Look for a different principle for the solution to Bessler's wheel

After a liftetime's experience in Besslerland, one thing I have learned is this; there are hard and fast rules in physics and they cannot be bent or deformed to accomodate personal convictions about how Bessler's wheel worked and even though you may come up with numerous ingenious designs for gravity-eneabled wheels, they all have to be compatible with the laws of physics.  That is why I do, from time to time, suggest such things as the parametric oscillation (PO) as holding the key to the solution.

The reason why I do this is because I want to get people thinking about how it might be achieved without going the 'over-balancing route'. This particular blog is not so much about parametric oscillation (PO) but more about the need to find a way to use gravity to drive round a wheel, that is compatible with the laws of physics, but, most importantly, leaves behing for the lessons of history, the simple over-balancing wheel.

PO is simply, swinging on a swing and maintaining the motion by altering the position of the body relative to the fulcrum or crossbar on which the swing hangs.  Oscillation by itself will simply slow down until it comes to a stop, so you need a way to generate energy to maintain the swinging. Traditionally people have sought to overbalance the wheel by moving weights inwards and outwards from the centre of rotation, but it must surely be obvious by now that, as the scientists confirm, such a method will not work.  After hundreds of years without a single runner, except for Bessler's, no show means no go, pardon the aphorism.  

Did Bessler use PO?  In my opinion,yes.  He said that simply overbalancing a wheel was a waste of time and piling more weights on simply confirmed that it would not work.  But PO doesn't simply mean overbalancing although it does form a part of the action.  First you have to generate the initial energy which is induced by allowing a weight to fall, and it isn't necessary to have it fall into a position which would overbalnce the wheel.  It's job is to move another weight of identical mass and size, into a position which will then lead to a small angle of rotation in the wheel. 

Compare this action to that of the person on a swing.  To initiate movement the swinger leans backwards to start a small angle of rotation, and then forwards to repeat the action in the opposite direction.  With the right timing, he or she, can add the force generated in the first action to the second one, thus increasing the distance rotated back and forth.  The rider's action produces rotation just as the first weight does when it falls and moves the second weight.

The rider flexes his arms or pulls on them to move his body into an overbalancing position and that starts rotation so the movement of the arms is similar to the fall of the first weight.  Separate from the arms is the body which is equivalent to the second weight.  In the case of the sitting swinger, when he leans back, his weight is moved behind the fulcrum, thus moving the swing seat forward; and then he leans forward to bring his body weight in front of the fulcrum thus pushing it rearwards again.  

A more efficient method for our purposes is for the swinger to stand on the seat.  In this case he moves his body weight closer to the fulcrum and further from it dependant on whether he is swinging forwards or backwards. Of course he still needs to start the movement by altering his body position to the front or rear of the fulcrum, then he can adopt the rise and fall method This is more efficient use of the rider's energy.  In Estonia, as I have mentioned several times over the years, they have a national sport called in Estonian 'Kiiking'. In this case the swing has rigid ropes made of steel and the rider is fixed by his feet to the swing seat and this permits him to swing back and forth with increasing momentum until he completes a full turn and several afterwards.  In competitions the Estonians lengthen the steel ropes which makes it much more difficult to generate a full turn.

It is this technique that I am sure we can turn to our advantage and I believe is what Bessler incorporated within his wheels.

However if you do ot subscribe to this theory then you must find an alternative that does not depend entirley on simple overbalancing and as far as I know the only other potential techniques currently being studied either avail themselves of the centrifugal/centripetal force generated in turning the wheel, or David Cowlishall's Gyroscopic Inertial Thrust (GIT!).

JC

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Prize Funding for Alternative Energy sources - no matter how bizarre?

I have remarked, on occasion, that the funds which would be welcomed in Bessler wheel research are not available nor will they ever be until a proof of principle wheel is produced.  However, it is clear that there are dozens if not hundreds of prizes on offer for the person or persons who succeed in designing and constructing and developing alternative energies or finds a way to store energy cheaply and efficiently.

