Bessler’s Use of the Orffyreus Codes.

I will begin to post Bessler’s clues and my interpretation of them, in my weekly blogs.  As each new blog appears, I will copy and post my previous one in the ‘pages’ which can be accessed at the top of the panel on the right side of the blog. This will provide easy access to each blog-page and none of the ‘pages‘ will have comments, although the blogs themselves will still allow comments, which will save time for anyone who wishes to read the earlier blogs. I’ll add a copyright notice to each of the ones in ‘pages’.

What follows is my take on why Johann Bessler decided to embed numerous clues in his publications, even though no one was supposed to decipher them before the inventor had received payment for his device

When Bessler set out to discover how to design and build a Perpetual Motion (PM) machine, he had read that such a device would be ‘worth a ton of gold’.  But during the long years of research he  also spent time in considering how to actually obtain a large amount of money for the secret of his machine, should he be successful - sound familiar?

His first and over-riding concern was to keep the secret of his wheel’s construction secure, until he had won his ‘ton of gold’.  Once he had constructed his working wheel he approached a number of wealthy persons of high repute, but he would not share his secret for fear of being cheated, which fact prevented him from obtaining documented verification of his claim. Eventually, as we know, he submitted to the demands of Karl, the Landgrave of Hesse and permitted him access to the interior of the wheel, upon the swearing of an oath. Karl verified the machine and Bessler’s claim.

I believe that for many months both before and after his first successful wheel, Bessler planned a publication extolling the virtues of his machine and later a more impressive account of his journey to success.  This was designed to provide a printed back up of his machine’s design which he could call upon as evidence of the priority of his claim, should the need arise, but he embedded the information within a number of clues.

I think he had already decided on placing coded information about the wheel in his books, long before he decided to allow Karl to see how his wheel worked. This would explain why he put so much time and effort into developing and inserting his coded information, even though he had had his claim validated by the highest authority - before Karl verified his claim, his only guarantee that he could prove his priority lay within the coded information.  He seems to have considered the possibility that he might never sell his machine and thus die without ever receiving acknowledgement for his achievement, so it had an additional purpose although not one he would have expected to happen.

He had become familiar with codes during his time in Prague, and had learned much about several different ciphers.  If he needed to pique someone’s interest about the codes in case of illness, death, imprisonment or some other incapacitating event,  he devised a straightforward clue to initiate the curiosity of a knowledgeable person with the right credentials who would wish to dig deeper, and so he adopted the pseudonym, Orffyreus.

This he created from his name, Bessler, using a well-known mono-alphabetic substitution cipher called atbash,  originally used to encrypt the Hebrew alphabet.  The Caesar shift cipher was similar as is the modern algorithm known as ROT13.  The pseudonym was further refined by the addition of two extra forenames, Johann Ernst, in addition to his given name, Elias.  To the curious eye with some knowledge of the atbash cipher, the three initial letters of his forenames, J.E.E., might spark the idea that here was another cipher but this time it was an alphanumeric one.

Initially one can see that E is the fifth letter and J the tenth. I’m aware of the argument that in Bessler’s day the German alphabet consisted of 24 letters rather than 26, but in our case it doesn't affect the findings of the atbash cipher. JEE becomes WRR, using atbash, which does not seem useful, however we know of another cipher in which letters can represent Roman numerals. The letter W if seen as two ‘V’s, can also represent 5 and 5.  But R is either the seventeenth or eighteenth letter of the alphabet, which doesn’t matter because Bessler decided that the atbash equivalent of E was R, which makes R the 18th letter, so he used the 26 letter alphabet.  The reason for this, as we shall discover is that all these numbers are key angles within the pentagram, and 18 is the base number, but more of that later.  The letter ‘R’ also has another role to play, hence it’s inclusion in the Bessler’s logo as seen above.

So Bessler showed his knowledge of several ciphers and implied that he would be using each of them, plus some others which have not yet been deciphered, in his publications.

Bessler created numerous chronograms which were popular at the time.  One chose certain meaningful quotations from the bible, which contained suitable letters within the text that could be read as Roman numerals.  These when added together gave a relevant date. They were often written above the entrance to a building, to provide an establishment date. This technique was also used by the inventor.

Description

The presence of ciphers was meant to inspire someone to search and find and then decipher each clue. But they could not be made too simple in case someone deciphered them too soon, before the inventor got his money. I have no documentary evidence of this but it was said that Bessler requested and was granted permission for a family vault to be built in his garden at Bad Karlshafen. It seems reasonable to assume that this vault might provide pointers to the hidden information and offer some additional help in deciphering them, to aid those who came after his death, looking for clues about his machine. Unfortunately his vault has never been found. But fear not for I have identified enough clues and deciphered enough of them to reconstruct Bessler’s wheel!

