Build Update and drilled holes which wander awry!

I'm totally immersed in this project and finding it difficult to take time to write this blog, so apologies if you miss my pearls of wisdom, but I have to finally find a way to finish it - the wheel that is, not the blog!  I shall reappear periodically with another trite piece of literary garbage in a vain attempt to stoke some interest afresh, in the life and legend of Bessler's wheel and my/our attempts to solve the ingenious puzzle he bequeathed to later generations - how to cause a wheel to spin continuously requiring nothing but the force of gravity inplace of fuel.

My wood disc, which I use as a kind of platform for attaching the various bits of mechanism that I devise, has been replaced recently because the old one was in danger of becoming a large wooden circle with nothing inside the rim; this being due to my need to drill numerous holes in incalculabler numbers all over the face of the disc, each of which was designed to hold one of the supporting pivots for the forest of levers bearing weights, which formed the mechanisms, but which was found to be in the wrong place according to the resulting state of frozen immobility.

So I begin work anew using my pristine MDF disc, and have carefully measured the dimensions of the levers and drawn their correct positions on the face of the disc and have begun again to drill those accursed holes which are sometimes driven by some iniquitous urge to move slightly off position, thus preventing the success I so desperately seek.

Just kidding guys!  I have drawn in the angles the levers are intended to follow, the weights are ready and attached to the levers.  I'm making this latest version with the intention of trying it with just one mechanism - or one cross-bar as Bessler put it.  I'm not convinced that it will work with only one and Bessler said in Apologia, "If I arrange to have just one cross-bar in the machine, it revolves very slowly, just as if it can hardly turn itself at all, but, on the contrary, when I arrange several leverss, pulleys and weights, the machine can revolve much faster.."  but it should work sufficiently to prove the principle.

It's so frustrating to know the principle behind the wheel and it's so easy to understand that anyone who learns about it will know with the same certainty as I do that it is the key to success.  I was thinking of calling it the "Bessler-Collins principle of ..." - sorry guys but that would give it away! 

Somebody pointed out that the heading of the blog 13th September, Never, Ever, Give Up.originated from a fragment of a Churchill speech which went like this:-

“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force, never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

Who might the enemy be?  Why, the world of sceptics out there who deride our every word.

Anyway back to work and I hope I can give you some good news soon.

JC

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Levers, Weights and Perpetual Motion Wheels

When I began my research into Bessler's wheel, 50 odd years ago (!), I used paper, pencil, ruler compasses and a protractor, not much has changed; I still prefer doing the initial design on paper before recording it on my computer.

My first thoughts were to try to design a way of making the weights keep further from the centre of rotation, or try to get more of them on one side than the other -  and that is pretty well the same thing today - that the vast majority of people try to achieve.

But, as I progressed by trial and error - mainly error - one of the mistakes I made many years ago involved the different effects experienced by a lever with a weight on one end, a pendulum if you like, when attached to a wheel.  I'm sure that most people are aware of this simple phenomenon, but as I still get designs emailed to me which ignore this effect, I thought it useful to describe it here.

A pendulum whether swinging or stationary, applies its weight to the pivot.  In other words, gravity pulls down on the weight and the pull is experienced at the pivot. For the sake of this argument I ignore other pulls experienced by the pendulum when swinging.  One of the typical features of perpetual motion designs includes the use of these weighted levers. 

Consider this; a lever with a weight on one end is attached to a pivot mounted at some place on the wheel, say half way between the centre and the rim.  When the wheel is stationary the pendulum hangs straight down, and its weight is experienced at the pivot.  If the wheel is slowly rotated, the lever remains hanging from the pivot while it counter-rotates relative to the wheel, and the weight of the pendulum is still born by the pivot and felt at that point.

If a stop is placed in the path of the counter-rotating pendulum, and this will inevitably be part of the design, then the pendulum is prevented from further motion relative to the wheel; the pull of weight is no longer experienced at the pivot but is then moved to the position on the wheel occupied by the weight. 

 This means that the pull from the weight has moved across the face of the wheel at the the instant that the pendulum comes up against the stop.

