The Mystery of Johann Bessler’s Codes

To us, Johann Bessler’s thoughts and actions seems to suggest he was slightly paranoid, but given that his invention of the amazing gravity wheel, or perpetual motion machine, was the end result of more than ten years of intensive research, experimentation and trial and error, it’s not surprising.  He was obsessively determined to keep the secret of its construction to himself until he had been paid in full by anyone who wished to buy his machine. 

But the  negotiation was fraught with difficulty.  He told prospective buyers to put the cash on the table and they could take the machine away.  They insisted on checking that the machine was genuine by viewing the interior.  Bessler could not allow this because they could note the design and then walk away and build their own.  Despite the evidence of the only person ever allowed to see inside the wheel, the highly respected Karl, Landgrave of Hesse, who validated his claims, no sale was ever finalised.  Bessler designed a number of tests which he hoped would prove his claims and even though we cannot imagine how he would have managed to fake it, without an internal inspection no one accepted the evidence presented.

Bessler would not have wanted to die without having sold his machine; and thus his claims dismissed and his books forgotten. But....he implies more than once that if he fails to sell the secret he would rather die than give his secret away.  He also says that if the reader has questions he should study ‘this little book’, Apologia Poetica.  His suggestion on the front of Maschinen Tractate to study ‘more than one drawing’  which will eventually lead to the answer. He says he was given much information of an esoteric nature and was taught, for instance ‘the language of angels’, which was an occult language used by John Dee in the 16th century in Prague, where Bessler lived for a time.

This led me to conclude many years ago, that Bessler intended right from the beginning, probably before he even found the solution to his wheel, to plant information about his wheel in future publications and had already learned about a number of ways of hiding it. So once I suspected that there might be information to be found, it became obvious that it was there but disguised behind a veil of innocent looking, uninteresting and easily dismissed pages of text and drawings.

Bessler’s first clue was the strange pseudonym, Orffyreus, achieved through use of an ancient and well-known cipher.  This simple code was so obvious that one might wonder why he used it. It led one to look for other different codes but also equally well-known. This feature was developed extensively throughout his books and letters but the significant fact about all of them is that none of them seem to be helpful towards understanding his secret, which begs the question why?

The work done by Øystein reveals additional layers of mystery, Rosicrucian and Masonic codes. I have my own ideas about why this was done.  If we accept that Bessler planned to hide instructions for building his gravity wheel in his publications, but deliberately hid it within an exceedingly complex code, so that it was very unlikely that anyone would manage to decipher it during his life, how could he be sure that someone would eventually find the code and decipher it?  The answer would seem to be that only those people steeped in the subject of codes, such as the practitioners of Øystein’s Rosicrucian and Masonic codes, and perhaps some acquaintances of the Jesuit priest and the Rabbi, in Prague.  They would be attracted into studying his books by the presence of apparently purposeless codes, recognise and decipher them.  The knowledge that the more complex codes might be heralded by the simpler more obvious codes would attract the attention of certain members of semi-secret societies, the acknowledged experts on ancient codes.

Aside from the many graphic codes to be found in the Apologia Poetica book, there are the 600 plus ‘etc’s, previously identified as ‘x’s, but later revealed to mean ‘etc’ in Fraktur font.  There are far too many of them to make sense other than being part of a code and there are none in his subsequent books. Then there are the 55 rhyming couplets in chapter 55 of Apologia Poetica, containing 141 Bible references, the same number as used in the Toys page, also numbered 141. Some Bible references are repeated, others cannot be found. Bessler also exhibited an apparent obsession with chronograms, providing numerous examples both in his private documents  as well as his  annual panegyrics to Karl. All of this suggestive of hidden information.

Bessler sought and received permission to build a tomb for himself and his family in the garden of the house he occupied during his final years in Karlshafen.  It was an unusual request at the time and it is interesting to speculate on the possible reasons why.  If we accept the two kinds of coded information I have surmised is buried within his publications, then it could be that Bessler left additional clues on his tomb. I think there might be some curious people who would like to visit his tomb and there they might read an inscription giving some extra information either about the wheel or the codes which lead to a description.  Sadly the tomb has long since been destroyed.  There is now a tarmac carpark covering what used to be part of his garden.

