Was Johann Bessler the First Successful Perpetual Motionist?

Given that in my opinion, at least, Johann Bessler’s wheel had, as an optimum number, five mechanisms, and  it was therefore designed on a plan of a pentagram, I wondered if perhaps there might be something in the pentagram that might have some association, historically with continuous-turning wheels.

Perpetual Motion machines seem to have engaged man’s curiosity for hundreds of years.  There are written records going back to the twelfth century describing at least one machine, and it’s unlikely that no one else considered the possibility long before that.  There are no earlier written records currently available but maybe something will surface later.

But are we to believe that Johann Bessler was the only man ever to succeed in this ages-long search? I hope that one day some proof will emerge that demonstrates that the matter was researched and solved well over two thousand years ago.  But because the design and concept do not lend themselves to a complete description in prose, we should probably be looking for some kind of drawing depicting the concept of an over-balancing wheel.

It was this thought in mind that many years ago led me to examine and consider, among many others, the yin yang symbol. I won’t go into the various meanings associated with the yin yang, there are many websites providing everything you could wish to know.  I no longer think that this symbol carries anything of significance for the perpetual motion researcher, but I do like the image itself and I use it as my avatar occasionally.

The idea resurfaced recently when I came across some old Freemason images dating back more than 200 years, all based on the pentagram. It reminded me that the pentagram was used in Sumerian script some 3500 years ago. No signs of its use as a machine, but it was also used extensively in Ancient Greece and Babylonia too.

Further reading revealed that the pentagram appears in both Bronze Age and Iron Age art, and interestingly in Neolithic and earlier times.  The Neolithic age began about 10,000 years ago and followed the old Stone Age. It’s appearance in those earlier eras is more prevalent than those following.

The interesting question for me is what was it that generated the idea of the pentagram all that long ago?  Several examples of rock art include images of weaponry along with the pentagram, others show sun and star images.  But none as far as I can tell give any further information about its purpose then.  Later of course the Pythagorean developed a school of thought which included the pentagram and was based on mathematics and mysticism,which influenced Aristotle and Plato, but it doesn’t get us any nearer to why it might have held such interest so long ago.

It seems highly unlikely that anyone could build something as complex as Bessler’s wheel before the early Greek era, although there are reports of some ingenious devices both in early Egypt and Babylonia.

I can only conclude that as Bessler said, he was probably the only person in history with enough free time, ingenuity and perseverance to accomplish the task.

JC

The Number FIve and Phi and Bessler’s Wheel.

Over the last few years I have posted many pieces of encoded material along with my interpretation of what they mean, but none have been of help in finding the design inside Bessler's wheel.  Not posting anything that might be of help was, I admit, a deliberate move on my part for two reasons; firstly, to try to interest others in looking, finding and interpreting other pieces of code, but secondly to retain for my own benefit anything which I believed would help me to find the actual solution.  What follows is a little bit of information which could lead to discovering some of the requirements of the wheel. There will be more to follow.

Because of the presence of the pentagram in many of Bessler’s drawings and his apparent obsession with the number five and 55, it’s been a bit of an obsession of mine too, to try and find some information  concerning these apparent clues, that would be helpful.

The number five is intrinsically related to Phi and the Fibonacci series. Phi represents the Golden Ratio, 1.618 and in the Greek alphabet looks like this, ⏀.

It has been suggested that the ‘0’ part of the Phi symbol represents ‘nothing’, and the short vertical line is the number ‘1’, or unity. Therefore adding one to nothing leads to the Fibonacci series; 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, towards infinity and Phi, or the golden ratio 1.618, an integral part of the pentagram.

You can start the Fibonacci series from 0 or 1, and starting from 1 the 5th letter is 5, and the 10th letter is 55 and outside of the Fibonacci series the numbers 1 to 10 total of 55. Bessler uses these numbers in different ways in several of his drawings.  The square root of 5 = 2.236 although there are at least 10 billion digits after, according to Wikipedia, despite  that, a close approximation can be achieved by 161/72 which gives 2.23611. Curious how 72 shows up there, being as it is a fifth part of the pentagram.

Nearly every angle inside Bessler's wheel is based on the angle of 18 degrees, the smallest angle used in the pentagram.  Others include 36, 54, 72, 90 and 108, all multiples of 18, except one which is 30 degrees.  All the angles including some covering angular movement not normally required for a pentagram are also derived from the angle of 18 degrees.

