Johann Bessler - Random Documents, 1.

Throughout the many years I’ve been researching the legend of Bessler’s wheel I have accumulated many documents which I was unable include in my biography about him. The first draft of the book was way too long even without the extra stuff, so I’ll try to post some of it here from time to time. Each one is  not necessarily connected with any other but some may be of interest.  Most are  illegible so unless they include drawings I’ll leave them out.

After doing this blog for eleven years and a month it’s sometimes difficult to know what to write so there may be the occasional random content - like this one!

1)  I’ve read many books about perpetual motion and I was pleased to discover that one author whose book is called ‘Perpetual Motion; A Continuing Quest’, is commenting here occasionally. We corresponded many years ago and he kindly sent me a copy of his book, way back in 2003.  So welcome Richard A. Ford.(RAF)

2)  Another thing that has cropped up recently is the question of where did Bessler's death originate? Some thought that I was the source but on March 20th 1992, several years before I began to write my history of Bessler's wheel, a German local newspaper published details about a project to spend money on refurbishing Bessler's ruined windmill, from which they reported he had fallen to his death.  They planned to make it into a tourist attraction.

The article appeared in the 'Neue Westfalische, Nr. 68, Freitas, 20, Mars 1992'.  Although I think the page in question could be obtained online even now, (was unable to see that particular page even though I found the newspaper in question). Below I have included a very bad photocopy which was sent to me at the time and above it is a photo I took of the windmill from a similar position, so that you can confirm that it is the same building.

The headline in English reads 'Millions for Fairy tale and Legendary Mill'.  The article is very long so  have only quoted from the relevant text, 'Here originated a two story, half-timbered building with massive stone walls.  The roof and interior came to nothing as the builder, Orffyreus fell to his death from the walls.'

In addition to the above, Rupert Gould, whose 1944 book 'Oddities' first informed about Johann Bessler's wheel also described Bessler's fall to his death. He wrote 'Bessler died in 1745, aged sixty-five, when he fell to his death from a four and a half story windmill he was constructing in Fürstenberg'.

'Rupert T. Gould, "Orffyreus's Wheel," in Oddities: A Book of Unexplained Facts, revised ed., (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1944), pp. 89-116. Reprinted by Kessinger Pub Co., 2003, ISBN 978-0-7661-3620-5.' 

The windmill restoration was budgeted for and the local authority planned to translate my book into German and place it in the tourist office at Fürstenberg.  Unfortunately the restoration and the translation of my book never happened due to “budgetary pressures”.  You can see more photos of the old windmill at my web site at www.orffyreus.org

3) During my research I came across a large format book containing among other things photographs of items in the Kassel museum.  The creation of the item below was ascribed to Johann Bessler and a date was provided, 1721.  This particular device was not something we usually associate with Bessler but given his wide experience and unique number of manufacturing skills it is easy to imagine he was able to produce this device, but whether he also made the beautiful box containing the device is not stated. 

The device is called a Hydrostatic Balance and the photo was taken by H.L. at Kassel, Hess, Landesmuseum.  The book in which the photo appeared was called Mathematical Instruments 1960, and edited by Henri Michel. I thought its inclusion might be of interest. Bessler has given the impression that he worked on other devices and I assume that with his title of commercial councillor he might have advised or even made various items within the scope of his employment.

4)  A slightly oddball character called J.C.F. Von Hatzfeld had offered several designs for perpetual motion machines to both the Royal Society and to Sir Isaac Newton directly.  Mostly they ignored him and Newton didn’t even acknowledge the letter although it resides in the records. Von Harzfeld was persistent but he was treated as if he were little more than annoying insect buzzing around the heads of these important people.  I thought I’d post one of his designs dated 1725, not that I think it has merit, but you can assume that this topic of conversation was very much in the news at the time.  Von Hatzfeld mentioned Orffyreus several times in his previous correspondence which didn’t endear him to his recipients 
 

Here is the same design enlarged.  But is still won’t work!

JC

The Legend of Johann Bessler’s Perpetual Motion Machine.

I put this brief account of Johann Bessler’s wheel on my blog from time to time just in case someone stumbles upon my blog and wants a quick reminder of his life and his machine.  I remain convinced that the time is right, in fact it’s almost perfect, for the arrival of a solution to Bessler’s wheel. Regardless of the doubts being cast about the potential power in Bessler’s wheel, it is surely worthwhile examining, developing and up-scaling a successful working model.  

