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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King Richard III and Johann Bessler - their graves.

I watched a documentary on TV the other night about the discovery of the remains of King Richard III, the last of the Plantagenet Kings of England.   The burial was discovered just over two feet beneath the surface of a car park in Leicester.  A DNA test was carried out on the bones and compared to a 17th generation descendant, Michael Ibsen, a Canadian-born carpenter living in London, and found to be a perfect match.

Now you can probably see where this is going!  Bessler is believed to have requested permission to construct a family grave in his own garden at his house in Karlshafen.  There are conflicting stories about what happened to his body after his fall from the windmill in Fursteberg.  Local people say his body was buried in a grave in the forest which was apparently traditional in those days. The forest is about two hours  walk away and is apparently full of graves, some of them very old and with writing which is all but illegible.  However given his preparations for his burial in the family grave, and the existence of his wife and children plus their strong religious convictions most peope share my belief that he was buried as he requested in the garden of his house.

We know which house he lived in and the small town has hardly altered since his day and a correspondent who lived locally at the time carried out some research for me and came to the conclusion that the garden behind Bessler's house is now a car park!

I'm sure that when the solution to Bessler's wheel is found the local authority in Karlshafen will sit up and take notice, because they were very interested at one time in publishing my biography in German to encourage tourism, but they were in financial straits at the time and decided against publication.  Anything which will bring tourists to this little place will be welcomed by the town council and there is an antiquarain bookshop, right next to Bessler's house, whose owners will probably be happy to help foot the bill to dig up the carpark.

The reason I think it will be useful to try to find Bessler's grave is because, to me it is inconceivable to think he would not have taken the opportunity a grave gave him to leave a message for us.  He specifically requested permission for a grave to be placed in his own garden, something that went counter to local tradition.  He left a million pieces of clues about his machine and his encoded messages were spread throughout his papers, he sought post humous recognition for his wheel and what better place to leave it than on his grave.

One more thing.  Bessler's brother Gottfried was also buried in the same grave in 1765, twenty years after Bessler.  So it must have existed in its own right for many years.

JC

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My Birthday! Paragrams & cabbalists.

I'm 68 today!  I never thought, back in 1997, when I published my biography of Johann Bessler, when I was only 52, that I'd still be looking for the solution 16 years later.  I've been searching for 53 years so far and I'm still ..... not .... quite .... there ....yet!

One of the things that surprised me when I was looking at the stats for this blog a couple of days ago, was the information that there are so many visitors from Poland. You guys are in the top five countries represented here, USA first and Poland, France, Australia and the UK, in the next four.  I have an interest in Poland because my father, whom I never met, was Polish.  He was actually born in Vilnius, Lithuania, but moved to Poland in 1937 to join the Polish army and came to England shortly afterwards.  After the war he was repatriated and never returned.

I found my half-sister through the Red Cross and visited them in Gdansk where they lived.  Since then I have met other relatives and in the process traced my paternal family tree back to 1631, when that particular ancester, one of the Irish Wild geese, arrived in Poland as a soldier.

We are a mixed bunch we perpetual motionists, who dare to trespass agaist the law-givers (of physics) and try to trample on the opinion-makers who pass down their conclusions while ignoring the plaintive squeaks we emit as we seek explanations for those inconsequential side-effects demonstrated by such as Bessler's wheels.  Was that an example of perpetual prolixity, or limitless loquacity?

Sorry for my unseemly levity but it is my birthday, I think I've found a rather tenuous link between Christian Weise, Bessler's teacher at Zittau; David Heinicken, publisher of the  circle of fifths diagram (Quintenzirkel), otherwise known as MT137 if you've been to my web site at http://www.theorffyreuscode.com/html/mt_137_a.html ;  Johann Kuhnau, Heinichen's teacher and supplier of information about the circle of fifths; and Johann Sebastion Bach...and his number-alphabet.  More of which, when I have written it up.

So it's off to the Star & Garter for lunch and a drink or two with my delectable wife and then back to researching the curiously small, but exceedingly well-connected, world of scientific reseachers and cabbalists of Besser's era.