Although Bessler stressed the need for five mechanisms it is clear that he also considered using the odd numbers 7 and 9. This gave him the alternative to fit more of them into the wheels without compromising the effectiveness of the wheel. To fit more mechanisms inside his wheel would require them to operate further out from the wheel’s centre, and make them smaller. But given the huge size of the Kassel wheel, that might have been an option he chose to make. Despite it being almost the same diameter as the Merseberg wheel it only turned at half the speed which might be because it contained more smaller mechanisms, with reduced length of movement in those parts which were designed to move.

Having 7 or 9 mechanisms might help support the idea that the witness, Fisher von Elach, did hear the sound of ‘about’ eight weights landing on the side towards which the wheel turned.  In Bessler’s Maschinen Tractate document you can see that some drawings are numbered in an individual way, and have a special characteristic which the others don't have and you can read more about it on my web page at
http://www.theorffyreuscode.com/html/mt_numbers___letters.html
Those numbers above 50 which contain the number 2 show the 2 as a Z rather than a 2, but only if they are odd numbers.  So in the numbers 52, 72, and 92, the 2 is appears as a Z, but all the remaining numbers use a curved number 2.  Notice that number variants start after number 50, this supports the notion that a minimum of five mechanisms are necessary.

I can't prove any of this until I have working model, but I firmly believe that the single number 5 denotes five mechanisms, and the 55 denotes two weights in each mechanism.  So in the above image the odd numbers mean you can use 5, 7 or 9 mechanisms, and the Z-like 2s can be read as 2 - or two horizontal Roman numerals, V, representing 5, something Bessler does in numerous other examples.  He also uses the letter W to convey two 'V's or 5s.

There are other implications in the above text which I have not touched upon which may help others to make progress in discovering some of Bessler's construction details.

JC

Johann Bessler's Secret will be Published this Year.

Today, 5th February, and I’m 73! Still scratching my head over Johann Bessler’s wheel, but confidence is high that the solution is in sight, and that it will be me who publishes the secret, this year!

Johann Bessler wanted fame and fortune so that he could pass on all his technical knowledge to people from poorer backgrounds.  He said that his school for apprentices would have a religious environment, but be non-denominational. He hoped to raise enough money from the sales of his so-called ‘Perpetual Motion’ machine to fund his plan.

I described his machine as a ‘perpetual motion’ machine but he preferred the term self-moving machine.  As he mentioned in his publications, calling it ‘perpetual motion’ was wrong because there was no way his device could run for ever, without breaking down through wear and tear or damage from external influences.

In those days a perpetual motion machine was defined as having a closed system, meaning it had no input of energy from outside the machine.  It was recognised as impossible back then just as it is now. But in those days they did not understand or even know of the force of gravity but thought that the reason things fell was due to something inherent in all things of mass, which they described as ‘heaviness’.  This ‘heaviness’ was part of the mass and not due to the force of gravity, it was intrinsic to the matter of which the mass was formed.

Now if they had known and understood that the force of gravity was the attraction between all things of mass and that this force was the cause of things falling down, then they would have accepted Bessler’s claim that the wheels were driven by falling weights, why?  Because they would have realised that the energy driving the wheels came from outside the machines.  They were not closed systems and therefore not impossible.

Because Sir Isaac Newton wrote his book, ‘Principia’, in Latin, he used the Latin word for ‘heaviness’, which was ‘gravitas’, and this was subsequently translated into English as ‘gravity’. Attached to this word gravitas was the full explanation that Newton gave and this gravity, which used to be ‘heaviness’,  became the new force and ‘heaviness’ was consigned to history, along with all its inaccurate assumptions.

JC

Johann Bessler had Five Mechanisms in his One-Way Wheels

I may have mentioned this once or twice before (!) but it’s a recurring bone of contention with me that researchers trying to find the solution to Bessler’s wheel, continue to stress the importance of having eight weights.  This is usually in a design using eight mechanisms.  I have tried over the years to point out that the only reference to eight weights occurred in Fisher Von Erlach’s report to Sir Isaac Newton about his two hour examination of the two-way wheel in the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel’s castle.  The words used were ‘about eight weights were heard...’. Given that the examination lasted for two hours one might have expected von Erlach to be more precise about how many weights he heard.  This implies that the sounds he heard were confused by the presence of a lot of other noise.