It is remarkable how very apposite a solution to Bessler’s wheel would be right now considering the urgency in dealing with the climate change, reducing the burning of fossil fuels and all the promises to reduce carbon emissions by such and such date.

The Truth Behind the Legend of Bessler’s Wheel and the Orffyrean 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.

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 as well as hundreds of  local inhabitants.  Several official examinations were carried out and each time the examiners concluded that the inventor's claims were genuine.

Over the years Karl’s health began to deteriorate and his sons decided that it was time for the inventor to leave the castle and he was given five years salary and 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 it’s no coincidence that this sum matched that being offered by the British Government as a reward for the invention of a way to establish a ship’s longitudinal position  at sea.  Bessler clearly believed his invention was equal in value.  Many people were interested in Bessler’s wheel, but 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.  He said that a bag of money should be put on the table and the buyer could take the wheel there and then.  He swore that if he was found cheating he should be beheaded, a not unlikely result if he was found to be a fraud and deceiving his ruler.

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 75).  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.

This problem of acceptance by his potential buyers 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 cautiously optimistic 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, his account of the search for perpetual motion - 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 


I and thousands of others around the world believe that Johann Bessler’s claim to have designed and built a perpetual motion machine, or a continuously rotating device enabled purely by gravity, was genuine.  The circumstantial evidence is compelling.  This device if reconstructed now, could potentially provide cheap clean electricity, and by reducing the need for fossil fuels, provide a huge step forward in reducing carbon emissions in a very short time.

For some ideas about Bessler’s code why not visit my web sites at

                                                                          www.theorffyreuscode.com  and,

                                                                          www.besslerswheel.com   and,

                                                                          www.orffyreus.net    and,

                                                                          www.orffyreus.org

 For more information on my books, go to  www.free-energy.co.uk


My granddaughter Amy has CRPS, FND and PTDS but is gradually recovering, but she has a long way to go, if you can help, please share the links - and a donation no matter how small would be gratefully accepted.

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

See the latest update.  https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-our-amy-to-walk-again

J C

Why Did Johann Bessler Leave Clues to How his Wheel Worked?

I have spent a large chunk of my life researching the life of Johann Bessler and trying to find as much written information about him, as possible.  Bessler lived about three hundred years ago so clearly the only evidence we have available for study is handwritten or printed.  Letters, newspapers and official reports plus drawings and illustrations is all we have, provided mostly by witnesses, or the inventor himself.  I have tried to find every single document that relates to Bessler and I am pretty sure I’ve either published all of them or I have copies of other documents which are illegible for now.  These latter documents are of more personal nature and do not offer any hope of further revelations about his wheels, although they do provide more information about his life after he left Kassel.

So it is kind of amusing to see people searching for new information in the documents I’ve already published. They seek invisible nuances of meaning in numerous pieces of text, suggesting inaccurate translations, or ambiguity or coded messages in seemingly straight forward prose.  I think that this is because they have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out the secret of Bessler’s wheel, and are now scraping the barrel looking for some clue that everyone else missed.  I understand why.

Bessler encouraged us to scour his works looking for hidden information, by implying in a number of ways that he had hidden information in his works.  I know this is true and I have found much that was hidden, but for now I will just say that the information is real, it is there but in some cases it is not easy to find.  Some clues are easy to find but have proved impossible to solve, so far. Others are there but their ambiguity is so confusing that not only is it difficult to know if they are a clue, but also if you have the correct interpretation even if they are indeed a clue. In my opinion the translations are generally correct.  I know there have been disagreements over the precise translation of certain words, but I cannot find any advantage in changing or correcting those words, it does not seem to make any difference in our understanding of what Bessler meant.

One thing Bessler was very good at was providing a clue which once solved gave the correct answer twice so that you knew you had it right if you got both versions.  I read almost daily, suggestions as to what Bessler intended us to understand from some clue or other and yet the discussion flows so far away from what the inventor was trying to tell us, that I’m tempted to jump in and point them in the right direction.  But I never do because I’m still trying to finish my version of Bessler’s wheel and having got so far I’m determined to finish it. As I have said countless times, if it fails I will share everything; all the clues and what they mean and how they relate to the wheel.  They are clear, easily understood but their construction is absolutely amazing.  We often say Bessler was a genius for designing and building his wheel, well that is only half the story; his ingenuity in hiding the design of his wheel in plain sight of the world for more than 300 years is simply staggering.

