Bessler's wheel update - alone at last!

My temporary lodgers, my daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren, have finally left to take up residence in their new home and we are slowly bringing our lives back to normal.  They were with us for four months in our home and we are still talking to each other, which is pretty amazing!  I love them to bits but they are so big and so loud! My workshop is now bereft of its two powerful motorbikes, four pedal cycles, two standing toolboxes, metal shelving, a cabinet full of leather motorcycling gear, helmets, gloves, boots which look like something from the the starwars movies propshop, and numerous appurtinances connected with motorcyling.  So now all I have to do is tidy up, rearrange the part of my workshop which was my wheel-building area and get back to work on my own personal wheel project. But first we must finish wallpapering some of the rooms in their new house!  Actually it's all but finished, so I could be in wheel action again next week, fingers crossed.

My wheel is still based on the principle I outlined on my web site at http://www.besslerswheel.com/  The design is aided by the clues I've found in Bessler's drawings.  There are confirmatory clues to support my conclusions but I'm experienced enough in this field of endeavour to know that I may be convincing myself and misreading those, oh-so-subtle clues - but I think not.

Although I can't resume work on the project until I can tidy up and make some room, I have a clear idea of the way ahead and I know exactly what is to be done next. It's so frustrating! I can see the work I've done so far, but there is a cross-trainer in the way and some cabinets and shelves which have to be moved back to their former positions, and until that is accomplished I can only stare at my wheel from a distance.

This hiatus has been useful.  Sometimes I think we get too close to the subject and we can't see the wood for the trees.  We need to see the thing as a whole, to understand the detail; we need to stand back; take a holiday.  So now I think I see things from a better perspective and I see where I maybe went off on a diversion that ended in a cul-de-sac.  Too many metaphors?  Yes I guess so, but you get my meaning.

Anyway back to things-Bessler with my next post.

JC

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Was Bessler's sales strategy wrong?

When Johann Bessler 'read that a thing to be prized more than a ton of gold would be the invention of a wheel which could turn of its own accord', it was after having spent a considerable amount of time and effort learning about all the different trades and crafts of his time.  He had travelled through Saxony, into England, Ireland and Scotland before returning to his homeland.

He had dabbled in treasure hunting, watch-making and medicine before comitting himself to the search for a solution to perpetual motion.  It seems to me that he sought wealth and fame from the very beginning but having found the solution to the perpetual motion machine, went about profiting from it in the wrong way.

Thomas Newcomen, who invented the first practicall steam engine  just a couple ot years before Bessler exhibited his first wheel, took a different approach to selling his invention.  He kept the secret within the membership of his family and they went around Europe building and installing their machines.  75 of them were in operation by the time he died.

That Bessler wanted riches is beyond doubt but his problem was the his machine required little more than standard ability to build and run, whereas Newcomen's was a far more complex machine requiring expertise and the training of its operators to function properly.  Even so Newcomen's engine cost about £1200 to buy - a huge cost in those days but compared to Bessler's request for £20,000 - a much better deal.

I think that Bessler could have offered his wheel at a much lower price and built and installed them himself.  If Newcomen, with the help of his family, was able to build and install 75 of his engines, before his death, I'm sure Bessler could have built even more than that and made a good living doing a similar service for people at quarter of  the cost of a Newcomen engine.  

Of course people would have copied them and built their own but I think the celebrity of having the original inventor build and install his machine would have generated enough sales to reach, say, 75 wheels at £250 each before he retired, and he would have earned money close to his desired £20,000.  John Rowley, Master of Mechanics to King George I, sold his Orreries for more than £500 each. Asking princes to commit to buying such an expensive machine as Bessler's was, with no chance to examine it's workings first was too much of a gamble for them.

Bessler was a born salesman, theatrical, passionate. and convincing.  I'm certain he could have succeeded and we would have the descendants of that machine with us today.

JC

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Is this the end?

I think this blog has come to the end of its useful life.  I've enjoyed writing and posting stuff but the lack of response now I've made it necessary to sign in to comment has stifled all communication (except for you kind diehards!) and I must now decide whether to give up now or revert to allowing anyone to comment without any control, other than my abiity to delete.  I could continue with that but there is also the problem of spam which requires deleting several times a day and I'm not sure I can be bothered with that.

I think the only thing I can do is open it up for anyone to comment for now and see what happens.

Wish me luck and thanks.

JC

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Bessler's alphanumeric and alphabetic-substitution clues.

Something I wrote in a comment was wrong!  I said that the two letter 'R's which, in Bessler's alphabetic substitution code, stands for the two 'E's, which are the initial letters in two of his forenames, could also represent the number 18, the base angle in a pentagon - because ithe letter 'R' is the 18th letter in the English alphabet.,  Oops!  Bessler's German alphabet consisted of only 24 letters, I/J and U/V being alternatives - which means the letter 'R' is the 17th letter not the 18th!  So it has nothing to do with the pentagon.

Johann Ernst Elias Bessler - J.E.E.B., through the ATBASH cipher transposes to W.R.R.O.  So, I think that the two 'E's can be taken as representing the letter 5, being the fifth letter of the alphabet and also because Bessler has used that same alpha-numeric code in numerous other places.  In addition I think he intended the letter 'E' to point to the letter 'R'  because he used alphabetic-substitution in many other places too.

His name, Johann, added at the time he added Elias, seems a mystery addition unless you accept that  with alphabetic-substitution Bessler meant to point us to the letter 'W', which also has no alpha-numeric meaning either, being the 21st letter of the German alphabet - but it is a useful pointer to the number 55. This is because of the way Bessler always wrote it - as two overlapping 'V's, as in Roman numerals, which he also used frequently.

So the letter 'J' itself, seems to have no underlying meaning but what about the the letter 'R'?  Maybe the 'R' does have a meaning.  Bessler always signed his name accompanied by a little avatar or logo.  It consisted of a circle with a dot in the middle supported by two letter 'R's each facing away from the circle

They are not complete 'R's but you can see that the two curved figures are meant to represent the letter 'R'. It looks as though there is no alpha-numeric meaning to be extracted from the 'R', but it does seem to have purpose, I think it shows a movement of a part or all of one mechanism. Here's another example from maybe 50 which I have and although there are variations in them most have the two 'R's and a circle.

But the letter 'J' really doesn't seem to have an additional meaning - unless I have missed something?

In summary, J = W = 55 and E = 5 = R = ?  Not much information there, and yet it's in such an important place, i.e., his name - it must be of importance.

JC

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