What are the clues in the Orffyreus Code?

This a follow-up to Thursday's blog, as I received several emails asking me to clarify what the clues are.

The first and most obvious clue lies in Bessler's pseudonym, Orffyreus. Everyone knows how it was arrived at but no one seems to have known why he chose it. The system he used, known as atbash, invented by Jewish scribes, was a way of disguising proper names and was used in the Old Testament. The alphabet was divided in two and the second half aligned under the first half. Letters comprising the names of certain people were substituted with those letters appearing under or over them.

The questions that have not been satisfactorily answered until recently, are, why did he bother creating a pseudonym, and why did he choose this name and this method? The answer to why he had a pseudonym was alluded to in my blog earlier this week; it was to create a method which could be used to hide vital information about the construction of his machine. The name, Orffyreus, arose from the use of the atbash cipher as I explained and was designed to lead one to search for further indications of this method. Other examples exist within Bessler's written works, but they don't seem to help us get more information. Bessler himself, wrote that those who sought answers would do well to read his books and the truth is that there are answers there but they are not obvious and require some effort to decipher the clues once they have been found.

Typical clues are, a list of 141 references to chapters and verses from the bible; and page of verse which appears to be full of metaphors; and many examples of chronograms. A chronogram is a sentence or inscription in which certain letters, can also be interpreted as numerals, thus standing for a particular date when rearranged. The word, meaning "time writing", derives from the Greek words chronos ("time") and gramma ("letter"). Bessler was
particularly fond of this method of enciphering a date.

There are other clues which once found are not difficult to decipher but are extremely well hidden. These I have deciphered and as a consequence I know the basic concept behind Bessler's wheel and I shall be working hard to build a demo model as proof of the principle. I am convinced that it is only a matter of months before a working model is made - either by myself or by others who appear to be close to success.

JC

What exactly is the Orffyreus Code?

The code consists of a number of pieces of information about Bessler's wheel, which the inventor included in much of his published works. This information was disguised so that it could not be easily recognised for what it was and deciphered before he had been rewarded.

Details of the wheel's construction form the majority of the information and one can only assume that the inventor did it for one or two possible reasons. One - he needed to have published information which he could point to in case some one else also found a solution to building a gravity converter to prove he was the first and two - he could leave proof that he had indeed discovered the solution if he should die before he had had a chance to obtain some kind of reward for his efforts. I tend to think the latter is the real reason because he actually mentions the possibility in one of his works.

There must too have been the hugely enjoyable prospect of being able to point to the clues after he had sold the secret and laugh at all the nay-sayers who said he was a fraud and that the proof had been in front of them all the time.

JC

Ironic surgery

The weather has been warmer for the last week - at last! I've done some jobs outside that have been waiting for me for months - since last November to be precise.

I went for a routine medical check up this time last year and my blood count was very low. "No problem", the Doc said, "but just to be sure we'll monitor it over the next three months". Well of course it didn't improve and so I was booked in for an x-ray and cat scan. "Ah ha!" They said, "there's a lump, but don't worry, it's probably nothing but just to be sure we'll book you in for a bronchoscopy". So I had a general anaesthetic and then they shoved lights, cameras and some kind of biopsy grabbing tool - which could not only cut and scrape but bring back whatever it found to the light of day and the pathology lab. - down my throat. After a couple of weeks they called me to say that they had good news and bad news. "Oh great!", I thought, "a doctor with a sense of humour," just what I need!"

"OK, so tell me the worst". "Its a tumour, but its a benign one". "Hurrah!" I exclaimed. "Ah well it's not all good news, you see it might turn nasty or grow bigger or just sit there doing nothing for years and then suddenly flare up. Best have it out".

"Riiigggghhhhtttt. So how big is it?" "Oh, only tiny really, maybe an inch by half an inch". "Oh thats no so bad. How do you get at it, keyhole surgery?" "No actually we'll go in from the back while you're under a general anaesthetic and takeout the the top third of your right lung". "What!!!!!"

So they did it on November 5th. I'm back and well enough but the ironic feature of this is that by the time I was operated on my blood count had returned to normal and was thought to be due to a bad chest infection I had been suffering from - not the tumour!

Book and wheel update

I must advise anyone who is interested in discussions about Johann Bessler to visit http://www.besslerwheel.com/ I have been a member since November 2003. and have found the forum very lively and the posts often inspirational to me. Although I post occasionally I must take some criticism because although people may find my books about Bessler interesting or useful, I have made little effort to post up information on any of my own attempts to find a solution.

Because of the extensive work involved in producing the follow-up book about Bessler, it might be thought that the main thrust of my work is towards the completion of the book, but in fact I have too often been diverted by sudden inspiration, sometimes found on the forum and have left the book untouched, preferring instead to spend time in my workshop, tinkering with new ideas. I know this has been intensely annoying to those who need more facts to establish exactly how Bessler's wheel worked, and I can only apologise and say that the wait will be worth it even though it has taken longer than it need have.

My own attempts to find the solution continues and some members of the forum will know that I stated, some while ago, that I knew the concept of how Bessler's wheel worked and was confident of building a working model. That situation is still the same and since then I have worked out exactly why his wheel worked without conflicting with any of the physical laws. I think that the solution to this assumed conflict is absurdly simple.