There is so much more, too much to go into here, but plenty to occupy the mind of a cipher expert. Perhaps we need the help of the Bletchley group from the Second World War, or better still, some modern equivalent.

I think this explains the reasons for the simple codes as well as the more complex ones.

JC

Why Do We Keep Trying To Solve Bessler’s Wheel?!

I ask this question because a discussion on the Besslerwheel forum touched on it. I know when I first encountered R. Gould’s account of the legend of Bessler’s wheel, I became certain that the maid had lied describing her part in a deception designed to convince people that Bessler’s wheel was faked.

In a court of law the defence tries to discredit an important witness i.e., the maid, and proving that they lied might lead to the case being thrown out.  Add to that the word of a just and reputable witness for the defence, i.e., Karl the Landgrave,  who saw the interior of Bessler’s wheel, and it becomes certain.  Generally one adds the support of a respected character witness, i.e., Gottfried Leibniz, and huge damages might be awarded too the accused,

So my first thought was, how wonderful it would be to prove wrong, all those complacent teachers who dismissed my questions about the possibility of building a perpetual motion machine with scorn and laughter. Later, once I had added absolute certainty to my earlier naive self by researching the history of the inventor, I began to think in terms of financial reward, and add to that the enormous enjoyment in proving the experts wrong, plus acknowledgement that I was right and they were wrong.

Latterly the need for high financial returns have been mitigated by two things, firstly the growing need for something which will reduce the effect of climate change, pollution and the lack of any realistic economic solutions to the energy crisis. I think that is far more important - and secondly my granddaughter, Amy’s need for strong financial support once she comes home from the neurological rehab unit, although she’s an extremely determined young woman who won’t be tamed by a waist-downwards paralysis!

Returning to the emotive term which we all use, ‘perpetual motion’, ever since I started on this journey, my questions, ideas and beliefs have been met with instant dismissal, scorn or laughter or sometimes I think they are humouring me out of politeness.  This reaction can generate mild paranoia in your mind and you get so you don’t want to mention it for fear of an unwanted response.  But of course they may not be humouring me, perhaps they are really interested, but we all want to be liked or respected and we tend to play safe and say nothing.

Bessler seemed unhappy with the term, (I’m calling it PM to save me time) calling his wheel self-moving and arguing that it couldn’t be perpetual anyway because nothing lasts for ever, wood rots, metals corrode, wear and tear and break downs occur.  The word, perpetual, implied infinite and without end, whereas, continuous, does not.  

We refer to steam engines, petrol engines, diesel engines, water wheels etc, because those names refer not to the energy source but to an important ingredient without which they cannot function.  Electric cars rely on stored energy from their batteries.  They each depend on something which is not an energy source but which can be used to create an energy source and which they use to produce motion.

The engines I’ve mentioned use fuel which has to be converted into an energy source. Wood, coal, oil, petrol, gas all kinds of fuel which need to be burned to produce heat, hence the term burning fossil fuels.  Other kinds of fuel provide energy in different ways but all of them require an intermediary, such as fuel ignition system, hydroelectric and water wheel systems need flowing water, courtesy of gravity, in fact they rely on it.

Which leads us to the Bessler wheel, which in my opinion relies on the presence of gravity without which it cannot function. It’s intermediaries are the weights. The logical name for it is either gravity wheel or gravity engine.

My answer to the question in the title of this blog...I JUST WANT TO KNOW HOW HE DID IT!

JC

Simulators versus Hands-on Building for Me

I have taken a long hard look at sim software but I have reluctantly come to the conclusion I’m too old to start learning how to use a new piece of software just now when a solution is urgently required.  I hope people don’t think I didn’t take the task seriously because I did and I read many of the comments about simming on Besslerwheel forum.  I was initially determined to take the advice offered but in the end I realised it was going to take too much time to understand and learn to use it and trust what I was seeing. I think my time would be better spent building my new wheel.  Despite the seeming setback that wubbly’s sim presented I am still feeling positive and optimistic that I can succeed in this venture. 

