A Guiding Hand - or Predictable Evolution of Humankind.

Admitted ages of some visitors to this blog;

71,  47,  49, 52, 65, 67,  79, 49, 23, 69, 60, 64, 36, 74 1/2 and I’m 74 5/6ths!

I noted in my last blog, that most of us who continue to seek the solution to Bessler’s wheel seem to be in our 50s, 60s and 70s. I know there are some who are younger but this subject does seem to be occupied mainly by this age range.  But I don’t think it’s specifically our age that accounts for it, because most have been on this quest for many years, so it isn’t necessarily something we have turned to later in life.

Maybe it is the effect of the internet that younger people don’t feel the pull of curiosity to try to find out how Bessler did it 300 plus years ago. I’m not aware of any kind of publication that actually presented Bessler in a positive light before I published my own book.  Yes there is a huge history about all those poor misguided inventors who believed it possible to make a perpetual motion machine, but in every case the author either dismissed their work as impossible, sad, ridiculous or as the much respected Rupert Gould, suggested, “we must assume an imposition”.  It may be my imagination, but I detected some regret in Gould’s words, as if he wanted to believe it but could not say so for the risk of ridicule.  He went on to restore John Harrison’s incredible marine chronometers and he continued to investigate unsolved mysteries of all kinds.

Perhaps the internet with its complex coverage of all things weird and wonderful, mysterious and amazing provides such a plethora of subjects both real and imagined, that the legend of Bessler’s wheel gets lost in the avalanche of information.  This tremendous treasury didn’t exist in such a convenient form when many of us first became curious about perpetual motion and Johann Bessler.  It was there in libraries around Europe, but largely inaccessible. So in 1996 when I completed my research prior to self-publishing my biography on Bessler those who might have been curious would need to have been adults I guess, so later in the age of the established internet my work probably got subsumed among all the other wealth of information. 

I noted some pleasing connections between Gould who repaired Harrison’s clocks, and Gould’s accurate  account of Johann Bessler; Harrisons description of John Rowley as the finest craftsman in England; Rowley’s absolute conviction that Bessler was genuine; Bessler’s price for his secret exactly the same as the British government’s reward for the inventor of a method of establishing a ship’s longitudinal al position  at sea - £20,000; the prize won by Harrison.

It was 1712 when Bessler first exhibited his wheel, and in that exact same year, in Dudley, England, Thomas Newcomen set up the worlds first successful steam engine used for pumping water out of mines.  Talk about bad timing!  But actually it was just that Bessler’s wheel arrived about 300 years too early.   The steam age had to run its course first, and then the internal combustion engine, each consuming vast quantities fossil fuels, readily available without concerns or realisation of the damaging output of these various forms of power generation.

But now Bessler’s time has come.  It’s almost as if there was some guiding hand prompting the advances in industrial technology, only Bessler arrived too soon, out of his correct place in the timeline. Electricity arrived in time to take advantage of the steam engine, the petrol engine, the windmill, solar energy, hydroelectric power - it’s a long list and electricity has been there for most the time, just waiting for the right moment for Bessler’s wheel to arrive.

Although it had a long lead-in time, about 2500 years, knowledge of electricity eventually resulted in electric motors towards the end of the 19th century, but the steam age lingered on along side the petrol engine, which is still with us along side the electric motor.  But events are conspiring to make us find new ways to generate electricity, due to an excess of carbon dioxide, according to “experts”, caused by all the fossil fuel being burned. Electricity seems to be the ultimate power source for all things, but finding a method of generating enough in a clean, inexpensive way without affecting the world we live in, be it cities or the rainforest and everything in between, is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

The effects of global warming, only now being taken more seriously, have applied pressure to the world of science and technology.  But the old pressures of peer review, job security, research funding and potential social embarrassment guide the researchers and technology experts into the straitjacket of toeing  the line, and avoiding at all costs any idea of challenging the established opinions of past “experts”. Anyone who proposes the possibility of a gravity-enabled device which is in continuous motion is assigned to the lunatic fringe.