I have posted pointers over the years to the places I looked and found and deciphered clues, and I’ll discuss the specific clues which led me to the solution, with illustrations in the future blogs and this will hopefully spur me on finish my construction, which I have to do in order to prove two things; firstly that this wheel is of the same design as a Bessler’s and secondly the clues I’ve found and my interpretation of them is correct.  As I’ve said before, if the wheel fails, I will continue to post my clues because I believe they are correct.

On that point, I have often said that the mechanism is complex and difficult to build, but on the other hand Karl said it was so simple a carpenter's apprentice could build one if he was given time to study it.  It is difficult to build, at least for me.  If you can see a finished product with all parts in their correct place and all the measurements accessible to you, then yes it could be accomplished more easily.  But working from a huge variety of clues which take time to interpret and then you have to build with a certain amount of trial and error, it is not easy.  The concept is easy to understand and perhaps this was the initial action that Bessler found which encouraged him to keep going.  But getting that action without other actions cancelling out any advantage is a little more difficult.  So even when you think you know the secret you’re only half way there.

Please note that there are no suggestions of links with Rosicrucians, FreeMasons, Numerology, Hermeticism,  Kabbalah, or any other cults, religious factions or other weirdness, they are not required to solve the clues.

‘til next time then.

JC

After a PoP Demonstration, Peer Review and Acceptance.

I think that when Bessler’s wheel actually works and is developed into what ever is proven to be its best evolution, it will confirm the opinion of many of us, that it will herald the future of a world with greatly reduced pollution; very cheap electrical supply; all-electric cars, trains, electric boats and ships.  Not sure if electric aircraft would benefit, but I understand there are some efforts being made in that direction.

Conversely, the cessation or severe reduction of the manufacture of all fossil fuel burning vehicles, boats, aircraft and generators etc, may eventually happen, and not necessarily because of Bessler’s wheel, but because pollution, global warming, rising sea levels - not to mention the increasing cost of pumping oil - demands it. But what a welcoming opportunity for the entrance on to the world stage for Bessler’s wheel.

I know that many here doubt the effectiveness of Bessler’s wheel as an electricity generator, but it seems to me that, in the simplest terms, a rotating device, powered only by the effect of gravity on weights, which can rotate another connected device, no matter how weakly, is capable of being scaled upwards to the point where it can be an effective replacement for all electricity generators. It may appear large or cumbersome, but compared to the many solar panels covering much of the roofs of houses in the U.K. it will seem invisible and far more effective!   But I do not believe it will prove to be as weak as most people predict.

What about all the alternatives means of producing electricity presently in use if the above scenario should happen?  Windmills, tidal generators and nuclear energy, can all be proscribed.  But there are others that I think may still have an important role to play.  Hydroelectric energy, geothermal energy and solar power seem likely to have long term use, but all of the above will benefit from the ongoing development of cheaper and more effective batteries or other electrical storage devices in which to store excess power, or as a backup utility.  Biomass is regarded as renewable energy but still produces CO2 when burned, but there are other ways of extracting energy from it, some of which can be directly converted into electrical energy via electrochemical oxidation reduction reaction (redox).

But above all these, in my opinion, Bessler’s wheel triumphs for its simplicity, cleanliness,  low cost, low technology and therefore reliability.

JC

Johann Bessler - Misunderstood, Reviled, but a Genius.

The search for the answer to a perpetual motion machine has been going on for hundreds of years if not thousands, and yet we seem to be no nearer a solution now then anyone else has been, apart from Johann Bessler’s machine.  How come he succeeded when no one else, as far as we know, even got near?

According to the man himself, he had two things things in his favour; firstly his extensive practical knowledge in the various trades commonly practised in his day; and secondly his freedom to work on the project all day, every day for as long as it took.

While I accept his expertise and probably his skillset in numerous trades was far in advance of the majority of people today, I’m not sure that that would give him much of an advantage over today’s wealth of information garnered from the internet. But there was one advantage he had over the rest of us and that was that each trade he learned required a hands-on approach, there was no way of learning from books or in a classroom, and I believe this gave him a unique practical knowledge not available to anyone else.  He claimed expertise in each trade but I doubt that each of his mentors would have assessed his work as exemplary, although it could have been adequate, and he could have made good use of the knowledge gained.

Clearly Bessler had a quick and clear understanding of each of the crafts he learned and this stood him in good stead. But to return to the  second advantage he claimed, that of being able to work exclusively on his project, he wasn’t married then so he only had to feed and house himself, but he had to acquire raw materials with which to build his mechanisms, which he would have to pay for, just as we do today. He still had to find ways to earn enough for all his needs and  he had a reputation for having good medical knowledge, another skill he learned during his wandering years, and which  he was called upon occasionally to practice, thus earning himself some income. He also claimed to be able to repair watches, probably mainly pocket and fob watches. With his experience in many areas of life, he had the means to earn enough for his purposes.

