Apologia Poetica, Chapter 55. Beginning to decipher the code?

As promised, I have published my ongoing research into deciphering the code in chapter 55 and nyou can read it at http://www.orffyreus.net/. I haven't actually deciphered anything yet although I feel I have made some small progress in untangling the clues. I confess I've reached a dead end at the moment and although I do have some other ideas to explore there is nothing sufficiently convincing for me to think it worth sharing.

Even if the web site inspires someone to have a go at following my lead and succeeds where I have failed, then it has to be worth it.

Good luck!

JC

Update on wheel progress and decoding chapter 55

Just to update folks who are interested. After my last effort to persuade people that I knew the principle behind Bessler's wheel and the fiasco that resulted, I swore to myself that I would keep my mouth shut in future. The trouble with making such claims is that, understandably, people demand proof - and without a working model no such proof is available. Unfortunately I succumbed to the requests to share my ideas and in effect shot myself in the foot. However,  (didn't you just know that there would be a 'however'!) my recent experiments have revived my optimism that I shall succeed eventually and I simply have to share it (my optimism not the design!)  But don't worry , I shall keep my ideas to myself until such a time as I can reveal a working model. I won't even hint at my design so then I won't be tempted to share it until I can prove it.

So why am I bothering to say this? Well I have just been counting up how many emails I have received since my premature crowing, several months ago now, (just the ones which simply asking me how things are going) and I counted 67! This particular blog was prompted by getting five in one day earlier this week, so this is just to update those kind people who I consider my friends and who seem supportive of my attempts to publish what I know (or what I think know!).

As those who read this blog may remember, I am preparing to post some stuff about my attempts to decipher chapter 55 which I believe holds an encoded message. I was going to hold off until I had included everything about my work on this material, however recent posts on the besslerwheel forum about chapter 55 have encouragedd me to publish what I have done so far, in the next few hours. I'm sure I shall receive the usual dose of criticism mitigated by supportive emails, but if my efforts help someone else towards deciphering the code then it will have been worth it.

I hope that the web site at http://www.orffyreus.net/ is not too long and the evidence not too badly argued. I have found it quite difficult to explain without getting into too much detail and yet not omitting important points.

JC

Bessler's "Connectedness Principle".

A couple of weeks ago I received an email asking me what I understood by Besslers "connectedness principle". I answered to the best of my ability at the time, but I have had further thoughts about it which I thought I'd put down here.

In his Maschinen Tractate number 9, Bessler says:-

"Because experience shows us that the ball-driven wheels like those seen in the present figure and diagrams were of no avail, people speculated on another principle, namely on weights. To be sure in all the weight drawings that I have found, these weights appear simple and are not connected together with belts and chains, even in Leupold, but nothing can be accomplished with any device unless unless it responds due to my connectedness principle..."

In my original version I changed the phrase "connectedness principle", to something I thought was more accurate, but since then I have been persuaded that the above phrase is probably closer to the original intention.

So what did he mean? The word "connectedness" doesn't even appear in some dictionaries and is probably more akin to the literal translation of Bessler's language than an apposite English word.  It is a noun and is defined as "a relation between things or events http://www.thefreedictionary.com/connectedness - or a "state of being attached, ability to be connected". http://dictionary.babylon.com/connectedness/.

I don't feel that these get to the actual meaning intended by Bessler. For clarification I looked up some synonyms for 'connected' and found :- "linked, joined, united, coupled, associated, combined,engaged", and there are several more.

"Connectedness" conjures up the idea of things being joined together or united, but in my opinion it also suggests the amount or intensity of a connection which may vary in some way. The coupling of two objects may well be described as connected but their connectedness might be less than or equal to a theoretical maximum. How can we determine what was meant?

