My new frictionless and wobble-free wheel

Recently I have managed to refrain from giving updates on my attempts to reconstruct Bessler's wheel because time keeps slipping by and my frequent estimates for completion slip away too. I was receiving a certain amount of flak, good-humoured I hope, but it made me think twice about making promises I might not be able to keep. However I have had a few emails requesting an occasional update so this is the situation at present.

The current prototype is still under construction and looks like it will be finished before the end of the year - in order to win my wager with Bill! I have built a new wheel stand for this model because the previous one looked so bad when compared with those I see posted from time to time and I anticipate posting pictures of this one, working or not. The bearing supporting the wheel has been improved with the addition of a bicycle front wheel bearing and there is very little friction to interfere with any spontaneous rotation that might occur - I wish!

I have argued repeatedly that friction should be the least of our worries because we wish to build a wheel which will do work, and therefore overcoming friction would be a breeze. But I have to admit that seeing the new backplate spinning easily and without the lateral wobble which seemed to be an intrinsic component of all my previous models, I'm now converted to relatively friction-free assemblies. The wobble I referred to had a tendency to throw my previous mechanisms into disarray, so it is all to the good that it has been eliminated. I remain confident that this design will work.

JC

Gravitywheels and bogywheels

The email address for this site uses the word bogywheel and it has been pointed out to me for the umpteenth time that this spelling is incorrect and it should be spelled bogey or bogie. Bogie wheels are used, typically under railway carriages and I think they are called wheel trucks in the USA. I was well aware of this fact and deliberately mispelled it because I intended it as an acronym for Bessler/Orffyreus GravitY Wheel, BOGY wheel for short.

This brings me to something that has bothered me for some time. I used the word 'gravitywheel' because the wheel is driven by gravity - alone. Everyone knows that I am firmly of the opinion that Bessler's wheel only required gravity to work - no other forces were necessary for its continuous rotation. This viewpoint is certainly not universally agreed with, even among those who support my contention that Bessler was genuine. To try to answer such criticism I have attemped to argue the point from time to time, for instance, via my web site at http://www.gravitywheel.com/ under the heading 'The Collins Conjecture'. My words have bounced off the skins of the vast majority with little effect and I have to admit that the arguments were probably too speculative, confusing and poorly worded and what we need is something that is simpler to understand.

I have argued that because gravity is a conservative force does not mean that it cannot be used as we desire and that wind and water flow are also conservative which we already use for energy. There is one major problem with likening gravity to the wind and flowing water; despite the fact that it can be argued that each force is conservative and therefore capable of being tapped directly for such purposes as generating electricity, both wind and water act directly on windmills and water wheels, respectively, while gravity wheels require the addition of weights. It seems to me that there must be a better way of comparing the three forces to obtain a deeper
understanding.

To compare the three forces under the same circumstances the following would have to apply. To drive a gravitywheel requires that moveable weights should act on the wheel to cause it to overbalance and turn, or alternatively, a succession of falling weights from some external source; for a windmill to be tested under the same strictures we should have to picture a test in which we released into the wind-flow a succession of objects, helium-filled balloons for example, each carrying a small weight, which were designed to hit the blades of the windmill causing it to turn. But we would need endless numbers of balloons striking the windmill on one side to keep it turning. The same test could be applied to water flow; there would have to be a succession of floating objects striking a submerged wheel in such a way that it too turned.

Under these circumstances, the wind would be driving the weights, not gravity. No one would seriously suggest that that was the way to turn a windmill and it is obvious that if you tied the balloons to the blades of the windmill that it would not turn in the wind just because of the pressure of the wind on the balloons. But that is what we are suggesting with a gravity wheel. To solve this problem We have to design a weight-driven wheel that reflects the interaction between the wind and the windmill blades.

JC

Two principles and Orffyreus or Bessler?

This has been an interesting week for me. I am still finding difficulty in allocating enough time to building Bessler's wheel according to my design. But during one of the brief moments when I managed to get to work on it I discovered that there are at least two completely different ways to achieve the same result i.e. a gravity driven wheel. My original design and the second method each use the same kind of mechanisms, but obviously configured slightly differently. The second method looks easier to build and once I've finished the first design I shall build another wheel according to the second method. This seems to back up Bessler's claim to have built wheels which worked on different principles. They are different but one leads to the other.