So when it comes down to it, his chief advantage seems to have been his experience in physically working in these trades.  But later he decided to adopt the trade of organ maker, learning from his younger brother, Gottfried.  This was a complicated and quite technical device but it used numerous items which Bessler found useful and adapted for his wheel. He did build some organs but it was only  as a means to an end, and gave him knowledge not necessarily accessible elsewhere.

By reading the above you might think I have trivialised his skills as nothing more than those of a journeyman, but far from it.  I believe he had a huge breadth of knowledge specific to his needs and the skills to apply them, but above all he had the intellectual ability to work out how to design and build a working model of his wheel.  Following numerous trial and error experiments he gradually found his way to the correct mechanical arrangement.

His interests were not limited by his desire to build a perpetual motion machine.  As we all know he died while constructing a windmill, but as was typical of Bessler he introduced the idea of a windmill with a vertical axle, allowing it to take advantage of the wind from any direction.  He designed a carillon and wrote the music for it.  He devised a submarine which could be moored under water with an air supply from one of his gravity wheels.  He offered to design and build a leather tanning factory.   He offered to build a fountain driven by his gravity wheel for “the amusement of gentlefolk”.  There is so much more but these examples demonstrate the breadth and depth of his knowledge.

And when you see the true ingenuity of his coding system you will have no doubt that this man was no simple peasant but a misunderstood genius

PS - Don’t forget my granddaughter Amy needs your help, if you feel like donating to her crowdfunding site, your kindness will be gratefully received.  My thanks go out to those generous people who have already donated.  She is improving and our most fervent wish is that she can walk out of the clinic under her own steam, so-to-speak, hopefully before the end of this year.

Look at this 
https://www.tiktok.com/@amyepohl/video/6825374007550905605?fbclid=IwAR1a79JP3xBtduq2RZbPP7dql-NvI_uqJ6_nA6Dx7iNE_5am9K44CqvlKks

And this https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-our-amy-to-walk-again

JC

Is there a Guiding Hand? REPOSTED from 17th May 2020

I thought this old post worth posting again because it received so many interesting comments

Looking at the bigger picture one could almost conclude that a guiding hand might be taking a role in the human activities on this planet.  I’m not religious, not even slightly, but sometimes I think I can detect some kind of action which could be seen to be helping or guiding us when we err too much?  It’s not so much a caring guide, more a pragmatic one.

Let us begin with Johann Bessler, who made no secret of his strong faith.  I have always believed that he invented his machine about 300 years too early.  He produced his perpetual motion machine at the very beginning of the steam age and the competition was too great for him to flourish and he died an unhappy and disrespected man.  The age of the petrol engine followed the steam age and each ran in parallel with the development of the electric motor.  The steam engine was the biggest polluter of the planet since humans first emerged,  but it wasn’t so effective as the petrol engine, which developed from nothing to what we see today in about 130 years.  The steam engine took about 300 years to reach the same level of efficiency.  Yet despite the much quicker development time the petrol engine has caused more pollution than the steam engine did and over a much shorter time.

But without these engines and their subsequent development we would not have been able to take  full advantage of the power of electricity and all the extraordinary things we can use it for. So we could assume that without the steam and petrol engines, we could not have reached this point in the evolution of electricity generation.  Therefore I conclude that Bessler’s wheel was born too early, but given the strength of scepticism which surrounds any discussion about Bessler’s wheel these days and his claims for it, perhaps a device like his simply could not be invented today.  So he had to do it then and leave us the strong evidence that he succeeded in building something which is  still thoroughly rejected by the mainstream.  But which I’m certain will be replicated this year, because he left sufficient clues for a reconstruction of his wheel.

But I had already perceived the faint glimmering of a ghostly guiding hand after I became fully aware of the pollution spreading across the face of planet earth, causing global warming. There have been increasing calls for a reduction in greenhouse gases and they become ever more strident.  As the  level of pollution rises amid the increasing concerns about the oil industry, demands for investment in new ways of generating electricity become ever louder, but the results so far have been dismal, ineffective, costly and still result ultimately in more pollution.

It is self-evident that the ocean levels are rising due to the global warming.  Ice sheets and glaciers are melting. The demands for action has become desperate.  Reduction in the output of pollution-creating industries is planned but it is still too slow and still not treated as urgent.  Worldwide public demonstrations against the burning of all forms of fossil fuel are taking place.

But what can be done to mitigate the effects of pollution?  Some people are calling for the cessation of  all aircraft flights! Others demand that we stop driving our cars! Ban the burning of fossil fuels!

To achieve all that inter shortest possible time, there is only one thing that could solve the problem.....inflict a global pandemic on the entire human race. Isolate every member of every nation.  Lockdown everything!  Would this have the desired effect of reducing pollution at a stroke, bring global warming to a gradual to stop?   Certainly that would work, but for how long? Unbelievable and unpleasant as it undoubtedly is, to see it from this view point, you only have to look at the photographs of polluted cities before and after the lockdown to see the impressive reduction in pollution and the improvement in the air quality.  This won’t make the problem of pollution go away, but it is to be hoped that the onslaught of deaths due to the pandemic and the effect on the survivors, will galvanise those who have the power to do something, will take the necessary action required to maintain the advantages demonstrated by them.