One could argue that two things are either connected or not, but it depends; it might be a loose connection in the same way that a nut might be loose on a bolt and therefore it can allow some movement in the connection - or the nut is tight and there is no movement; or it might describe a man on a length of elastic doing a bungee jump - he can stretch the connection and be pulled back to a degree; or a dog which is connected by its lead to its owner - he can pull the dog or prevent it running away but he cannot push with the lead because it's a made of a chain or a length of leather and therefore one might describe it as connected but the connectedness is not as complete as it could be with say a metal rod which is inflexible.

It may be a two-way connection but one way is rigid and the other is flexible. The connection may be, to a certain degree, more or less flexible than it could potentially be.

Bessler must have intended something other than a rigid connection otherwise there was no point in establishing the idea of a "connectedness principle". He implied that his wheel required his connectedness principle in order to function, therefore we might assume that the connection in question was not rigid and unyielding but that the two connected objects were capable of some movement which was independant from each other at some point. For instance if a weight fell and in doing so moved another weight, that would require some connection even if it was only a brief collision with the other, either by direct impact or by means of a rope or chain. Subsquently the fallen weight would have to return to its former position in order to fall again but would perhaps be able to do so without pulling the other weight with it.

Such a "connectedness principle" might also permit delay in certain movements of weights which would be advantageous in some designs.

I don't know what the answer is, but I thought I'd pass on my musings as food for thought. In the mean time I have a theory and I am testing it. I don't know if it will help but given the variety of possible connections outlined above it will probably take me some time to work my way through them. The only thing I do know is that in my design a connectedness principle as described above is a vital ingrediant.

JC

Curious Coincidence or Spurious Inference?

Following my blog entitled "Decoding Chapter 55 of Bessler's Apologia Poetica",in which I mentioned the large number of clues from Bessler which signified the number 55, it was mentioned that an interview I gave to "Infinite Energy" magazine way back 1998 was printed on page 55! At that time I knew nothing of the apparent importance to Bessler of that number. This was an interesting coincidence and added to the fact that the other person involved happened to look at that page on the same day that I posted my blog almost convinced me of some implied causality! I was discussing the matter with my wife and she pointed out that my birthday is on February 5th - another 5 and a 2. I then observed that 5 x 2 = 10 and added to my year of birth, 1945, added up to 55. It shows how easy it is to be lulled into seeing meaning in something which is perhaps mildly serendipitous - a nice coincidence, but nothing more.

The brain tends to identify patterns and sometimes it gets fooled. I remember after 911, the spate of seemingly meaningful number coincidences that related to that event that appeared on the internet. This feature of the way the brain works is useful but can lead one up a blind alley. Clouds sometimes form shapes which some people see as recognisable faces but there is probably more meaning in the patterns seen in the rorschach inkblot test. Nevertheless one cannot always ignore them and Orffyreana are a ripe area for the appearance of such curious coincidences - or are they spurious inferences?

One well-known coincidence is the fact that Bessler included 141 bible references in "Apologia Poetica", in the section headed "Orffyrean Declaration of Faith". Apart from the fact that there are so many, on their own there is nothing to wonder at, however in his "Maschinen Tractate" (MT) he destroyed or hid some of its drawings at the time of his arrest and replaced others to make 141. The last one which I call "The Toys" drawing has five numbers appended to the bottom of it to bring the total to the desired 141. Why did he want to have 141? Are we to draw a connection between the two books? I don't know. Coincidence or design? And Why does MT47 have a ghostly mirror image of the number 47 attached to it, and does it matter that 47 goes into 141 just three times. Coincidence? Probably, but should we ignore it?

I have a reputation for seeing meaning in everything Bessler wrote or drew, and I know that some think my imagination is leading me astray, but in fact I do study each 'clue' with a highly critical eye. Sometimes if I am unsure about its validity, I publish details about it and hope to draw comment which might enable me to confirm it as a real clue or discard it completely. With regard to Chapter 55, I have found much of the route to deciphering the coded parts but there is some ambiguity about where to go next and that is why I intend to publish what I know.

JC

The Decoding of Chapter 55 of Johann Bessler's 'Apologia Poetica'.

Reconstructing Bessler's wheel is an important objective for me, but the mystery of Bessler's code fascinates me almost as much.

