The Legend of Bessler's Wheel

I have replaced my usual blog with a brief account of the legend of Bessler's wheel as I am  currently too busy to devote time to writing.  My apologies to my readers and I promise I will be back as soon as possible.

JC


The legend of Bessler’s Wheel began on 6th June 1712, when Johann Bessler announced that he had invented a perpetual motion machine and he would be exhibiting it in the town square in Gera, Germany, on that day.  Everyone was free to come and see the machine running.  It took the form of a wheel mounted between two pillars and ran continuously until it was stopped or its parts wore out. The machine attracted huge crowds.  Although they were allowed to examine its external appearance thoroughly, they could not view the interior, because the inventor wished to sell the secret of its construction for the sum of 10,000 pounds – a sum equal to several millions today.

News of the invention reached the ears of high ranking men, scientists, politicians and members of the aristocracy.  They came and examined the machine, subjected it to numerous tests and concluded that it was genuine. Only one other man, Karl, the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, was allowed to view the interior and he testified that the machine was genuine. He is a man well-known in history as someone of the greatest integrity, and  the negotiations between Bessler and Karl took place against a background in which Karl acted as honest broker between the warring nations of Europe; a situation which required his absolute rectitude both in appearance and in action. 

There were several attempts to buy the wheel, but negotiations always failed when they reached an impasse – the buyer wished to examine the interior before parting with the money, and the inventor fearing that once the secret was known the buyer would simply leave without paying and make his own perpetual motion machine, would not permit it.  Sadly, after some thirty years or more, the machine was lost to us when the inventor fell to his death during construction of another of his inventions, a vertical axle windmill.

However, the discovery of a series of encoded clues has led many to the opinion that the inventor left instructions for reconstructing his wheel, long after his death.  The clues were discovered during the process of investigating the official reports of the time which seemed to rule out any chance of fraud, hence the  interest in discovering the truth about the legend of Bessler’s wheel.

My own curiosity was sparked by the realisation that an earlier highly critical account by Bessler's maid-servant, which explained how the wheel was fraudulently driven, was so obviously flawed and a lie, that I was immediately attracted to do further research. In time I learned that there was no fraud involved, so the wheel was genuine and the claims of the inventor had to be taken seriously.

The tests which the wheel was subjected to involved lifting heavy weights from the castle yard to the roof, driving an Archimedes water pump and an endurance test lasting 56 days under lock and key and armed guard.  Bessler also organised demonstrations involving running the wheel on one set of bearings opened for inspection – and then transferring the device to a second set of open bearings, both sets having been examined to everyone’s satisfaction, both before, after and during the examination.

So the only problem is that modern science denies that Bessler's wheel was possible, but my own research has shown that this conclusion is wrong.  There is no need for a change in the laws of physics, as some  have suggested, we simply haven't covered every possible scenario in the evaluating the number of possible configurations. 

I have produced copies of all Bessler's publications, with English translations.  They can be obtained by clicking on the appropriate links on the right.

JC

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Back from Spain and almost missed Gonzalo!

My apologies for not responding to any comments.  I've been in Spain for a couple of weeks and was unable to comment although I did read all of them.  The weather was perfect, wall-to-wall sunshine temperature always around 28 C or 82 F.  Plenty of the juice for those who like to occasionally imbibe the fruit of the grape (and I do!) - occasional being daily of course.  I read that the hurricane would have petered out by the time it came to England so it was something of a surprise to learn that most of an 60 foot tree had landed in our front garden!

When I returned this morning and discovered that a tree had fallen into our front garden, narrowly missing the house I was just thankful that I left my car at the airport and that no one was in the drive or driving past when it fell.

View of tree before it was removed, thanks to local Warwickshire News.  Three other trees fell due to the effects of the tail-end of hurricane Gonzalo and three people did die when trees fell on them

Below is a photo I took from near our house of  the avenue a year ago; they always replace fallen trees in the avenue  There are 116 trees in total so it's quite a task to look after them.  You can see a tree which had been replaced because its predecessor had fallen in the Spring last year.  The trees are about 60 foot tall and I'll know how old they are when I've got around to counting the rings on the fallen one!  They are lime trees and have been up for a long time, but they sometimes fall when the wind is gusting over to 70 mph.