Those of you who build will probably know how, at one or more points during a build, you may be considering two or more options about how to proceed.  Which ever path is taken can sometimes prove wrong or not as efficient as the alternative one you dropped.  Which ever path you take can lead to more choices to make.  In my case I followed one path which led me via several branches, to the wrong conclusion literally, resulting in my faulty sim.  My selfconfidence over-rode the analytical part of my brain and in hind sight I can see where I went wrong......I hope!

So hands-on building works for me, well I enjoy it, even if it hasn’t worked yet. Someone suggested it’s the journey I enjoy, but I’m not sure I agree, I look forward to reaching my goal and not having to work with pieces of metal and wood that have been used many times.

Back in mid 1990’s, having spent more than ten years researching his life, I was writing my first book, a biography of Johann Bessler called, “Perpetual Motion; An Ancient Mystery Solved?” I wrote it on an early Amstrad, a nightmare of utter slowness but it was incredibly popular and I thought it was just amazing at the time.  We played computer games on the ZX  Spectrum which was basic compared to a calculator today, Jetset Willy I remember fondly.

My point is I had to teach myself about computers, publishing and subsequently self publishing, the internet, print on demand and arrange radio and magazine interviews at a time when all of the above was just beginning.  Such information was hard to find, usually in the local library.  All this, while holding down my job at Rolls Royce Aero-engines, but although I’m getting older, I still have all my faculties, and I’m sure that after I’ve finally solved or stopped trying to solve Bessler’s wheel, I’ll take a more leisurely look at the sim software, and learn all about it.

I would understand if many people think I’m deluding myself because I believe I can still solve this puzzle and that’s fine, I have a number of tricks up my sleeve that I shall explain later, but for now I must press on and finish this wheel. I’m also still writing my book detailing all of the clues I have actually deciphered. I accept that there may be some scepticism about my interpretation, but my previous post about the pentagon hidden within the Apologia Poetica wheel certainly seems to have gained acceptance for the logical explanation even if not my interpretation of its meaning.

I like to busy and ever since I began writing my bio of Bessler I used to get up at 5 am to write for an hour or so before getting ready for work.  Unfortunately that habit of waking at 5am has never left me, so I still wake at 5 every morning, and have done so ever since.  Plenty of time for thinking!

JC

The Meaning of the Apologia Poetica Wheel.

What I love about this blog is the way it has transmogrified into a kind of catch-all discussion group which occasionally mentions the subject heading but then meanders off into various side issues.  But hey, I don’t worry as long as people keep commenting and we get some useful exchange of views.

There has been much discussion over the value of Bessler’s clues and, dare I say it, ‘fake clues’. My own efforts don’t seem to have garnered much interest but plenty of scepticism, but in my opinion they are real, not fake.

I have been asked many times for examples of the clues I claim to have found and deciphered, so even though some of them are available on my other websites I’m going to post several here from time to time, in the hope of generating some interest. I’m not going to show those that give too much away to start with, but I plan to share them all as my efforts to replicate Bessler’s wheel proceed - and I do have a design I’m working on.

There is a multitude of pieces of coded information, buried in this publication, Apologia Poetica, but the Apologia wheel drawing at the end of this book interested me initially because it looked so simple and because of the intriguing and mysterious hint in the accompanying text, “Jesus said, ‘do ye still not understand?’

I measured the angles at the inner end of the white segments and discovered, as others have found, that the angles are ambiguous – a bit too vague to measure accurately. I noted that the angles in the white segment formed a point outside the inner circles and that the black segments did not in fact form any measurable angle unless you extended them to a point which came somewhere beyond the centre of the wheel.

Due to the way things were printed in those times the exact sizes of the angles were difficult to establish.I felt that there must be another reason for the inclusion of this diagram with its cryptic comment above, and Bessler must have made allowances for the irregularities of the printing techniques of his time. If he knew that the angles would be hard to measure then perhaps the exact measurement did not matter, but it seemed safe to assume that all three angles were equal. I measured the white angles again and established that they were variously somewhere between 23 degrees and 27 degrees.

I added together each set of the same three numbers forming each of the three angles to see if the sum of the three numbers had any meaning. Using the angles as measured between 23 and 27 degrees, I ended up with several possible totals between 69 and 81. I divided the resultant totals into the 360 degrees of a circle and there was just one number which divided equally into 360 and that was the first real advance in deciphering Bessler’s code.

