Bessler's Codes - why did he create them?.

Johann Bessler was christened Elias Bessler and added the other two forenames at about the time he exhibited the Merseburg Wheel, the one which could turn in either direction.  Although these additional names were added some time after the first exhibition, and they seem to have been part of a plan to leave information about this wheels hidden within certain documents he was publishing, his pseudonym, Orffyreus, was being used almost from the start.  This seems to indicate that he always planned to encode information about his wheels in published documents s.  

Why he felt the need to do this we can only speculate, but as patents were not available to him at that time we might assume that he undertook this action to try to establish, should it become necessary, his priority claim in the event that another should try to lay claim to being the first to invent the gravity-wheel.  Upon consideration, this action seems hardly worth the effort, because if someone else succeeded in duplicating Bessler's wheel before Bessler himself had sold it, then the result would be the same as if he had openly given away the secret of its construction.  The pretender would have to show how his wheel worked and Bessler would have to prove his priority by showing how his own wheel worked and that it was as described in the encoded information he had buried in his publications.  So perhaps there was another reason also.

He does say at one point that if he fails to sell his wheel he will be content with posthumous recognition. But this was written in 1715 when he had excellent prospects before him and such a plan at the age of 35 seems somewhat pessimistic, so perhaps there was a third and more compelling reason for the code.  Bessler certainly demonstrates that he had a deep and abiding curiosity about codes and the pleasure he derived from its use, drove him to tantalise us by dropping subtle hints in many places about the existence of codes and also leave obvious examples such as chronograms, and the ROT13 ciphers he used to establish his pseudonym, Orffyreus, from Bessler.

I think he would still have enjoyed pointing out his codes and their meanings in the event that he did have to prove his priority, even if it denied him the pecuniary rewards he sought.  But also the posthumous recognition desire was  self-evident so perhaps it was a bit of each reason that led him to devise his complex network of codes.

I'm aware of Øystein Rustad's work on deciphering codes and I look forward to seeing what he has done, and I have also deciphered a different set of codes and like Bessler, and Øystein, I think, I can't wait to share what I know!  There are other pieces of code awaiting someone's more  incisive analytical attention, such as the Bible references, and the whole of Das Triumphans,which I believe, contains some hidden gems.

Like many before, I too have found it useful to hide a little code containing what I call the Bessler-Collins principle.  It's not as if I would ever patent anything I found, but it would be good to know that I was first and could prove it, and that is what, in the end, I think was in Bessler's mind when he began devising codes.

There have been many illustrious scientists who used a similar idea to attempt to confirm their discoveries and thus receive their due honour, in the course of time; such people as Galileo, Sir Christopher Wren and Sir Isaac Newton, to name but three.

JC

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Bessler's Wheel Required Only Gravity as an Enabling Force.

I'm still being asked why I think Bessler's wheel worked purely on gravity and required no additional forces, and without giving away my own theory, it's difficult to bring something new to the table.  However looking back at the evidence it still seems obvious to me that nothing has changed

Leaving aside, on this occasion the evidence we are all aware of regarding the numerous examinations and tests the wheel was subjected to, Bessler said in Das Triumphens, "NO, these weights are themselves the PM device, the ‘essential constituent parts’" There are several other examples where Bessler discusses his weights and to my mind there is no other option than to consider that his claims were sincere.

There is another point and it is this.  Either we assume that Bessler told the truth and there was no additional force supplied, or he lied and there was another force present; in either case the wheel worked.  If there was another force available how come no-one has discovered what it was and replicated Bessler's wheel?  Such a discovery would be equally amazing and useful as one which only relied on gravity.  If another force was present why wouldn't Bessler hint at it?  He enjoyed dropping obscure hints about the way his wheel worked but he insisted that the weights were all that was needed.  On the Besslerwheel forum several suggestions have been made at what such additional force might be, and none of them are as convincing as the idea that it was simply gravity as Bessler said.  There was very little else available to Bessler at the time apart from ambient temperature changes or perhaps some kind of static electricity. Both ideas to my mind, simply won't do.  Others have suggested centrifugal forces or some such derivative, but in all cases no continuously rotating wheel has surfaced, therefore I am certain that Bessler told the truth and gravity was the sole provider of power to the wheel.  It's a case of Occam's razor which states that among competing hypotheses, the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions should be selected.  Just one assumption is necessary and that is that Bessler told the truth, there was no additional force.