I mentioned a “guiding hand” suggesting that now was the perfect time for Bessler’s wheel to make it’s triumphal entry on the world’s stage, and even though I’m an atheist, sometimes one can almost sense the actions of some guiding principle in humanity’s progress towards some future state invisible to us now.  Perhaps if Thomas Newcomen had had an accident in his workshop, say a boiler blew up killing him and all of his research, Bessler would have been available to take over the reins of progress in his own field of expertise. Or perhaps if Peter the Czar of Russia hadn’t died on his way to visit Bessler to buy his machine, would the steam age have taken off the way it did?  Actually I don’t think much would have changed, only the detail and emphasis on certain types of power generation.  So perhaps Bessler’s machine was a fall back position in case Newcomen failed to deliver? Maybe, but now is the time, it’s perfect!

JC

Wisdom of the Aged

I was going to call this post Wisdom of the Ages, but then found that it had too many connections with what I regard as aberrant philosophies, so I thought Wisdom of the Aged might sum up my tentative conclusions better.

Are there any young people searching for the solution to Bessler’s wheel? I ask this because I note that on the few occasions that a comment reveals the author’s age, some are even older than I!

I’m 74, nearing 75.  I wonder if this subject has been so thoroughly denounced by experts that it doesn’t even raise a question in the minds of the young.  I say ‘young’  to include anyone who is, perhaps only half way to retirement age.

I think it would interesting if commenters would like to state their age when they comment, just the once, so that I could establish some idea of the age range of those who are still curious about Bessler’s wheel.  You could do it anonymously.

On the subject of age, I’m amazed at how fast the time has flown by; my web site at http://www.besslerswheel.com/ was published in 2010;

My orffyreuscode web site http://www.theorffyreuscode.com/ was published in 2009;

And my work on deciphering Bessler’s bible references code at http://www.orffyreus.net/ was also published in 2010; and I published details the same year, about Bessler’s windmill, at http://www.orffyreus.org/ which he was building when he died.

But my first web site http://www.free-energy.co.uk/ went on line in 1997! I was only 51!

I decided to set up those later web sites when I realised that I had done all this work, I but didn’t want to share all of it before I had something that actually worked.  I had spent about ten years working on these subjects before I decided to share some of  my ideas, yet here we are, another ten years later and still nothing to show for it. There is stuff I won’t share because I still believe I have the solution, (and it won’t be lost if something should prevent me from finishing or publishing the rest). So ten years have passed and more since I did most of the work and yet here we are approaching 2020 and no sign of success yet

I found a copy of my first web site on the way back machine

https://web.archive.org/web/20000303142553/http://www.free-energy.co.uk/

First published in 1997! I can’t believe I’ve been on the internet for all these years, and I’m still chasing this phantom, mirage or ghost....... call it what you will.  Twenty-three years on and I’m still confident of success!  Forgive the naivety of the website, (and perhaps myself), I struggled through a steep learning curve at that time, learning how to self-publish, write web sites etc. Not that I’m much better now!  Still struggling with computers.

JC

Interpreting Bessler’s Information.

Interpretation is an extremely subjective activity.  The act of explaining the meaning of Bessler’s words and drawings results in an opinion which is bound to reflect the author’s personal convictions. I have published many interpretations which most people regard as speculation, but I stand by them, because I’m convinced of their authenticity.

The problem is exacerbated by other researchers also publishing their own opinions/speculations which may be correct but often leads to confusion among their readers.  This looks like criticism but it isn’t, it’s just the way it is and in my opinion it’s better to have as many interpretations available as as possible, in the hope that one will lead to a reconstruction of Bessler’s wheel.  I think that people will go with their favourite interpretation, one which accords with their own thoughts.

It is over three hundred years since Bessler published his work, and that was in German, which immediately creates the potential for confusion.  It’s hard enough to get the precise meaning of every word written in English three hundred years ago, but trying to do the same translating into English from the original German, plus the idioms of Bessler’s  time, and then add in some of his favourite obfuscation - ambiguity - and valid interpretation becomes fraught with perplexity!