Bessler must have intended from the very beginning to have included secret information about his wheel, but the reason for this seems difficult to determine. He set out to sell his machine for 100,000 Thaler.  Obviously he was intent on selling it so why did he feel the need to include clues that would reveal how his machine worked? Surely he must have realised that someone might decipher his clues and learn his secret, before he had managed to secure full payment for the device.

It was obviously so difficult to find and decipher the clues, that perhaps he considered post humus acknowledgement of the discovery acceptable, but if that is so did he fear that his chance of getting payment was remote right from the beginning?  That seems unlikely also, he was a born salesman and to my mind optimism is a key ingredient.  So why did he risk his clues being discovered and deciphered?

It’s possible that his knowledge of codes and ciphers and all the religious, philosophical and esoteric traditions that were flourishing in his day persuaded him to embed much of this practice into his works, in the form of clues to the structure of his wheels, in the hope that his fame would outlast his lifetime.

JC

Opinions About Gravity and Bessler’s Wheel.

It is the convention to dismiss the very idea of gravity as a source of energy but there is a reason why I say that gravity is ultimately what drives Bessler’s wheel. Whether it is, or is not an energy source, in the end, without it Bessler’s wheel could not function.

For hundreds of years water wheels have been used for purposes such grinding corn and later to drive the cotton industrial mills in northern England.  These days hydroelectric turbines are operating within dams, to produce electricity - and the common factor with each is flowing water.  Water flows downhill due to the effect of gravity.

Gravity acts continuously on matter that has mass.  But for our purposes there has to be a mechanical interaction with gravity. Although gravity interactions in space are described as action-at-a-distance, I’m discussing earthly mechanical interactions which can also happen when a falling object affects the actions of another object.

When gravity moves a mass we say it does work.  When it moves a waterwheel it does work by moving the water, which in turn moves the wheel, another object of mass.

If we wish to use gravity to turn Bessler’s wheel, we need to include at least two actions. The first action involves the weights which fall through the effect of gravity - no disputing the cause there. The second action is the turning of the wheel.  When Bessler’s wheel began to turn it did so because it was out of balance because where the falling weights landed overbalanced it -  no disputing the cause there either, gravity.  This is, and has been, the ultimate prize of perpetual motion seekers for thousands of years.  Gravity may or may not be providing the energy to turn the wheel, but it is enabling it to do so.

This looks like mere semantics and gives the impression that we are drawing energy from gravity, but  we are told we can’t. We are taking advantage of the effect of gravity on objects of mass.  This is no different to the way flowing water drives the waterwheel, except for one important difference, the flow of water is finite in that it can only flow for as long as there is water available further upstream.

With a Bessler’s wheel we need a succession of falling weights but we don’t have them.  Therefore we must find a way to lift the fallen weights as quickly as possible so that they can fall again before  their turn comes around. Fallen weight have to be lifted.

According to Wikipedia a conservative force can be identified by ’the property that the total work done in moving a particle between two points is independent of the path taken.  Equally, if a particle travels in a closed loop, the total work done (the sum of the force acting along the path multiplied by the displacement) by a conservative force is zero’.

I have read that definition too many times to count and it has always seemed to me to be misleading. They mention one particle doing a loop, and several particles doing loops, all impossible if the work done equals zero, so no closed loop is possible.  But it has always seemed obvious to me that if extra particles are added who do not need to make a loop, but whose sole purpose is to move the original particles away from their mind numbing loop so that they can actually complete a loop because work was done for them, then gravity has done some work on the extra particles resulting in  the former particles performing loops.

This does not nullify the original definition of a conservative force, but it does leave the way open to using gravity as an energy source.  At the end of the day, we are certain that Bessler’s wheel worked;  he said that the weights were the actual perpetual motion; weights fall because gravity makes them; the wheel will turn when out of balance.  Therefore I can only assume that the work in rotating the wheel is done by gravity.

If you wish to post a drawing on this blog, I have created a permanent page but you will have to email it to me so I can add it. The email information is there.  Click on the ‘submitted Drawings’ link at the the top right side of the column on the right.  If interest is scarce I’ll probably remove it eventually.

I have posted a drawing on behalf RAF, but I dont know whether all of it is present, pending confirmation that it is ok.

Link to my granddaughter’s

 gofundme site https://www.helpamy.co.uk/

See the latest update.  https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-our-amy-to-walk-again

JC

My Bessler Wheel Builds.