When Sir Isaac Newton wrote his 'Principia', he wrote the whole thing in Latin, which was the accepted way to introduce matters of scientific and intellectual interest.  University lectures were given in Latin and publications such a 'Acta Erditorum' were also published in Latin.  Latin was a universal language at that time and thus students from various countries attended universities in England, France and Germany with equal ability to understand what was being taught.  Newton used the word 'gravitas'  for the force and in this sense, 'gravitas'  translates as 'heaviness'. Everyone understood the term 'heaviness' as a concept but the use of the word 'gravitas' and thus 'gravity', came to be applied later to the concept of 'heaviness as if it had been coined specifically for that purpose.  So when we say that Bessler used the word gravity he didn't mean it in the way we do, he just used the word 'heaviness' as the provider of the force which turned his wheels.

In other words Bessler did not think of gravity in the way we do with all its preconditions about how it can be used, he simply meant heaviness, and weights had heaviness and it was that which he was able to manipulate to his advantage.

Heaviness is a pressure or resistance we feel when we lift something up, or hold it.  I liken it, for example to the same pressure we experience when we fight to hold an umbrella from blowing inside out in the wind; or a gust of wind hits you when you come out from the shelter of a building, or a strong current of water encountered when swimming.  It is simply a pressure.  I used to sail a lot as a young man and it's the same thing when you haul in a sail, the wind pressure fights you all the way.  Gravity is a conservative force; so is the wind, and so is a current of water.  Just because gravity is conservative does not preclude its use as a continuous pressure to drive around a wheel.  The word conservative, as used in this instance, simply means that it does not stop, it continues to apply pressure, just as the wind does when it blows and water too when it is a current. Conservative forces don't really conserve their energy but they conserve their force or momentum. Hitting a ball, on the other hand, is an explosive event and therefore not a conservative event,  It is not continuous in the way that gravity, wind and water streams are. Conservative means that it is not used up with nothing left, the force is conserved not exhausted.  The opposite of conservative or conserved is un-conserved or not conserved, so the three examples above must be conserved or continuous otherwise we could not sail ships, turn windmills, use watermills etc., etc.

Lastly all calculations seem to apply to one weight moving in a circle, they seem to ignore the presence and effect of correctly configured multiple weights.

JC

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HAPPY NEW YEAR

I have a feeling that this will be the year that Bessler's wheel is finally solved!  Have I said that before? Probably, but something seems different this time.  Many separate skeins are coming together, and speaking for myself, I am confident that I have the whole solution in my head and partly already built in my secret laboratory  ( workshop/work bench/ small niche for my mechanism-building!)

I no longer worry about anyone else getting there before me (I used to!) - I just want to see dozens, hundreds, thousands, or more likely millions, of Bessler wheels of all sorts and sizes, spinning continuously all over the world, providing electricity, heat, air-conditioning, pumping water, grinding corn, propelling ships, trains -  maybe even  vehicles, who knows?

The end is in sight and somewhere there is (or are) one or more determined individuals putting the last touches to their prototypes prior to testing them.  It might be you or it might be me, but whoever it is, good luck and don't be put off if this one fails, you have it in you to succeed and succeed we must.  Good luck to all and a very happy, prosperous and healthy new year to all.

JC

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How big would Bessler's Wheel have to be to supply all the heat and light required for one home?

From time to time the possible uses for a Bessler wheel have been discussed, and much debate has centred on the potential power it might be able to generate.  I may be wrong, but I have got the impression that many people think that it will lack sufficient power to be of any practical use.  Mostly it has been thought that a wheel capable of generating enough electricity for single home's requirements would have to be too big to be of any economical benefit and might cost more to build than the cost currently experienced in paying power companies for their electricity (pardon the pun!).

But I have been following the news about the machine being built on behalf of Ribeiro brothers and information about it can be found at  http://www.rarenergia.com.br/  Looking at the photos I estimate that it must be at least 30 foot long by maybe 20 foot high.  I have no idea if this thing will work as claimed, but I can imagine the power output from a Bessler wheel of similar dimensions and it isn't small by any means. Bessler suggested that a wheel of 20 foot diameter could be built and this was a single wheel, imagine a series of them on one shaft covering 30 feet in length (like the Ribeiro brother's one ) and yet still 20 foot in diameter.

Most of the electricity in this country and elsewhere is generated by Alstom steam turbines.  There are different modules for differing requirements in output, but on average they measure at the very least 30 foot in length and over 15 foot in height and some are several times larger.  Admittedly these operate at a much higher speed than Bessler wheel could ever achieve, unless it was able to apply sufficient force to the right gearing, but that is an engineering problem and not impossible.  The point I am making is that these huge machines are designed to supply heat and light to thousands of homes, but something smaller than Ribeiro's machine in the form of Bessler's wheel might supply sufficient electricity to power maybe a street of homes - and how big for just one home?

JC

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