It has seemed obvious to me ever since I discovered the hidden pentagrams in the Merseberg wheel drawings and subsequently several others in other drawings by Bessler, and of course the proliferation of encoded 5s and 55s elsewhere in his publications, that there must be more to it than just my own theory that they indicated five mechanisms as a basic requirement for a successful gravitywheel - or seven or nine.

It is already obvious to many people that Bessler hid some encoded information in Apologia Poetica and I think that the key to deciphering it involves the number 5.  I'm not saying that I'm wrong about the five mechanisms, it's just that I think that once Bessler had discovered that his gravitywheel needed at least five mechanisms to work (and more as long as they were odd numbers) he decided to use the number five as part of his encoding method, as well. This is typical of Bessler, he seems to have delighted in designing each code to have two or more ways of deciphering it.

The repetition of the number five, almost exclusively within the Apologia Poetica, suggests that it is within this book that we should look for a secret message and Bessler hints at that exact thought. He says,in chapter 46, "Those who are keen to ask questions should ask them of this little book. My work will not be revealed prematurely." Chapter 55 is the final chapter of part one, (part two was added later to respond to unfair accusations by his enemies) so, given my firm conviction that there is an encoded message hidden in the book, and taking into account that Bessler is practically shouting out the number 55, chapter 55 seems like an excellent place to look.

It would be extremely useful to find someone with professional experience in codebreaking who would be willing to apply their professional skills in deciphering the code. I have made contact in the past with acclaimed experts in the field, men such David Khan, widely regarded as the world’s leading expert on the history of codes and cryptology, who although unable or unwilling to help did introduce me to an ex MI5 codebreaker, who was unfortunately too ill to help and who has subsequently passed away. I have also in the past been in contact with Cheltenham GCHQ in the hope that someone there might be of assistance. The woman I spoke to suggested that I post the problem to her and she would publish it internally. Unfortunately this particular piece of encoded material does not lend itself to brief publication on a noticeboard.

I have returned to the mystery of Chapter 55 many times and have accumulated a considerable amount of information about it and I plan to publish the details soon, which will, I hope, help those whose experience in the art of codebreaking is so much more profound and whose knowledge of the subject is infinitely broader than my own.

There are several mysteries attached to Chaper 55; the 141 bible references for a start; the fact that some of them don't actually exist; the fact that the rhyming couplets used throughout the 7000 (approximately) lines of the book are changed for just 220 lines in Chapter 55 (55 verses!); the apparently random switching from fraktur font to Latin font; the fact that five (yes its that ubiquitous number again!) references are duplicated; the weird spaces and omitted lines for no apparent reason. I haven't even mentioned the 684 'xs' that litter the end of many lines in the whole book. I could go on, but I won't. Let me just say that I have some of the answers and I shall post them in due course on one of my web sites in the near future and will notify all who might be interested as to where and when it will become available as soon as I can.

I would add it to www.theorffyresucode.com but that is so full of brief pieces about some of the codes that there is no room for any more, and I plan a more detailed article about Chapter 55 so I've decided that for the time being I shall probably add it to either http://www.orffyreus.org/ or http://www.orffyreus.net/.

JC

Das Triumphirende FOR SALE. But only until Midnight GMT 31st OCTOBER 2010

It seemed like a good idea to leave the period that the book was availabe for sale, with an unlimited cutoff date to allow as many people as possible to consider the idea of purchasing the book. So far I have received three firm offers and there are a couple more considering their options. Understandably there has been some concern over how long they would have to wait for their offers to be accepted or rejected, so I have decided to put a time limit on the sale. Anyone interested should make their offer known to me by the end of October, midnight GMT on 31st October 2010.

However, should a firm acceptable offer be made prior to this date, rather in the way that ebay sellers accept "buy now" offers I would be prepared accept it but would only be fair to notify those others who have expressed an interest in purchasing the book,in case they wished to put in an improved offer.