Anyway back to Bessler with my next post.  Those occasional flashes of inspiration we all get from time to time, hit me while I was away and I have a change of opinion to tell you about but nothing too dramatic!

JC

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Did Bessler's wheel begin to turn spontaneously?

 I know I've covered this briefly in the past, but an email I received, suggesting the writer knew that Bessler's wheel was not permanently out of balance prompted me to rehearse my arguments against that conclusion again, here.

According to Johann Bessler, his wheel would begin to turn as soon as the brake was released.  This statement is supported by witnesses.  But some people have suggested that Bessler stopped the wheel at a certain point so that the wheel would begin to spin as described because it was stopped at a point where its internal mechanisms were in an overbalancing position.

However it is reported that the visitors to the wheel were allowed to stop and start the wheel as often as they wished, and I 'm sure that someone would have commented on the fact that the wheel had to be stopped in a certain position for it to begin to rotate of its own accord - and without a push - if that was the case.

If this spontaneous start was only possible when the wheel was in a certain position, then that implies there were what I might call flat spots during each rotation.  If the wheel was only out of balance on either side of these flat spots then the wheel would turn unevenly, but the witnesses all noted the extreme evenness of its rotation.

Also when the wheel was lifting the weight of 70 pounds from the castle yard to the roof, the flat spots would have become much more obvious.  In an unloaded rotation the impetus from the overbalancing portion of each rotation would carry the wheel  over the flat spots but when under load they would be emphasised and, I repeat, the very even running of the wheel was noted, I think we can believe what Bessler told us, and that is that the wheel started spontaneously.

If a state of permanent imbalance existed in the first two wheels then the latter two wheels, capable of being rotated in either direction, would, with mirror image mechanisms, remain in a state of balance until manually started.  This implies that rotation was generated by the movement of the weights, and the alternative mirrored set of mechanisms moving in reverse, might add a braking effect but not cancel the overbalancing caused by the forward moving set.  So there were two effects present.

In the one way wheels, there was the initial overbalancing and secondly there was the result of rotation which repeated the overbalancing which had been present initially.  In the two way wheels with the overbalancing not present initially, the mechanisms required to be in motion before they could begin to overbalance the wheel.   The mirror image mechanisms would not achieve overbalance even when moving in reverse, but they did remove the permanent overbalance present in the one way wheels.

I think it is possible that with fewer mechanism the wheel might have experienced flat spots during rotation but we won't know for sure until some one builds one.

JC 

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The Legend of Bessler's Wheel

The legend of Bessler’s Wheel began on 6th June 1712, when Johann Bessler announced that he had invented a perpetual motion machine and he would be exhibiting it in the town square in Gera, Germany, on that day.  Everyone was free to come and see the machine running.  It took the form of a wheel mounted between two pillars and ran continuously until it was stopped or its parts wore out. The machine attracted huge crowds.  Although they were allowed to examine its external appearance thoroughly, they could not view the interior, because the inventor wished to sell the secret of its construction for the sum of 10,000 pounds – a sum equal to several millions today.

News of the invention reached the ears of high ranking men, scientists, politicians and members of the aristocracy.  They came and examined the machine, subjected it to numerous tests and concluded that it was genuine. Only one other man, Karl, the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, was allowed to view the interior and he testified that the machine was genuine. He is a man well-known in history as someone of the greatest integrity, and  the negotiations between Bessler and Karl took place against a background in which Karl acted as honest broker between the warring nations of Europe; a situation which required his absolute rectitude both in appearance and in action.

There were several attempts to buy the wheel, but negotiations always failed when they reached an impasse – the buyer wished to examine the interior before parting with the money, and the inventor fearing that once the secret was known the buyer would simply leave without paying and make his own perpetual motion machine, would not permit it.  Sadly, after some thirty years or more, the machine was lost to us when the inventor fell to his death during construction of another of his inventions, a vertical axle windmill. 

However, the discovery of a series of encoded clues has led many to the opinion that the inventor left instructions for reconstructing his wheel, long after his death.  The clues were discovered during the process of investigating the official reports of the time which seemed to rule out any chance of fraud, hence the  interest in discovering the truth about the legend of Bessler’s wheel. 