Finally, finding the solution to  Bessler’s wheel and developing it into a machine that can  provide enough electricity to run any kind of home with clean free energy will go a long way towards resolving the continuation of the global warming crisis.

It almost seems as though every development, everything that has happened, has been leading to this point, are we being guided to adopt a new life style which can allow humans to continue to live and flourish on this planet - instead of drowning the estimated number of 250,000,000 people, who live on land expected to be submerged by rising sea levels, and which puts the predicted worst case current death rates due to Covid-19 at 250,000 to 300,000 deaths into perspective.  Fewer deaths to save humanity?

Is it coincidence or has someone or something intervened to steer us in the right direction?  Are they  addressing a problem in a purely pragmatic way, considering that the end justifies the means?  My problem is that as an agnostic I believe that it is impossible to know of such a being, but some people might, however, suspect it’s presence by its actions.  Thinking along such lines would require the dismissal of coincidence, which might seems an unlikely option considering how powerfully accurate the timing has had to be, to deal with the consequences of pollution.  Or is this just a natural process which offers solutions and potential opportunities for humanity to grab hold of and use to its advantage?  I think the latter is more likely, but there are some who can see the hand of God.

JC

www.mikeyned.com/ and B.O.R.G.

As per a recent request I have added the draft copy of the B.O.R.G. Constitution to pages in the right panel.  It does not make very interesting reading but I’ll leave it there for a few days.

JC

I have occasionally mentioned my past membership of a small group of researchers who got together on-line to try to brainstorm a solution to Bessler’s wheel.  This was way back in 1999, it was called B.O.R.G. which stood Bessler Orffyreus Research Group, (we were aware of the other Borgs from Star Trek, no relation!). After a few months we returned to our solitary research, but one member comments from time to time on BW forum plus myself of course, and another is mikeyned, with whom I correspond from time to time. His web site is at www.mikeyned.com  I’ve lost touch with the other two who were involved but I think they moved away from this field of research.

I mention Mikey’s web site because it contains some interesting research into Bessler’s books and drawings and I think it’s well worth a visit to see what he has written. I’m always looking for a new angle on attracting newcomers to this field of research, or hoping that new information will spark a new idea, so take a look at Mikeyned’s web site, it could lead ultimately  to a solution.

The idea of trying to brain storm a solution seemed potentially a good one, but so many ideas and divers reactions led to complex interactions with few designs actually attracting more than a short amount of discussion and study before being dismissed.  I know that sometimes it has been suggested on the BW forum that members should work together to achieve our aim, but I know from my own experience most people have their own ideas and are not so receptive to alternative ones.

I think the way things are working is probably as good as it can be.  Some BW forum members are sharing their designs, some others responding to them, others keeping to their own ideas and continuing to work on their own.  This blog, while it attracts plenty of comments has been visited by  many who pause to read and the move on without commenting, 1448158, since it began, but recently it has attracted a lot more, over 11000 visitors this month!  Of course it could be down to Covid-19! I think that the news about Bessler is spreading at last and I hope this will increase the chances of a breakthrough.

Be assured that when a successful design is achieved it will be shared everywhere, and I’m not just talking about mine! I simply can’t see how anyone who has proof and the evidence of a working Bessler wheel could possibly keep it to himself, or even want to, after so many years of attempting to solve this puzzle.

Good luck to all of you, as I’ve said several times, I would rather anyone found the answer, than no one.

BTW, don’t forget to watch my amazing video at   My video about Bessler’s Codes

JC

Just an update about my gorgeous granddaughter Amy who is now more than 200 miles away instead of 100.  She was moved out of STEPS clinic to make way for Covid-19 patients.  She was making good progress but I’m sure she will adapt to the new place.  She says they talk a different language up there and have different names for things but she is determined to keep improving.  None of her family can visit due to the Covid-19 virus, which we were prepared to do, even planning to stay the night before the lockdown began.

When she first arrived at STEPS she was fed through a tube in her nose, and suffered other indignities which are too unpleasant to mention.  She could not sit up without support, neither could she hold her head up or move it unaided.  She had no feeling in her legs and was unable to stand.  She suffered intense pain in her left arm and hand.  Her left hand and wrist had contorted to such an extent she will have to have surgery eventually to try to get some use out of it.

Yet now she is able to eat normally, the powerful opiates she used to have are no longer needed, the pain in her left arm has almost gone, she can hold and move her head herself, she can sit up unaided, she can manually operate her wheel chair by using both hands although one is still bent double. She is learning to stand up with help.  All this has taken a year of intense physiotherapy, I just hope this new place can maintain her progress.