But the drawings are another matter, there are no language barriers to hinder our understanding.  But something which may appear to be an obvious mechanical design is not always the case, particularly where Bessler is concerned. His 141 illustrations known as Maschinen Tractate (MT) is full of designs which all appear to be failures, however his unfinished notes which accompany some of them, hint at subtle variations which could be helpful.  But for me his most useful illustrations are the ‘Toys’ page and the one preceding it. What follows is my interpretation, but you may call it speculation!

MT 137, includes hints at 5 and 7 mechanisms.  MT138,139,140 and 141 (Toys page)  has almost everything you need to build his wheel, but there a few details without which it won’t work, but they are detailed elsewhere. I believe that the key to understanding the Toys page lies in looking at each figure without any preconceptions.  In other words, trying not to see them as pieces of mechanisms designed to work as you would think they would, but as shapes, possibly designed to act differently to how you imagine..

So seeing item A as a Jacobs ladder is wrong.  It is simply showing the five mechanisms linked together.  Item B shows a twisted version of A.  Items C and D show the same individual parts of A.    The parts of the mechanism include one C and one D, but D is twisted so that one end points the opposite way.  Item E looks like scissor jack but Bessler suggests that some items should be applied differently, and that, I believe is a crucial clue.

Bessler thinks highly of the scissor mechanism but his suggestion to apply it differently opens up a number of potential variants.  I at least, believe I’ve interpreted the Toys page, but of course without a working model it’s just speculation!

Link to my granddaughter’s gofundme site https://www.helpamy.co.uk/

JC

Bessler’s Wheel, odd numbers and the Pyramids.

You might think there cannot be any connection of interest to us, between Bessler’s wheel and the pyramids, but I will explained.

As many know I have remained stubbornly convinced that Bessler’s wheel had five mechanisms - I’m talking about his first wheels, both one-way wheels. I have also suggested that in other versions there may have been seven, nine and even eleven mechanisms.  In support of this conclusion I must point to the Maschinen Tractate (MT) drawings which include some anomalies in the numbering. See my article in www.theorffyreuscode.com, published 2009.

Bessler included the number of each illustration in his woodcuts. These are present up to and including number 104 They are of a similar style except for the numbers 52, 72, 92 and 102. In each of these cases the number two is drawn to look like a Z. All other examples of the letter two are shown in the usual curved style.  The angular number two may be intended to reflect the letter V twice, or in Roman numerals 55.

The ‘zed-like twos’ help to point to their accompanying partners, namely 50,70,90 and 100. The first and most obvious fact is that the number 5 is the first number to include the angular two. The only other numbers are the following odd numbers, 7 and 9. Why would this be done, I wondered. It seems to me that ever since I discovered the pentagon and the ubiquity of the number 5, that Bessler seemed to be suggesting that his wheel would not work with an even number of weights and that 5 was the ideal number. So 7 and 9 and even 11 mechanisms would also work but might be difficult to fit in to a wheel.

I also pointed out on the same website that MT137, the dodecagram or twelve pointed circle, also known as the circle of fifths because of its musical connotations, also contained a heptagram, or seventh circle.

So there are circles of fifths, sevenths and twelfths.  Is there any more? Many years ago I was watching a TV documentary on the pyramids of Egypt.  The presenter described the so-called ‘bent’ pyramid of Dahshure, which was started at a too steep an angle and had to be modified to a shallower slope when it was about half built.  It is thought that it became unstable at the initial angle, which interestingly  was set at 54 degrees, and then modified to 43 degrees.

54 degrees was immediately recognisable; it forms the two base angles of one segment of a pentagram.  It means that the apex of the pyramid was intended to form an angle of 72 degrees.  So each of the four faces of the pyramid was intended to reflect one segment of a pentagram.  Seeing as this idea did not pan out well because of the problems in building a pyramid with a geometrical figure inherent in its design, I wondered how they got on with the great pyramid at Giza.