My own curiosity was sparked by the realisation that an earlier highly critical account by Bessler's maid-servant, which explained how the wheel was fraudulently driven, was so obviously flawed and a lie, that I was immediately attracted to do further research. In time I learned that there was no fraud involved, so the wheel was genuine and the claims of the inventor had to be taken seriously.

The tests which the wheel was subjected to involved lifting heavy weights from the castle yard to the roof, driving an Archimedes water pump and an endurance test lasting 56 days under lock and key and armed guard.  Bessler also organised demonstrations involving running the wheel on one set of bearings opened for inspection – and then transferring the device to a second set of open bearings, both sets having been examined to everyone’s satisfaction, both before, after and during the examination.

So the only problem is that modern science denies that Bessler's wheel was possible, but my own research has shown that this conclusion is wrong.  There is no need for a change in the laws of physics, as some  have suggested, we simply haven't covered every possible scenario in the evaluating the number of possible configurations.

I have produced copies of all Bessler's publications, with English translations.  They can be obtained by clicking on the appropriate links on the right.

JC

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The Legend of Bessler’s Wheel

I have replaced my usual blog with a brief account of the legend of Bessler's wheel as I am  currently too busy to devote time to writing.  My apologies to my readers and I promise I will be back as soon as possible.

JC


The legend of Bessler’s Wheel began on 6th June 1712, when Johann Bessler announced that he had invented a perpetual motion machine and he would be exhibiting it in the town square in Gera, Germany, on that day.  Everyone was free to come and see the machine running.  It took the form of a wheel mounted between two pillars and ran continuously until it was stopped or its parts wore out. The machine attracted huge crowds.  Although they were allowed to examine its external appearance thoroughly, they could not view the interior, because the inventor wished to sell the secret of its construction for the sum of 10,000 pounds – a sum equal to several millions today.

News of the invention reached the ears of high ranking men, scientists, politicians and members of the aristocracy.  They came and examined the machine, subjected it to numerous tests and concluded that it was genuine. Only one other man, Karl, the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, was allowed to view the interior and he testified that the machine was genuine. He is a man well-known in history as someone of the greatest integrity, and  the negotiations between Bessler and Karl took place against a background in which Karl acted as honest broker between the warring nations of Europe; a situation which required his absolute rectitude both in appearance and in action.

There were several attempts to buy the wheel, but negotiations always failed when they reached an impasse – the buyer wished to examine the interior before parting with the money, and the inventor fearing that once the secret was known the buyer would simply leave without paying and make his own perpetual motion machine, would not permit it.  Sadly, after some thirty years or more, the machine was lost to us when the inventor fell to his death during construction of another of his inventions, a vertical axle windmill. 

However, the discovery of a series of encoded clues has led many to the opinion that the inventor left instructions for reconstructing his wheel, long after his death.  The clues were discovered during the process of investigating the official reports of the time which seemed to rule out any chance of fraud, hence the  interest in discovering the truth about the legend of Bessler’s wheel. 

My own curiosity was sparked by the realisation that an earlier highly critical account by Bessler's maid-servant, which explained how the wheel was fraudulently driven, was so obviously flawed and a lie, that I was immediately attracted to do further research. In time I learned that there was no fraud involved, so the wheel was genuine and the claims of the inventor had to be taken seriously.

The tests which the wheel was subjected to involved lifting heavy weights from the castle yard to the roof, driving an Archimedes water pump and an endurance test lasting 56 days under lock and key and armed guard.  Bessler also organised demonstrations involving running the wheel on one set of bearings opened for inspection – and then transferring the device to a second set of open bearings, both sets having been examined to everyone’s satisfaction, both before, after and during the examination.

So the only problem is that modern science denies that Bessler's wheel was possible, but my own research has shown that this conclusion is wrong.  There is no need for a change in the laws of physics, as some  have suggested, we simply haven't covered every possible scenario in the evaluating the number of possible configurations.

I have produced copies of all Bessler's publications, with English translations.  They can be obtained by clicking on the appropriate links on the right.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

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Breaking Out of the Box

It has often been said that we should think outside the box,  Excellent advice and we all probably know what is meant and we all think, yes that's what I must do!  But although we have the best of intentions, we continue on our way without really applying the advice, why?  Because we don't know how.  So I thought I'd post some suggestions culled from various sources on the internet.