When I consider all the test mechanisms I have made over the years and I read about other people’s builds, I’m often surprised that they have gone ahead and built the whole machine, and in the process, made a beautiful build, even though, in the end it doesn’t work.  I used to build the whole wheel although it was a crude, roughly built example, but it was done just to test the the design or the concept.  When it failed I used the parts for my next effort, cannibalising the various bits and pieces.  This is why I have no examples of previous attempts to show anybody, but I do have a huge collection of assorted lengths of steel and aluminium, weights etc.  About three years ago, I threw out about twenty wood discs which I had used to support the mechanisms I built and tested over many years.  They had so many holes drilled in them there was little room for new ones.  I hardly ever photographed any of them because I did not see the point at the time, of keeping a copy of a failed design.  I have published a couple of old designs from years ago, but they were of little use or interest to anyone.

Having built countless mechanical arrangements I continue to believe that relying on sims without any attempt at building is going to end up by you missing a vital part of the necessary action, and the allowance for that particular action.  I’ll say more about that in a later blog.

My current effort is pretty crude, but I have it in my mind to ‘pretty it up’ if, or when, it works.  But unlike my previous efforts I am sure this one will work, so I’m considering not making any announcement until I have completed a second build with a more professional finish and no empty holes, unlike my previous builds!  This will be extremely difficult to do, remaining silent for the time it takes to complete the polished version.  I included the word ‘if’ and I think that even if it doesn’t work, I will photograph it as part of my explanation of how I think Bessler’s wheel worked.

If I announced that I had succeeded but refused to show it working until I had perfected a better looking version, I would rightly be besieged with demands to show it working.  This is a dilemma, but a nice dilemma to contemplate. In the end I guess I’d have to do both, show the ugly one and then the nicer one.  Any way I’m getting ahead of myself, I haven’t finished any versions yet.  No wheel, no tell.

JC

Latest news about my granddaughter Amy.  She has more or less overcome the 24/7 extreme pain in her left arm,  by carrying out daily desensitising therapy, but still has severe dystonia in her left wrist and hand.  This means her hand is bent almost double to her wrist because of involuntary powerful contracture of the muscles and tendons. She can now hold her head up unsupported and also her upper body is more self supporting.  She can squeeze together her thumb and first finger of her left hand to hold a things.  None of these things were possible a few weeks ago, and it is all due to the amazing work of STEPS rehab clinic, but it costs over £5000 per week, so any and all donations very very much appreciated.  please share even if you can’t afford a donation.  Thanks to all who have kindly donated and or shared.

I forgot to add that Amy’s Nasal feeding tube has been removed and she can eat normally!

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

See the latest update.  https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-our-amy-to-walk-again

Thank you to those kind people who have made donations to Amy’s gofundme site.  You are very kind and of course some of you have shared the links too.  We are so grateful for any and all donations.

The Legend of Johann Bessler’s Perpetual Motion Machine.

The Truth Behind the Legend of Bessler’s Wheel and the Orffyrean 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.

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 as well as hundreds of  local inhabitants.  Several official examinations were carried out and each time the examiners concluded that the inventor's claims were genuine.

Over the years Karl’s health began to deteriorate and his sons decided that it was time for the inventor to leave the castle and he was given five years salary and 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 it’s no coincidence that this sum matched that being offered by the British Government as a reward for the invention of a way to establish a ships longitudinal position  at sea.  Bessler clearly believed his invention was equal in value.  Many people were interested in Bessler’s wheel, but 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.  He said that a bag of money should be put on the table and the buyer could take the wheel there and then.  He swore that if he was found cheating he should be beheaded, a not unlikely result if he was found to be a fraud and deceiving his ruler.

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.




This problem of acceptance by his potential buyers 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 cautiously optimistic 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, his account of the search for perpetual motion - 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 


I and thousands of others around the world believe that Johann Bessler’s claim to have designed and built a perpetual motion machine, or a continuously rotating device enabled purely by gravity, was genuine.  The circumstantial evidence is compelling.  This device if reconstructed now, could potentially provide cheap clean electricity, and by reducing the need for fossil fuels, provide a huge step forward in reducing carbon emissions in a very short time.

For some ideas about Bessler’s code why not visit my web sites at

www.theorffyreuscode.com  and

www.besslerswheel.com      and

www.orffyreus.net.                and

www.orffyreus.org

For more information go to www.free-energy.co.uk

JC 

Breaking Through the Wall of Scepticism

On 9th February 2020, this blog will be eleven years old.   621 blogs and goodness knows how many comments have been posted, and there have been  nearly 1,500,000 visitors. My original intention was to try to draw more attention to Johann Bessler’s wheel; I’m not sure how successful that has been but I’ve enjoyed writing my blogs and reading the comments.

