Time for Sharing Bessler Information.

Those of you who have visited here before will be familiar with the title of this blog, so I expect the usual ironic comments but this time I’m serious. I’ve spent much of my spare time during my life, researching the life of Johann Bessler but at 78 I have to admit it’s time I shared my work, my discoveries and hopefully, the solution.  For me the chief problem is that I keep finding new clues or new ways of interpreting the clues but the new stuff doesn’t alter what I have already surmised.  I really need to stop researching because I worry that there’s an increasing chance that if I delay any longer I might become unable to share what I know due to possible dementia, physical illness or early demise!

I first suspected that Bessler just might have been telling the truth when his maid claimed that he had forced her to turn the wheel from his bedroom via a simple mechanism.  The method she described was absurd and impossible for her, with the help of Bessler’s wife and his daughter, to turn the wheel just one rotation let alone, night and day for 54 days - it was a ridiculous statement.  Later on in my research I discovered that she had been imprisoned twice for spreading malicious gossip about her previous employer, Bessler’s  in-laws. 

Leaving that aside, you get the feeling that Bessler was genuine just reading his account of his search for the secret of perpetual motion; his long running battle to get accepted and his constant harassment by the three men who set out to try and prove him a fake. They were Andreas Gärtner,  Christian Wagner and Johann Gottfried Borlach and they did their damndest to prove Bessler a liar, but they failed.

Bessler was visited by the great scientist, Gottfried Leibniz twice, and he was highly impressed by Bessler’s machine and recommended a number of tests the inventor should include in his demonstrations, to prove the machine’s value . With the acknowledgement from Karl the Landgrave of Hesse, who had been allowed to examine the interior of the machine and had stated that the machine was genuine, the inventor was able arrange the demonstrations just as Leibniz had suggested.  

The demonstrations included raising a heavy load from the castle yard up to the roof, as many times as people wished; driving an Archimedes screw; transportation of the device from one set of bearing to another set a few steps away.  This last allowed investigators to thoroughly examine both sets of bearings and the pillars in which they were set, to the satisfaction of all present.  The bearings themselves were left open for detailed examination.  Finally an endurance test was arranged.  The machine was locked in a room, after all present were able to verify that there were no hidden trapdoors or other means of access to the room.  The machine was started, and Karl the Landgrave locked the door and impressed his personal seal on it, and placed a guard on the door for the full period of the test, which ran for 54 days. What more could he have done to prove he was genuine?

But Bessler was still in a catch 22 situation.  This is a paradoxical situation from which an individual cannot escape because of contradictory rules or limitations.  The terms of a deal in which payment was to be made following an agreement to buy his machine required the buyer to give the money to  the inventor before being allowed to inspect the interior.  No would-be buyer was willing to do that for fear of being cheated.  But Bessler was equally unwilling to allow access to the machine before he had been paid.  He argued that the buyer could study the inner workings of the device and then change his mind about completing the deal and just walk away, and build his own version and sell it for a lot less money than Bessler was asking for..

A very emotional letter exists, one of Bessler’s final ones, in which he begs for more material so that he can complete his last contract, which was to build a new type of windmill, with a vertical axis so that the wind could apply its force from any angle without having to rotate it to face the wind.  He had built the mill up to the first floor but had run out of timber.  The remains of the mill can still be seen, and it’s a very impressive structure.  Bessler unfortunately fell to his death from the top of the building, and it was believed that the secret of his machine was lost.

I discovered that Bessler had left a complex series of clues of various kinds which would reveal the secret of his machine.  As far as I know no-one before me had even suspected such a thing existed.  I have published numerous examples of these clues on my other web site at www.theorffyreuscode.com

When I publish the actual clues which reveal the secret I hope that someone will take the challenge and build a working model.  I hoped it would be myself who gained that honour, but I’m finding it more difficult these days to build the mechanisms and in fact although Karl described the configuration as simple and the design easy to understand, his suggestion that an apprentice could build it given a chance to note the details, may have given the wrong impression. I think that apprentices could do it, after all they used to study under a Master craftsman for seven years before being released from their apprenticeship, so I believe they were probably more capable than I!

As for the design configuration, it really is simple and easy to understand and, like Karl said, “I’m surprised no one has discovered it before.”  There’s going to be a lot of faces filled with chagrin!