One last reminder - two years ago she was a much loved primary school teacher.  She had danced as an amateur at the local dance school all her life.  All these recent  problems came about when she suffered an episode of adult croup or whooping cough, possibly caught from one of her pupils, and was sent to hospital.  For reasons which are unclear it was difficult to insert a cannula and after they had managed to attach it, it subsequently became infected.  The rest followed, Amy’s health moved steadily downhill to the point when she arrived at STEPS, but now the only way is up.  A massive thank you to all who have donated, we hope to reach our target of £40,000 in the next few weeks.

www.helpamy.co.uk

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-our-amy-to-walk-again

JC

Maschinen Tractate 137, and Some Important Numbers?

The subject of this blog might seem a bit unusual but perhaps it might spark some new ideas?

Some of you may be aware of the work I've published on www.theorffyreuscode.com  Three of the pages refer to the dodecagram on MT 137, which precedes the 'Toys' page, MT 138. 139. 140 and 141. I wrote that Johann David Heinichen, 1683-1729, a German musician, introduced the concept known as the ‘circles of fifths’ in 1711 (he called it Quintenzirkel). I suggested that MT 137 being similar to his quintenzirkel was designed to point to the circle of fifths, thus being another pointer to the number 5.

That has all been discussed before, here. This time my interest was directed to the MT number itself, written clearly on the bottom of the page - 137. I know Bessler was fascinated by the history and the relationship between numbers and letters and their hidden meanings and of course all the popular codes of the era, and it seemed to me that he had included the number quite deliberately, even if it was somewhat roughly executed. We know he had to add the Toys page in a hurry due to a possible impending arrest, and replaced the existing pages which gave the secret of the wheel. My guess is that he also added the MT 137 at the same time. As it had no mechanical resonance I think it was a deliberate inclusion along with in the Toys page.

MT 137, is the only illustration in the MT which doesn’t appear to show any mechanisms. One reason for this was, as I suggested above, to provide a hint towards the circle of fifths, but as Bessler usually included two or even three pieces of information in each of his clues I felt there could be something additional, that was invisible to me. A Google search of the number 137 for anything connected to his work produced the following information, but I’m still not sure if it’s relevant. Hopefully you will find it interesting, and in particular my final piece. Most of what follows is way over my head, but I include it because of the perceived importance of this number, both now and historically.

So, in the world of physics, it has been suggested that the number 137 could lie at the heart of a grand unified theory, relating theories of electromagnetism, quantum mechanics and gravity.

There is something called the ‘fine structure constant’, a physical constant with no dimension is approximately 1/137, and it’s reciprocal was said to be the integer 137, although later work suggested it was closer to 137.036.

Richard Feynman wrote the following about the number 137.

‘It has been a mystery ever since it was discovered more than fifty years ago, and Pauli famously quipped, “When I die my first question to the Devil will be: What is the meaning of the fine structure constant?” Unfortunately Pauli died without accomplishing his goal in the Red Cross Hospital of Zurich in Room 137—and he was aware of that synchronistic irony before he died. Theoretical physicists put this number up on their wall and worry about it. It’s one of the greatest damn mysteries of physics: a magic number that comes to us with no understanding by man. You might say the ‘hand of God’ wrote that number, and ‘we don’t know how He pushed his pencil.’

In the Hebrew Kabbalah, the word has a Gematria value of 137, symbolically, this word indicates the threshold between the physical dimension and the utterly spiritual dimension. In other words, at the boundary line of the physical world, the number 137 emerges. The wisdom of Kabbalah is to find correspondences between the mundane and spiritual levels of reality.

Here are some quotes from some web sites.

“In his Nobel lecture delivered in Stockholm on 13 December 1946, Pauli expressed his goal was to establish a theory “which will determine the value of the fine-structure constant and will thus explain the atomistic structure of electricity, which is such an essential quality of all atomic sources of electric fields actually occurring in nature."

Cosmologist Robert L. Oldershaw argues that “137 is the relationship of the strength of the unit electromagnetic interaction compared with the strength of the unit gravitational interaction. That sounds pretty fundamental to me.”’

‘In the Bohr atomic model, the innermost electron of a hypothetical atom with atomic number 137 would be orbiting just below the speed of light, and the next heaviest element would be impossible because its electron would have to exceed c. Atoms close to the theoretical limit of 137 are unstable and not found in the universe’.

https://www.secretsinplainsight.com/why

The following is skimmed and abbreviated from my forthcoming book, which will be published later this year.

I was intrigued by the possibility that the number 137 was recognised to have special properties in Bessler’s time. There are websites devoted to such things as the properties of the three main pyramids which allude to the number 137, plus the Kabbalah, numerology, Freemasons, etc.