We know from other witnesses that the rotation of the wheel was accompanied by considerable noise, and we also know, because he said so, that Bessler deadened the sound of some falling weights with felt.  It is also worth noting that Bessler frequently expressed concern that people might somehow find out how his wheel worked and it seems perfectly understandable and reasonable that he would take steps to disguise any sounds coming from the wheel which might give a clue to someone with a discerning mind.  He could have added an extra weight designed to fall with a loud noise but no mechanical advantage/disadvantage, or he might have sound deadened one or more.

Some people have claimed to be working on a two-way wheel from the start, why would you even consider that?  The logical place to begin is surely with the one-way wheels as Bessler did.  He only researched the two-way wheels to try to disprove the accusation that his wheels were clockwork driven.

So we know that about eight sounds emanated from the two-way Kassel Wheel.  We don’t have any description of the sounds coming from the one-way wheels apart from the fact that they were noisy. So is there a way of discovering the minimum number of mechanisms required in the simpler one-way wheels? I say ‘simpler’ because Bessler complains at the difficulty he had in getting the Kassel wheel to work, because it was a more complex design.

There are clues which in my opinion reveal the number of mechanisms required.  Most people are aware of Bessler’s inclusion of the pentagram in more than one drawing.  They may also be aware of the numerous pointers to the number five in his name, pieces of text and other places too numerous to mention.  I have included below, some details from the ‘Toys’ page but there are many more examples where Bessler includes broad hints that there are five mechanisms in his one way wheels.

Notice that I have separated the items in the part labelled A by drawing red lines across, revealing that there five pieces of identical mechanisms. Part B looks similar but twisted and it too has five parts. Items C and D look roughly the same as each other and they bear similarities to each part of item A.

I should also point out that Bessler has added his usual alphanumeric clues by labelling the items A, B, C, D and E - and letter E also represents five, and not content with that, he labels the hand drawing as a number 5, when it should be labelled F,  This gives him his number 55 or 5 and 5.

I should point out that the order of the letters is deliberate and to read the clues correctly we must start with A and move through tto F and don't forget the spinning top labelled 5.

I don't want to say anything more about the Toys page other than that it contains almost every clue you need, to know what parts are required for his wheel, although the exact configuration is not obvious.

JC

The Secret to Bessler's Wheel is There for Anyone who can Decipher the Orffyreus Code

Given the powerful evidence supporting Bessler’s assertion that he had built a working gravity wheel,  I think it highly unlikely that Bessler would have gone to his grave without leaving some clues revealing the secret of his machine.

He mentions in more than one place that those who seek further information should study his books and drawings. He also provides evidence that he was familiar with codes and there are numerous examples of their use throughout his publications.  He also states quite clearly that if he fails to sell his machine he will be content with post humus acknowledgement,  This could only happen if the information on how his machine worked was available after his death and only he could provide this information. What evidence is there that he used codes to hide information?

The following can only be a brief summary of the many codes Johann Bessler used, but it does give some idea of them and gives strong support to the idea described above.  The first is of course his adoption of the pseudonym, Orffyreus.  This demonstrates his familiarity with both the ancient Jewish method encoding, known as the atbash cipher, and also the Caesar shift cipher, or alphabetical substitution.  He also uses alpha-numeric substitution in various places.

Studying his drawings reveals that many of them contain a pentagram, but it is not obvious and has to be sought, although once suspected it is not difficult to find.  The purpose of the pentagram is obvious once you know what look for.  Other geometric designs are also present in some drawings from which one can conclude he was familiar with the work of Euclid and Pythagoras.

All his drawings in one of his publications contain labelled parts, some alphabetical and some numerical, and totalling the numerical ones reveals further information pointing to another encoded section.  This section is too complex to describe here but further details can be seen in my web site at www.orffyreus.net

Bessler’s extensive use of chronograms is designed to convey certain dates which in themselves provide further hints about where information may be found.  These chronograms are usually biblical quotations and traditionally, by using some upper case letters which can also represent Roman numerals,  can be added up to indicate ta certain date.

Extending the lines of perspective in one of his drawings reveals a hidden clock.  The eight o’clock line is confirmed by the presence, actually on the line, of two weights each labelled with the number eight.  The labelled numbers add up to 660.  Dividing this number by the twelve clock divisions gives 55.  This number appears frequently through out all Bessler’s books.  Besides the number five being such an important part of the pentagram, it represents certain information relating to the mechanism inside the wheel.

More evidence of Bessler's codes may be viewed at another of my web sites at www.theorffyreuscode.com

Describing all the codes used by Bessler is beyond the scope of this article, but I hope it gives some indication that there is a prize to be obtained whose value may be immense given the state of the energy resources and the pollution and its associated global warming.  Who ever deciphers Bessler's information and reconstructs Bessler's wheel, will become not only rich and famous but will also become a hero to our children and their children.