I hope that this seems fair and reasonable.

JC

Das Triumphirende PERPETUUM MOBILE ORFFYREANUM 1719 FOR SALE.

In November 2001 I drove to Germany to see Kassel and the other places nearbye which featured so much in Bessler's life. In Furstenberg I saw Bessler's wndmill. In Karlshafen I visited Bessler's house and also the antiquarian bookshop which is close to where Bessler lived after leaving Kassel. There I found a copy of the famous Das Triumphirende Perpetuum Mobile Orffyreanum and I was unable to resist the temptation to buy it.

Back in my hotel room I examined the book carefully and found that it had two portraits inside the front cover; one of  Bessler himself and the other of an anonymous person. I say anonymous because Bessler had carefully cut out the face on the second portrait and aligned his portrait so carefully that his own face filled the cut out perfectly. The reason for doing this is difficult to determine but I presumed that it had to do with the different items included in each portrait.  Subsequently I learned that there are probably no more than three other copies in existence with this unusual feature.

There are one or two which may include the one portrait but the double one is rare, and this must add value to the book. Inside the front cover, just after the double portraits, my copy has a label attached which reads "Ex Libris Emmy Destinn".  She was a renowned Czech operatic soprano (26 February 1878 – 28 January 1930). Destinn was born Emílie Pavlína Venceslava Kittlová. She was very versatile and besides being a singer was a poet, novelist and playwright, though nothing she has done in other professions has rivalled her reputation as a singer. She performed in Paris, London and New York many times. She is buried in Prague. Why she owned a copy of Bessler's book I have no idea but her ownership of the book can only add to the provenance and thus its value. I hesitate to add that my own part in its history can scarcely lower its intrinsic value.

The time has come for me to let it go - albeit with extreme reluctance. The book has been treated with care and has been handled by very few people other than myself, it is however a delicate object and should be kept in optimum conditions, something I am unable to guarantee. With this in mind I am offering it for sale to the highest bidder, and there is no particular time limit on the availability of this sale.

Bearing in mind the approaching 300th anniversary of the 6th June 1712 when Bessler first exhibited his wheel, and the current sale of the windmill he was building and from which he fell to his death, there is likely to be some public interest in the inventor at that time and it is not beyond the realms of possibility that someone may finally succeed in reconstructing Bessler's wheel. Given the convergence of these factors at this moment, the timing could not be better for a dramatic increase in the value of this book and is one of the reasons why I am still loath to put it up for sale.

I am tempted to set a price but I won't, preferring to receive offers and give all due consideration to each. I will say just this; very recently I was in negotiations on behalf of another person who wished to purchase the only other copy currently available. This copy lacked the portraits but a price of £3000 was agreed before the seller withdrew from the sale, preferring to hold onto his copy for a few more years, mainly because he didn't wish to part with it and I guess also in the hope of making a substantial profit on his investment.

I have placed further information at http://www.orffyreus.net/ , so if anyone is interested in obtaining this book or just to ask questions about it please let me know by email or through the BW forum

JC

Wheel update and an awsome trebuchet.

Well I'm still moving stuff out and getting rid of accumulated trash from thirty years! Still unable to work on my new wheel, but as soon as I can I'll be back!  Since I have little to report about my wheel work, I thought I'd go off at a bit of a tangent here.

I'm almost ashamed to admit that I've lived here, near Warwick, for over 30 years and yet until this week I had never visited one of the finest castles in England - Warwick castle - and it's just two and half miles from my house. Begun almost a thousand years ago, it's an amazing place and well worth the visit. But for me the best thing is, they have this huge medieval trebuchet that has to be seen to be believed.