For instance:-

"The Zayed Future Energy Prize is an annual award which celebrates achievements that reflect impact, innovation, long term vision and leadership in renewable energy and sustainability. The Prize represents the vision of the Late Founding Father Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who championed environmental stewardship.

"Through the Zayed Future Energy Prize, the United Arab Emirates has been honoring those who have placed a tangible and evident effort in globally advancing renewable energy and sustainable technologies. One of the greatest unifying challenges the world faces today is the urgency to address climate change, promote sustainable development and encourage innovation in renewable energy technologies.

"Each year, an individual, organization or a non-governmental agency is recognized for groundbreaking achievement in developing and deploying solutions to our future energy needs. The following represents a breakdown of the Prize categories:-

"Large Corporation (A recognition award)

SME (US$1.5 million)

NGO (US$1.5 million)

Lifetime Achievement Award (US$500,000)

A Global High School Prize (US$100,000 divided amongst 5 regions – Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania)"  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zayed_Future_Energy_Prize

Or this one:-

"The Leigh Ann Conn Prize for Renewable Energy, whose purpose is to acknowledge, publicize and disseminate outstanding ideas and achievements in research related to the science, engineering, technology and commercialization of renewable energy. Nominations may address a wide range of topics involving renewable energy and energy efficiency with a demonstrated or clear potential global impact. The award is designed to recognize and reward the impact of specific ideas or achievements, rather than a lifetime of achievements in the field.

They offer the Leigh Ann Conn Prize in Renewable Energy Research which consists of the award of a medal and a cash prize of $50,000.  Ideas eligible for nomination may have an individual author or multiple authors; however, the total cash prize will be shared in the case of multiple authors."

http://www.conncenter.org/leigh-ann-conn-prize/

Or this one:-

"The goal of the Energy & Environment Prize Group is to generate breakthroughs in clean energy, climate change, energy distribution/storage, energy efficiency/use, and water resource management. Advances in these fields will lead to greater sustainability and efficiency, while reducing our dependence on fossil fuels."

http://www.xprize.org/prize-development/energy-and-environment

Gregg Maryniak is the Chairman of the Energy and Environmental Systems Track of Singularity University and the Secretary of the X PRIZE Foundation. He wrote:-

"If you read newspapers, blogs and other popular reports on renewable energy, you are very likely hearing almost exclusively about power generation advances in solar cell or wind turbine efficiency or ways to reduce production costs.   But exciting as these steps are, an examination of where our energy comes from today shows that even after decades of improvement in renewable energy systems, more than 95% of the energy in the United States is still provided by fossil fuels, nuclear power and traditional hydropower.   So, what is missing from the present picture that could dramatically advance the use of renewable energy?  

"Economical energy storage.

"The phenomenon of the world's so-called addiction to fossil fuels is actually an aspect of a greater underlying energy truth.  What society really wants and needs is energy on demand."

And finally, although there are literally hundreds to choose from:-

"The Anzisha Prize – Africa’s foremost entrepreneurial awards which reward young African entrepreneurs – has now included a $10 000 USD Energy Prize in addition to the $75 000 USD in cash prizes already up for grabs.

"The award has been made possible thanks to the Donor Circle for Africa, a group of Silicon Valley Community Foundation donors supporting individuals and non-profit organisations committed to making a difference to improve the lives of the people in their community. The $10,000 Energy Prize supplement to the 

Anzisha Prize will be awarded to an applicant who demonstrates ingenuity in developing sustainable renewable energy sources.

"Qualifications for a winning project are that:

"It provides an affordable, sustainable source of energy generation. Energy can be based on any type of renewable resource such as wind, solar, geo-thermal, bio-sources, water and others (what others?).