Should the wheel be rotated by hand until the pendulum is able to fall again, its weight during the fall, is negligible because it is in free fall and the pivot does not bear the weight and neither does the wheel, so the wheel has lost that portion of its total weight - until, that is, the weight hangs vertically again from its pivot.

So the position in which the weight is supported, or experienced, and where it affects the wheel, moves between the pivot itself and the weight where ever it happens to be relative to the wheel and, for a brief moment, no weight at all, as it falls.

There are several problems which arise when the design calls for the pendulum to do something which doesn't take into account these features and I'd like to have run through some, but time, space and falling reader attention combine to persuade me otherwise.

Of course this all changes if the falling pendulum is designed to do work as it falls - and that's a whole new can of worms!

I should perhaps have included drawings to illustrate this, but the clock is always against me.

JC

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Bessler's Gera Wheel was moved by modest mechanisms of seemingly simple appearance.

Going by the designs I receive by email, from time to time, I notice that the majority of people have devised fairly complex designs in their efforts to solve Bessler's wheel.  Not complex in the way a petrol engine looks when you see an exploded diagram of one, but more complex than it might need to be.  I think the following points are worth bearing in mind when attempting to solve this conundrum.

Bessler was worried that people would think that the wheel wasn't worth the asking price once they saw how it worked and how simple it was.  He was also concerned that a glimpse of the workings or a careless word uttered, might give away the secret, and Karl, the Landgrave, described the wheel as being extremely simple

The Gera wheel, his first, measured 4.6 feet in diameter and only 4 inches in thickness.  The framework which supported the weights and the levers, or whatever else was contained within the wheel, must have been formed to supply a certain rigidity in order not to deform or break down when rotating.  We have no details on the size of the axle but assuming that it was of a sufficient size to keep the wheel stable and relative to the next thee wheel which were correspondingly larger, I think it must have been about 4 inches thick.

These figures suggest an internal thickness of three to three and a half inches maximum, which does not leave much room for the weights.  I'm sure they weren't as heavy as the ones Christian Wolff described as being about 4 pounds in weight, and they would have to have some room to accomodate an lateral movement. The motion of the wheel was described as being accompanied by scratching and scraping sounds, and this suggests that the levers were rubbing against each other as they moved, or the weights were scraping the internal walls of the wheel.

Finally I remain fairly certain that there were five mechanisms within the wheel for reasons additional to the ones I've described elsewhere and this helps to confirm the basic argument I'm putting forward here, that the solution will be found to be extremely simple and not of a complex design - and the mechanisms took up very little room.  The theory I've been working on for the last eighteen months or so, seems to suggest that although it looks simple there are at least two principles to bear in mind and I've recently found that I can distill the amount of mechanism down to fewer component parts and replicate the action I achieved with a more complex design.  This will, I hope, enable me to fit five of them within the wheel.

.

JC

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Never, Ever, Give Up.

I wonder if the apparent dirth of new ideas in this field of research is real or just a symptom of my own jaded perspective.  With regard to a solution to the age old problem of perpetual motion and more specifically, Bessler's wheel, I feel as though I have seen, read about or thought of everything I that anyone comes up with these days.  I still receive emails informing me of the auhor's excitement at the prospect of solving the puzzle of Bessler's wheel and they always wish to share their ideas with me.  I always used to be pleased to see what they came up with but long years of seeing the same ideas recycled over and over, has forced me to politely, I hope, and with appropriate gratitude, turn down the offer to share their new found solutions.  I always leave them with encourgemnt and suggestons as to who else they might approach with me success.

Johann Bessler, also known by his pseudonym, ORFFYREUS, did certainly invent a machine which turned continuously for the best part of two months, lift heavy weights and drive an archimedes screw for pumping water.  It survived numerous official and unofficial examinations during more than ten years, without even the slightest evidence of fraud being found, despite the most determined scrutiny.  I believe, as do many others, that the machine made use of the force of gravity to shift weights in a paricular configuration which created a contnual imbalance in the wheel which caused it to trun continuously.

I am constantly surprised therefore to find that instead of an increasing interest in this extraordinary invention, there appears to be a fading fascination with it.  Yet, in the light of the many problems concerning energy, I am amazed that no single person or department within any kind of research or educational institute has shown the slightest curiosity about why it worked or if fraud, how Johann Bessler did it.

