It's five mechanisms, not four or eight.

I discussed the importance of the number 5 to Bessler, here last year (see my web sites at http://www.besslerswheel.com/  and http://www.theorffyreuscode.com/ )  In my opinion there is so much information to be had from Bessler's books that just stress the importance of this number that I fail to see how anyone can argue with the obvious fact that Bessler intended to convey something of importance to do with the number 5.  I am therefore astounded to be told from time to time that I have imagined all of it, or that I who has become obsessed wit it!  

The only thing we don't know for sure is why.  Well I do, but until I finish my wheel I cannot prove it, but I have worked out why it is necessary to have five mechanisms and why equal numbers of mechanisms won't work, at least not with this design.  

Fischer von Erlach described hearing the sound of 'about eight weights landing gently', etc.Why was he not sure about the number of weights he heard?  He was a widely respected and talented architect and engineer and seems to have tried to carry out a thorough examination of the wheel, yet he had some doubt about how many weights he could hear. 

Let us suppose that Bessler covered a weight in one mechanism with sound-deadening material - he mentioned that he used felt in an earlier wheel - so the other weights made a heavy knock as they landed, but the remaining weight made some kind of soft thud or perhaps it landed silently on a spring and made no noise at all. Did Erlach hear another sound but as it wasn't the same as the others, he attributed it to some other action and therefore concluded that there were about eight weights, whereas I argue that there were ten - five for each direction the wheel rotated.  The only suspicion he might have had was that there was a gap in the regular rhythm  of sounds he heard, but when you take into account the sounds he must have heard from the reversing mechanism which might not have been evenly synchronised with the forward moving ones you can see how he might have had doubts.

So guys, forget the eight weights or the four weights, it's five for each direction - and they operate in pairs.

JC

A belated expression of thanks to my first customers - and on with the show!

I've been looking for some old stamps for my grandaughter who has decided to start collecting them and I came across a huge bundle of envelopes I received from people all over the world when I first published my book. I have almost 400 stamps from so many different countries.

I'm amazed at how many I have and I think I should belatedly publish a word of thanks to all those people who took a chance on sending me a cheque to buy my book.  There was no PayPal nor anything similar back in 1997 and it must have seemed a risky purchase to send a cheque from one side of the world to the other.  The cheques themselves took six weeks to clear if they were in any denomination other than Pounds Sterling, which most of them were, but I couldn't leave people waiting all that time so I just sent the books and hoped the cheques would clear.  They all did and for that I'm extremely grateful.  

So I'd like to offer a belated thank you to all those people who risked a sum of money, with very little information about myself.  I guess we have grown older and wiser since then and are  much more aware and wary of internet scams than we were back then.  The internet was a new and exciting toy whose dangers most of us didn't fully appreciate.  Not only are we now much more clued up on the dangers of the internet but we are more cynical unfortunately.

My Spanish holiday gave me some much needed thinking time and I discovered some more information which has enabled me to produce a more accurate picture of the precise proportions of two parts of the mechanism.  I'm constantly amazed at the amount of information Bessler managed to secrete in various places under our eyes, without our noticing.  Anyway back to work, time marches on!

JC

300th anniversary approaching and no sign of success .... so far!

We're almost at the 300th anniversary of Johann Bessler's first exhibition - and I've a feeling it's going to be a bit a damp squib!  No sign of success either here or elsewhere although that may change very soon.  

I'm going away to Spain for a couple of weeks very early on Tuesday morning and I'll have to close the comments facility, but as soon as I get back it will be open again and I'll be back at work on my own wheel, unless of course someone has beaten me to the winning post and published their own working model!  I won't close the comments 'til Monday evening.

There have been a number of people who have said that they will have a working model by the 300th anniversary, myself among them, but I suspect that they won't materialise (mine won't).  My own work has gone well and I think that I have the right design if only roughly, and getting it perfect has proved more difficult than I anticipated.  But as I continue to build, adjust, build and adjust I learn more and more (about how to build a stationary wheel!).  I know that certain people will say I'm just fooling myself and my design will never work (I don't need to name you guys!) but I have something up my sleeve that may astound you once you know.

I'm taking a small computer with me in the hope of finding free wi-fi and I may post something if I can.

So good luck to all of you who are building or designing and I'll see you again soon.

JC

Divide the toys page into five parts.

I feel that the clues I have published may be too subtle for some to accept. This puzzles me, but of course I've had many years to study them and get inside Bessler's mind.  Obviously some people think I may be fooling myself but I have good reasons for thinking the clues are deliberate and real.  I never intended to give anything away when I published the clues and therefore by themselves they may seem unimportant, but I hope to explain why they are helpful in discovering the solution to Bessler's wheel.  I won't publish any more as I shall be away for a two weeks and will have to close the comments facility until my return.  I am taking a small computer with me and if I can find a wifi hotspot somewhere then I'll try to write something.  So, in the mean time....

3 days to go - 7th clue.  The items in the Toys page in MT, numbered 138, 139, 140 and 141, are labelled A, B, C, D and E (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).  There is an additional hand-drawn item, a spinning top, which includes in the notes attached to it the number 5 (five again!). You can rather neatly divide the drawing labelled 'A' horizontally into five equal divisions.  You can run the horizontal lines across to the left and find that they match well with item 'B' and further across to the stork's bill/lazy tongs.

It has always seemed clear to me that the items labelled 'A' and 'B' are the same things - and with the five divisions in place, show they are also five repeated versions of items 'C' and 'D'.  'A' is shown with the five mechanical arrangements labelled 'C' and 'D' in an open position, and 'B' is the same but closed.

But item labelled 'E' is also similar - you should think of it as 'C' and 'D' linked together.

In other words, as I said in another post, the drawings are not what they appear to be, at first sight.

One more thing.  I could never understand why Johann Bessler added four numbers to the bottom of the page and I assumed that it was to show which pages he had omitted.  In fact this doesn't make sense because this is the last page and followed on from 137, which would have been the last page before he added the toys page. But four numbers doesn't relate to the five (or six) drawings he labelled, but here's an idea - 138, 139, 140 and 141 totals 558.

JC