The building of Bessler's Wheel

I've often wondered how Johann Bessler built his wheel, by that I mean what order did assembly take place and what problems did he encounter in the process.  I simply build onto a wooden disc but if I wanted to hide the interior I'd use a second disc to cover the open side.  When all is assembled I mount it onto an axle and place it in the bearings which are fitted on a stand.

Bessler was dealing with a much larger wheel and considerably more, and heavier, weights.  I think he would start by mounting the chosen axle onto a supporting structure, possibly one which he could move easily.  But would he then mount a twelve foot disc for one side onto the axle?  No, I think he would begin with a much smaller disc of about half size, say six feet diameter. giving him three feet depth to access the interior.  He probably made the mechanisms, or at least as much of it as he could, before attaching it to the the cross bars.  I assume that holes would be cut through both discs for the crossbars and fixed both  inside and outside to each disc.

Having the wheel diameter much shorter would allow access for fitting the mechanisms to the cross bars.  Without the second disc already in place there would be too little support for the mechanisms.  Once the initial assembly had been completed in the smaller wheel he could add the rest and proceed to fit the remaining portions of the wheel. I have reason to think this method was used because of a piece of description of the wheel found in Bessler's Das Triumphirende.  He describes the wheel as being in the form of a drum, twelve feet wide, with a thickness varying from fifteen to eighteen inches.  Curiously nobody has ever recorded this variation in thickness, as far as I'm aware, but it seems safe to assume it was there.

I think 'sGravesande measured the thickness at the rim and got 18 inches, which suggest that the 15 inch thickness was further in towards the axle.  If this is the case then the wheel was built in two sections as I described above, and the other part added once the mechanism was securely fixed inside.  This later addition would have been attached to the outside of the first part thus giving and extra inch and a half to to each side of the wheel.  

This is a copy of a drawing I included in my book about Johann Bessler, Perpetual motion; An Ancient Mystery Solved?  It shows the two thicknesses I have described above :-

I suppose the canvas covering which would also have covered the positions of the cross-bars also disguised the varying thickness present.

I have considered other reasons for having varying thicknesses but this seems to me the most likely.  It's possible that a section, or sections, of wheel might have been removable from under the canvas which could provide access to the weights to remove them when required.  I can see how this might be achieved through several pieces being removable to allow access all the way around the wheel.  Because that is another detail often overlooked; how did he access all the weights from around the whel through one aperture?  He couldn't so there were either several, which would require several holes in the 'disc' under the canvas, or he simply removed sections from some area a certain distance from the axle, presumably near to the rim.

JC

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Connections and Coincidences.

In 1960, (or thereabouts) I wandered into the school library and, by chance, selected a book entitled 'Oddities', by Rupert T. Gould.  It was an anthology of real life mysteries and it included the story of the legend of Bessler's wheel; it was this account that set me on a path that has continued to this day.  I was set on the path by the fact that I knew right away that the legend included what must have been a lie, not by Gould, but by a witness's account.

I subsequently learned that Gould had spent many years in restoring the marine chronometers invented by John Harrison and for which he, John Harrison, was ultimately rewarded with the £20,000 promised by the British Board of longitude for finding a means to accurately establish a ship's position at sea. This offer was published in 17I4 and I had already decided that Bessler's decision to ask for £20,000, also in 1714, an identical sum of money, for the secret of his wheel, had been motivated by seeing a similar sum being offered as a reward, and clearly believed that his invention was at least as valuable.

Even though I could see that there were grounds for suspecting there was a connection between Gould's inclusion of the story of Bessler's wheel in his book, and his work on Harrison's chronometer, I didn't know what it was. Yes, the sums of money were the same, but that fact alone would not have pointed Gould towards Bessler, there had to be some other connection and there was.