But I discovered that Bessler was hinting at the relationship between 137 and the golden angle or the golden mean, well known to the ancient Egyptians and the Greeks who called it phi, after the Greek sculptor Phideas. Phi, the golden ratio, is equal to 1.618, plus an unending succession of numbers. Plato discussed the subject at length in his Timaeus and of course there are the Leonardo Fibonacci series of numbers, and the laws of nature also dependant on the gold mean!

In geometry, the golden angle is the smaller of the two angles created by dividing the circumference of a circle according to the golden ratio, thus creating two arcs so that the ratio of the length of the smaller arc to the length of the larger is the same as the ration of the larger arc to the full circumference of the circle.

This provides two radii with angles of two particular degrees. The golden angle is 137.508. I suspect that using the number 137 for his dodecagram seemed like a good idea to the inventor, but he couldn’t name it MT 137.5, that would be too obvious. Bessler used the golden ratio routinely in his drawings and it was more commonly integrated in works of art than it is today. A search for the subject on the BW forum throws up many links.

Why did he add this page? Much of the work I have done on finding and interpreting his coded work was useful, but not a first sight and it was hard to explain when out of context. 

Bessler’s clues, if solved in isolation, get the confirmation of their validity from solving other related clues. This clue of the number MT 137 is an example of this. I have found, subsequent to the investigation of this clue, confirmatory examples of at least two precisely executed angles of 137.5 within his drawings. The connections I pointed out in my orffyreuscode.com web site also a showed a heptagram within the dodecagram, which, as well as the pentagram, includes numerous examples of the golden mean or ratio.

But there is a further mystery - or am I becoming even more paranoid than before?

The Toys page is numbered at the bottom as 138, 139, 140, and 141, but why? The page is labelled with A, B, C, D and E, and these five letters were obviously on the page before he added his four handwritten numbers. So four page numbers for five labelled itemss? It has been suggested that the Toys page replaces four pages which were burnt or buried, but why did he need to remind himself by numbering the page in this way?  He could just dig up the ink blocks he buried when he needed them. Maybe he decide to add MT 137 at the last minute so he could use the number 137 with the do-decagram and add a pointer to the golden angle, there rather than on the Toys page? But if he then added the other four numbers to the Toys page why not end with 142 to cover the five items on the page, instead of number 141? Perhaps he needed to end with 141 and he had already used 137. He had a record of including more numbers than necessary to reach a significant total.

141 is the product of two prime numbers 3 and 47. Coincidentally (maybe) there are 141 bible references in chapter 55, within the 55 verses of his Apologia Poetica.  The number 47 brings to mind Eulclid's 47th proposition but which can exhibit the properties of the golden ratio with some additional extras.  It describes the 345 right triangle with its accompanying squares. That particular figure was adopted by the Freemasons a while ago, so perhaps he is demonstrating his knowledge of the craft. Apparently the Euclid’s 47th proposition is discussed in the Freemason 33rd degree, and a Masonic publication, Anderson’s “constitutions”, was published in 1723, it mentions that “ the greater Pythagoras provided the author of the 47th proposition of Euclid’s first book“

In 1723 Bessler was well established at Kassel, a centre of Freemasonry, and I’m sure he was familiar with the “Constitutions”.  The history and use of the 345 right angle is described in detail and a number of its additional features described which I was unaware of.  One of the angles produced in the additional features is 108 degrees which looks uninteresting but 360 divided by 108 equals 3.3333, the 33rd degree? 108 is the largest angle in the pentagram, all the angles in pentagram are multiples of 18, the smallest angle in the pentagram 18, 36, 54, 72, 90 and 108, so I’m sure that there is a golden ratio in there. The Kepler triangle also exhibits the golden ratio.

I prefer to think that although Bessler was using the language of Alchemy he was actually disguising mechanical processes. It makes more sense than him going off at a tangent and talking about things of a magical nature.

All comments welcome.

JC

The Search for the Secret of Perpetual Motion Continues.

The search for the solution to perpetual motion has occupied the mind of man since the earliest times. Two questions; why has it been such a magnet for us?  Why hasn’t anyone produced a working model? Johann Bessler said it was because no one had ever been able to devote as much time, every day, to searching for the solution as he had.  He also said that he had acquired more experience in different trades than anyone else, before or since which gave him a unique advantage.  Both the claims ring true, because we all have to work to earn money these days and time is therefore restricted, and I doubt if there are many people actively researching this subject who have as much ‘hands-on’ experience as Bessler had.

That is the answer to the second question, but why have we spent what must amount to trillions of hours over the centuries, looking for this pot of gold?  Leaving aside answers to do with the more mundane pursuits such as irrigation, grinding flour and corn, draining mines etc, there seems to be something at the back of our minds that informs us that such a device, driven by or enabled by gravity, could turn continuously and do work and do something really clever. It’s something we all know instinctively.  Perhaps it’s in our DNA.