"It is locally sustainable. The project must be built, operated, and maintained by the people and resources available in the community it serves.It has applicability in a broad range of communities across Africa. While the project must be locally sustainable, the resources and technology must not be so unique that it cannot be replicated. Other communities could implement the model given access to reasonably common resources. It is innovative either in the technology (a new or more efficient way of producing power) or in the application (adapting methods or technology to generate or store power in a new way)."

http://www.anzishaprize.org/

With all this money sloshing about you could be forgiven for thinking that perhaps some of it might be pushed in our direction.  Don't get me wrong - I don't crave money for research, I'm just puzzled at the apparent complete ignorance of our work here.  I know it is viewed with scorn buy the vast majority of those who seek to help develop new forms of energy, but when you consider the following areas of research being investigated it does make you wonder

"One day, you may use sugar to power your laptop; bacteria to run your car; or dead bodies to heat a building; trap the the solar wind and beam electrons to earth via a infrared laser beam, process feces and urine, collect vibrations from traffic, process sludge into biomass, protein from jellyfish, "exploding lakes", so-called because they contain huge reservoirs of methane and carbon dioxide, trapped in the depth by difference in watere temperature and density etc etc!

http://news.discovery.com/tech/alternative-power-sources/ten-bizarre-sources-alternative-energy.htm

JC

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Could Bessler have found a better path in which to successfully sell his machine?

I was musing on the problems Bessler must have contemplated once he had first completed his wheel.  Considering his lowly position on the social ladder, he faced an uphill task to attract the right kind of attention to his new machine in order to find a potential buyer.  I cannot think of any other avenue which might lead to success other than the one he took, which was to display the wheel turning.

The reactions to this event were predictable, but he did not work out how to improve the effect, until he met Gottfried Leibniz, who visited him on two occasions and I imagine the discussions were roughly of this nature.

During the first meeting, having throughly examined the wheel and asked many questions and probably not received the politest of responses, Leibniz left to continue his journey, but returned subsequently with some helpful advice.  I say this about the second visit because there was no other reason for Leibniz's return.  He had completed his examination of the machine during his first visit and there was nothing more to be done other than to repeat the same tests.  

I think that the old man first told Bessler that showing a wheel turning, but not doing anything other than move some stampers wasn't convincing and he had to show it doing proper work, such as raising a heavy weight or turning an archimedes screw.  People had to relate the wheel's use to something who's value they could easily appreciate.

Secondly he told Bessler that having the wheel mounted on two sets of supports and demonstrating the wheel on first one then the other, while allowing examination of both sets before and after, would greatly improve people's trust in his claim that there was no trickery involved.

Thirdly he asked if Bessler could build a wheel which could turn in either direction, that would make the suggestion that it was driven by clockwork harder to make stick.

Fourthly, he suggested that an endurance test of several days, during which the machine was made to run continuously, would convince those who still doubted that it was worth the money being asked.  This arrangement would be best carried out in a princely castle where proper scrutiny could be arranged. This was suggested by Leibniz to Moritz-Wilhelm, Duke of Zeitz, a cousin of Karl of Hesse-Kassel, and a regular correspondent of Leibniz. His exact words to one member of the Court, "I advised him [Bessler] to arrange a test in which his machine would be run for several weeks with all possible precautions taken to exclude any suspicion of fraud."

Moritz-Wilhelm was unwilling to commit himself to overseeing an endurance test lasting some weeks but did agree to carry out an official examination of the wheel including three of Liebniz's suggestions.  Many important people were invited to the demonstration including Liebniz's former pupil, professor Christian Wolff.  This examination did expand the inventor's fame and eventually resulted in his move to Kassel where he came under the protection of Karl the Landgrave of Hesse.

I believe it that Liebniz's final suggestion was the most important one, which created the new situation.  He told Bessler that if he really wanted to be taken seriously he must allow an important prince to examine the interior of the wheel so that he could state unequivocally, "this machine is genuine and I have seen it and tested it and I say so with all the authority of my position and rank".  This prince, Liebniz said, had to have a reputation of complete honesty and be independently wealth, thus be beyond bribery.  He suggested Karl was the ideal candidate.

It becomes clear that Bessler followed the advice given him by Gottfrried Leibniz.  He designed the demonstration so as to rule out every possible accusation of cheating; made it run both ways to rule out clockwork mechanisms, had a second set of supports so that peope could examine each set; made it do proper work rather than just making it spin, by lifting a heavy weight, and turn an archimedes screw; and finally make it managed to arrange an endurance test certified by an honest host.  