JC

Johann Bessler’s First Public Exhibition was on 6th June, 1712

A comment on this blog inspired me to follow his suggestion that we should call this day, 6th June,  “Bessler Day”. 

On the sixth day of June 2023 it was 311 years since the famous inventor, Johann Bessler, also known by his strange pseudonym, Orffyreus, first set up his Perpetual Motion machine in the small village of Gera, in Germany, in order to exhibit his amazing machine.  He desired to sell his machine and sought the patronage of a wealthy and respected member of the nobility.  

He eventually accepted the offer of a place to exhibit his machine plus a position as Commercial Councillor at the castle of Karl, the Landgrave of Hesse.  Karl was a highly respected and knowledgable patron of scientific experimentation.  He had spent several years prior to Bessler’s arrival funding the experiments of Denis Papin.

Bessler attracted a huge amount of interest but failed to sell his machine due to his awkward terms of sale - there was distrust on both sides, despite Karl’s assurance that he had been able to inspect the inner workings of them machine, and stated that it was genuine. The inventor died without having sold his device when he fell from a windmill he was building.  Like many if his ideas it was designed to take advantage of the wind from what ever direction it came.

He never withdrew his claim to have invented a perpetual motion machine and continued to devise new uses for it, such as draining water from mines, a continuously playing carillon, a submarine, fountains for pleasure gardens etc.

The evidence that his machine was genuine is convincing.  He left a number of clues, hints and illustrations which contain enough evidence to work out how his machine worked.  It’s all there before our eyes and has been for more than three hundred years.

At the moment I expect less that 99.999 per cent of planet earth’s population have ever heard of him, but I confidently anticipate that that figure will drop dramatically upon release of the solution to his machine to the world at large. His name will become famous, his story will appear in countless languages and people from all around the world will discover the benefits of free, clean electricity. People will want to celebrate Johann Bessler’s work on Bessler Day for discovering and building the world’s first free, clean, energy continuously rotating electricity generator - hopefully a way of mitigating the effects of climate change.

JC

Johann Bessler’s Maschinen Tractate

When Bessler, aka Orffyreus, died his after-death inventory included many papers stored in a box along with several wood ink blocks.  Among those papers was a collection of printed sheets which numbered about 141.  They consisted of a number of illustrations detailing examples of attempted perpetual motion machines.  None of these would have worked but some were accompanied by brief notes. The author hints that he will reveal more later in the sequence of pages.  Many are convinced that the drawings contain codes which when deciphered it is hoped, would lead to the solution to his own perpetual motion machine.

It has always been my contention that the papers were never intended to be published.  I think that they were simply oexecuted prints designed for use by his intended apprentices at his planned school once he had obtained sufficient funds from the sale of his PM machine. I named the collection of pages ‘Maschinen Tractate’, (MT) in error thinking that a book he offered to the Tzar of Russia, Peter the Great, which he described similarly was what was in the box. Later I realised that the Tzar’s book was to contain details of all the agricultural and industrial machinery that Bessler had learned about during his early years.

I envisage a class of young apprentices of around fifteen years of age, numbering a dozen or so.  For each class Bessler would print off a dozen sheets from his box and hand them out for discussion and study. He included some of his minor ciphers but I believe they were there to test his pupils powers of observation and to introduce new ideas and some humour into their classroom discussion. 

The last illustration that seemed intended as part of the series appears to be MT136; MT137 was in my opinion added later but still intended for discussion because it mimicked  Bessler’s acquaintance, David Heinichen’s ‘circle of fifths’. This would be a good subject for class discussion particularly because it drew a link between music and the golden mean. 

After MT137 there followed a single page numbered 138,139,140 and 141. I coined the name the ‘Toys Page’, (TP) for convenience and because I didn’t want people to refer to it as MT138 without the other numbers as I thought it might lead to confusion. I used the word ‘Toys’ because Bessler used the word in a note on that page.

I think that Bessler had already designed and printed this page for discussion in his classroom, but added the note later, possibly for benefit of those who came after.

In summary then I think there is little to learn from MT, which is not available elsewhere, but the Toys page does offer lmore information from a different angle, which I found useful.