I have also had subjective confirmation that my design is right because of questions raised in http://www.besslerwheel.com/. In some of Bessler's more literary descriptions of his wheel the inventor makes use of metaphors to aid understanding and at the same time confuse. Two metaphorical descriptions had left me clueless as to the reason for their inclusion, but recent references to them brought them back to my mind and at last I understood them - and as I've said before, the understanding of these descriptive clues seems to come after the solution arrives which is a pain but also useful in confirming that you are going the right way. As I said this is a purely subjective experience and open to the accusation of self-delusionment!

Someone wrote to me expressing doubt that I should refer to the inventor as Bessler because he chose the pseudonym, Orffyreus. I have wavered from one view point to the other ever since I first began to write his biography , "Perpetual Motion; An Ancient Mystery Solved?" I decided on using the name Bessler rather than Orffyreus almost as casually as flicking a coin to make the decision, simply because I could not make my mind up which was better. I think he would approve of my use of his real name because I have written so extensively about the reasons for the name change that no-one could be in any doubt as to whom I am referring to, which ever name I use.

He adopted the name Orffyreus for a very good reason; he wished to make people question the name and seek the reason. This, in my opinion, he did to provide a pointer to the use of alphabetic substitution and alphanumeric codes - and we all now know the reason for that. It was his intention to provide encoded information about the design of his machine for posterity.

JC

Put the horse before the cart!

Bessler the crafty old fox, almost outwitted me again and then I remembered his advice in Maschinen Tractate - don't forget to put the horse before the cart! All the indications were there that I had it right, but I couldn't for the life of me understand why the weight wanted to move in the direction it seemed to be determined to move in! Then I noticed one of Bessler's little pet mistakes - not really mistakes at all but rather clues as to how the thing should be put together. Not that I hadn't seen the error previously - I once made a long list for my own amusement of all his apparent mistakes and came to the conclusion that every single one was deliberate - but I just couldn't come up with a convincing explanation for this one before today. As is always the case with Bessler's clues, when you see it you realise how simple they are, and wonder why you didn't see it before.

So. I wasn't going to give any more commentary on how things are going with the build, but I was so pleased with this discovery, I just had to share my glee with you. Well it's back to the work shop again.

There are a set of clues that I haven't published yet but which are, in many ways, more informative than the ones I have discussed on http://www.theorffyreuscode.com/. As I suggested above, look for errors by the inventor. They turn out not to be errors at all but clues as to how the machine was constructed. The trouble is, it isn't clear what they mean until you happen on the right design and then afterwards when its too late, the meanings become clearer.

Then there is the 'Toys' page, a collection of drawings which show you various details about the mechanism. 'A' for example shows the mechanism before it has moved, notice the horizontal lever mounted in a slightly off set way.

'B' shows the same mechanism but a different part of it - after it has moved.

'C' and 'D' show two clues each, not difficult to grasp. Each mechanism has one weight up and one down, and each also has two sets of levers somewhat in the form that you see them on the page.

'E' connects those two parts of the mechanism, which is why it falls roughly between the two.

Too much already!

JC

Global Warming; both oil and time are running out.

In an address to members of the European parliament a while ago in Brussels, HRH Charles, Prince of Wales stated that "climate change presented such a threat that, uniquely in history, it will surely require the effort of every nation and every person to find and implement a solution before it is too late."

On an earlier occasion He said, "The evidence on climate change is both frightening and alarming. Doing nothing is simply not an option, it can't be any more, because of the urgency of the situation. This is not about saving the planet. Actually, it's about saving us. That is where each and every one of us has a responsibility to do what we can."

In July this year HRH said that if the world failed to heed His warnings then we all faced the "nightmare that for so many of us now looms on the horizon".

Others such as Al Gore and Gorden Brown have also commented similarly. Gordon Brown warned that there were only 50 days to save the planet from global warming - 50 days, that is, before more UN talks, Mr Brown said that countries were not making progress quickly enough to reach agreement and warned of the economic, human and ecological impact of a failure to cut the emissions.

Nearly four years ago former Vice President Al Gore said we only have 10 years left.

The consensus seems to be that not only is oil running out, but due to carbon emissions and global warming, also time.