It has been established that this pyramid (Khufu’s) was built with sloping sides of  about 51.5 degrees. If the bottom two angles of a triangle are both 51.5 degrees, that give an apex of 77 degrees, which doesn’t make sense at first sight.  360 divided by 77 gives us 4.67 - nothing relevant springs to mind.  I wondered if they wanted to build a pyramid reflecting a heptagram, but that would necessitate a slope angle of about 64 degrees, which we know was too steep.

The slope is 51.5 giving the apex an angle of 77 degrees.  It stresses the importance of the number 7 by producing it twice, and a circle divided by 7 gives.....51.5 degrees at the top angle of the pentagram segment. Although the builders could not build a pyramid reflecting a heptagram, they cleverly pointed to the geometric figure even though it wasn’t actually there.  It demonstrated what they wished to convey - their skill in constructing buildings which either demonstrated geometric figures, or implied their presence figuratively, rather than failing and building a pyramid without this key ingredient.

The reason I introduced the pyramid theme, is because Bessler used a similar technique to hide information.  Without actually drawing it he pointed to its existence with subtle clues and we could then infer its presence, just as we can the pentagram at the bent pyramid and the heptagram in the great pyramid at Giza.

One more fascinating fact; the Great Giza pyramid at 481 feet, was the tallest building on the planet until 1360, when Lincoln cathedral in England was built. It’s spire originally reached 525 feet before it collapsed in a storm, many years later.

Link to my granddaughter’s gofundme site https://www.helpamy.co.uk/

JC

Please Help my Granddaughter Amy Walk Again.

I would like to remind anyone who reads this, about the state of my poor granddaughter, Amy Pohl.  She had a brilliant career ahead of her before she was struck down by the most debilitating of diseases for which there seems little chance of a cure.  But Amy is a real fighter and determined to get well and that is why I'm posting this again, in the hope of maintaining her ongoing treatment at STEPS.

Amy left Winchester University with a first class honours degree in primary education.  But as she was entering her 3rd year of teaching at Rugby Free primary School, in December 2017, something happened that changed Amy's  life dramatically.

From a failed cannula in her left hand, inserted to provide routine treatment for a nasty cough (adult croup) she developed Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) and subsequently Functional Neurological Disease (FND).

Amy has spent the majority of her time since then in hospital, recently in a neurological ward at University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW).  She has no use in her left hand and suffers constant pain in that arm, neither can she use her legs.  She is unable to sit unsupported, and suffers from Post Traumatic Distress Disorder (PTSD) too.

UHCW was unable to offer any treatment other than maintaining her general health, but the side effects of her illness have caused her condition to deteriorate and without specialist care would continue to do so.

Following extensive research by everyone in the family it was decided that a new clinic which had opened a couple of years earlier might be able to offer Amy a chance to recover and she was transferred to STEPS Rehabilitation, Sheffield.  It looks as though it will prove to be a turning point in her path towards recovery.  This transfer was made possible by some limited Government funding thanks to huge pressure from Amy's family and her local Member of Parliament (MP) Mark Pawsey.

STEPS provides a very comprehensive treatment regime 7 days a week and Amy is making steady progress. It is clear, however, that this is just the start of a long journey and at over £5000 per week, it certainly isn't cheap.

I started Amy's crowdfunding page to try to raise enough funds to pay for Amy's treatment and it has almost reached its target of £40,000. So many people have kindly donated money and we cannot sufficiently express our gratitude, but of course the money raised so far will run out before Amy's treatment has allowed her to stand by herself and walk again, so we implore all who read this to donate to her fund or share the campaign via your social media accounts.

Our daughter, Jo, (Amy's mother), was diagnosed with cancer (stage 4 non-hodgkins  lymphoma), which resulted in her being in UHCW at the same time as Amy.  After several months of the strongest chemo available and radiation therapy (because she was young enough to survive it!) she emerged thinner, weaker but in remission.  Jo and her husband Dave have devoted themselves to finding the latest information on dealing with Amy's condition, but finding time to visit Amy who is in Sheffield, about 100 miles away, puts an enormous strain on both of them while they continue to carry on with their demanding jobs.  We (my wife, Sandra and I) try to visit Amy as often as possible but because of her tough regime Amy cannot receive visitors until after seven in the evening.