How do female pigeons know that they need to build a nest to lay their eggs in?  How do male pigeons know that they must supply hundreds of twigs for the female to construct a nest?  We are told it’s instinct, but instinct is defined as an ‘innate, typically fixed pattern of behaviour in animals in response to certain stimuli’.  Wikipedia says instinct is genetically hard-wired behaviour that enhance our ability to cope with vital environmental contingencies, so it is in their DNA. Our innate fear of snakes is an example.  A fear of snakes is understandable, but what stimulus made the male pigeons gather twigs for their lady friends?

So if it’s in our genes, but who or what put it there? Experience and survival of the fittest would account for the fear of snakes, I suppose, but why do so many people instinctively ‘know’ that Bessler’s wheel was genuine and knew it hundreds of years before he was born that such a device was possible?

Despite being told, taught, informed, harangued that it is impossible, a very significant part of the population believe it might be possible, but unfortunately the majority of those accept the word of the experts and either dismiss the idea or give up too soon.  It is down to we optimistic researchers who, ever hopeful, persist in  seeing the glass half full instead of half empty.

We are irrepressibly optimistic, overconfident and always have an alternative design we have to try. My own optimism often gets the better of me, but I still think it is a trait that we need to maintain and nurture. 

I’m sure we have each endured the scornful reaction that many people have to our belief in Bessler and we have learned to keep quiet and not discuss it with anyone outside our circle. But when the secret is revealed and has become accepted, maybe some of those who dismissed us as nuts, loonies etc, will revise their opinions of us and congratulate us on our amazing and perceptive thinking and determination.

JC

Update April 2020

I have received a little criticism from time to time, about my apparent inability to produce a working Bessler wheel, plus my book describing the details of the decoded clues with a full set of explanatory diagrams and a video of the wheel.   It’s true that I haven’t produced any of the above, but I’m not going to share my deciphered clues before I’m ready.  The wheel will be ready when it’s finished as will the book. 

I have been so excited about the many clues I’ve solved so far, that I have been tempted, many times, to begin posting them on my blog, but my other half has a wise head and she tells me to be patient, don’t give anything away until it’s all finished and ready.  She said I’d only regret it if I began to share things now and I’d come to wish I hadn’t, later.

My work on the wheel is progressing slowly and I’m also completing the book, at the same time, and I keep going back to improve what I’ve written or drawn already.  The garage is warm enough now so in between working on the book, I’m in there every day, working on the wheel.  One of the reasons for the snail-like progress is the other commitments which engage my time.  I cannot, neither do I wish, to relinquish any of them, but I’m doing my best to cover all exigencies.  I don’t regret the delay in what should be a relatively quick project, but I do offer my humble apologies for keeping everyone waiting, (those of you who haven’t given up on me!)

I have been accused of the same things that I accused Behrendt of,  imagining clues and finding clues which don’t exist.  Fair enough, I have said many times that I know the secret and that I’m going to share all my discoveries, and yet nothing has been published yet.  But it will all be in the public domain as soon as I can arrange it.  However frustrating it may be for you, I can assure you it is just  as bad for me.  I’m brimming with excitement to reveal all,  but I know there is a risk that it will be ignored or dismissed unless I can show a working Bessler’s wheel at the same time, along with a video and a sim.  That will be the proof I need to publish and anything short of that makes a successful outcome less positive.

My personal opinion is that as soon as anyone sees the design, they will ‘get it’ and become convinced that it’s correct, even without a working wheel or a sim, but having seen the reactions to other ‘proofs’, I just want to make sure that my work is accepted as quickly as possible and people around the world seize the initiative and develop a fully functioning electricity generator along with other utilities that may become evident in time.  That requires the evidence of a proof of principle wheel.

Finally, I remain convinced that a patent is completely unnecessary and will have the effect of slowing the development of a practical gravity-enabled wheel.

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Finally, finally! Many of you may recall that my granddaughter Amy, is suffering from PTSD and FND and has a crowdfunding page at  www.helpamy.co.uk

I thought I’d add a picture of the two of us to show how lovely she is....

She is a primary school teacher, a keen amateur dancer, and full of energy.  Since the onset of these diseases she had lost the ability to walk, sit up, hold her head up and had to be fed through a tube in her nose.  Thanks to STEPS rehab clinic she has recovered control of her head, she can sit up, eat normally and some of the side effects of these illnesses have significantly diminished.

Unfortunately, STEPS has been persuaded to take a number of corona-19 virus patients and all the non-urgent cases have been shipped out to other clinics.  Amy has ended up 200 miles away from home instead of 100 miles, but none of us can visit anyway because of the lockdown.  Amy is still making progress and has got some limited control in her legs and has made an attempt to stand, which was halfway successful.

Our major concern is what happens next and any donation to her crowdfunding site would still be gratefully received, and can I say a big thank you to the kind people who have already donated.

JC

Bessler’s Wheel vs Water Wheel.

This is somewhat speculative, but an argument against the oft-stated opinion that Bessler’s wheel will  have little real power.

