Challenging the Belief that it is Not Possible to Obtain Energy from Gravity

In my last post I commented that gravity might not be an energy source, just as we have been taught and continue to be so - but many years ago I came to the conclusion that this must be wrong.  My reasons for this are briefly discussed below.

If we believe (as I do) that Bessler told the truth then his implication that gravity provided the sole means of energy for his wheel means that gravity can be used as the ultimate source of energy for the wheel, even though we have been taught that this is impossible.  Please read on for my explanation.

The many tests and demonstrations the wheel underwent, all indicate that what Bessler said was true, and since he did not dare to cheat because being found cheating could lead to execution by the axeman, we have to accept his assurances.  In support of this we have the word of a knowledgeable man, Karl the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, known for his absolute integrity, that the machine was genuine because he had studied the interior.

Dismissing these points means that it is unlikely that anyone will ever find the solution to Bessler's wheel, despite the fact that we know it worked.

Apologies for briefly going back to basics.  In the case of a conservative force the total work done in moving a particle between two points is independent of the taken path. When an object moves from one location to another, the force changes the potential energy of the object by an amount that does not depend on the path taken.

In other words, in the case of gravity, if something is dropped it loses the potential energy it had at a higher point.  But we can restore it by lifting the object dropped, back up to its higher point

In the case of a non-conservative force the energy that it removes from the system is no longer available to the system for kinetic energy.

So our problem lies in finding a way to lift the fallen weight back up without using any additional forces other than gravity.

This is said to be impossible because the energy expended in dropping the weight has to be found in order to lift it back up again, but the energy has already been spent so there is no way to use gravity to lift it back up again - even though gravity is a continuous force, and a non-conservaive force could not drive a wheel of continuous rotation. Therefore it has to be a conservative force driving Bessler's wheel.

I have suggested the following argument countless times and people still don't get it.  The interface between gravity and Bessler's wheel is the weights.  Gravity makes the weights fall, and the weights make the wheel turn.

Interfaces play a major part in all types of motion. Wind and sails, steam and piston, flowing water and waterwheels, etc.  In each case an energy source provides the impetus and the interfaces react to provide motion.  So it is with gravity, it provides the force and the weights react to it.

Returning to my point about Bessler's wheel and not looking for an additional source of energy, everyone has been looking for this mysterious energy source that has been  suggested, for many years.  They have been unsuccessful because no such other source exists and neither is it necessary.  Steam, ambient temperature changes, bellows, live animals have all been suggested but nothing has been able demonstrate a similar power output which Bessler's wheel did relying purely on gravity

Therefore we must assume  that there was no other force used, and that leads us to the only possioble conclusion, Bessler found a way to use gravity alone to drive his machine, and that leads us to the final conclusion and it is this;

There is a way to configure the weights so that they respond to the effect of gravity by creating an permanent excess weight on the downwards side of the axle.  In confirmation of this, even when the wheel is stopped the overbalancing effect is still in operation and only the brake prevents the wheel from turning.  This overbalancing is produced automatically as soon as either a weight falls, or a weight has already fallen.  No other scenario can explain this feature of the wheel.

We can calculate the work done by gravity in making a weight fall by multiplying the mass of the weight times the distance it falls vertically, so at least we are allowed to assume gravity does do work!  The assumption that we cannot use gravity as an energy source relies totally on empiricism, a definition of which is, 'by means of observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic,'   In other words the conclusion that gravity cannot be an energy source relies not so much on theory and logic as by observation.  In other words no one has even been able to configure the weights to make wheel rotate continuously therefore it must be impossible.

If you are still reluctant to accept the premise that gravity is a source of energy consider the following. British clockmaker William Clement produced the first longcase clocks around 1680. It could run for a week without having the weights raised to restart the clock.  That's a week of gravity power.  But now consider this.

The Clock of the Long Now, also called the 10,000-year clock, is a mechanical clock under construction, that is designed to keep time for 10,000 years. The project to build it is part of the Long Now Foundation.

https://www.wired.com/2011/06/10000-year-clock/ 

The project was conceived by Danny Hillis in 1986. The first prototype of the clock began working on December 31, 1999, just in time to display the transition to the year 2000. At midnight on New Year's Eve, the date indicator changed from 01999 to 02000, and the chime struck twice. The two-meter prototype is on display at the Science Museum in London.

