it as and when I can.

My current position with the Bessler build is stationary, like the wheels I've built so far!  I've got the flu.  I have a plan mapped out for when I can get back to work and it is looking promising - how many times have I heard myself say that before?  I am still working with the same basic concept which I worked out some eighteen months ago and I'm still convinced that it is the way to go.  It answers all the questions raised and I'm confident it will work.  The mechanisms are complex in a way that would not be obvious to a spectator, such as Karl.  I can see why he described them as simple.  It's one thing to see the finished article and how it works - but quite another to work out how to get it to do what you want it to do, when you don't know the exact design or the dimensions.

In answer to my previous post about the pentagrams and the number 5s, in Bessler's works, I've come to the conclusion he was trying to point us to the alternative word for pentagram, reputedly used by the Pythagorians, which was pentalpha.  Some people think of the pentagram as three interlaced triangles, but others describe it as having five upper case interlocking letter As, and that seem to me to be the more in line with Bessler's thinking. We have seen the interest in the besslerwheel forum in the famous 'A with legs': THE primemover? thread and this supports the idea.

It is well-known that Bessler used alternating letter As throughout his "Maschinen Tractate", sometimes with a straight cross-bar and sometimes with a bent one. He did not do this for any other reason than to point to its importance. I'm sure that this simple lever design is incorporated within the mechanism, and the successful design will require it.  

JC

That ubiquitous number five again, the Freemasons, Alchemy and Hermeticism!

As we all know, one thing that Bessler's codes has thrown up is the frequent appearance of 5, 55 and 555.  I have suggested that it either points to chapter 55 of Johann Bessler's Apologia Poetica - and/or it is a hint that five mechanisms are needed in each direction for the bi-directional wheel.  But nothing is certain and I would not wish to become so dogmatic that I miss an alternative meaning.

I would be the first to admit that the evidence that there were five mechanisms is non-existent, and if I'm wrong, then one must assume that the large number of coded number 5s only points to Chapter 55 in Apologia.  If it is connected with the presence of a coded message hidden in chapter 55 of Apologia Poetica, the evidence for which is undeniable, why did he choose the number 55? Was it chance?  I think the presence of hidden pentagrams, hinting at the same number in all the drawings in other books rules out chance.  He left so many other pointers to that Chapter, within the Apologia, not forgetting the strange list of 141 bible references, that the pentagrams seem to be superfluous.
 
In support of the idea that the chapter number 55 was not the only reason for the presence of the pentagrams, remember that none of the drawings containing the pentagrams appear in Apologia Poetica but rather, in the later publication Das Triumphirende, which came out four years later in a much more professional publication.  if they were pointing to the chapter 55 in Apologia Poetica one would think there would have been included, some kind of link to that former publication, or did he think people would remember the earlier one and make the connection themselves?  Very doubtful, and probably most people would not have even heard of the Apologia, since Bessler had only just started on his journey when it was published.

So the choice to use chapter 55 was deliberate, not chance; the pentagrams while pointing to the chapter 55 are not necessarily exclusively for that purpose, and the need for five mechanisms is not proven.  We are left with the mystery of why 55 and what does it mean?

I did a little surfing on the matter. A random query into google led me to the Washington Monument and its extraordinary measurements.  Now there are a considerable amount of spurious facts attached to this structure and it is hard to distil the truth from them but this is what I believe is correct.

Several heights have been specified, in the past, but the consensus seems to be 555 and half feet and one eighth of an inch.  Let us suppose that the intended height of the Washington monument was meant to be 555.5 feet above ground - that is equal to exactly 6666 inches.  A nice round figure and far more likely to be the right number than some figure plus an 1/8 th of an inch as is suggested.  Mind you, there are reports that the aluminium capstone on top of the pillar has been struck so many times by lightning that it has lost just under half an inch in height which, if we include the important eighth of an inch, would give a height of 555.55 feet!  And that would give us 6666.6 inches!

At ground level the sides are 55.5 feet (666 inches) long.  Ok so there appears to be an obsession with the number 5 (or its inch equivalent, 6) - but why? I'm well aware of the 5's ubiquitous  associations with alchemy, hermeticism, the Kabbala and freemasonry, and in particular the frequent association of the Washington Monument with the Freemasons....but not why that particular number! Yes there are numerous references to the number in freemasonry etc, but no one has come up with any good reason as far as I can tell why the number 5 is so important to them.  The pentagram is the most obvious geometric figure associated with the number five and that seems to have been in Bessler's mind too.  It has links with the planet Venus because the path is (very) roughly pentagonal...so what?  The skull, book and jar in Bessler's portrait also have links to Venus in symbolic art....and to Mary Magdalen...and she too has links to Venus!  We're going around in circles here (sorry!) and perhaps that was intentional. But why five?  What was it that Bessler was hinting at?  If we really knew why the freemasons were so captivated by the number 5, 55 or 555 etc, maybe we could get a glimpse of what Bessler was trying to tell us.

These different features of Bessler's books - the skull, jar and book, the hidden pentagrams, the various encoded 5s - all seem to point towards some kind of arcane belief system, but what it is, I don't know.

I have searched and searched for years and there is nothing of practical use for our purposes to be found in the inclusion of the the number 5, so the 5s are hinting at something else.  But what?

If anyone has any ideas about why Bessler included the number 5s I'd be pleased to know.  I understand, technoguy, your conviction that the design incorporates a pentagram within it - and you may be right, but I don't rule out anything else.

JC