I can see parallels in Bessler's life which might apply today.  Even if someone succeeds in reconstructing Bessler's wheel if he or she wishes to patent the device they are in effect sharing that information with an honest broker, just as Bessler did with Karl.  Of course if you don't wish to go the patent route - and myself and some others would prefer not to have to patent - then there is no problem with sharing your secret.

Was there anything Bessler could have done differently, given his low status and lack of funds, which might have helped him on to success?

JC

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Update and a 'kiiking' reminder.

I have finally made it into my workshop and spent an enjoyable a couple of days bringing myself up to date on my own version of Bessler's wheel.  Despite the cold - it's been at or below freezing for more than two weeks now and the snow has scarcely stopped falling, although it hasn't settled much here, thank goodness - despite that, I'll be back in again tomorrow and over the following days ... weeks ..... months .....! 

The levers I had assembled were too long and would have generated too much lift in the weight as I had designed them - if they could have lifted it at all - and I have radically altered their lengths and therefore their lifting power - it's a bit like changing down from top gear to first, but of course there are compromises to be taken into account and I won't know until the stiff-nuts are tightened and the levers tested for range of movement, how much lifting will be available.  The mechanism is set up on a test rig built for one mechanism at the moment, because I want get the action perfected before I go about constructing all of them and attaching them to the wheel itself.

I am still using the principle described on my web site at http://www.besslerswheel.com/  which mimics the action of a child on a swing.  I'm convinced that the principle in Bessler's wheel requires something different to the usual overbalancing system tried so many times over hundreds of years.  We know that he alluded to children's gamnes and the swing is one of the oldest.  I believe that the Estonian national sport of 'Kiiking', (about which you can read at my website at http://www.247website.co.uk/html/kiiking.html and which requires the rider to swing so high that he passes over the top of the swing) holds the solution.  Pictures of this sport can be found from before Bessler's time and it is believed to stretch back thousands of years.  My mechanism mimics the actions of the kiiking rider.

Sometimes I have so many ideas to post blogs about that I write them up one after another and often have two or three pending publication - and sometimes if I'm struggling for a subject to write about. I get some of my ideas from the besslerwheel forum, but that seems quite flat and devoid of ideas at the moment so I'm left bereft.  The things I'd like to write about I can't just now, my own project is for my eyes only until I can tell you something about with  supporting evidence.  My work on the code breaking proceeds steadily and I am rewriting my www.orffyreuscode.com site to include more material but that will not be ready for a few weeks yet.

I was looking at a copy of one of Bessler's panegyrics to Karl the Landgrave for the year 1719 and noted that although I have not had it translated yet, it contains sections devoted to 1819, 1919, and 2019 - how amazing and how prescient of him would it be to find that his solution was found in 2019.  I hope it's found before then, we need it today.

JC

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PM Archive?

The idea for this blog was sparked by a posting on the besslerwheel forum.  The author posted a thread listing some ideas he had, which he wanted to preserve digitally, rather than trusting to 'mortal flesh fast decaying'.  I wondered if there was anything available which might suit more accurately the author's needs.

There are many people all devoted to solving the puzzle of Bessler's wheel and it seems to me that if, perhaps, one of us was approaching success, but for the usual reasons had kept quiet about it until he or she had produced a Proof of Principle wheel - or perhaps, like Øystein Rustad, had deciphered a number of coded drawings by Johann Bessler and wished to complete their studies and first confirm them with a working device - then their sudden early demise might rob us of their work - and set progress back a while. Johann Bessler's option was to hide his solution within his published and unpublished documents. But for us less gifted in the field of steganography, one solution would be to write up the research in detail and place it somewhere on the internet, where it would remain private and remain so until after the sad passing of its author.

