Gravity, gravity - all you need is gravity!

This isn't really a clue, it's just common sense.

If you are one of those who, like myself, believe that Bessler told the truth then you will know that what follows is demonstrably true.  Whether you include two, three, four or five weights or more, on your overbalancing wheel you will have discovered that it still ends up with the wheel in perfect balance, stationary.  When the wheel comes to rest it will have either a single weight at six o’clock, or a pair of weights on either side of six o’clock.  That is a fact.

The problem lies in the design.  If it requires that gravity makes the weight move from the inner orbit to the outer orbit, thus inducing overbalancing and limited rotation, the wheel will come to a stop after a brief rotation.  If you want to make an overbalancing wheel spin continuously, then yes, you must  arrange for the weight to fall into an outer orbit on one side of the wheel... then you have to find a way to lift each weight back up to its original position at least once during each rotation so that it can fall again.  You don't have a choice. It simply won’t work if you design it so that the weights only move outwards, under the influence of gravity, as the wheel turns.  It is not enough to think that the fallen weight will be raised as the wheel turns and somehow fall inwards again at some point. You need an additional force to lift the weight, or move it back inwards again - Bessler didn't exactly say so, but he implied that that additional force was also gravity too - but a separate packet of it.

JC

One bit of work done by gravity, is one packet of energy used.

I have been asked to clarify what I mean by the phrase, 'a packet of energy' used on my website at http://www.besslerswheel.com/html/conservative_force.html

If I drop a book on the floor I say that its fall has consumed one packet of  gravitational energy.  If I drop two books on the floor at the same time there will still be only one packet of energy used, but if the two books drop one after the other then two packets of energy have been used.  If a very heavy dictionary and small pocket diary fall at the same time only one packet of energy has been used.  So the number of packets of energy used depends purely on whether they happened to fall  together or separately.

If I drop a bag of billiard balls on the floor, I can calculate how much energy was used by weighing the bag of balls and measuring how far they fell -  weight times vertical fall gives us a figure indicating the work done by gravity.  I could also weigh the bag and each ball separately and work out how much work was done for each item.  If I then added those figures together the resulting total would be the same as for the bag of balls. So it doesn’t matter how far they fell or how heavy they were - all we are interested in knowing is whether they fell together or separately and that is why I call the amount of work done by gravity, a packet of energy consumed.

The reason I use this phrase is to try to explain how one half of a pair of weights can move the other half without coming into conflict with the conservative nature of gravity. Their falls do not happen at the same time and therefore their new positions can be used advantageously to rotate the wheel.!

I realize of course that this phrase is normally used in connection with photons or gravitons but in this instance there is no direct connection with that concept.

JC

The Bessler-Collins gravitywheel.

There was a comment on here and I've had some emails asking me why my wheel is taking so long.  People have said that it sounded very complex - maybe too complex to be similar to Bessler's wheel.  So with only 21 days left 'til the 300th anniversary I'm sharing some of the details of its build although I doubt you will find it very illuminating - it's not meant to be - yet!

I think I shall finish it in time but I'm not quite there yet.  I am committed to being away for a couple of weeks at the beginning of June so I may save the result 'til I return - or I may not - it probably depends on whether it works or not!  I'm disappointed to be away on the very day we should be remembering Bessler's first exhibition but it can't be helped. Families make arrangements without considering the possibility that they might clash with an important date in my Bessler calendar!

The backplate on which it's all mounted is three feet wide.  There are five mechanisms for reasons I understand but which are not immediately obvious at first sight.  Each mechanism has ten parts plus two weights, so in total the whole wheel has 60 parts, plus the axle.  I wish it had eleven parts per mechanism then it would total 55!

The axle runs all the way through the wheel - for those who have suggested that it didn't.  The mechanisms employ the 'kiiking' principle and the wheel is designed to turn in one direction only.

There are no springs employed in my version although I could find a use for them if required, but the scissor linkage otherwise known as "stork's bill", or" lazy tongs" is present.

The method of working is readily apparent to a casual observer however longer study would be necessary to appreciate the finer points of detail without which it would fail.  If it works, the wheel will begin to spin spontaneously as soon as any brake mechanism that might be applied is released.

The main reason why it has taken so long is that although I had the basic principle, there were some parts of the mechanism whose precise design arrangement was open to interpretation so I had to test each configuration to determine which worked the best.  I have now got the mechanism arrangement I think works best so all I have to do is complete all five and test the wheel. 

I'm convinced that even if it doesn't work the principle is sound and will lead to someone succeeding in making a working wheel. Watch this space.

JC

Gravity lies at the heart of all movement on the planet.

In yesterday's post I was trying to say that the traditional explanations of why gravity cannot be used to drive a wheel continuously, must be wrong because the evidence that Bessler's wheel was genuine is so compelling.  I wanted to get away from the oft-parroted words we learn from text books, wikipedia etc., and think for ourselves. 

I have tried the well-tested route of analogies, one of Eric Laithwaite's favourite ways of explaining things, but people still get side-tracked into irrelevant details.  They simply don't get the allusion to gravity being analogous to the wind.  The origin of the wind is always introduced no matter how many times I say 'you have to look at this as a local effect'.

Instead of trotting out the same old stuff, why don't we think about the problem and use our commons sense?

Gravity is continuous, we know that because when we drop something it falls to the floor - it happens every time!  

I can pick up a book off the floor and replace it on a shelf and restore the potential energy lost in sending the book to the floor.

Let's say I fire a rifle horizontally, the bullet hits the ground 500 yards away at a point level with the ground I'm standing on.  At the same time I drop another bullet from my hand level with the rifle and both bullets hit the ground at the same time.  Gravity was only responsible for making the bullet drop to the ground.

Those are the features which define a conservative force.  It is a continuous force; energy lost by it is capable of being restored by reversing what happened; and it is not necessary to take into account the path of a fallen object when calculating the work done by gravity.

Now it is always said that for those reasons gravity cannot be used as we wish to use it.  But each of those definitions can apply to wind and water currents, so why separate them from gravity?

Yesterday the sun was introduced again.  My fault, I mentioned it.  The thing is that the features of a conservative force mentioned above must be applied locally.  We don't know where gravity originates so we just need to look at how it manifests itself here on earth.  I tried to accommodate those who wish to include the sun in their argument by fixing on the fact that air is affected by gravity just as everything else is.  We know that the air is more dense closer to the earth's surface because of gravity.  It is analogous to the oceans of the planet.  If you dived to the bottom of the deepest ocean you would be crushed by the sheer weight of water above you, and a small bubble of air would escape from your flattened lungs and shoot towards the surface of the water.  

As it rose the bubble would get larger and larger.  Air at the surface of the eath is like that and as it rises each molecule gets larger and less dense.  

Yes the sun affects the air currents but gravity holds it down and would do so without the sun.  Solar energy may be responsible for the winds that blow, but gravity enables them to rise and fall, and create varying pressures. Gravity acts on molecules of whatever is with its field whether it's air, water or lumps of lead. The conservative force of gravity lies at the heart of all movement on the planet.

I wish everyone would accept Bessler's statement that the weights are themselves the PM device, the ‘essential constituent parts’".  Then we could go about trying to explain why that can be so.  I have tried and will continue to try to find the solution but sometimes I feel as if I'm banging my head against a wall of taught science.  No-one thinks for themselves any more but takes everything they are told for granted - parrot fashion.  I'm not saying that people don't understand what they have learned but sometimes it is easier to assume that that is all there is to the facts; there are no other factors to be considered, when perhaps a little lateral thinking might help us to understand how to solve the problem.

JC