Three times 24 degrees comes to 72, and 360 degrees divided by 72 is 5. A circle, which can be divided by five, is a pentagram or a pentagon (a pentagram is a pentagon inscribed within a circle). So, I decided that Bessler might be indicating that his wheel had five divisions, which might indicate the use of five mechanisms – or it was a clue to further decipherments.

During my research I have discovered that Bessler rarely, if ever, missed an opportunity to include two or more hints or ways of deciphering a clue, within each item that held a clue and the above Apologia wheel is no exception. For those who remain unconvinced that the above diagram does indeed hold a hidden pentagram the following will go some way towards convincing them of this fact.

The above drawing is virtually self-explanatory. Draw a line from ’A’ to ’B’ as in the drawing. Drop a perpendicular through the centre of the wheel from ‘C’ to ‘D’. The length of the chord from ‘A’ to ‘C’ and also ‘B’ to ‘C’ is equal to one chord of a pentagram. Using a set of compasses set to the length of the first chord, simply fill in the remaining chords to complete the pentagram. Examples of this system of double clues abounds in Bessler’s work and is a way of confirming what initial findings appear to indicate.

There is an additional clue hidden in the curiously drawn axle in the centre of the Apologia wheel. It consists of a white dot denoting the centre, surrounded by a solid black circle. Surrounding this in turn is a white circle which is itself surrounded by a thin black circle and finally another white circle but one divided by three terminations of the three white segments. Just decoration? No.

In the next figure notice the same red lines as in the drawing above. First I drew the red horizontal line (as AB above). Next I drew in the two almost vertical red lines, which begin at the lowest corners of the bottom white segment and rise, deliberately skimming the edge of the inner black circle. Note that they meet at the upper edge of the circumference, indicating the same point as ‘C’ does in the above figure. This allows you to draw in the two upper arms of the pentagon

Now observe the two blue lines; starting from the only two points left on the circumference which don’t have lines starting from them, draw two lines skimming the edge of the slightly larger black circle to the far circumference. These end points define the other points of the pentagon.

The edge of the solid inner black circle provides the two datum points for the nearly vertical red lines which define the top of the perpendicular line through the centre. The thin outer black circle provides the two datum points for the blue lines, the lower ends of which define the remaining pentagon points

This not only explains the reason for the elaborate centre circles but also proves the presence of the pentagon. He gives us three ways to decipher the meaning of this wheel; once with the three 24 degree angles, numerical, and twice with different sets of geometrical lines defining the pentagonal feature.

Earlier I mentioned the curious quotation from the Bible which accompanies the Apologia wheel, “.... and Jesus said, do ye still not understand”. The implication is that there is something to be understood which is not readily apparent to the eye. It will be noticed that the quotation is from the Bible and takes the form of a chronogram. Chronograms were particularly popular in Germany in this period and were often used on buildings to establish the date of their construction.

Taking the several Latin uppercase letters D, I, D, V, C, C, V, V, D and I, from the first line of the quotation, and assuming they also represent Roman numerals, added together they total the figure 1717, the year of AP’s publication. D = 500, I = 1, V = 5, and C = 100. It will be noticed that the last line of the quotation has a couple of blanks, easily ignored but which represented omitted letters. The missing word is in fact, ‘teufel’ meaning ‘devil’. The letter ‘U’ and the letter ‘V’ are interchangeable in German so, applying the same technique as above and replacing the letters with numbers where possible we get ‘teVfeL’. Using the V and the L, indicates the number 55 - the number 5 again but repeated this time. 

Returning to the wheel diagram, there is the numerical pointer to the number 5, plus two geometrical features pointing to two 5s. This mimics the two 5s in the missing letter blanks in the quotation. This next is arguably coincidence, but the year 1717 can be read as 17 x 2 which equals 34 degrees, one of the main angles in a pentagram.

This is such an ingenious way of transmitting information, and is typical of the rest of Bessler’s clues. What information is he offering? To me it is obviously the basic wheel needs to have five segments, and the duplicated number 5 relates to the two way wheel, but it may also to mean 5 weights in 5 segments, or two sets of 5 weights!

