How did Bessler Build his Wheel?

As I have said before, I use a disc of wood to attach the various mechanisms and the whole is mounted on a slim axle, but this is not the answer that Bessler could have used.  My method results in a flimsy construction incapable of carrying out the tasks Bessler's did.  His method required the construction of a framework as depicted in my original biography about him., see below.

In my original sketch I included eight divisions but things have changed since then.  In the first place I envisaged, and still do, two separate wheels, one a mirror image of the other, designed to turn the Kassel wheel in either direction.  There might therefore have been a need for only four radial struts; one set for each direction that the wheel turned.  Subsequently I proved to my own satisfaction that there were in fact five mechanisms operating inside the wheel and therefore five radial struts required for each direction of the wheel.

The initial framework might have stopped at the half way point, as shown in the illustration above, allowing access easily to the areas close to the axle.  The rest could have been added later to complete the construction. I read somewhere, but I forget where that the thickness varied from 15 to 18 inches on the Kassel wheel and I have shown why this might have been necessary above right.

The axle makes an interesting study.  Six inches in diameter and six foot long; using a wood weight calculator I found the weight to be estimated at between 50 and 100 pounds dependant on whether it was pine or oak, and there are many other possibilities using other woods, but the weight is significant.  There must have been some kind of support for the axle before he even began, unless he used a vise to support it and hold it still.  A hundred pound axle would be a heavy object to manoeuvre around and I think it likely that he made a work-bench designed to hold it in position while he worked on it.  But the six foot radial arms would become a problem because it would need the support structure to hold the axle six feet above the ground, otherwise the ground would interfere, unless he then added to the final section of each radial arm at a later stage., so I lean towards the three foot segments as the way to begin work on it.

Another thing is the positioning of the three-quarter inch bearings.  Any one who has had a bike will be familiar with the way the wheel can become wobbly.  How Bessler managed to build his wheel without any reported wobble because the wheel was slightly out of true was an achievement in itself.

How were the radial struts attached to the axle? Perhaps he used dowels sunk into the axle and subsequently used them to provide an attachment.  Or maybe there is a clue in the two drawings below, taken from his "Das Triumphans.."

The square box-like structure lends itself as a means of attaching to an axle.

Just some thoughts about the problems he faced building such a large structure on his own.

JC

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Update on wheel, moving house, clues etc.

I really enjoyed the contributions to this blog and the previous posting, so feel free to continue on this one. 

It has been suggested that perhaps my wheel is already running and that I'm holding back the secret for some nefarious purpose, but the truth is so much more mundane. I recently put my house up for sale and as anyone who has done this knows, the place must be kept immaculate at all times for any potential purchasers to view it at its best.  Consequentially my workshop has been tidied and my wheel hidden - I don't want any snoopers to see what I've been working on!

After a week the house was sold and I assumed that after eight weeks or so we would move out - wrong, the buyer changed his mind and backed out!  I had just got the wheel back out, but now its back in hiding again and the house is back on the market and we await another series of house viewings.  Until it is sold we cannot move to Spain.

In addition my beloved mother-in-law is having to sell her little bungalow to fund her remaining days in a nursing home.  She's 93 and can't do it herself so guess who's getting her house ready for sale?  Yes it's me again, getting two houses ready for sale and  hoping to buy two more, one here and one in Spain!

So any revelations about my wheel actually working will be on hold until I can get to work on it again, but I am continuing to write up the details and will publish as soon as I have finally tested this wheel.

In the previous comment section it was suggested that we would not know if we had actually discovered the secret of Bessler's wheel rather than an alternative method of  achieving the same result as he did.  I have said this many times now but in response I will just say that my proof that I have discovered his secret relies totally on his clues, and they are not mere interpretations but a series of physical undeniable pieces of evidence.  The proof is not dissimilar to a series of logical argument put forward by a lawyer in a  court of law - or the chain of evidence published in support of a medical conclusion.  We will know if we have Bessler's secret.

Also my claims that the number 5 is an important part of the Bessler wheel is routinely dismissed but I can assure you that is it a vital ingredient.