Cheers!

JC

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Another Bessler clue.

In Johann Bessler's Das Triumphirende (DT), he included a number of drawings, showing the external views of the wheels he built. Also he copied a cartoon published by one of his enemies, Borlach, commenting that 'they caused many copies of [this] scurrilous copper-engraving to be spread far and wide – quite contrary to all the admirable local laws against defamation of character'. And he copied, mockingly, a illustration of Christian Wagners's bratenwender, or roasting jack.

The first one depicting his wheel, shows the Merseburg wheel, complete with the mysterious pendulums whose appearance was not recorded by any of the witnesses.  The following four pages includes an explanation of the numbered parts shown in the diagram, in both Latin and German.

Immediately following this is the explanation of the lettered parts, also in both Latin and German, of the next diagram which shows the Weissenstein Castle wheel at Hesse Kassel.

There then follows a kind of double drawing of two views of the wheel, but instead of providing a list explaining the numbering of the various parts in the drawing, either in the preceeding pages or those following, Bessler has attached an explanatory list to the bottom of each half of the two drawing. The left one in German, the right in Latin..Those who have copies of the book DT, may not be aware of this oddity and I myself, attached no importance to it until a while back, I began to wonder if it was deliberate.  Why didn't he just put the list of parts on the following pages?  No reason that I could see.  The result is a complicated system of folded papers which get crumpled and torn when used too frequently, with each bottom part containing the list, folded upwards and tucked in between the two pages.  They are separated from each other in the lower portion but joined together where the illustrations are bound into the book..  There was no need for such a complicated arrangement..

This double drawing has been discussed at length on the besslerwheel forum but the discussion centred on the apparent intention of the inventor, to draw attention to the two wheels shown, by slicing off the right edge in a way that suggested the two drawing should be merged, or at least pulled together in some way.  Upon reflection I consdered the possibility that it was the two lists attached underneath, that were to be considered together in some way.

The presence of the triangular padlock which was used a datum point for a 72 degree line in the Merseburg drawing (5 x 72 = 360 degrees) should make us suspicious of its presence in the left hand drawing in this case.  As a piece of speculation I have lined up the 'W' of Weissenstein, as Bessler's favourite fraktur version of the letter, a pair of overlapping 'V's, with another of his favourite Latin characters, the letter 'M' in the list below (a single 'V' between two uprights) and note how the padlock aligns perfectly.

Notice that although there are other letter 'M's in the list, a line drawn from the exact centre of  the 'W' in Weissenstein and drawn through the exact centreof the point on the padlock, aligns perfectly with the centre of  just this 'M' and with one of its two sloping lines within its centre.

That letter 'M's is also a datum point and a carefully drawn line from it to a certain corner, plus another from the 'W' of Weissenstein, will reveal angles of 36, 54 and 72 degrees - those of the pentagram.   There is more of course but I leave it to your imaginations.  :).

JC

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Update on the Johann Bessler blog.

I was reluctant to add a step to allow access to commenting on my blog, but the amount of anonymous nonsense being posted has forced my hand.  It isn't just that though; the number of spam comments containing links to other sites has risen too much for me to waste time deleting them.  I have tried from the start of this blog, to allow anyone to comment as they see fit, with only a request for moderate language to be used, with no problem.  

The comments are restricted in length by blogger.com, and I think this is a reasonable requirement, there is still enough room to say what you want to say usually.  This restriction can be overcome by posting longer comments in two parts, but this is meant to be used sparingly, otherwise they woudn't restrict their length.

I thought that people would enjoy commenting on things I posted but I was quite happy for the comments to stray off subject, just as they do on the forum.  To me the important thing is for people who would like to discuss Bessler to have somewhere they can just comment or express a view or an opinion, as an alternative to the forum.

I shall continue to publish blogs as the mood takes me but I'm sure there will be a fall in the number of comments posted, but the visitors continue to run at over 150 a day, so I'm sure that people will still read my words even if they can't be bothered to sign on with their google password, so they can comment.  There have been 286,697 pageviews since I began, which is small beer for the professional bloggers who probably get that many in a day, but I'm happy with that - for the moment!