These clues, with my interpretations, seem a lot more convincing than others which have been published.  I have strived to find and unravel clues which are simple to see and understand.  My solutions are logical and it seems to me that it is the solution I offer which is received with scepticism not the way I deciphered it.  This example above suggesting the importance of the number 5 is widely dismissed and the reason seems to be because  Fischer von Erlach described hearing the sound of about eight weights landing on the side towards which the wheel turned, in the Kassel wheel.  But the sounds were muffled by other noises, there could have been more of them in a two way wheel, and some could have been muffled or silenced.

JC

Johann Bessler’s Non-Stop Gravity Enabled Device.

I know I’ve been banging on about this for years, but here I go again!

I am continually surprised that some people are still arguing about the energy source of Bessler’s wheel.  I’ve been seeing the same arguments posted on the Besslerwheel forum since it began, 2003 or thereabouts, and despite the strong circumstantial evidence that Bessler was genuine, we are still being told that we are wrong and that we don’t seem to understand that science has proved that gravity is not a source of energy.

But we do understand!  It is science which is missing the point! Johann Bessler with help of no lesser person than Gottfried Leibniz, designed a number of tests to be demonstrated in front of a gathering of the highest ranking statesmen, princes, university professors and celebrities of the day, which would prove the legitimacy of his claims. This was accomplished on more than one occasion, plus there were several demonstrations for others of a less exalted status who were nevertheless capable artisans.

No one has ever been able offer a convincing suggestion explaining how Bessler managed to cheat so many people over several years ... if he was a fraud as the world of science would have us believe.  It is clear from documentary evidence that many of those attending the demonstrations were determined to show evidence of Bessler’s duplicity, but they failed and became convinced of his sincerity.

Given the evidence of Bessler’s tests and the many eyewitnesses who attended them, not to mention the inventor’s suggestion he should have his head cut off if he should be found guilty of making false representations, surely the initial logical conclusion is that the experts are wrong.  

But it’s true, gravity is not an energy source but the fact remains that it makes things fall and this means   that the fall itself, of the object of mass, has inherent energy of a potential or kinetic kind. It is how that energy is used and the action replicated that counts. 

Whether you call gravity an energy source or not, or whether it does work or not, it isn’t depleted because it’s  always ‘working’, making things of mass weigh a certain amount, sat on the floor or falling towards it. It’s continuous and it is the ultimate and only logical answer to perpetual or continuous motion. There is no alternative.

JC   (Dum spiro spero - the motto of my family for hundreds of years)

Update for October 2020

 Decided to post this little update just to draw a line under the last blog which was getting longer and longer and looooooooooonnnnnnnnggggggeeerr.......But I love lots of comments so keep them coming!

I think some people will think I’m depressed or dejected after wubbly's sim showed me my design would fail, but far from it.  No matter how confident of success a design may seem, in ones own mind, there is always the possibility that it will fail.  You can’t build prototypes for 50 years and not meet failure on an almost weekly basis, and get used to it.  I was always good at acrostic crosswords and the harder the better, it’s no fun if it’s too easy and I think that underlies the attraction in trying to find the solution to Bessler’s wheel.

Although I have a clear idea in my mind and on paper, of the direction my build should go, I have been co opted, (is that the right word?) by my wise and wonderful better half, to remove a thirty year old fitted wardrobe and repair and repaint the wall prior to assembling a new wardrobe to take its place.  She has a list of small jobs (she said, “it’ll only take a day or two to get these done!”) to finish before I can return to my wheel.  The onus is on me to hurry it up.

My design was perhaps more complex than it needed to be so I’m keeping that in mind as I build the new wardrobe, and my mind is awhirl with new ideas as I work. 

I should thank wubbly twice over, because not only did his sim reveal my error, but it gave me fresh impetus to solve this long standing puzzle. Pun?

For several years I have believed that Bessler’s logo, often used as his signature, held a simple rough copy of the design within his wheels.  You can see it at the top of this page. 

JC

Bessler Collins Gravity Wheel Part Three.

Having rejected the idea of using computer simulations just because I always believed that a hands on build was the only way to be successful in this enterprise, I’m now forced to admit that they do have a role to play, albeit at the end of an unsuccessful build.  Wubbly’s sim of my design revealed a weakness which would have kept the wheel stationary.....perpetually!