JC

Johann Bessler and the Orffyreus Code

On 6th June, 1712, in Germany, Johann Bessler (also known by his pseudonym, Orffyreus) announced that after many years of failure, he had succeeded in designing and building a perpetual motion machine.  For more than fourteen years he exhibited his machine and allowed people to thoroughly examine it.  Following advice from the famous scientist, Gottfried Leibniz, he devised a number of demonstrations and tests designed to prove the validity of his machine without giving away the secret of its design.

After more than thirty years he died in poverty.  He had asked for a huge sum of money for the secret, £20,000 which was an amount only affordable by kings and princes, and although many were interested, none were prepared to agree to the terms of the deal. Bessler required that he be given the money and the buyer take the machine without verifying that it worked.  Those who sought to purchase the wheel, for that was the form the machine took, insisted that they see the secret mechanism before they parted with the money. Bessler feared that once the design was known the buyers could simply walk away knowing how to build his machine and he would get nothing for his trouble.

This problem was anticipated by Bessler and he took extraordinary measures to ensure that his secret was safe, but he encoded all the information needed to reconstruct the machine in a small number of books that he published. It is well-known that he was prepared to die without selling the secret and that he believed that post humus acknowledgement was preferable to being robbed of his secret while he yet lived.

I became curious about the legend of Bessler’s Wheel, while still in my teens, and have spent most of my life researching the life of Johann Bessler (I’m now 72).  I obtained copies of all his books and had them translated into English and self-published them, in the hope that either myself or someone else might solve the secret and present it to the world in this time of pollution, global warming and increasingly limited energy resources.

It has recently become clear that Bessler had a huge knowledge of the history of codes and adopted several completely different ones to disguise information within his publications.  I have made considerable advances in deciphering one of his codes; the simplest one, and I am confident that I have the complete design.  Due to unfortunate family circumstances I am currently unable to complete the build I have undertaken but shall return to it as soon as possible and I sincerely believe that 2018 will see the reconstruction of Bessler’s wheel.

Johann Bessler published three books, and digital copies of these with English translations may be obtained from the links to the right of this blog.  In addition there is a copy of his unpublished document containing some 141 drawings - and my own account of Bessler’s life is also available from the links.  It is called "Perpetual Motion; An Ancient Mystery Solved?"  Bessler published three books; "Grundlicher Bericht", "Apologia Poetica" and "Das Triumphirende..."

I have also published Bessler's collection of 141 drawings and I have called it Maschinen Tractate, but it was originally found in the form of a number drawings of perpetual motion designs. Many of these have handwritten notes attached and I have published the best English translation of them that I was able to get. Bessler never published these drawings but clearly intended to do so at some point.

For some ideas about Bessler’s code why not visit one of my web sites at www.theorffyreuscode.com

One last thing.  Perpetual Motion machines have been utterly proscribed and Johann Bessler’s claims ridiculed - however, it seems that more than a handful of scientists have now come to the conclusion that it might theoretically be possible to design a mechanical system which is continuously out-of-balance and therefore will turn continuously using the repeated fall of weights for energy.  Gravity but not directly.  These open-minded people remain tight lipped for now, awaiting proof of their hypothesis.

JC

HAPPY NEW YEAR. 😀

This  blog was inspired by a recent comment on the Besslerwheel forum in which a poster questioned the motive of a critic. As was pointed out, a forum is a place for query and cross examination. Many of us tend to use the forum as a place to express our optimism about our imminent success, and yet tempered criticism can wound our pride and bruise our egos and lead to corner-sulking or worse, overheated accusations of questionable motive on the part of the critic.

I have suffered in the past from a bruised ego, and have at times over-reacted, but successive failures leads to a pragmatic attitude to criticism which at best results in reconsidering the analysis and judgement of the offending words, or alternatively the cultivation of a water off a duck’s back persona. In other words you have to grow a thicker skin!

I have a motive to succeed but I know it wouldn’t support criticism of another person’s pet theory purely out of envy or jealousy.  No, my motive is to try to produce a working model of Bessler’s wheel, or failing that, help someone else to do so, either by providing the necessary information or working with them to achieve the same end.