Perhaps the document could be stored on one of the many clouds offering a combination of services and only upon the author's death would it be shared among a few chosen people or simply released for public consumption. I could see that the problem of letting the server know that the writer of the document had died could be difficult to solve.  However, I'm sure that someone could write an App that confirmed to the server that the writer was still alive by verifying it each time the ipad/smart phone etc, connected to the internet.  If no connection was made for, say seven days, (or a preset period) then the server would ask for confirmation that the author was still alive and if none was received it would then share/release the document.  

However further research revealed a possible alternative solution.  For example there is a website at http://mashable.com/2010/10/11/social-media-after-death/ which reviews 'Seven Resources for Handling Digital Life After Death'.  These services are designed to allow people to leave messages after their death and these can take the form of emails, documents, wills etc, which can be sent to one or more recipients indicated in the signing up process.  One such site http://www.assetlock.net/ sums up the situation very well. There are some web sites offering a basic service which is free and although I haven't done a lot of research into what is available worldwide, I'm sure that there are a number of such services.

The ironic thing is that only a small amount of storage would be required and servers like Google, Apple and Dropbox, for instance, offer plenty of storage for free. So using one of these might allow you to preserve your information and make it available to those who follow, should you prematurely decease!  Perhaps out there is some entrepreneur who could custom design such a service?

I had thought of calling it PM Archives meaning Perpetual Motion Archive but it could as well stand for Post Mortem Archive.

JC

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Relate your breaks - but restrain your claims.

It's hard to come up with a snappy title!

The issues in the comments section of this blog tend to centre on people's theories about how they see Bessler's wheel working.  Many of us theorise about the energy source and how it can be used.  I have tried over a number of years to convince everyone that Bessler's wheel was genuine and have offered more than one theory about how it might fit in with current thinking in the world of physics.  I tried this method, as well as building wheels, in order to help those scientists who were willing to listen, try to accommodate Bessler's claims within the currently held views on the laws of physics.  

It seemed to me that getting an accredited scientist to support us was a good move towards finding a solution because funded research might be more successful than what we amateurs have been.  As I said in my previous blog this has proved unsuccessful and the chief reason for this has always been obvious to me and it is this.

Perpetual motion machines and gravity wheel are impossible according to the 'experts' and any suggestion that they might be wrong 'evokes the deeper fear that their whole, laboriously constructed intellectual edifice might collapse'. (Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers [New York, 1959], p. 427)

Given that strong belief system, let us imagine that every time we claim to know how the wheel worked we gain the 'expert's' attention for one minute.  Subsequently we honestly admit that we failed, and the next time someone makes a similar claim their attention drops to half a minute, with each claim and failure their attention span reduces until they ignore us altogether and each claim that follows merely reinforces their already impregnable belief system.  So making unsuccessful claims is confirming them in their opinion and we are perceived as 'crying wolf'.

I often say there is only one piece of evidence that they will accept and that is a working model and that is what we must produce.  BUT...having said that I completely understand why people get so excited about their current ideas that they are working on.  I've been there many times and I am guilty as anyone for making public my strong belief that this time I have really cracked it, only to find that I was wrong.

There is another aspect to this that we have ignored so far and that is the excitement that such claims ignite in us.  I find it stimulating and exhilarating to read of other people's enthusiasm and optimism and I don't want the previous thoughts about 'crying wolf' to stop those claims but perhaps in some cases we could tone down the claims that we have cracked it, into thoughts that we think/hope we are on to something.  But I don't want to dampen people's enthusiam for telling us how they are doing, I'd prefer encouragement and positivity.

So keep us enthused with your optimism and belief and don't be afraid of admitting if you got it wrong this time, just keep trying, remember Dave Fishwick's, 'Never give up. Never, ever give up!'

JC

Where are those scientists who do go out on a limb to present radical ideas, despite peer pressure.