As of June 2018 , two more recent prototypes are on display at The Long Now Museum & Store at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco.

The manufacture and site construction of the first full-scale prototype clock is being funded by Jeff Bezos' Bezos Expeditions, founder of Amazon, with $42 million, and is on land which Bezos owns in Texas.

A clock designed to run for 10,000 years purely on the force of gravity.  Do you still think gravity is not a source of energy?

JC

Are There Any More Doubting Lions Roaring Around?

I borrowed the title of today's blog from Bessler's own words challenging those who disbelieved him to come and sit by his machine as it revolved.

I note that the the old familiar doubt about the truth of Bessler's claims has reared its ugly head again, on the Bessler wheel forum.

I published my book about Johann Bessler in 1996, and I thought I did a pretty good job of providing as much evidence as possible about Bessler and his machine and the tests, and the witness reports, and the letters about him, to him and by him.  I wrote and published the book because I was convinced of his sincerity about his machine.  Not only was the evidence convincing but you could feel the sncerity in the pain and anguish he suffered and emoted in detail in Apologia Poetica.  In my opinion no scam artist could write with such evident sincerity about his feelings about the rejection of his machine.

So when I read that someone who is relatively new to the forum keeps repeating the mantra, "if Bessler was telling the truth," or "perhaps Bessler lied,"  and often misquotes incorrectly passages from the book and all manner of untruths and half truths, I'm tempted to stop trying to persuade people of Bessler's ingenious machine and how much benefit it could bring to the planet earth in these difficult times. Why can't people only their write their ideas once they are in possession of the correct facts?

But in fairness to all those who aren't as familiar with the legend of Bessler's wheel as I am, I admit that over 300 years of schools and universities hammering the facts that perpetual motion machines are impossible and gravity cannot be used as Bessler seems to imply, is a paradigm that is going to take more than an ancient retired engineer (me!) berating them from a small insignificant blog, to persuade them that they are wrong.

There does seem to be the perennial question over the role of gravity in Bessler's wheel. Over the years I have come to accept that gravity itself cannot be regarded as a source of energy and the nuances of the connection between gravity itself and the force that drove Bessler's wheel are subtle and hard to explain, but this is my opinion.

Bessler implied that gravity was the source of energy but he did not say so explicitly.  He simply said that it was the excess weight, or extra heaviness on one side of the wheel that caused the wheel to overbalance, but we and thousands like us have been working on that theory for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years.  He did not use the word 'gravity' because that word was coined almost accidentally by Sir Isaac Newton when he used it in his famous book, Principia' and in Besslers day that was largely unread by anyone other than the top philosophers of the day.  Newton's book was written in Latin, the universal language of learning, and he used the word 'gravity' as the Latin for 'heaviness' to describe this force we all call ‘gravity’ now.  But in Bessler's day they use words such as preponderance which can  mean superiority in weight or significance. This meaning relates to the word's Latin roots in the word praeponderare, which means "outweigh."  So looking for the word ‘gravity’ in Bessler’s papers will result in none being found.

Why have our teachers told us it is impossible?    Because gravity is a conservative force and the energy expended in causing a weight to fall exactly equals that  available to raise it again, and only then if you omit the energy used to overcome friction.

A weight can fall through any path, straight down or around in a curve, all that matters is the straight line vertical distance traveled.  These two factors mean a weight would have to fall in a closed loop, zero energy would be used, which would be impossible.  The assumption is that this rules out any chance of a weight driven wheel. working.

But they deny that it is possible to configure the movement of the weights to create a variation which would break open the closed loop making an asymmetrical loop.  If you study the argument if depends upon the motion of one weight around a circle, but we have always attempted to find a way to include various movements of each weight during its path around the circle in an attempt to create a variation on the closed loop which would achieve continuous rotation.  BTW note my preference of the phrase 'continuous motion' or 'continuous rotation' rather than 'perpetual motion', I just think its more accurate and less inflammatory.

NB I forgot to say that even though gravity is a conservative force and isn't a source of energy, the transfer of energy from the force of gravity to the weights is undeniable because it is this transference which enables the weights to fall.