Contrary to some opinions I think it will be perfectly possible to build a working model which, it will become clear, is obviously the same design as Johann Bessler’s wheel.  The reason why I believe this to be so is because, with unfailing optimism, I think I have solved enough of Bessler’s clues to build a working model, and if it proves viable then the proof of Bessler’s design is there for all to see.

Is it conceivable that Johann Bessler, having spent years trying to solve the problem, and more years trying to sell the solution, would really have gone to his grave without making provision for the post humous acknowledgement of his invention and his part in it?  To my mind the answer is obvious.  He planned from the start to arrange to publish documents which would reveal the secret mechanism- and where better than in his published drawings?  He dropped so many hints that the answer was there for someone to find, and it has been mainly due to the absolute disbelief that his claims were possible.....and the difficulty of interpreting his clues that so far no progress appears to have been made.

But perhaps this year, 2018, the secret will be revealed.  I hope so.

HAPPY NEW YEAR.

JC

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL

The last few weeks have been difficult for family reasons but confidence is high that my daughter will come through her illness and we can return to our normal cheerful lives.

We are lucky in so many ways and any hiccups we meet along the way just have to be dealt with and thanks be given for each beneficial step forward.

We will have a good Christmas and there will be joy and laughter and of course some tears but some rest and relaxation will be good too.

I will post something before the New Year.

Thank you to all those hundreds of people who drop by here from time to time, I appreciate your visits and comments more than words can say.  May I wish you all a Merry Christmas.

John Collins and family

Perpetual Motionist Keep Going!

Perpetual Motionists never, ever give up!

I first became aware of Johann Bessler when I was about 15 years of age, now I’m 72.  I’ve spent at least 50 years persuing  the truth about Bessler, why?  Because even at the age of 15 years I knew that the maid’s story was a pack of lies.  Her account of how the wheel was turned formed the most damming part of the evidence that Bessler was a fraud, but if it was so obvious that she lied, why was the inventor not celebrated for his wonderful accomplishment ?

The thing is, just because I knew that she lied, doesn’t mean that Bessler’s claim to have designed a true gravity-enabled wheel, also known as a Perpetual Motion machine, was true.  But gradually over many years studying the facts, letters, witness reports.....and the laws of physics, I came to the conclusion that in fact there was a way to avoid the problem so well described by 300 years of institutional “expertise”, summed up the simple phrase, “perpetual motion machines are impossible, you can’t get more energy out than you put in.”

So the maid lied.  Did anyone ever see how the machine worked apart from the inventor?  Yes Karl the Landgrave of Hesse Kassel. His evidence has to be accepted for two reasons; he offered Bessler his patronage on one condition, he must be allowed to verify to his own satisfaction that the wheel was genuine and Bessler was not a fraud; the second reason lay in Karl’s character. He was widely respected for his honesty, integrity and loyalty.  No hint of scandal ever surfaced to tarnish Karl’s reputation.

So what are we to make of the situation?  Many will say that Karl was fooled by a clever fraudster but history described Karl as a very intelligent man, tough too, given his difficult accession to the throne which involved turning his decimated country into thriving nation, admired by his neighbours. Karl was no fool; and.......the demonstrations of each wheel provided further evidence of Bessler’s sincerity.

It’s a paradoxical situation for me, but not for the scientists and teachers, who each follow the rules taught correctly but within a straitjacket of conditions relating to specific circumstances. The paradox lies in the fact that tradition says  ‘impossible’, but the evidence says ‘not impossible’.

The paradox has been resolved.  Bessler’s wheel did work exactly as the inventor claimed.  My own fear is that I might shuffle off this mortal coil before I have proved my theory, for theory is all it can be without proof. So my intention is to continue building my wheel and when it’s too cold I'll retreat inside and continue to try and draw a detailed diagram of the wheel as I see it.  I'm also trying to complete the booklet which explains in more detail how the wheel worked and the clues I found which reveal the design.

That is or was my intention, but my elder daughter was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma stage 4 about 5 weeks ago.  She is undergoing chemo therapy which for any parent is a devastating thing to see.  She has completed two chemo cycles and is due home for Christmas, and then she has two cycles more to suffer in the new year.  She is making good progress apparently but the sheer pain, sickness and depression she is enduring is emotionally draining for the whole family and I have simply abandoned all wheel work for the time being.  I may have to temporarily close this blog as we are spending every day at hospital taking it in turns to sit with her, but at least while she’s home she has the rest of her family around her.  The prognosis for her recovery is very good and she is lucky to be at one of the top performing hospitals in this field, so fingers crossed, things can only get better!

JC