It's not the biggest one around, but its still impressive.  It weighs in at 22 tons, measures 20 feet in height if you include the throwing arm and can hurl a missile 75 feet high and a thousand feet distant. It takes a small team of 4 or 5 guys walking in a giant hamster wheel at least 15 minutes just to wind up the massive block of sandstone which supplies the power. To be close by when it fires is awsome! This particular one - and they have others - was designed and built by Dr Peter Vemming from The Mediaeval Centre in Nykobing, Denmark, using notes and drawings from the 13th century, so it seems to be pretty authentic. I think that if they could design and build such a truly inspiring machine more than seven hundred years ago, they certainly had the know-how and the ability to built a puny gravitywheel without any problem. But of course they didn't know how! And neither do we ....yet!

There are other equally robust machines at the castle, and you can tell just by looking at them that they can unleash some fearsome energy and are just waiting for the chance!  This one I haven't seen fired yet but it just looks cool.  I'm sure that the builders of these amazing machines would have been able to build a giant gravitywheel had they known how and I can imagine something with say a twenty foot diameter being turned by heavy stone balls, able to pump thousands of gallons of water, or even raise the twenty ton rock in the trebuchet.

Anyway I shall give some updates here as soon as I have begun work on my wheel - and as always, confidence remains high.  I am still utterly convinced that 'kiiking' holds the solution, although I'm aware that most people think I'm way off target.  In the end only the proof of principle demonstrated in a working model will convince the world.

Mean while I shall keep the image of the trebuchet in mind to both inspire me and remind me what people could accomplish seven hundred years ago, here on this tired old island.

JC

Update on the wheel and some corrections to the translations.

I have had to stop working on my Bessler wheel for the last couple of weeks because my workshop has become so cluttered with old wheels and used parts, and pieces of wood and metal and nuts and bolts and washers......etc. I decided to have a clear out of all the bits and pieces I didn't want to keep - other than for nostalgic reasons - because we are having to move some items out of their usual place to leave room for some repairs to other parts of the house. So I had to make room, for a fridge/freezer, tumbledrier and a range of cupboards. This meant taking out one of my two work benches and some serious rearranging of the place. It's almost done and then I can get back to work on the wheel.

The nostalgic items include some apparatus made to demonstrate my ideas in a lecture I gave a few years ago. They included a twelve foot wheel which I had designed to be easily disassembled but with which I hoped to demonstrate just how big Bessler's twelve foot wheel was when you stood next to it. It was just a skeletal assembly which you could rotate with a simple push but it was never intended to be a self-moving one. Another item was a simple vertical windmill shaft on which I had placed two Savonius windmills. A strong fan was placed so that the wind would turn the Savonius windmills. This was to demonstrate the idea that when disconneced from each other they rotated in opposite directions but when linked they did not move unless given a small push. This push allowed them to turn together in the same direction at half the disconnected speed in either direction as required by the pusher. There were also a number of old wheel backs that were so full of holes that they were of no use to me any more.  I held on to these items for too long but anyway they've have gone now so I have plenty of room!

I had decided to begin correcting some of the translation errors in my publications, which had been identified by Stewart on the besslerwheel forum over the last few years. It was suggested that because I had not kept the books updated by correcting the text whenever an improvement in the translation was published on the forum that I was causing a certain amount of confusion, and I have received some criticism for my lack of interest in updating the books. I finally agreed that perhaps I should begin the task of making these corrections. However I realised very quickly that it was not as simple as it sounded and when I learned that Stewart planned to publish his own translations in the future there seemed little point in making alterations that would be superceded later by improved translations and I could see that I might be infringing his own copyright by using his words. I was unsure how much of his corrections I could use - did I use only short one or two word corrections for instance and ignore longer passages? Anyway I have decided not to issue revised books but may include an errata sheet. I published the books as translated by my own translater who I commissioned to do the job and I was more than satisfied with his work at the time.  And how would he feel on seeing my 'corrections' to his work?  In my opinion the differences in translation are minimal to understanding Bessler.

In addition to this I am busy with my revised biography of Bessler. Acknowledging the various works quoted is a time consuming task on its own and I am still awaiting information on some original documents which have been undergoing treatment for mould. It has been a long time in the writing but it is nearing completion and might even be available for the 300th anniversary if I don't get distracted from it too often.

JC