In order to thoroughly acquaint himself with the workings of the marine chronometer, Harrison spent weeks studying each part before even beginning to disassemble any of it.  He also studied numerous treatises on the subject including works by Huygens and interestingly, John Harris, whose 'Lexicon Technicum or Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences',was published in two volumes in 1704 and 1708. Both volumes included very favourable comments about John Rowley, Master of Mechanics to the King. It is believed that Rowley made a number of the parts required for Harrison's' timepieces, and therefore he was a worthy subject for research by Gould. It would soon have caught Gould's attention that Rowley had become convinced that Bessler's wheel was genuine, since he had visited Kassel and examined the wheel at the time. Knowing of the high esteem Rowley was held in by his peers, Gould would have wanted to research this story for further information either for the clocks he was working on to discover how Bessler did it.  He never found out and sadly commented that 'we must assume an imposition'.  But that seems to have been the connection between Gould and Bessler's life.  Gould published the results of his research in 'Oddities'.

We tend to dismiss the beliefs of experts from another age, and yet John Rowley himself showed great technical expertise with the amazing variety of instruments he manufactured to order.  After having seen Bessler's wheel for himself, he spent the rest of his life seeking the solution for his own satisfaction.  Rupert Gould was another, and although he assumed the wheel must have been a fake, it was not for want of trying to prove it was genuine, his own mechanical skills were beyond question  Christian Wolf, Gottfried Leibniz, Willem 's Gravesande and many of the witnesses to the wheel's performance were highly articulate men with some of the most brilliant minds of their day and they too became convinced that Bessler's wheel was genuine - it is so easy for us to dismiss their opinions some 300 years after the event, assuming that they lacked our sophistication and ability to see through frauds.  The fact is that they were just the same as we are with equal ability to test for themselves the authenticity of Bessler's claims.  e should accept their view that the wheel was genuine and get on with seeking the solution. There is no reason why we cannot solve this mystery with some original thinking and Bessler himself said that we all tend to go over the same ground over and over in our attempts to do what he did.

And on a completely different matter - this for amusement only and I am not suggesting any of it is fact.  Reading a text from a member of my family I was struck by an interesting coincidence.  In the message the writer had used a familiar abbreviation for the word 'waiting'.  He put W8ing.  I was thinking about this when I realised that, according to my personal belief, as Bessler's wheel was driven by a certain configuration of weights and therefore relied exclusively on gravity for its energy, the word 'weight', could also be abbreviated to W8.  This, on its own, is not a new concept but what was interesting to me was the fact that, according to von Erlach, 'about eight weights were heard landing on the side towards which the wheel turned', thus providing the connection to the number of weights thought to be working within the wheel - eight. But there's more.

The infinity symbol (sometimes called the lemniscate) is a mathematical symbol representing the concept of infinity, it looks like the figure eight lying on its side and thus forms another connection with the concept of perpetual motion, non-stop or perpetual or infinite.

As if that were not enough, Bessler's fascination with the number 5 and 55, as evidenced in numerous instances throughout his published and unpublished works, is often shown encoded as a 'W', which he explains is made up of two letter 'V's, or the Roman numeral 5.

 

You can find a number of fascinating coincidences in Bessler's works - don't be misled by them!


JC

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How to make money from Bessler's wheel without filing for a patent!

This matter of earning money from Bessler's invention, has been skirted around on the forum, as if it would somehow be unworthy to try to earn money from it;  but, as Tevye from 'Fiddler on the Roof' asked  '... it's no shame to be poor... but it's no great honor either. So what would be so terrible... if I had a small fortune?'  It should be remembered that Bessler's chief goal in researching and building his gravity wheel was to raise funds, ostensibly for the foundation of a school offering apprenticeships in numerous crafts.  He asked for twenty thousand Pounds - a lot of money then and equal to three or more million Dollars today. I say ostensibly because although that may have been his honest intention, he was surrounded a small group of relatives who applied considerable pressure to subvert his position as Councillor of Commerce and divert funds to his greedy, criminal, in-laws.

I have maintained the view for many years that patenting this invention is the wrong way to go, and a phrase from the above quote reminded me that most of the poor on this planet could not afford to buy a patented invention, although they might well get together to build their own, possibly infringing a patent.  How much better to offer it freely to anyone, anywhere.