I was thinking about the difficulties we face in convincing people that Bessler was not a fake.  For much of my life I have researched Bessler and his wheel, and I have remained convinced that his claims to have built a genuine continuously moving wheel, enabled by gravity, cannot be refuted.  I didn’t need to think about it for long before I realised that the maidservant lied.  So it often surprises me that no one, out there in the ‘real’ world, would spare me one minute of their time to look at the evidence or consider my point of view.

Throughout the last eleven years I have avoided discussing politics and religion because each has its own adherents and devotees, who remain committed to their beliefs and I have no desire to tread on anyone’s toes.  But it has always seemed strange to me, as an atheist, that there are sensible, down-to-earth realists who dismiss any chance that Bessler’s wheel might have been possible, and yet believe that a man performed impossible miracles, was born of a virgin, came back to life from the dead etc etc.  I’m not belittling anyone’s beliefs and I respect their right to believe in a particular religion or branch of politics, but why is it so hard for those same people to at least consider that it is possible for a weight driven wheel to spin continuously as long as it is within the gravitational field?  There is more evidence for the latter than  there is for the former.

Of course I know the answer, and only today I heard a discussion in which a celebrity expert on astrophysics told how a famous American solar physicist, Eugene Parker, who in the mid 1950’s, developed his theory of super sonic solar wind and predicted the Parker spiral shape of the solar magnetic field in the outer solar system.  His theory was not accepted by the astronomical community and when he submitted the results to The Astrophysical Journal, the two reviewers rejected it.  The editor of the Journal overruled the reviewers and published the paper.  His work was resoundingly verified years later.

In 2017, NASA renamed its Solar Probe Plus to the Parker Solar Probe in his honor, marking the first time NASA had named a spacecraft after a living person.^[3] In 2018, the American Physical Society awarded him the Medal for Exceptional Achievement in Research. It is not uncommon for scientists to present new ideas which are at first dismissed by their peers, as in Parker’s case and then subsequently accepted.  So many times the experts have later been proven wrong and their own ‘expertise’, dismissed, rubbished and scorned!

I put the words ‘belated recognition’ into google and it found that there were dozens and dozens of examples of belated recognition in a variety of fields and subjects.  There are too many to mention, but none as delayed as Bessler’s.  

One day someone will reconstruct Bessler’s wheel and, whoever it may be, and then their efforts will win belated acknowledgement for Bessler’s amazing discovery.

JC

Bessler’s Wheel and Obstacles Encountered During Build.

As you will know I have been striving to finish my Bessler’s wheel.  Given several requests to finish the wheel or shut up, I thought I’d try to give some idea of why it is taking so long and the difficulties to overcome.  If I give away some small clues along the way, I don’t have a problem with that.  You may well find that what follows is utterly confusing as I try to describe some problems I encountered, without illustrations, but perhaps you’ll get some idea of the difficulties I’m trying to resolve and recognise them from your own builds.  These same problems are typical in this kind of research if you actually do  hands-on builds.

The concept I’m working with is very simple and I can understand why Bessler feared that once people knew how it worked they might think the price he was asking was too high.  In addition there is Karl’s comment about it being so simple a carpenter’s boy could make one if he was allowed to study it first.  However I think his comment is misleading; even though it may be easy to understand, designing the mechanisms so that they operate correctly is another matter altogether.  You might look at the workings of a clock and understand how it works, but making a copy would be difficult and you might not understand how different parts interact and their purposes could easily be misunderstood. Imagine trying to do that without the device available to you, just some brief descriptions explaining how it worked. That is what we are trying to do.

A carpenter’s boy, meant apprentice, and in those days it was a way for young men to acquire skills in various trades.  Apprentices were formally bound to Master craftsmen for several years, without pay but provided with board and lodging. Upon release from his service to his  master, an apprentice would have become a highly skilled craftsman so we shouldn’t dismiss Karl’s comment as implying the wheel was easy to make, I think he was suggesting that the concept was easy to understand.

In my version there are five mechanisms, which I know goes against current opinion.  The mechanical action is quite complex, but nothing as complicated as a watch for instance, but seeing a working version where all the parts have been perfected to work together, would make it easy to copy, whereas only knowing the concept and designing it to work is not as easy.  I found that the mechanical arrangement leads to some parts interfering with the each other, so I needed to provide more room for each part to operate.  The extra room has to be found within the thickness of the wheel rather than its diameter.  This requires longer or taller pivot points than one might at first assume, because one part of the mechanism needs to be separated and held apart the other part of the mechanism.  If viewed upright on its axle, then there needs to be enough room within the thickness of the interior to allow all parts to operate without touching each other.  But to do this one has to get the moving parts in the right order through the thickness of the wheel so that each piece can operate smoothly without interfering with the other parts.  I know, this is hard to understand without seeing a drawing.