HRH's reputation as a passionate environmentalist is unassailable, I must therefore ask why it is that a technology which has been known about for almost 300 years and through which many of his concerns can be assuaged is completely ignored, derided, and scorned. I know the answer of course and the fault lies not with HRH but with our scientists. The assumption that because gravity is a conservative force it cannot be used to drive machinery is inaccurate and can be proved wrong.

I refer to a machine once known as a perpetual motion machine, but latterly referred to as a gravity-converter. It was invented in 1712 by Johann Bessler, also known by the curious pseudonym, Orffyreus. The documentary evidence that it was genuine is compelling.

I also note with a certain amount of amusement that "in a bold move to lessen our dependence on traditional fuels and decrease carbon missions, Congress voted to repeal an old Republican ban on perpetual motion machines, clearing the way for the development of self-propelled water wheels, self-flowing flasks, float belts, zeromotors, and other environmentally-friendly industrial equipment." [courtesy of thepeoplescube.com]

How wonderful it would be if this single act were to open the flood gates of invention and lead to a kind of perpetual motion machine! But back to reality.

The implication of HRH's comments is that no stone should be left unturned in our search for a solution to global warming. If a potential source of free, clean energy can be identified then surely it behoves us to examine the claims put forth and develop such technology? To quote HRH's own words "That is where each and every one of us has a responsibility to do what we can." I have been doing "what I can" since I self-published a book about the machine in 1997. I have a number of web sites each offering additional information about the machine, but so far I have the attention of just one accredited scientist.

Surely the time is right for the resurrection of Bessler's wheel? He announced in 1712, yes that was almost 300 years ago, that he had invented a gravity-driven machine. It was examined by numerous people, amongst them, Gottfried Leibniz, and believed to be genuine. Unfortunately the inventor died without revealing the secret, and although the machine underwent twelve years of intense scrutiny it has been ignored, discarded and dismissed as a scam.

To me it seems quite extraordinary that, given the strong circumstantial evidence that the machine was genuine, no notice has been taken of it, other than by gifted amateur engineers and others around the world who also find the evidence absolutely convincing.

What use would such a device be? The obvious and most simple use would be to generate electricity for innumerable uses. How can such an invention be left unused and disregarded? Imagine how dramatically carbon emissions would be cut once the world was using it where ever possible to eliminate the need for fossil fuel and bio fuels.

It might be thought that such technology has been lost and that it is too late to start researching the possibilities in this area of what is generally referred to as pseudoscience, but actually there is reason for optimism. Bessler admitted that he would probably fail to get recognition for his achievenment during his lifetime and would in that case settle for post humous success and accordingly, left behind him a number of clues that were intended to guide a particularly perspicacious person to a successful conclusion and build a working model of the original machine. I am not suggesting that I am that perspicacious person, nevertheless even I have made some significant advances leading to a fuller understanding of the machine and why it does not conflict with the established laws of physics.

I just wish that there were more people who would study the evidence without prejudice, because I'm sure that anyone with an open mind and no preconceptions, would come to the conclusions that here was a machine that would solve many of the problems that we face in trying to reversae the effects of carbon emissions.

Are there others out there willing to take a step outside their comfort zone and examine the evidence? If so please pay a meaningful visit to my web site at http://www.free-energy.co.uk/ and the others listed on my LINKS page. Maybe you will be persuaded to seek an investigation of this machine and encourage proper funding of its development. You could contribute to the rescue of the whole planet and its inhabitant, slowing the advance of global warming more speedily than any other technology even under consideration.

JC

Back from Spain, refreshed and reinvigorated

Well I'm back! I was forced to take a week away in Spain with my children and grandchildren. Of course I was reluctant to go, imagining the warm blue seas and azure skies that were sure to greet me, not to mention beer, wine and food at roughly half the price, or less, that it is here in the UK, but I generously submitted to the entreaties of my family. There was thick fog and rain and it was cold when we took off, something I knew I was going to miss, desperately, but one has to consider the needs of others, so I bravely soldiered on. No internet where we went! How on earth was I going to manage without my daily dose of the besslerwheel forum? Well I managed!

Seriously, it was a wonderful break and strangely, not having the wheel project right under my nose, benefitted me because I was able to comtemplate everything mentally and I discovered some additional clues that had been staring me in the face but which I was too close to see. No changes are necessary but confirmation of the actual sizes of the various parts has been made possible.