I have been unable to work on the wheel for the last two weeks due to family demands and before that it was too cold in my work shop, and before that I was still in post operative recovery following some fairly heavy surgery on one of my lungs! But ... I hope to return to the wheel work next week.

I shall test this last model to see if it has any merit .... if it hasn't I'll continue with my plan to post everything I know about the wheel to my long time correspondent in the USA. If he gives it his approval he will begin funded research to reconstruct the original Bessler's wheel.

JC

Overlapping mechanisms again.

Following a number of emails I received, I believe I should correct some impressions given by the previous post. I was not suggesting that I had an original idea that overlapping mechanisms might be the answer- I was just pointing out how common it is for people to design mechanisms which don't overlap.

As I have said elsewhere, I think I know what was in Bessler's wheel, and I can only use the word 'think', until I know for certain by building a model that works. Having said that and even though my design may or may not include an overlapping mechanism, I thought it might be useful to point out how few such designs include overlapping mechanisms. And there will be cases I'm sure, where even though the mechanism overlaps an adjacent one, that fact has no impact on the way the wheel works and it is just judicious use of all available space.

JC

Overlapping mechanisms?

There have been hundreds, probably thousands, of designs for gravity wheels over the years and because they are designed to fit on a rotating wheel, all of them are confined to the restrictions imposed on them by the shape of a wheel.

Curiously almost all of them consist of a number of mechanisms, each separate from the other, with none of them overlapping another, and yet I wonder if this possible design feature should be ignored. One problem I frequently encounter is - how do I fit all the required mechanisms onto the wheel without one or more of them interfering with another?

One solution is to make the wheel larger - or the mechanisms smaller - or have fewer! Or, a solution that seems to be avoided for some reason, have each mechanism overlapping the adjacent one.

I don't know if this would work but it seems at least a feasible option. I can imagine for instance a wheel with three mechanisms, each, for instance, designed to operate over half the wheel's surface. You would therefore have overlapping mechanisms. Maybe the Apologia wheel indicates something along these lines?

It might be impractical but perhaps worth a look?

JC

The videoless lecture

Unfortunately the video I had planned which would tell the world about Bessler, ( well an assortment of retired engineers with time on their hands) did not turn out quite as I had hoped. It was decided that my lack of charisma might have a stupifying effect on the audience and anyway my pc froze at the prospect of some minor editing, so it was agreed that I would read the text of the video to my good friend in Florida and he, having recorded same, would then play it to the assembled throng (I use the word in its loosest meaning) with some suitable projected images to enliven my spoken words.

Apparently it went down rather well amongst the entire audience of 23, (Dave are you sure you don't mean 230?) and now they know as much as I do about Johann Bessler.

Anyway I decided that the video which I had originally planned to post on youtube would send anyone who innocently perchanced to light upon it, into a dangerous zomby state, so I am rewriting the script and making it altogether more punchy and of course much shorter. I have arranged for some charisma pills to be taken just before filming begins so - watch this space for an announcement!

JC

Bessler revelations

Over the years of researching Johann Bessler I have often woken in the night, usually around for four o'clock in the morning and lain there thinking about how to build a working version of his machine. Often the solution to an apparently insoluble problem appears to me in clear detail. Obviously these 'revelations' don't bear fruit otherwise I would be sitting on a tidy fortune by now - but they are always new, unique and unobtainable by normal means in the daylight hours.

I think that the unconscious continues to worry at the problem and it only surfaces in the small hours. Last night I had another revelation and I am sure that I have everything I need to build the wheel.

About a month ago I had another one which resolved the problem of gravity being a conservative force. The answer was so clear and so obvious and so simple I cannot understand why I didn't think of it before. It was then that I decided to write a thesis, if I can call it that, and present it to a contact in the USA who has given me so much encouragement over the last twelve years.

So I must finish the video, the thesis and build the wheel. The book will have to wait just a little longer, but it is already about five years late!

JC

The 300th anniversary of Bessler's wheel.

On the 12th June 2012 it will be exactly 300 years since Johann Bessler first exhibited his wheel. In some ways it feels as if events are conspiring to create the perfect moment for the re-emergence of Bessler's wheel.

First we became aware that we could no longer rely on unlimited supplies of oil and then that there is no realistic universal alternative energy solution in view. Next we were warned that the enormous amounts of pollution we are creating are apparently leading to global warming. Now we have the global recession. Companies going bankrupt, jobs disappearing at an ever increasing rate.

What single simple solution would go a long way towards resolving all three crises? You know the answer - Bessler's wheel!

Firstly it would help massively to supply electricity for domestic use at least, replacing in some measure the fossil-fuel-burning electricity generators we currently use. It would largely remove the necessity for banks of windmills and nuclear power generated electricity.

Secondly, as a non-polluting solution it would also help in reducing pollution and eventually, maybe, correct global warming in time.

Lastly, it would generate millions and millions of jobs in a useful contribution to the stabilising of the global credit meltdown.

Bessler was born before his time, arriving as he did at the start of the steam age, but perhaps we had to go through the steam age and the fossil-burning age before we could return to a cleaner, less demanding source of energy. Who knows, perhaps we wouldn't have had gas-driven autos, jet aircraft and space shuttles if his technology had prevailed?

Then again what other developments have we missed because of his reluctance to share his secret while he was still alive?

I hope that the world will be celebrating his life by 2012 because someone has suceeded in duplicating his wheel.

JC