I don't intend to rehearse my reasons for rejecting the patent route, suffice to say - government interference either by taxing to the hilt or burying it; upfront cost of world wide patent - and don't tell me that it will all come back in revenue; it might not for many reasons; and action from competitive resources; any way I'm nearly 70 and I need my small fortune now. How much better to get some financial reward within weeks of successfully building your working model than to have to wait two or three years, after you've mortgaged yourself to the max to pay for it.

So how can you make a small amount of money to help you live comfortable and perhaps help your children and grandchildren?  The first thing to note is that when you announce your success, you have have everything already organised and ready to go.  The first thing the world should know about your work is after you have completed the following tasks. First record your device on video, preferably include some slow-motion and some stills of it in various positions.  Then write down in detail exactly how and why it works.  Explain everything, leave nothing in doubt.  Add numerous diagrams to illustrate any points which might be misconstrued  Read it it over and over, and check it for errors.  Get someone else you trust to read it if possible, to make sure you haven't left anything out.

You need to use the the video and the text to complete a video which will go viral within days of your announcement. This video, if monetized, will bring you substantial payments. By the way, I have had three offers to do any animations I might need and that would be of great benefit in making your video more transparent, so if you can do your own or you know someone who can then include animations if possible.

It is possible that you could provide an app for building a Bessler wheel and that is an area with which I'm not so familiar but obviously worth looking into.  Lastly I have a friend who is an accomplished film director and producer and he is keen to make a documentary on the whole subject and if you (or I) are successful he would jump at the chance to make one.  He has already made me an offer which included Associate Producer with a large down-payment on commencement of the filming, and a share in the proceeds.

Obviously this takes time and therefore somehow you will have to hold your tongue and tell no one until you are ready to tell the world!  Then stand by for the onslaught of TV companies wanting to film an interview.  At this point, or preferably before, you might consider getting someone to manage you?  They can arrange the interviews, fees, film rights, book rights, promotions etc. 

All of this without spending a penny, or filing a patent.  I should add one consideration, which I am undecided about.  Is it worth patenting the design in order to own it and give it away?  I don't know.

JC

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When the impossible becomes possible.

I don't know how many people who chance upon this blog, have actually heard of Johann Bessler and his claims to have built several perpetual motion machines, but of one thing I'm certain - the vast majority will have learned that such a thing is impossible and would utterly confound the laws of science if such a device were ever able to see the light of day and work.  

The history of science is littered with the corpses of those knowledgeable people who delivered their prognostications after much observation, experimentation and deliberation.  There is a veritable cornucopia of websites listing these sad, deluded experts who knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that some things were impossible, only to be proven wrong within a surprisingly short time.  There is therefore no need for me to detail any, but I found an interesting trend noted in a magazine of no lesser standing than the International Business Times and I have provided a brief extract which seems to support my contention that, like the advice, 'don't believe everything you read in the papers', you should not believe everything the scientists tell us:-

"A rise in the number of studies published in scientific journals has been accompanied by a surge in retraction notices, casting into doubt findings that influence everything from government grants to prescriptions written for patients, a Wall Street Journal analysis found.

Citing data compiled by Thomson Reuters, the Journal found a steep rise in retraction notices in peer-reviewed research journals, from just 22 in 2001 to 339 last year. The number of papers published in such journals rose 44 percent in the same time frame. The article pointed to other studies finding that fraud and misconduct were becoming increasingly prevalent.

The article noted that new scientific studies look to past research for guidance, so that a flawed study can cause a cascade of faulty or fruitless research: for example, when the renowned Mayo Clinic had found that data about using the immune system to fight cancer had been fabricated, seventeen scholarly papers published in nine research journals had to be retracted.

In addition, doctors rely on research to prescribe the most effective treatment. An ultimately discredited study suggesting that two high blood pressure drugs worked better in concert led doctors to put more than 100,000 patients on a treatment schedule that may offer no benefits and dangerous side effects.

Part of the problem is that scientists are locked in competition for the prestige and money that flows from being published in a recognized journal.

"The stakes are so high," said the Lancet's editor, Richard Horton. "A single paper in Lancet and you get your chair and you get your money. It's your passport to success."