My frequent conversations with strangers usually produces outright rejection of the very idea that such a machine might be feasable, but on hearing the evidence they appear to become more open-minded - at least while in my presence.  I suspect that later conversations they might have with others would proabably be met with the same scornful hilarity as is regularly shown to me, thus I do not blame them if their open-minds slam shut!

So all I can do until I, or some other poor obsessed soul, produces a working wheel is encourage you who happen by chance upon these words, to read my book about Bessler.  I called it, 'Perpetual Motion; An Ancient Mystery Solved?'  I included the 'question mark' to suggest that although I appeared to be claiming that the problem had been solved, I was asking the question, 'was it solved once?'

It details all the evidence I found during some thirty years of research.  I also produced, in an effort to provide more information, three of Bessler's self-published book, each with its own English translation.  You can find links to each book to the right. of thios page.

Good luck and don't give up - ever!

JC


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ACRONYM for Bessler technology anyone?

Thinking up an acronym, such as RADAR and LASER, to describe the new Bessler technology might be an interesting project, as suggested by Bill Mothershead in a comment recently.

In the early days of the internet, I formed a research group along with half a dozen others from around the world, which we called BORG, "Bessler Orffyreus Research Group".  We have long since gone our separate ways although some of the members are still active in this field.  I had also spent many moments considering options to describe this technology, just as Bill suggested, and I was unable to come up with anything as simple as the above acronyms.

LASER stands for "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation", which is a good if extremely brief description of the concept, but not the details required to build it. Similarly RADAR stands for "RAdio Detection And Ranging", another brief description of the basic concept.

So in our case we need a brief description of the concept which needn't include any description of how it is achieved.  At its simplest we need just the simple description of what it is designed to do, which, to those of us who believe Bessler's wheel was driven by gravity alone, means something along the lines of "Gravity Impelled Rotation GIR and you can add an 'O' for Orffyreus to make GIR-O but the term is too commonly in use for other things so no good.  We need a word not currently in use

You get the picture - it's not as easy as it looks.  Any suggestions welcome.

JC

Taking a break is good for a relationship!

Being away from the workshop and unable to do any building has been quite therapeutic.  

I have always maintained that the only route to success in the matter, requires constant wheel building or at least mechanism construction, but the opportunity to ponder upon the subject without access to building materials forced me to go over in my mind the path I had taken to this point; the moments of inspiration; the assumptions and false assumptions I had made ...and the discovery of two principles that I believe have to be taken into account in the design of the machine.

So for me, maybe only this time, I think that the time away from the physical act of designing and building, clarified things to the point that I could not wait to get back to work on the model I'd been working on previously, because things have become clearer to me.  However the truth of this subjective feeling will be tested in the next few weeks, but as I said before I left, 'confidence is high'.

There are many among us who enjoy these moments of supreme confidence that we have solved this enduring puzzle, only to have the rug whipped out from under us, and yet for me, despite these moments, I have never been persuaded to give up but rather, encouraged to tackle the proble with renewed energy. This sounds a bit like religious talk, and in truth I suppose it is a kind of belief system; a matter of faith that we, or at least one us, will discover the truth and make all those who derided us in the past for our crazy talk, eat humble pie!

JC

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Update -from Florida

I'm still away, but I thought I'd write a blog update about where I am with regard to finishing the wheel.  I'm writing this on my mini ipad, so it's not so easy to write as on my PC at home!  I'm posting this to try to show why I'm reluctant to give any information about my work to date.

A principle that I discovered more than a year ago has so far failed to aid me in reproducing a working version of Bessler's wheel, however my efforts to try to incorporate it  has led to the discovery of another principle which lies at the root of Bessler's wheel. Both principles are essential ingredients to the successful completion of the wheel.

One is required to settle the angles through which the levers operate and the other is that most important configuration that overbalances the wheel.  I hesitate, these days, to make any claims to know the secret, but I do know and understand why these two principles are so important to the successful conclusion to a working wheel. 

When I discovered the first, I set to, building what I was certain would be the successful wheel,  however subsequently the second principle revealed its importance...and explained Bessler's comment that one side is full and the other side empty.

I may not be able respond to any comments prior to my return but I will read them and respond when I can.