On the first page of the MT, Bessler wrote, 

“ N.B. 1st May, 1733. Due to the arrest, I burned and buried all papers that prove the possibility. However, I have left all demonstrations and experiments since it would be difficult for anybody to see or learn anything about a perpetual motion from them or to decide whether there was any truth in them because no illustration by itself contains a description of the motion; however, taking various illustrations together and combining them with a discerning mind, it will indeed be possible to look for a movement and, finally to find one in them.”

I have said this several times over the years, but here goes again - in my opinion when he writes,‘taking various illustrations together and combining them with a discerning mind’  he is not excluding other illustrations, in other words he is also hinting at those in GB, AP and DT.

NB - What ever his original intention may have been in making his collection of illustrations with ink block printing, the above message written on the front of MT suggests that at that point in his life he thought that his illustrations might become the focus of examination by other people.  In which case what is in the collection is sufficient in his opinion for a stranger to discover his solution.  Personally I don’t believe that any of the collection has enough information within it, to help towards that desired end - unless you include the illustrations in GB, AP and DT.

JC

Johann Bessler’s Wheel Could Save Planet Earth.

Some folk seem worried about their future and that of the planet if Bessler’s wheel should be solved, built and developed. But they should be more concerned about their future if Bessler’s wheel isn’t built! Free or cheap, clean electricity might seem politically and economically dangerous, but there are worse dangers waiting for us.

This planet, and all its inhabitants, is facing a far greater danger from global warming than any scenario involving a successful emergence of Bessler’s wheel. I don’t need to tell you what we face or rather our children, but here a little reminder based on what’s happening right now.

“Global Temperature Is Rising. 

The Ocean Is Getting Warmer. ... 

The Ice Sheets Are Shrinking. ... 

Glaciers Are Retreating. ... 

Snow Cover Is Decreasing. ... 

Sea Level Is Rising. ... 

Arctic Sea Ice Is Declining. ... 

Extreme Events Are Increasing in Frequency.”

“In the U.K., communities as far inland as Peterborough, King's Lynn, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire in the east of England, as well as the Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex coastlines, would all be underwater by 2050 if nothing is done to stop sea levels rising at their current rate.

Recently, on 12 July 2021 flash floods caused eight underground lines to be suspended and many stations forced to close. In the aftermath of flooded basements and shop floors, Londoners quickly took to social media to share shocking images of water gushing down tube steps, sentimental contents ruined, and cars determinedly ploughing through sodden high streets as they battle against water levels that licked the tops of their tyres. 

Five days later it happened again. In under two hours over 70cm (over 2 feet) of rain hit the streets of London. Once more, homes, restaurants, shops and stations were flooded.

Then again on 25 July the capital felt the effects of another sudden, violent downpour. Following this flood, as well as the now usual flurry of tube stations quickly shutting gates to passengers, two London hospitals had to close too, with patients forced to evacuate their beds and the building due to power outages. 

The Met Office also issued its first extreme heat warning in July as temperatures soared to 32⁰C in large parts of England and Wales. Last year temperatures hit 40°C. (104°F) for several days.

As homeowners and businesses struggled to deal with the devastation, yet again, the events were a stark reminder of projections from the non-profit news organisation Climate Central that parts of London were at risk of being under water by 2050. Just 27 years away.”

It’s the same story everywhere:-

“By 2050, sea level along contiguous U.S. coastlines could rise as much as 12 inches (30 centimeters) above today’s waterline, according to researchers who analyzed nearly three decades of satellite observations. The results from the NASA Sea Level Change Team could help refine near-term projections for coastal communities that are bracing for increases in both catastrophic and nuisance flooding 

in coming years.

Global sea level has been rising for decades in response to a warming climate, and multiple lines of evidence indicate the rise is accelerating. The new findings support the higher-range scenarios outlined in an interagency report released in February 2022. That report, developed by several federal agencies – including NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the U.S. Geological Survey – expect significant sea level rise over the next 30 years by region. They projected 10 to 14 inches (25 to 35 centimetres) of rise on average for the East Coast, 14 to 18 inches (35 to 45 centimetres) for the Gulf Coast, and 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimetre’s) for the West”.

So don’t fear the impact Bessler’s wheel would have, fear for us if no way of mitigating the effects of global warming can be found.

JC