This report concerns us today but why should it not apply to the last three hundred years too?  There is plenty of evidence out there proving that many established beliefs are later found to be wrong.  I underlined one particularly damming point, 'new scientific studies look to past research for guidance, so that a flawed study can cause a cascade of faulty or fruitless research'.  Isn't that exactly the problem we face here.  Previous conclusions about the viability of Bessler's wheel have effectively wiped out any sensible consideration of its potential as an alternative means of generating electricity?

I have found so much circumstantial evidence that Bessler's wheel really worked, that I am certain that this legend is going to prove possible and that a large quantity of egg is going to appear on many a professional scientist....and I can't wait!

JC

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Wheel update and Bessler's education.

I'm updating my progress with the latest version of Bessler's wheel because I've had a lot of emails in response to the magazine article, asking about the wheel and when I expect to finish it, and I haven't updated this recently.

The current MDF disc is three feet in diameter, and has five mechanisms attached to it, or at least it will have.  Each mechanism comprises 6 varying lengths of aluminium, three lead weights, and is attached to the disc at two points which is capable of swiveling.  There is another piece to the mechanism which I prefer to leave out for now.

I have returned to the idea of five mechanisms for good reasons and so far the two I have finished and attached perform as designed,  The individual pieces of alumininium have to be cut to size and drilled and filed prior to assembly, and I'm finding that this is the fiddly bit which is taking me so long.

Bessler said, "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 bars, pulleys and weights, the machine revolves much faster,"  I take this word cross-bar to refer to part of the mechanism, and.  his constant reference to the number five persuades me that five refers to his conclusion that this is the most mechanisms he can fit in (on one side of the disc) and the most effective in applying their weight enough to turn the wheel.

I made a comment recently that Bessler may have had access to historical documents, but upon reflection I doubt if he was able to get hold of any books prior to is arrival at Kassel, some three years after his initial success in building his wheel.  He did have the benefit of a surprisingly good education given his lowly status as a peasant's son, but he had already shown signs of a lively and enquiring mind and that is why he was accepted as a pupil by Christian Weise, a well-known and highly respected teacher.

Bessler says he was taught field surveying, which seems an odd claim, but a valuable one for that era.  It suggests he understood areas and volumes and topography.  It also implies that he was taught the ancient Greek's discoveries by Aristotle and Archimedes, such as moments of force and inertia.  Copernicus' discoveries and those of Jean Buridan on impetus were almost certainly taught at school, so that only leaves centrifugal and centripetal force about which Huygens, Leibniz and Newton commented.  Bessler does mention Huygens and I suspect he was aware of that discussion also.

Add to this knowledge the vast amount of practical applications he studied during his research into the various crafts  and you get the idea that he had an intensely practical mind and an ability to understand easily the engineering aspects of all these mechanical apparatus.

JC

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Bessler's weight-driven wheel

Welcome to those who have dropped by, following the Vice magazine article, you can read it again at

 http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/has-this-british-engineer-discovered-the-secret-to-infinite-energy

Having spent a lot of the last 40 years researching the documented history of Johann Bessler I have found and published enough circumstantial evidence to prove, if this was a court of law, that Bessler's claims were genuine and he was not a fraudster.  There is just one obstacle in the way of complete vindication and that is the convention that gravity cannot be used as a source of energy.  I have no argument with that viewpoint but there must obviously be an answer that encompasses both positions and I believe I have found it.

To find the answer we must first reduce the component parts of the puzzle to their most basic level.  First we should consider what Bessler said about the internal parts of the wheel,  "In Das Triumphans", he stated that, "these weights are themselves the Perpetual Motion device, the ‘essential constituent parts’ which must of necessity continue to exercise their motive force, (derived from the PM principle) indefinitely – so long as they keep away from the centre of gravity."  Baron von Fischer, who examined the wheel for a considerable length of time described hearing "the sound of about eight weights landing on the side toward which the wheel turned".  We can conclude that there are weights and they move within the wheel.

The presence of moving weights certainly implies that gravity was a necessary adjunct to the rotation of the wheel, but does that indicate that gravity was the energy source?  Not necessarily, but obviously if the machine were taken away from earth's gravitational pull, the weights would not move therefore we must assume that it was a vital ingredient.