There have been several attempts to estimate the potential power in Bessler’s wheel, but given the paucity of information about the internal workings, we are limited to using the dimensions, speed and a single estimate of the relative mass of one weight.  Even the size of the chest of stones proves little, as we don’t know the limit that could be lifted.  There is another approach which might give some useful idea of the inherent potential in Bessler’s wheel.

There is a restaurant about a mile from here which straddles the river Avon,  called the Saxon mill, records indicate it was a working mill back in the twelfth century.  The first reference to a waterwheel goes back to 4000 BCE and there are the remains of several Roman water mills throughout England.  According to the Doomsday book in 1086 there were no less than 5624 water mills in England.

My idea was to compare the size and speed of the old water wheels used in the mills and also take a look at the current thinking (sorry, cheap pun!) about modern commercial and diy water mills and try to get assessments of power output from wheels of comparable size and speed to  the Merseburg wheel. I’m sure I don’t need to go into the different types of waterwheel, there is plenty about them on google.  There are several varieties each with their advantages. There is also much about efficiency of modern turbines, but that does not concern us just now.

Much of what follows is gleaned from reputable google websites.

Most of the Roman water wheels were vertical and measured between 5 and 10 feet in diameter, not too different from the size of the Merseburg wheel.  In 1764 the first water-powered cotton mill in the world was constructed in Lancashire.  Below is a picture of an early textile mill, from 1770.   Note the huge size of the wheel, and the gearing used.

The principle challenge of the waterwheel is the low rotational speed, which means that significant gearing up is required to match generator speeds.  The same has been suggested as the problem with Bessler’s wheel. However high power gear units are widely available and have improved the economics of modern waterwheel power schemes up to 50kW and more. A 35kW generator is enough to power everything in a home. Water wheels are cumbersome and far less efficient than hydro turbines but the reason for this discussion is to try to get an idea of the kW output of a Merseburg size wheel.

The Merseburg wheel was about eleven feet in diameter and one foot thick and turned at 40-50 rpm. But the old water wheels turned much more slowly, 7 to 10 rpm was common.  The Lacey wheel on the Isle of Man is the largest working water wheel in the world. It is 72.5 feet in diameter and six feet wide.  It turns at just 3 rpm.  It has an estimated 200 horsepower which is about 150 kW. So back to the Merseburg wheel.

The speed and volume of water and height of its fall affects the power output of a waterwheel, but most can work from minimal amounts of each.

Eleven feet by one foot, turning at 40 rpm. Circumference is say, 35 feet. The rim is moving at 1400 feet per minute or almost 16 mph.  16mph is a strong breeze and if you were cycling at 16mph, you would feel it quite strongly.  How much power might be available from the Merseburg wheel?  No idea, actually because for one we don’t know how heavy the weights were, nor how many there were, but there is one thing we do know - the speed of the rim, 16 mph, and more when it turned 50 rpm, nearly 20 mph.

It reminds me of the feeling I had when I read the maid’s account of how she helped turn the Kassel wheel, I couldn’t prove she was lying, but I knew she was, and it’s the same here, the Merseburg had plenty of power and rotated at far higher speeds than any waterwheel.  Add high gearing and you could drive an electricity generator.  Bessler said his wheel could be scaled up providing more power, obviously this must be true, it’s a common solution to limited output in many machines.

I know, this is not scientific or practical or objective, but sometimes subjective feelings are all you have.

One more thing; there has been so much talk about Bessler’s use of pulleys to increase the lifting power of the wheel.  I have suggested that the slower Kassel wheel was deliberately designed to provide a slower demonstration, obviating the need for pulleys.  In the Merseburg demonstration, with an rpm of 40 or 50, each lift would have been over quickly.  We don’t have the height of the lift but it was described as ‘several Klafter’, each of which was six feet.  Several Klafter could be up to about 50 feet,  although I suspect less, which would use 100 turns of the wheel, and last less than two minutes.  Including the pulleys, extended the length of the demonstration.

The demonstrations took some organising and were observed by several people at a time.  Removing weights, translating the wheel, replacing the weights, making sure that as many people as possible could view the lifting process through the windows, plus of course, Bessler’s own brand of showmanship, would take time.  A lift of less than two minutes might even be missed by some and would be received with less interest and requests for several repeats.  The use of pulleys would help the demonstration.

NB. This, in my opinion, justifies the design of the Kassel wheel, which had two requirements.  Firstly it was needed to run slower for the demonstration, and secondly it had to be able to accomplish the lengthy endurance test. Bessler would have been aware of any wear on the Merseburg wheel bearings and made adjustments to the design of the Kassel wheel to slow it’s rotational speed without reducing its power.  If this assumption is not right, how else do you explain the slower Kassel wheel?  Don’t forget that Bessler stated that he could make wheels large or small with varying power output.

In my opinion Bessler’s wheel will prove to have more than enough power to provide useful amounts of electricity.

JC