This problem we have taken on, which requires us to either reproduce Bessler's wheel or find an alternative method of causing a wheel to spin continuously, is proving harder to solve than many of us thought, in our hearts.  We all dreamed of being the one who succeeded.  One of the problems which besets us is that we are all a prisoner of our own paradigm.  I mean that the belief structure within which we think and act is difficult, if not impossible to break out of.  We all know and are encouraged to think outside the box and though we all support this notion, how do we go about it?  Our current paradigms produce tunnel vision and affect our creativity; a paradigm shift would require us to change our belief structure and our perspective so we could see things differently and creatively.

The solution requires us to think about new ideas without assessing their worth and significance before we have both physically and mentally tested them.  It is very easy to consider a mechanical arrangement and 'know' how it will act, because our experience and prejudices tells us the answer.  Our assessment relies on our old ideas and knowledge - our current paradigms. To escape old ideas and prejudices, we must remain non-evaluative and allow bizarre new paradigms and ideas to survive so they can trigger quality ideas.

We have a profound knowledge of the problem which means that we have a lifetime's images in our mind that get in the way of new thinking. The best way to avoid these pictures is to work on the problem indirectly. Start with the 'essence' of the problem, the action verb that captures the main activity. We might for instance encapsulate the problem as looking for something which spins, turns revolves etc.  We might think of sycamore seeds spinning as they fall to earth, or the way water swirls down the drain hole.  These different aspects might lead to a new idea not directly connected with our search.

We often read about reverse engineering, well a similar thought involves turning the problem on its head looking for answers and subsequently turning it right side up produces a solution.  We could for instance study how to keep a wheel from turning despite any forces applied to it; or try to stop it from overbalancing; or get the weights to rise instead of falling.

Another method is to try see the problem from another pair of eyes; a child trying to spin a hoop, or a dog chasing its tail.

You could write down in a sentence exactly what the wheel should do, and then reverse or change the meaning of the verb.

Finally use the following words frequently during your brainstorming sessions -  

    Why?
    Who?
    What?
    Where?
    When?
    With whom?
    And again, why?

I don't know if this helps but give it a try, you never know, you might be the one!

JC

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Helmholtz's Assumption about Perpetual Motion is due for correction.

After more than 300 years of trying and failing, one might be forgiven for thinking that we who believe in Bessler must be mistaken.  But for myself I have doubt whatsoever that he did what he said he did and that is that he built a wheel which rotated continuously powered by the force of gravity.

I'm not alone; there are hundreds of people around the world who believe the legend and many of whom continue to experiment with different mechanical configurations each designed to induce a continuous overbalancing which will cause the wheel to rotate for as long as it remains within the field/force of gravity.

Consider if this was a court of law.  There is an abundance of circumstantial evidence supporting the contention that Bessler told the truth - that his wheel was genuine.  In addition we have the evidence of an eyewitness to the internal workings of the wheel, who verified Bessler's claims; a witness of unimpeachable reputation moreover.  Not a single shred of evidence that he was a fake, other than the lies of a servant who had already served two prison sentences for telling lies about a previous employer and was about to be dismissed from her current employment.  A jury would, at the very least, come to the conclusion that the charge was unproven and he would have been released without further charge.

If you seek an explanation for the continued assertion that his wheel was impossible, then you need look no further than the work of  Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894).  Having graduated as a Doctor of Medicine, this 26 year old youth with no training or experience in either physics or, for that matter, little in medicine either, conjured up his famous conjecture which has formed the corner stone of  scientific belief with regard to the Law of Conservation of energy ever since.  As is common today his paper was reviewed by his peers - and rejected for being too speculative!  Disregarding this setback, Helmholtz turned instead to a fringe meeting of the Berlin Physical Society where he delivered his paper as a speech in 1847.

His fundamental explanation for the impossibility of perpetual motion machines went something like this;  'no-one has ever built a perpetual motion machine, therefore there must be a law of conservation of energy that forbids such machines. If an inventor comes along claiming to have constructed such a machine, he must be mistaken and can safely be ignored because the law of conservation of energy shows them to be impossible!'  But if such a machine were to materialise it would invalidate his argument.