I have often remarked on the difficulty we face in convincing scientists that Bessler's wheel was genuine.  So it's quite surprising to occasionally discover some highly educated scientist with an excellent reputation who has gone out on a limb to profess his or her personal conviction about some subject or other, which, with any other person, we might be tempted to dismiss as arrant nonsense. Despite their seemingly bizarre opinions they are able to publish books expounding their off-the-wall theories.  I, on the other hand, with no celebrity status found it impossible to convince any publishers that my book was worthy of publication, not because it lacked journalistic skills, but because the subject was 'unsuitable', 'unproven', 'of doubtful interest' , 'it's been covered numerous times before' or 'everyone knows it's impossible' - and finally and unarguably, 'you are an unknown author" - Catch-22!

On the other hand sometimes we see that otherwise knowledgeable people have made public statements about the impossibility of something which have turned out to be possible after all - one thinks of the Lord Kelvin who said in 1895, "heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible" and there are many, many more.  But what of those who publish equally forthright material which many of us might be tempted to dismiss as rubbish but which turn out to be correct?

My own publications have received a good share of scepticim - and I have yet to be vindicated.  But there are some scientists commonly referred to as 'mavericks', because they take a view about something that does not fit in with current theory.  Although I convinced professor Hal Puthoff, sometimes described as a maverick, that Bessler was genuine, he is not prepared to go public with his support until it can be shown how such a device can work within the current laws of physics.  I don't blame him - he suffered plenty of scorn and derision over his 'remote viewing' experiments back in the 1970's.

I suppose there must be other scientists out there, of a 'maverick tendency', who might become equally convinced of Bessler's legitimacy and succumb to the temptation to publicly support research into this field - but none so far.  This particular 'limb' is a stretch too far, even for those who are said to have completely open minds.  But, oddly enough, the general population - those who are not 'professional' scientists - are far more willing to engage in serious conversation about Bessler's wheel. - and don't forget, some of the most important discoveries have been made by amateur inventors.

I have given up hoping to persuade anyone with the 'proper credentials' to support us and go public; its all down to us guys.  Good luck.

“The inertia of the human mind and its resistance to innovation are most clearly demonstrated not, as one might expect, by the ignorant mass--which is easily swayed once its imagination is caught - but by professionals with a vested interest in tradition and in the monopoly of learning.  Innovation is a twofold threat to academic mediocrities: it endangers their oracular authority, and it evokes the deeper fear that their whole, laboriously constructed intellectual edifice might collapse.  The academic backwoodsmen have been the curse of genius from Aristarchus to Darwin and Freud; they stretch, a solid and hostile phalanx of pedantic mediocrities, across the centuries.” (Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers [New York, 1959], p. 427.)  [my underlining]

JC

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Review of Øystein Rustad's two videos on decoding Johann Bessler's Riddles.

I often receive emails telling me that this person or that person has decoded clues, knows how the wheel works, or wants to share what they know if I will only sign an NDA.  I've been aware that Øystein Rustad has been working on Bessler's coded clues for several years but until recently I did not know how much progress he had made.  He allowed me to view two videos he has made which show the decoding of two drawings from Maschinen Tractate and I have to admit I was stunned; I agreed to write a review of the videos, which follows.  I'm only sorry I cannot share their content now but it will be available at some point in the future.

Øystein Rustad kindly invited me to review two videos he has made which explain how he decoded two of Bessler's drawings from his Maschinen Tractate.

My first impression upon seeing the content within the videos is that it was presented in a clear, logical progression and is undeniably correct.  Bessler has, as usual, managed to hide within one piece of work, two and sometimes three parallel messages.  Each message is easily proven once you know how to decode it and this is what Øystein Rustad has achieved.  It has often been suggested that my own speculative attempts to extract some meaning from Bessler's codes relies too heavily on my subjective view of the apparent clues, and that they are in some cases imaginary; in these two videos the evidence that the codes are real and were deliberately placed there by Johann Bessler is beyond doubt.

The messages are partly geometrical with alphanumeric constituent parts cleverly incorporated within the drawings themselves.  The two videos relate to two of the Maschinen Tractate drawings but in these particular cases Øystein assures me that the clues in the videos that was shown to me, do not contain a description of the actual mechanism, although they apparently contain vital information regarding the way it is designed to function.