Any donations no matter how small and/or sharing the web sites with the social media would be very much appreciated.

Here are the links to her web sites, the HelpAmy web site, HelpAmy

Amy's crowd funding site gofundme.com

Lots of news there with videos and photos of Amy and her family and friends

Thanks to all of you for reading this.

JC

The Legend of Bessler’s Wheel and the Orffyreus Code

My apologies to all, I accidentally deleted my post about my progress on reconstructing Bessler’s wheel!  I lost all the comments too, and that is, I think, the first time in nine years that has happened, I’m so sorry but I can’t get it back.

PS Thanks for the quick action by anon, he recovered my lost post and has published it in the first comment below this one.

I’m posting the Legend of Bessler’s wheel again because I’m going to be working hard on finishing my reconstruction of Bessler’s wheel.  It’s been a busy year with little time to spend in my garage where the build should have been happening, but time is racing by and I must concentrate on finishing the job.  My apologies for promising fewer blogs but the sooner I finish it the sooner I can publish everything.


Please feel free to comment if you wish and I will try to check back daily. So here it is again, 


                                              The Legend of Bessler's wheel.

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.


Karl the Landgrave of Hesse permitted Bessler to live, work and exhibit his machine at the prince's castle of Weissenstein.  Karl was a man of unimpeachable reputation and he insisted on being allowed to verify the inventor's claims before he allowed Bessler to take up residence  This the inventor reluctantly agreed to and once he had examined the machine to his own satisfaction Karl authorised the  publication of his approval of the machine.  For several years Bessler was visited by numerous people of varying status, scientists, ministers and royalty.  Several official examinations were carried out and each time the examiners concluded that the inventor's claims were genuine.


Over several years Karl aged and it was decided that the inventor should leave the castle and he was granted accommodation in the nearby town of Karlshaven. Despite the strong circumstantial evidence that his machine was genuine,  Bessler failed to secure a sale and after more than thirty years he died in poverty.  His death came after he fell from a windmill he had been commissioned to build.  The windmill was an interesting design using a vertical axle which allowed it to benefit from winds from any directions.  


He had asked for a huge sum of money for the secret of his perpetual motion machine, £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 viewing the internal workings.  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.


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 74).  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.


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

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.


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. He implied 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.


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 his codes and I am confident that I have the complete design.


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's three published books are entitled "Grundlicher Bericht", "Apologia Poetica" and "Das Triumphirende...". I have called Bessler's collection of 141 drawings his Maschinen Tractate, but it was originally found in the form of a number of loosely collected 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.


JC 

New insight into Kreuz AP passage

After I posted a previous blog about the passage in Apologia Poetica in which Bessler discusses the use of crossbars in his machine I sought some further insight into the text.  In the translation which  I published in my biography of Bessler, he seems to be saying that when he first built his machine he used one crossbar but the wheel barely moved.  He then tells us that when he added more crossbars, plus weights, pulleys and cord, the wheel spun more quickly.  However I have studied the original German text and there are some interesting aspects to it which I think help explain what Bessler wanted us to understand from it.

The first thing I always thought odd was the addition of more weights pulleys and cords in the second part of the passage.  It seemed to me that  they should have been included with the first reference to crossbars.  Then he could have said that more of each were needed.  My initial conclusion was that Bessler was informing us of the presence of crosses i.e, part of a scissor mechanism, which I still think he was, but also of weights, pulleys and cords.  However subsequently I considered that there were two or three pieces of information being presented within one piece of text, using a trick he has used elsewhere.

My translator thought that ‘crossbar’ was the word Bessler intended, and there has been much discussion about whether he actually meant ‘cross’ and not ‘crossbar’. The word ‘cross’ could suggest a design using the shape of a cross, in other words four equal divisions within the wheel. However I discovered a word which one might gloss over but which gives us a clue to his thinking.

So a closer study of the words he used reveals more information than one might get at first.  This is my latest interpretation.  The first words below are from my original version of Apologia Poetica, Part 2, XXXIII

"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 crossbars, pulley and weights, the machine can revolve much faster, and throw Wagner's calculations clean out of the window!"