 Helmholtz's circular reasoning defies logic and should have been dismissed as nothing but hot air 300 years ago and yet we are still hidebound by a tradition of fear of peer pressure where the peer group encourages those who might disagree to change their views to become members of the group, and nothing has changed .

Such a paper would not even be accepted for review in today's competitive world and yet here we are striving to prove Bessler's wheel did work and we are stymied by the existence of a nonsensical argument made by a young man barely out of medical school three hundred years ago. (Thanks to Scott Ellis of besslerwheel forum for above information)

I think that Helmholtz's paper on PM was initially disregarded as the work of an enthusiastic amateur with little experience in the world of science, however this view was probably rectified by his subsequent work in medicine.  Here is a quote from a paper by Gerald Westheimer of  the Division of Neurobiology at University of California:- 'No single person, before or since, contributed more to the knowledge of the human sensory apparatus than Hermann Helmholtz, and throughout his career he kept concerning himself with questions of the origin of our visual experiences. He first broached the subject in an 1854 lecture, as a 34-year-old beginning professor of physiology in Konigsberg, and returned to it in a variety of settings till almost the last essay he wroteduring the year of his death in 1894.'  

This blind acceptance of everything an accredited scientists pontificates upon is a common occurrence today.  Often, despite his claim to fame having been given a rapturous reception the frequent subsequent discovery that some of his work was wrong, inaccurate or an example of self-aggrandizement happens often enough to make us cautious about such claims.  This is often regarded as a necessary step in the evolution of scientific discovery, when corrections are continually applied to our knowledge of the world.  In this case the corrections is taking far longer than usual.

Just because we have not succeeded yet does not preclude the possibility that one or more of us will do so soon. More progress has been achieved in the last five years than in the previous 300 and I am confident that the breakthrough is just around the corner.

 JC

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Did Bessler leave any information to help us reconstruct his wheel?

This question is frequently addressed to me and I am  always amazed at it. I have no doubt that he intended to leave to posterity,  certain information about his wheel.  Let us look at the facts.

Bessler first became associated with the name Orffyreus, back in 1712, when letters mistakenly referred to him as Orpheus, the legendary musician.  This seems to me to indicate that Bessler had already adopted that pseudonym right from the beginning but only verbally, not in writing, hence the error of thinking he said Orpheus rather than Orffyreus.  We know that the word Orffyreus was derived from his surname, Bessler via the simple code system used by the Biblical scribes of the Old Testament, known as the atbash cipher.  This was originally used with the Hebrew alphabet, but modified to work with the English alphabet.

There seems little reason for Bessler to have required such a device unless he planned to use it to encode something.  But this simple code would have been useless because everyone at that time was familiar with it, so I think his intention was to place on record his use of the code as a pointer to other more elaborate ciphers.


In his Apologia Poetica he comments thus: Those who are keen to ask questions should ask them of this little book. My work will not be revealed prematurely. Here and elsewhere there are subtle hints that there is more to his books than meets the casual eye.

Also in Apologia Poetica he addresses his enemies; You'd like me to reveal the secret to you for nothing, wouldn't you? For nothing - as free as the air - an outright present with not a penny paid! What a miserly wretch you would then become, provoking God Himself to anger! No, no - that wouldn't be the way to do things; we must think of better arrangements. If I'm not granted a buyer, I shall be content in the grace of Our Lord.  This comment and another one suggests that if he doesn't sell his machine he will accept it and get on with his life.

Knowing how we modern day researchers guard our work (and I include myself) and yet wish to receive due acknowledgement should we succeed, I find it impossible to believe that Bessler would have neglected to leave some information about how his wheel worked, even if this were to be discovered subsequent to his death.  In support of this conjecture see the vast amount of encoded clues, some of which are described on my website www.theorffyreuscode.com

This subject of leaving our discoveries behind us for future researchers, should our earlier than expected demise arrive suddenly, has been discussed on the forum and it seems clear that we are mostly in agreement that some way must be found that allows any of us who so desires, to place on record somewhere all that each of us knows, or think we know, about this subject which might at a later date lead to a solution.  For this to work it is important that some means be used which would protect such information until either the author dies or he decides to release it for public consumption.