I understand that Øystein has so far decoded about ten drawings requiring more than an hour of video.  This is because he has found that some drawings require two or more stages of decoding and I assume it would be confusing to try to explain the process in one video segment.  I have not seen these other drawings decoded so I do not know if the process is as interesting as those I have seen already, but I’m assured they have been treated as rigorously as those I have seen.

I would like to say more about the videos but to do so would require that I detail some of the code and I have given my word that I would not give away any information about them. As is his right, Øystein has withheld information about the actual mechanism until such a time as he can produce evidence of its functionality, so I am unable to comment on the usefulness or otherwise, of the information he had managed to extract.

Øystein Rustad has made significant progress in decoding Bessler's extremely cleverly hidden messages and I look forward to when he is ready to reveal all of  it.

That's all for now but watch this space.  I intend to place the review on my web site at www.theorffyreuscode.com

JC

Could two people simultaneously discover the solution to Bessler's wheel?

It's not that unlikely. In the 1870s, two inventors, Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell, both independently designed devices that could transmit speech electrically, the telephone. Both men rushed their respective designs to the patent office within hours of each other, Alexander Graham Bell patented his telephone first. Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell entered into a famous legal battle over the invention of the telephone, which Bell won.

I must make a correction to an incorrect fact in the above paragraph, thanks to Jon Hutton's timely message.

"Italy hailed the redress of a historic injustice yesterday after the US Congress recognised an impoverished Florentine immigrant as the inventor of the telephone rather than Alexander Graham Bell.

Historians and Italian-Americans won their battle to persuade Washington to recognise a little-known mechanical genius, Antonio Meucci, as a father of modern communications, 113 years after his death. 

The vote by the House of Representatives prompted joyous claims in Meucci's homeland that finally Bell had been outed as a perfidious Scot who found fortune and fame by stealing another man's work. 

Calling the Italian's career extraordinary and tragic, the resolution said his "teletrofono", demonstrated in New York in 1860, made him the inventor of the telephone in the place of Bell, who had access to Meucci's materials and who took out a patent 16 years later." 

As I said to Jon, let us hope we too can right a wrong from history and place Bessler where he should be, in the hall of famous inventors and not on a list of infamous fraudsters.

Then there was the case of Herbert E. Ives and Frank Gray of Bell Telephone Laboratories who gave a dramatic demonstration of mechanical television on April 7, 1927.  In the same year, 1927, John Logie Baird transmitted a signal over 438 miles of telephone line between London and Glasgow.

Even Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz became embroiled in an argument over who discovered calculus first.Even Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz became embroiled in an argument over who discovered calculus first.

If only one man ever discovered the secret and no one else in the subsequent 300 years has succeeded, why now - and why more than one person?  There is a concept known as multiple discovery.  It suggests that most scientific discoveries and inventions are made independently and more or less simultaneously by multiple scientists and inventors. This is the reverse of traditional view - the 'singleton' or 'heroic' theory. Historians and sociologists have remarked on the occurrence, in science, of these multiple independent discoveryies. Robert K. Merton defined such "multiples" as instances in which similar discoveries are made by scientists working independently of each other. "Sometimes the discoveries are simultaneous or almost so; sometimes a scientist will make a new discovery which, unknown to him, somebody else has made years before."

The various Nobel prizes awarded each year in each field of study comprise not just one winner but two or even three, often because more than one person may have made the same significant discovery at more or less the same time.

Generally one can see how this might happen.  A particular subject is usually chosen by an individual because it has some relevance at the time or place of the researcher.  And if more than one should choose this because the circumstances of choosing are similar, then the subject has probably been discussed in at least both those places and perhaps more widely discussed and possible avenues of progress explored.  It is  but a short step to two or more researchers following up the same clues and reaching the same conclusions independantly of each other.

We here in the Bessler field of research certainly share some of the same attributes mentioned above, I think therefore, there is a real chance of two or more people solving Bessler's wheel at the same moment.  So if I'm one of them, who else it nearly there?  :-)

JC

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