Now my new interpretation using equally acceptable alternative words:

"So in an  earlier work, I used just (or only) a (or one) cross, so to speak (or as it were),

"So you will see it, is very slow and hard to turn around by itself; On the other hand, (or whereas) if I added more crosses, pulleys and weights, then the device can run much faster;"

The word used in the German text is
 Gleichsam = so to speak, or as it were.  
 In the English dictionary, .
(definition of 'so to speak' = so to speak to draw attention to the fact that you are describing or referring to something in a way that may be amusing or unusual rather than completely accurate)

With his first use of the word "Kreuze", he is saying that it is like a cross.  In the second part he is saying, add these other parts, as well as more crossbars....... but he doesn't mean crosses.  This is why the first use of the word Kreuze, is separate from the second use.

I believe his intention in the first use of the word "kreuze" was to confirm the need for five mechanisms and not four.  So the first part is saying if you use four mechanisms the wheel will hardly turn, but if you use more by adding additional crossbars to the four you already have, then the wheel will turn fast.

So there are potentially three pieces of information; firstly, is that there needs to be more than four  mechanisms; secondly, there is a portion at least of the scissor mechanism involved, and thirdly, he tells us that we need to add more crossbars, weights, pulleys and cord.

JC

Karl’s New Year Card

Following a question abut Karl's birthday card I decided to post images of the only item I have which I assumed the posted comment referred to.  Although I have had this item for many years I have never attributed anything of significance to it although it is a curious document.

I contains large number of Chronograms each of which seem, as far as I have investigated, point to a particular year, usually the one in which the item is inserted.  Each one has a bible reference attached which I assume contains the quotation that Bessler used.

That is all I can say about the document but I am curious to know if anyone else sees more within it that is apparent to me.  It will be useful to post it here for anyone to return to should the need arise.

I was unable to arrange them in a more compact manner so they are central but in order from first page to last, top to bottom. Clicking on each page will give you a large version.

Doubtless you will notice the curious coincidence of the last part of the last page referring to this year 2019.

JC

The Legend of Bessler’s Wheel and the Orffyreus Code

I’m posting the Legend of Bessler’s wheel again because I’m going to be working hard on finishing my reconstruction of Bessler’s wheel.  It’s been a busy year with little time to spend in my garage where the build should have been happening, but time is racing by and I must concentrate on finishing the job.  My apologies for promising fewer blogs but the sooner I finish it the sooner I can publish everything.


Please feel free to comment if you wish and I will try to check back daily. So here it is again, 


                                              The Legend of Bessler's wheel.


Karl the Landgrave of Hesse permitted Bessler to live, work and exhibit his machine at the prince's castle of Weissenstein.  Karl was a man of unimpeachable reputation and he insisted on being allowed to verify the inventor's claims before he allowed Bessler to take up residence  This the inventor reluctantly agreed to and once he had examined the machine to his own satisfaction Karl authorised the  publication of his approval of the machine.  For several years Bessler was visited by numerous people of varying status, scientists, ministers and royalty.  Several official examinations were carried out and each time the examiners concluded that the inventor's claims were genuine.


Over several years Karl aged and it was decided that the inventor should leave the castle and he was granted accommodation in the nearby town of Karlshaven. Despite the strong circumstantial evidence that his machine was genuine,  Bessler failed to secure a sale and after more than thirty years he died in poverty.  His death came after he fell from a windmill he had been commissioned to build.  The windmill was an interesting design using a vertical axle which allowed it to benefit from winds from any directions.  


He had asked for a huge sum of money for the secret of his perpetual motion machine, £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 viewing the internal workings.  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.


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 74).  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.


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

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.


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. He implied 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.


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 his codes and I am confident that I have the complete design.


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's three published books are entitled "Grundlicher Bericht", "Apologia Poetica" and "Das Triumphirende...". I have called Bessler's collection of 141 drawings his Maschinen Tractate, but it was originally found in the form of a number of loosely collected 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.


JC