Despite this setback I’m not discouraged.  There are a number of separate elements which I think will be needed within a successful machine and I’ve already designed on paper a potential solution.  I have been encouraged to take advantage of sims and I’m giving it some consideration.  Unfortunately my favourite windows pc is becoming rather old and slow and I’m not sure if it could deal with any software which might be too complex.  I do have an iMac but I’m still getting to grips with that but I’m sure it could handle anything.  I think I’m the problem, not the computer!

I would not have known of this problem if not for wubbly’s swift sims, and if I hadn’t bitten the bullet and shared some of my design no sim could have been made, and I would still be stuck in perpetual stillness in my workshop! I’m so grateful, but it’s back to the workshop for now and possibly some sim education if the winter gets too cold for me to stay in there!  

I’m certain that for some clues my interpretation is correct and they will be used in my new version of Bessler’s wheel, and they are as listed below.

Five mechanisms, five weights, ten levers, ten pulleys, five cords, connecting levers, ten pivots, numerous stops.  The information I used was found in GB, AP, DT, and the Toys page in MT. It was graphic and textual.

I’ll be sharing more information in future but for now I need to test this latest design.

JC

Bessler Collins Gravity Wheel Part Two

 I'm adding some more drawings just to try to clarify what I've posted already in Part One.  I hope this helps although I know the drawing with both red and blue levers looks confusing!

I have added two green arrows to indicate the two mechanisms which actually provide action rather than a response to rotation.  In the first picture the green arrow shows the direction of motion generated by the red lever in the mechanism at the six o'clock radius.

Note that the red initiator lever shows two weights, this is to demonstrate its two positions before and after its action lever. Those with only one weight show their position at that time and position.

The second picture shows what happens at the same time to the mechanism ahead of the six o’clock mechanism. The blue lever is lifted by a cord attached to the short arm of the red lever.

Obviously there are levers not shown which propel the blue lever anticlockwise, and the cord which lifts the blue lever in the leading mechanism up sharply.  Below you can see the pattern suggested for the cords and pulleys.  This same design appears in two of the drawings in Das Tri.

I will post details of the mechanism by which red lever pushes the blue lever horizontally anticlockwise in  my next post.

JC                                   Copyright © 2020 John Collins.

Bessler Collins Gravity wheel Part One

I’m going to share what I know about Bessler’s wheel and the design I’m building.  I will post the same on my blog as on the Besslerwheel forum, but the drawings and photos may be more accessible on the blog, but I’ll do my best to get them on both.

I’ve called the thread ‘‘Bessler Collins Gravity Wheel’ because it is based on my interpretations of the many Bessler clues, codes and hints he left.  I believe that the design is entirely his, hence his name first in the title of this thread, but my name is there too because these are my interpretations of the information I extracted from his works.  My wheel is not finished because there are difficulties in getting mechanisms perfect but I believe the theory is correct.  I hope there will be several attempts to simulate what I post here.

This is a brief explanation of some clues and where they are.  It has proved impractical to get this all down in one post but I will provide more detail as soon as I can get it written.  I will now describe some of the actions and mechanisms involved but I haven’t got the pictures ready yet, but will post them as soon as I can. I’ve added some at the end of this post which should go some way to supporting my claim to have found the secret of Bessler’s wheel.

In my blog on 4th November 2013 I posted my belief that all the information needed was to be found in the six drawings to be found in Bessler’s works Das Triumphirende (DT) and Gruendlicher Bericht (GT).  If you search my blog for word ‘drawings’ you will find more of the same information which I’m going to post here.

First I believe that the ‘T’ shaped pendulum shown in Bessler’s (DT) and (GT) is in fact ‘L’ shaped.  The two long arms of the pendulum show the starting and finishing positions of its range of action, but more on that later.

The wheel has a pentagram drawn on a disc or backplate to which everything is attached.  The five segments of the pentagram each contain one mechanism and its complete range of movement.  Although all the five mechanisms operate independently there are always two mechanisms working together.  

The following description assumes that the wheel will turn clockwise. I include a colour reference to each lever for ease of reference for when the new pictures are posted.