Finally I fear that I sound just like Ken and Oystein, and yet I have little or no knowledge of their clues any more than they know of mine, can all three of us be right?  My feeling is that Oystein has genuine knowledge although whether it refers to the wheel's structure or relates to some other matter, I have no idea.  For me Ken's code is harder to see, impossible in fact, for me.  I placed what potential encoding I could find in the portraits on my website at http://www.theorffyreuscode.com/html/part_2_portrait.html and also at the other portrait link on the same web site, it was not helpful in my opinion, but we are each convinced of the efficacy of our own pet theories and maybe we will each turn out right, after a fashion.

JC

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Perhaps the mechanism is not so simple.

Karl the Landgrave is on record as saying that the secret of the wheel was so simple a carpenter's apprentice could make one, if he was allowed a little time to study it.

In the eighteenth century skilled  craftsmen traditionally employed children from a young age, 12 or 13 usually, but sometimes as young as 7.  They were indentured in a legal document  which bound the child to the master for seven years or more.  He provided board and lodging in return for free labour and also provided skill training which would ultimately permit the apprentice, upon leaving his master's employment, to set up on his own in a similar craft. So in Germany at that time the freed apprentice would usually have acquired all the necessary skills to operate successfully, by the age of about 21.

I think that Karl's words might have given the impression that the skill required to reproduce Bessler's wheel was scarcely higher than that possessed by the ordinary person in the street.  He was a ruler, a statesman and a politician and therefore commented in front of others of a similar standing, and chose his words carefully, knowing they would probably be reported by visiting dignitaries. 

I think he would have responded to questions about Bessler's wheel as noncommittally as possible and when asked how complicated the wheel was, would have considered his response in his customarily careful manner.  So, he chose to use an apprentice as an example, that being of less experience than a freed carpenter; less experience but still with four or five years expertise to back him in his  in attempt to copy the wheel.

I saw a documentary on child labour recently, and the skill demonstrated by kids as young as nine or ten in assembling electrical items, polishing gems, extracting precious metals from scrap electronics was eye-opening.  I see no reason to support the notion that, just because Karl appeared to be slightly denigrating about how simple the mechanisms were, should not fool us into thinking the secret to assembling Bessler's wheel would be easy and not involved complex configurations.

I mention this again, because my problem in assembling the parts I've made for Bessler's wheel are difficult to arrange without accidental clashes between different components.  But gradually by rearranging them over and over, I am getting there.

JC

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Law, Theory, Hypothesis or simply a Fact - which is it?

I thought I'd post this but I may still return to the previous blog afte a few days, unless something else occurs to me.

A brief aside in one of the posts on the besslerwheel forum, gave me pause for thought.  When someone comes to a reasoned explanation for Bessler's wheel, without having actually made a working model, that explanation might be termed a hypothesis, however the three terms, hypothesis, law and theory have similarities and may overlap in places.

I found the critical feature that enables gravity to work on weights so that they cause the wheel to rotate. I called my discovery about why Bessler's wheel did not break any physical laws, a principle or an observation.  I read that a hypothesis is an educated guess based on an observation. So it might be a hypothesis, but apparently a hypothesis can be disproved, but not proven to be true.  I can prove my hypothesis is correct so it can't be a hypothesis.

A scientific theory summarizes a hypothesis or group of hypotheses that have been supported with repeated testing. A theory is valid as long as there is no evidence to dispute it. Therefore, theories can be disproved.  So my discovery can't be a theory because it can be proved and it can't be disproved.

A law generalizes a body of observations. At the time it is made, no exceptions have been found to a law.   As my Bessler-Collins principle lies within the scope of an existing set of laws it is already covered and cannot be a law on its own.

So my problem is this; I have reasoned an explanation for why Bessler's wheel worked and how.  The principle which I have called the Bessler-Collins principle still escapes a valid definition.  I can prove it works both by describing it with illustrations, and by physically making a testing model which performs as predicted.

Fact: In science, an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as “true.”  So it is just a fact, an observation or a description of something that is well-known but has so far escaped everyone's noticed, or as I think Bessler put it, 'I found it where everyone else had looked'.

JC

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