Reducing the parts of an automobile engine to their most basic part can help understand the solution.  The final act before any movement of the piston, is the explosion of a gasoline/air mixture in the combustion chamber.  This is what actually moves the piston and thus the crankshaft.  The petrol provides the means to cause an explosion, along with air and a spark.  In this case the piston is analogous to the weights.  Each is the actual moving part and, in the case of the piston, it is enabled to move by an explosion; and  gravity enables the weights to move.

Though we may call it a gasoline engine it's really an internal combustion engine which could in theory be fed by any combustible fuel.  In the same way, the weights which overbalance the wheel by becoming, as Bessler put it, 'away from the centre of gravity', could in theory be driven outwards by a piston, so the weight is moved by the piston instead of gravity, or it could be moved by an electric solenoid, both systems could be made to work, in theory, and yet the wheel would still turn under the influence of gravity, because the piston had thrown the wheel out of balance, by moving the weights.

So we can see that gravity causes the weights to move into a position which causes the wheel to overbalance.  We also see that other methods might be used to move the weights and the wheel would still overbalance, so there is no reason why we cannot have a weight-driven wheel...so far.

In the auto engine the piston position has to be reversed in order to fire again, and so too, do the weights in Bessler's wheel.  He solved that problem and was able, by finding the correct configuration, to have the weights move inwards and outwards at the right time.  He showed how to achieve this in one of his 150 or so drawings, but at this point I prefer not to reveal which.  I hope to finish the current test model soon.

JC

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My interview with Vice Magazine.

I was asked if I would do a telephone interview last Tuesday with a free-lance journalist for Vice magazine!  I immediately conjured up images of the kind of magazine it might be, but thought, 'hell, any publicity is good publicity!' 

As it happens it isn't that kind at all. It has a readership of 100,000 plus, per month in the UK and over a million world-wide.  The actual interview took about 45 minutes and yet you could read the article in five minutes; obviously it was hugely abbreviated and, as a writer myself, I understand the rigours journalists are required to adhere to, keep it short, succinct and sensationalise anything that needs it. But that headline I shall have to live with!  I only responded to the question, 'do you believe you have the solution?', with 'yes, of course and I am building a wheel to prove it,' which is what I've been doing for most of my life, so far without success.  Having said that I have made great strides forward in understanding how it would be possible, so the answer is correct, I do believe I have the solution and I expect to prove it very shortly,

I was amused to learn the following, from one comment about the article, and I quote:

Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no." It is named after Ian Betteridge, a British technology journalist, although the general concept is much older. The observation has also been called "Davis' law", or just the "journalistic principle". In the field of particle physics, the concept has been referred to as Hinchliffe's Rule.

Betteridge explained the concept in a February 2009 article:

 This story is a great demonstration of my maxim that any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word "no". The reason why journalists use that style of headline is that they know the story is probably bullshit, and don’t actually have the sources and facts to back it up, but still want to run it.

Although the interview has been greatly abbreviated, there is nothing there that I didn't say, but it is amazing, when you read your own words, how you cannot help wishing you could have another go at saying what you meant!  Any way I'm pleased overall with what was said and if it can bring more people to believe that Bessler was genuine then that is good.  This magazine is largely read by the younger generation and there are too many of us oldies stil trying to solve this puzzle and fresh younger views can only help to reach the answer to this enduring puzzle..

A German publisher is going to publish my original book in German, hopefully in October and this article fits in quite well with that.  I note that there is a German version of the magazine and perhaps they will include me in it? 

Finally, I was amazed to see that the very first comment on the article was a reference to Walter White, otherwise known as Heisenberg in the TV series 'Breaking Bad'.  My family have been referring to me as Heisenberg ever since we all saw the series - and sadly, I've got a Heisenberg T shirt!  I always thought the resemblance was minimla but obviously there is more to this than meets the eye., but I'm not sure that Bryan Cranston (who plays Heisenberg) would be as flattered as I am by the suggested similarity.

He looks a lot meaner than I do!