Bessler tried, but so far his clues have proved too difficult to solve, what is perhaps needed is a professional highly experienced cryptologist to work on the clues I have offered both on the above link and this one http://www.orffyreus.net/

JC

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Procrastination can still lead to Success.

I sometimes wonder what effect solving the question of Bessler's wheel would have on me.  Whether I found the solution or someone else did, a large part of my mental activity would be no longer be required and I would probably set off on some other quest just to occupy my inner self. The reason seems to be related to the pleasure we get from successfully solving a problem, whether it be playing computer games, or playing patience or doing crosswords.  The act of solving the problem is more enjoyable than simply being given the answer.

As an example consider this riddle:-

A prisoner is put in a room with 2 doors. 1 door leads to freedom, the other to exececution.

Next to the doors are 2 guards. One of the guards always lies, the other always tells the truth. The prisoner is allowed to ask one of the guards one question to figure out what door leads where. What does he ask?

Everyone wants to work out the answer themselves and are reluctant to give up until frustration overwhelms them and they have to ask for the answer.  In our case, of course we can't ask anyone for the solution until someone solves it first - or one of us does.  The answer to the above riddle is logical and can be arrived at with some simple trial and error, but sometimes it bursts upon you as insight, and you don't even know how you got it so quickly.  That kind of revelation is a familiar experience to all of us who seek the solution to Bessler's wheel.  (I'll give the answer to the riddle lower down.)

Unfortunately many of these revelations crumble to dust in the cold light of day, but the whole project is a learning process and even though we seem to be stuck in a kind of writer's block and we have run out of ideas, we can still triumph incrementally as we proceed.  So each time our designs fail it is something additional that we learned about the problem and it can be regarded as a triumph no matter how small and it is a tiny step towards the solution.  Of course it helps if you are an incurable optimist and enjoy the search for a unique design.

My own experience has been a mixture of frustration and excitement with the occasional disappointment.  But I also tend to procrastinate and that is an annoyance that appears easy to solve.  But to the millions of people who experience chronic procrastination, it can be discouraging when they are told, consciously or subconsciously:

1. It's their fault.

2. They need to stop complaining and "Just do it."

3. They are lazy or immature.

For the vast majority of chronic procrastinators, these statements are simply untrue. Almost all who suffer from this condition wish that they were productive. They have dreams and aspirations, goals and ambitions, that are destroyed by a force that is out of their control. Telling them to "just do it" or that they are lazy or undisciplined does not help.

Procrastination of this kind is a disorder, similar to obsessive compulsive disorder or a distortion of body image. Just as you cannot "blame" a person with OCD for their obsessive behavior, and tell them just to "cut it out," most techniques of curing procrastination do not work, since they amount to nothing more than simple advice: prioritize, then do it.

I find that if I need to make a simple choice such as 'shall I mow the lawn, or work on my wheel', the temptation is to go for the more rewarding choice.  So mowing the lawn is something that needs doing and provides an immediate reward, whereas working on the wheel, although capable of producing a huge reward won't be doing that so quickly.  There is also an element of psychology involved which suggests to your subconscious that leaving the wheel for another day, might delay the disappointment you may get from another failure!

So, the majority of procrastinators have these factors in common:

1. Fear of failure.

2. Frequent and temporary repression of their responsibilities, allowing them to focus instead on tasks which do not make them afraid, i.e mowing the lawn!
3. Self-conflict. Procrastinators have the belief, common in childhood, that all pleasure comes from leisure, from these "lack of responsibility tasks," while at the same time believing that it would be best if they produced and achieved at their highest standard.

With thanks to various web sites and in particular http://chronicprocrastination.org/

And the answer is, "If you were the other guard, which door would you say leads to freedom?"

They will both point towards the door that leads to an execution, so you pick the other one.

How?

The guard that always tells the truth, will be truthful/honest and say what the guard that always lies would have said, so he will point towards the execution door (that would be the answer of the "dishonest" guard).

The guard that always lies, will lie this time as well, and won't answer what the other guard would answer, so he would also point towards the execution door (that wouldn't be the answer of the "honest" guard, and hence a lie).

JC

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