My own wheel has been designed with a break in its closed loop which provides for a variable between each side of the centre of rotation and I am confident will lead to continuous rotation, but I didn't think of it myself, but was only able to work it out with Bessler's help!

Anyway whatever the result, work continues albeit slowly to the grand or not so grand finale.

JC 

My Hopes and Intentions for the Summer of 2018.

I have been planning to publish a video of a working Bessler wheel for a couple of years, (I haven’t got a working one yet!) ever since I found what I believe to be the true design or concept which formed the basis of the device.  I also intended to publish an explanation and demonstration of the details of the extensive range of clues which I uncovered.  These plans have been largely on hold for most of the last two years, firstly due to our decision to move house to a smaller property, which unfortunately lacked a workshop, and latterly to a string of random but serious illnesses within our family that required our presence almost daily.

Our circumstances are improving and I have managed to create a small working area in a somewhat reduced garage space and begun construction of the machine which I hope to have finished within a few weeks.  If in the end, the machine I have built does not work, as I freely admit, is a possibility, I shall immediately publish details of the discoveries I’ve made including the design of my wheel.

My hope is that someone will take my information forward and succeed where I failed, but of course I don’t think I will fail!

Once this machine is up and running no one will be able to deny that gravity may be the cause of the rotation if not the source of energy driving it.  I shall look forward to seeing the numerous red faces among those many people who scorned my determination to prove Bessler’s claims were genuine and who dismissed my suggestions; one called me a snake oil salesman (had to look that one up!) and  others just regarded me as a fool.  One thing in this field of research, you do acquire a thick skin!

So many ‘experts’ derided the subject of my book about Bessler, dismissing all the evidence as either contrived, misread or blatantly exaggerated.  Any discussions about the book began with the basic premise that such a machine as Bessler described is axiomatically impossible and therefore Bessler must have been lying. 

This has been the whole problem right from when Bessler himself tried to convince the authorities that his wheel was a perpetual motion machine as it was known then.  Yet here we are 306 years later and the position is exactly the same; prove it by revealing the workings or shut up and go away!  Fortunately I decided many years ago not to take the patent route for several reasons, so I shall be happy to reveal how it works......when it does (or doesn't!)

JC

Bessler the man versus his achievements.

When I began to publish information about Johann Bessler, I stuck strictly to the facts as I knew them then, so I included Bessler’s own comments about his life and feelings and emotions.  I also described the reactions of other people, not just their reactions to his claims, but as well, their impressions of Bessler the man.  These were important details to include, but to me, the most important facts were those relating to his wheels; the descriptions of them and the tests they were required to undergo; were the tests exhaustive, sufficient and carried out as well as possible given the times they lived in?

I believe they were as good as could be expected, given that Bessler did not wish to divulge the design concept.  He also had the benefit of Gottfried Leibniz's advice on the kind of tests he should arrange.  The tests do, in my opinion, provide the strongest evidence that Bessler’s claims to have discovered the secret of a machine which showed continuous rotation enabled by gravity.  They were absolutely genuine.

It does seem to me that some people on the forum are only now studying the mind of the man, rather than his works, to find fault with everything about him.  They suggest thst he was a showman, a conman, he told lies etc.  Those things are true but do not negate the other evidence.  We have no conception of how people survived in those days, there were no state handouts, no where to go for help and a man had to live on his wits just to find food and accommodation.  Once he had successfully completed the first part of his burning mission in life; to find the solution to perpetual motion; Bessler set about finding a way to publicise it.  His previous actions however morally dubious, do not necessarily mean that everything about him was unprincipled - he did what he had to do to survive.

So when discussions are taking place about the mind of the Bessler please make allowances for the times he lived in, his limited education and Leibniz’s opinion of him.  Leibniz was one of the cleverest and most accomplished men of the time and he called Bessler his friend and asked for people to make allowances for his manners as he had not been brought up to accomodate the correct etiquette of those far off days.

History  is full of accomplished scientists, inventors, authors and painters, whose works are widely admired, but most of whom had the usual human weaknesses.  Many showed personality disorders such as paranoia, dramatic, overly emotional or unpredictable thinking or behavior and manipulative, exploitative interactions with others.  But they were still admired for their accomplishments and Johann Bessler too, will be admires for his determination to find the solution to Perpetual Motion, once his machine has been proven.

JC