One more thing, the pictures of Bessler which you can see in the background of the a photo of my workshop are produced by my long time friend, ovyyus at http://www.orffyre.com./

You read the magazine article at

 http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/has-this-british-engineer-discovered-the-secret-to-infinite-energy

JC

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Has the Time Come to Ditch the Search for an Additional Force?

Preface to today's blog

 I have considered the following points, for several months but until now, have settled for merely stating my opinion rather than discussig the point.   Lack of space necessitates brevity so the examples are limited but will hopefully be sufficient to sway some of you to my point of view.

After all this time one would think that some progress would have been made towards solving Bessler's wheel.  I know there has always been a strong bias among those who believe in him, that his machine required some additional force to assist the weights to overcome their final hurdle and complete a full circle.  The reason for this bias lies, of course, in the strongly held conviction that gravity alone, cannot achieve this.

Those of us who take Bessler's words as true, and believe that there was no additional force necessary, are undoubtedly in the minority.  Yet the sheer lack of progress in identifying the additional force seems to me to prove that it is less likely to lead to a solution than to stick with Bessler's words -  and work on the assumption that no additional force is required.  All available forces have been considered and nothing has worked.  So where do we go next?

I have described Bessler's wheel in the past as a gravity wheel, this was wrong; it does not run on gravity; no more than my car runs on petrol, diesel or gasoline. What does that mean? We all blithely talk about autos and their gasoline engines for instance, but even though we call it a fuel, actually it's just a liquid with some useful properties.  We fill the tank and then it is drawn through the fuel pipe and into the combustion chamber - after being mixed with air - and ignited.  The subsequent explosion leading to a rapid expansion of gases, drives a piston down or upwards as required and this causes the first real movement, and the crankshaft turns.  This was originally termed an internal combustion engine and the fuel used to create the explosion could be almost any combustible material. Denis Papin and Christian Huygens in 1680 used gunpowder to create the explosion in a gunpowder engine consisting of a vertical tube containing a piston.

A steam engine relies on coal, which has to be burned, to heat water, to produce steam which is another rapidly expanding gas, and that thrusts a piston up, or down, another example of the first real movement.  Coal is just fossilized trees and is simply a fuel burnt to heat the water to create the expanding steam, but it does not directly fuel the engine.

The electricity we use is generated by steam turbines using water heated by burning coal, and now nuclear fission, but the basic concept is very simple and not dissimilar to that used by James Watt in his steam engine. 

If, for the sake of argument, we leave aside all the life on this planet, nature has only two ways to generate movement; one way is through heat, and the other is gravity.  Nature generates heat in a number of ways, chiefly from the sun warming the planet and from volcanic action.  The subsequent temperature variations can lead eventually to hurricanes, typhoons and tornadoes.  The temperature variations can have odd effects; some rocks in deserts appear to move of themselves but it is due to intense heat during the day and very cold nights, expansion and contraction plus gravity, makes them move.

I know there are some out there who think Bessler may have designed a machine that ran on ambient temperature changes.  As a retired engineer I feel certain that you could never create a wheel using such technology, which operated at the speed Bessler's did, nor start up so quickly, and not with that much power, 300 years ago.  So we are left with nature's only other motion instigator - gravity.

So far, I have focused on the final step which was the moment of movement, but the previous step was what caused the movement.  There is a common denominator in the descriptions of the above engines; they all require an input of heat to generate the first movement.  Should we be looking for a solution to Bessler's wheel using heat?

It may appear that I have proved that Bessler had to have used heat of some sort to generate rotation in his wheel, because the alternative is said to be impossible - but - nature has both solutions available to her and if you think about the moving rocks in the desert, they used temperature variation and gravity to move themselves.    There are many examples of gravity operating in nature.  Rock falls, water falls, rain, floods, land slides and avalanches, the tides both during and away from the full moon; and it has been said that the solution, if it exists, will be found in nature- and - I am utterly convinced that Bessler didn't use temperature variation, or we would have had reports of burning smells, smoke, heat etc, accompanying each demonstration. 