Each mechanism includes two main levers and each has a weight on its end.  All the weights are of equal mass.  One lever, which I call the (red) initiator lever, is the one which starts the action. It could be thought of as the prime mover. Each lever’s pivot is positioned on a radius line. 

The (red) initiator lever pivots roughly half way along the radius when the radius is at the six o’clock position.  The exact position of the pivot is simple to calculate from the information which follows.

It falls 90 degrees from a position approximately 18 degrees to the right of the vertical six o’clock radius line.  It lands close to the rim of the wheel, at an angle sloping downwards about 18 degrees.

The second lever in each mechanism, which I cleverly refer to as the (blue) ‘secondary’ lever, is attached to a pivot on the same six o’clock radius but it is positioned just below the centre of rotation (CoR).  This (blue) lever is the longest one, stretching all the way to the rim. It’s weight is attached to the end of the (blue) lever. When the (red) initiator lever falls it pushes the (blue) secondary lever and its weight, 30 degrees to the right from its position which also starts 18 degrees to the right from the vertical radius.

The (red) initiator lever is ‘L’ shaped, having a short stub for the short leg. It’s pivoting point lies at the junction of the two arms of the ‘L’. When the (red) initiator lever falls, it pulls a cord which is attached to the short leg.  This cord runs around two pulleys and its other end is attached near the end of the (blue) secondary lever in the preceding mechanism. The (red) initiator lever lifts the (blue) secondary lever in the preceding mechanism 30 degrees by pulling on the cord.  This moves the weight at the end of the (blue) secondary lever upwards and clockwise from a horizontal position 15 degrees below the CoR to a horizontal position 15 degrees above the CoR.

This lift reverses the action caused by the (red) initiator lever currently at the six o’clock position which pushes its own (blue) secondary lever anti-clockwise.

The clues which provided some of this information are all in the first drawing in (DT) and (GT).  There are  other helpful drawings which are in DT and in the Toys page in Maschinen Tractate (MT). 

One of the written clues came from Apologia Poetica (AP) known as “The great craftsman” passage.  This is a heavily abbreviated version of what I published on my blog back in November 2017. The omitted pieces are indicated by several dots or  periods.

“What follows is my interpretation of the “great craftsman phrase”.  In his Apologia Poetica, Bessler included many clues…..

He wrote, “a great craftsman would be he who, as one pound falls a quarter, causes four pounds to shoot upwards four quarters.”  …….

Note that within the quote he mentions that there are five weights, one plus four, and each one is equal to one pound.  Secondly, one pound falls a quarter.  How do we define what he meant by a quarter? In this case he was referring to a clock - something he also included in the first drawings in both Grundlicher Bericht and Das Triumphirende - and a quarter of an hour or fifteen minutes covers 90 degrees…..

 We saw in the first part that the word ‘quarter', referred to, not just 90 degrees but also to a clock.  In the second part the word ‘quarter' also refers to a clock but this time he has confused us by using the words ‘four quarters’. ‘Four quarter’s equals ‘one whole hour’.  Each hour on a clock is divided into 30 degrees, so the words ‘four quarters’ meaning ‘one hour’ as used here equals thirty degrees.  To paraphrase Bessler’s words, “a great craftsman would be he who, as one pound falls 90 degrees, causes each of the other four pounds to shoot upwards 30 degrees.”  

You might also think it would have been better to have said that “one pound falls 90 degrees, causes one pound to shoot upwards 30 degrees”, but that would have removed the information that five weights, and therefore five mechanisms were involved, so it had to be four weights plus the one.  

This 90 degree fall by the (red) initiator lever generates enough mechanical energy to drive three actions.  The first one causes the wheel to rotate 30 degrees; the second one moves the (blue) secondary lever 30 degrees anti-clockwise; the third one lifts the (blue) secondary lever in the preceding mechanism up 30 degrees.  The cost in mechanical advantage is spread unevenly between the three actions.  Clearly the swift lift is the most expensive.

These actions break the symmetry which has always prevented a successful reconstruction of Bessler’s wheel.

More information, clue interpretations and drawings to follow asap …. hopefully. Here are some illustrations to help the above explanation, BUT this is only half the picture!

 

 

 

  

 

JC

Copyright © 2020 John Collins.