JC

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The solution to Bessler's wheel is in sight

I'll be away for a week or two but I'll keep the blog open and read any comments as usual. So before I go, these are the facts as I know them...

Johann Bessler, also known as Orffyreus, invented a perpetual motion wheel. Despite the arguments both for and against, we know that it required the presence of weights to work and that it drew its energy from gravity.  I know this is taught as a violation of the laws of physics however the evidence that it worked and Bessler's own words convinces me that in certain situations or under special circumstance the assumptions within those laws can be circumvented and their usual established consequence may be changed - this would be the window perhaps, or a chink in the armour, to a working wheel mechanism. (I owe thanks for much of the phraseology in the previous sentence to Fletcher, a stalwart of the Besslerwheel forum)

I won't rehearse the arguments yet again, they are available on my websites and on the besslerwheel forum, but I have very good reasons for thinking that I know the answer to the invisible 'chink in the armour' of scepticism that holds us in its unrelenting grip.  I have been working towards this particular solution for several months and I'm know I'll get there soon.  I have to be away for a brief period so work on my wheel will stop 'til my return, but, as someone said in the movie, "The Day After," "Confidence is high. I repeat, confidence is high!"

Good luck to everyone involved in this project and I'll write again on my return.

JC

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Johann Bessler's small world of paragrams and chronograms.

It was while seeking for corroborative evidence that Bessler's MT 137 was derived from David Heinichen's circle of fifths (see my page at http://www.theorffyreuscode.com/html/mt_137_a.html ) that I found a thesis describing how JS Bach, a friend and colleague of Heinichen, had included in his works a system known as alphanumerics; the subject of numerology and the old Hebrew system of Gematria involved the use of similar alphanumeric manipulation ..and of course so did Johann Bessler.

In 1947 Friedrich Smend, published the first of four studies in which he presented his theory that Johann Sebastian Bach had used a alphanumerics to incorporate significant words into his music as part of a grander scheme of compositional number symbolism. Smend collected historical testimonies and musical examples which confirmed his theory,

By the seventeenth century, alphanumeric were known about in many parts of Europe. They seem to have been most popular in German-speaking countries, where they were most frequently used as a means of solving mathematical puzzles,decoding cryptographic messages, in cabbalistic gematria and in the poetical paragram. It is common knowledge that Bessler was fascinated by paragrams and used them extensively throughout his works, most obviously in the form of chronograms.

These paragrams were described by a certain professor Christian Weise, in one of his many publications. He was headmaster of the school In Zittau that Bessler attended. He became Bessler's mentor and his teachings had a profound effect on him.  Professor Christian Weise was famous as a German writer, dramatist, poet, and teacher.  Although he was Rektor of the Zittau school, he had previously worked at the court of Duke Augustus at Weissenfels.  Following his success at designing, building and exhibiting his perpetual motion machine at Gera and Draschwitz, Bessler had moved to Wesenfels in 1714, where he worked on the new two-way version of his wheel.

JS Bach applied for the position of the organist in Weissenfels but failed to obtain the post then, although he wrote works in praise of the Duke later, so there was no bad feeling between them. In 1717 David Heinichen became a colleague of Johann Sebastian Bach and in 1721, Heinichen married in Weissenfels where he had been born and where he lived for much of his life. I continue to believe that Heinichen passed on to Bessler his ideas on the circle of fifths because they all lived and worked in close proximity to each other and their fields of interest, music and organs overlapped, but I suspect that the alphanumeric system so popular in Germany at the time was also discussed.

It seem to have been a small world in which Bessler lived.  His headmaster worked for many years in Weissenfells, where JS Bach and David Henichen also flourished. Bach used some of Weise's poetry in his operas.  He wrote his own version of the circle of fifths which, although it bore no similarity to Heinichen's was based on the same theory.  Weise wrote knowledgeably about paragrams and it would seem unlikely that Bessler would not have leaned all about these popular number-alphabets directly from his mentor.

I'm writing a longer article examining these paragrams as they may hold one of the keys to deciphering much of Bessler published te xts. I'll publish it later on one of my websites.

PS the above information I culled from a varierty of web sites too numerous to mention, other than wikipedia.

JC

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