When I began this blog I never thought I would be able to find something to write about very often, but it's surprising how subjects pop up, sometimes through emails, or other comments or from my own research.

Looking at the stats I see that the vast majority of readers come from the USA, surprisingly Poland comes second and the UK third.  Australia and France more orless the same in next place.  I tend to use Chrome as a browser but surprisingly, the most popular browser used to visit my blog is Firefox, then Internet Explorer and then Safari.  Among the Operating Systems used, windows is the most popular but the use of the Ipad is increasing at a huge rate and the other tablet systems are right there just behind them so I guess this means that more and more people are accessing blogs through their iphones and similar devices.

Finally I'm sorry I have included the password step but I think it was overdue.

JC

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Why Bessler smashed his wheel to pieces.

I was asked recently why Johann Bessler was reported as having smashed each of his wheels, before leaving a town.  Bessler  said, for example, at Gera, "Soon I was being plagued by crowds of Sunday visitors, some of whom were fairly rough and boisterous, and I couldn't even eat in peace. I made a firm resolve that as long as I was in control of matters, no wheel would ever turn an inch on Sunday. Certain enemies of mine got to hear of this, and began to congregate outside in ever-greater numbers, shouting and jeering. It got so bad that finally, in a rage, I smashed the machine into a thousand pieces, and vowed to seek peace and quiet elsewhere".

And then at his next chosen venue, "somehow it all went wrong, and finally having to leave Draschwitz, I smashed my wheel to pieces".

Finally, in a scientific publication, Neue Zeitungen von Gelehrten Sachen, which was published by the Mencke family in Leipzig, in the April issue of 1722, page 344 it said, "In Kassel, Mr Orffyreus, who is Commercial Councillor to His Highness the Landgrave, has destroyed his Perpetuum Mobile that, prior to this, stood at the Landgrave's Castle of Weissenstein. He did this after he had suffered a serious illness, and after he had received a house in Karlshafen."

But it wasn't just Bessler's words, one of the Zeitz Councillors, Johann Zollman, wrote in a letter to Leibniz, "even in his anger he should not have destroyed his machine but should rather have dismounted and dis-assembled it."

This is a fair point and  I have previopusly suggested  that it was simply easier and safer to transport the wheel in pieces rather than trying to move it whole, because robbers might be tempted to try to steal it.

But this does not explain the words "smashed into a thousand pieces" - I thought at first that this was due to Bessler's sense of drama, included to show how thoroughly angry and upset he was at his treament by the crowds.  However on subsequent consideration I realise why he destroyed each of his wheels before moving on.

Travel over land in the 17th century was restricted to stagecoach, for those wealthy enough to afford such luxury, or horseback with the same proviso - you had to be wealthy to own a horse.  The alternative was .. you walked.  Bessler was only provided with transport when he was retained by Karl, the Landgrave, to move him and his wife and their belongings to Kassel - we have a copy of the charges incurred.  That distance was 151 miles from Merseberg to Kassel, but the distances Bessler had travelled between towns prior to his employment at Kassel was considerably shorter, Gera to Draschwitz - 21 miles, Draschwitz to Merseberg 25 miles.

If Bessler had to walk from town to town he could not have brought much with him, certainly not the wheel, even disassembled it would have been too big.  So he was forced to destroy each wheel when he moved, so that no clue remained to hint at how it worked.  The last comment   Each move was probably no more than a day's walk, maybe two, given the non-existance of proper roads at that time.

Confirmation, in a way, is supplied by the news item above which explains that Bessler destroyed the Kassel wheel after being given a house in Karlshafen.  He was leaving and the wheel had to be detroyed.

You might think it unlikely that people would routinely walk many miles to get somewhere, but an extreme example of the time was Andrew Hay, who travelled six times to Italy to buy up original paintings to sell on in London auction houses, twice walking all the way there and back!  He also walked to France and back fourteen times and retired in 1740 an extremely wealthy man.

JC

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