             

We have  tinkered at the edge of this virgin technology, using gravity in watermills, and weight-driven clocks, for example but no one has given a hard, fresh and new look at why we think we cannot  build a continuously turning wheel, as Bessler did..  Rather than looking at each possibility, the world of science and engineering have repeated parrot-fashion the old, old story that gravity is not a source of energy and therefore Bessler's wheel was a fake.  I have news for you, gasoline does not provide the energy for an auto engine, heat does, generated by burning the fuel which is stored in the tank.  Gravity does not provide the energy for Bessler's wheel, the weights do.  Gasoline enables the heat to be produced to move the piston, and gravity enables the weights to move and overbalance the wheel.

It is my belief that, like gasoline, coal and oil which each form part of a series of steps, gravity will prove to be but one step in the process of finding a way to manipulate weights to create continuous rotation in a wheel, just as Bessler did, more than 300 years ago.

JC

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Pondering on Preponderance and Premature Presumptions.

There seems to be a problem. Some people, myself included, believe that Bessler's wheel required the presence of gravity to work and have, somewhat confusingly suggested that it was a gravity-wheel.  But the consensus is that gravity cannot be a energy source for the wheel.  Bessler seemed to suggest that it was, so someone is wrong.  Gravity is still not completely understood. We can describe what it does and how it effects us and from this we have, historically, deduced that it cannot be an energy source.

However, you can read what you like into Bessler's words but for me there is one clear message, gravity was an essential ingredient for the rotation of his wheel, or to put it another way, without it, he had nothing.  He also stated, in my opinion, quite clearly that no other force was required to turn his wheel - other than an imbalance he generated with his moving weights.  So how can we reconcile this with the belief that gravity cannot be an energy source?

I have often used an analogy which likens the wind to gravity and despite stressing that I was only applying the analogy to the actual interface between the wind and a windmill, and the force of gravity and some weights, many have pointed out the reason for the wind can be traced back to the sun's effect on earth.  The energy source was not relevant to the analogy. The same reasoning applied to my analogy to a stream of water; again I only pointed to the actual interface between a stream of water and a propeller screw but again the source of the stream was offered to refute the analogy.  Those who are aware of the late Eric Laithwaite (Gyroscopes and linear motor) will probably recall his employment of analogies in order to understand things in a more coherent way.  I use them a lot to try to get to the heart of the problem. My point was that a force or stream or thrust was applied to rotatable surface when it was completely submerged within that force, stream or thrust and yet in all three cases the force was a conservative (or continuous) one and therefore apparently inaccessible as an energy source.

Curiously I realised belatedly, that the wind and gravity move in opposite directions.  The wind moves because the air molecules of which it is composed tend to move from higher pressure areas to lower ones.  One can conclude that the higher pressure areas contain more tightly packed molecules seeking a lower pressure where they can expand because they have become warmer.  Gravity on the other hand, causes mass which is also composed of molecules, to be attracted to other larger and denser masses and the larger the mass the more powerful the attraction.  One could assume that the larger the mass the more condensed the molecules might become and they respond to what Newton 'call action at a distance' and are driven to join the larger masses to add to their overall density. and to the strength of the attraction.

So wind molecules seek lower pressure and under gravity mass molecules seek higher pressure.  But the mechanics that causes objects of mass to move towards each other, and towards larger ones, is invisible to us.  Magnetism is only discerned with the naked eye with, for example, the iron filings demonstration.  Gravity too cannot be seen but its actions are obvious.  The moving molecules in the wind only react to pressure changes.. Pressure changes occur when there is warmer air present, due to the sun's heat. Warm air rises  because it is less dense than colder air and since both are effected by gravity, the warmer air  rises above the colder air where it can expand.

The actual substance (for want of a better word) which acts at a distance to attract objects of mass, is not the source of energy and I have never thought that it was.  No, it is the action of the weights when moved by gravity which in my opinion can provide the energy to turn the wheel.  Gravity is merely the enabler in the same way that the pressure variations in the air, which cannot of themselves provide energy, do cause the wind to blow and it is the resultant wind which provides the energy to turn the windmill.

JC

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