I believe I’m in between the point at which Bessler said he had found an action but it still took him time to design the whole working arrangement and the finished wheel He made a similar point in his message on the front of his Maschinen Tractate (MT)

There are a number of nuts and bolts, some of which have to hold two or three pieces together without allowing them to rotate against each other, whereas other nuts and bolts have to allow the pieces they are holding together to rotate against each other.  This is easy enough to arrange, but in some cases two of the pieces being allowed to rotate against each other cannot be allowed to rotate in such a way that the bottom of the nearest bolt is not clear of the moving part during the path of its rotation. So even these have to be separated a little.

His first wheel at Gera, was only four inches thick which leaves little room for the mechanisms to operate.  But although I did not concern myself with trying to fit everything within the limited space of four inches, in the process of avoiding mechanical interference I found a solution, which was to apply a slight double bend in the levers which altered their path at a particular point along their length thus avoiding the collision.

In addition to these factors some mechanical actions have to be designed to work in one direction only, so that they thrust in one direction but then return as a consequence of the wheel’s rotation.

Dealing with cords, ropes, string, cables, chains or belts - what ever you wish to call them - requires more ingenuity because there are points during rotation where the connecting material is taut and others where it is loose and in danger of fouling other mechanisms, or parts of them.  So keeping the cords out of the way means they need to always have a small amount of tension in order to keep them clear of all other pieces.

We know that Bessler was familiar with the workings of the church organ, so such concerns as outlined above, might well have been customarily encountered and for which there were remedies.  In my opinion, Bessler’s response to the question of springs indicated that springs were used to maintain tension in the cords, but had no part in helping the mechanisms.

Fitting the mechanisms on to the backplate or wood disc which I use, is simple but I found that the wood disc was never big enough.  The path of the mechanical actions can be estimated but for some reason although I always tried to place the mechanisms where I had worked out that they needed to go, I would then discover that the mechanisms were shooting over the edge of the disc and either catching onto the side edge of the disc or striking the floor when it was attached to the axle and it’s stand.

These are routine problems I have encountered from time to time over many years, but I am getting there.  Soon I hope to finish, but my fear is that my wheel won’t work properly without my having to unstick a mechanism or help a rope to move or some other snag which may cause problems because I lack the necessary skill and equipment.  If that happens I’ll just have to publish everything, but I was hoping to avoid the problem Ken had in publishing the design of an unproven device. But I will of course publish my design freely and without charge.

One more thing, as a consequence of comments in the preceding blog, I would just point out the difficulties described above would not show up in a sim, so although it might show a successful build, the detail for the build would still require considerable experimentation, trial and error.

JC

The Legend of Johann Bessler’s Perpetual Motion Machine.

 The Truth Behind the Legend of Bessler’s Wheel and the Orffyrean 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.

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 as well as hundreds of  local inhabitants.  Several official examinations were carried out and each time the examiners concluded that the inventor's claims were genuine.

Over the years Karl’s health began to deteriorate and his sons decided that it was time for the inventor to leave the castle and he was given five years salary and 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 it’s no coincidence that this sum matched that being offered by the British Government as a reward for the invention of a way to establish a ships longitudinal position  at sea.  Bessler clearly believed his invention was equal in value.  Many people were interested in Bessler’s wheel, but 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.  He said that a bag of money should be put on the table and the buyer could take the wheel there and then.  He swore that if he was found cheating he should be beheaded, a not unlikely result if he was found to be a fraud and deceiving his ruler.

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.




This problem of acceptance by his potential buyers 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 cautiously optimistic 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, his account of the search for perpetual motion - 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 


I and thousands of others around the world believe that Johann Bessler’s claim to have designed and built a perpetual motion machine, or a continuously rotating device enabled purely by gravity, was genuine.  The circumstantial evidence is compelling.  This device if reconstructed now, could potentially provide cheap clean electricity, and by reducing the need for fossil fuels, provide a huge step forward in reducing carbon emissions in a very short time.

For some ideas about Bessler’s code why not visit my web sites at

www.theorffyreuscode.com  and

www.besslerswheel.com      and

www.orffyreus.net.                and

www.orffyreus.org

For more information go to www.free-energy.co.uk

JC