I cannot believe how clever Bessler was, not just in building the wheel but in hiding all sorts of clues in full view of everyone for so long. Maybe he was too clever, otherwise the clues would have been found years ago and not almost 300 years later.

On a completely different subject, one of the odd things I have noticed is that there is much talk about the rate of exchange between the Euro and the Pound and how bad it is for British people holidaying abroad, because of the fall of the Pound against the Euro. We are encouraged, nay exhorted, to spend our holidays in here in England, because the countries of the Eurozone are now too expensive. Well that may be true of some countries, such as France or Germany, but Spain is nothing short of brilliant! Excellent food and wine at prices that make us green with envy; wonderful people; dramatic scenery; amazing historic buildings; beautiful beaches, heart-stirring music. What more could you wish for? Who cares if the Pound is almost at parity with the Euro? It's still the best place to go and still the best value.

OK travelogue over.

JC

The 20/20 vision of hindsight

It has been pointed out to me that my posts both here and on http://www.besslerwheel.com/, over the last few months, about my self-proclaimed progress in building a working Bessler-wheel, have been somewhat overly optimistic. Having read through a summary of them, kindly provided by a member of said website, I have to agree that it certainly looks that way. But I never fail to be amazed at the efforts some people will go to prove a point, in this instance, trawling through pages and pages of text to harvest choice comments made by me with little consideration at the time, to support their apparent belief that I am either a dreamer or a scam artist - or completely deluded.

In fact I'm none of these as will be shown in due course. But I am embarrassed at how almost effusively I have predicted success within a short time and how cruelly the truth emerges that I am not quite there yet. It is easy to point the finger of scorn at predictions, using the 20/20 vision of hindsight, but how many would put their reputations on the line by predicting success, no matter how convinced they might be, in an area so thoroughly derided, even within a community of like-minded individuals such as we perpetual motionists? Only someone having complete conviction as I do, that time will prove them right. Optimism reigns strongly here because, as has been the case for several years, I find that each failure teaches me something new and is a step forward towards success.

I have good reason to be optimistic about solving this puzzle but I cannot share it yet. All I can say is that I have solved a large number of clues both textual and graphic and when added to my knowledge of the principle behind the wheel, leads me to believe with absolute certainty that I will succeed in replicating Bessler's wheel. I have a detailed drawing which shows every part of the mechanism and even some areas which had, only weeks ago, remained slightly hazy have become clear. I am building it according to my drawing. As I have said before, if I cannot build it then I shall have to get someone else to do it for me. Either way publication of the details will follow.

This does not rule out the possibility of someone else succeeding before me and it might be that they get there by a different route, but I can say with sure and certain knowledge that mine is derived wholly from Bessler's wheel. Once it is built I shall be able to say that I could not have succeeded if I had not had his clues to help me. Even though I might have tried for a lifetime, without the clues I don't think I would ever have succeeded. But some other researcher might arrive at the same objective because they have better skills, both intellectual and dexterous, and in that case they would be far cleverer than I who simply followed a trail of clues to the treasure.

JC

Brief delay; amazing health & defence statistics

Apologies to those who are waiting for the results of my Bessler wheel project but I have not finished it yet. Time is against me again and I am struggling to set aside a few minutes on any day for my wheelwork, so I must ask for my reader's indulgence and patience. I have 'til the end of the forthcoming week to find the odd moment to work on it, then other commitments mean that I shall be unable to spare any time at all for a further week. After that I am determined to finish this wheel and publish a video of it working - or disclose the design and concept behind it -come what may.

On a completely different subject, I came across these amazing statistics the other day and I thought I'd share them with you.

In 2009 England has become a country of healthcare workers, with one in every twenty-three of the working population being employed by the NHS (National Health Service). Almost 1.3 million people work for the NHS, which is the largest employer in Europe and world’s third biggest employer. That is 2 per cent of the 30 million people of working age.

According to the latest workforce census, the NHS employs 386,400 nurses,109,000 doctors and 122,100 scientists and other therapists.

Incredibly for this small nation, only the Chinese Army and the Indian State Railways are believed to employ more people — with 2.3 million and 1.5 million staff respectively — but both workforces represent a far smaller proportion of the national populations.

One more thing; as if we here in the UK, were not spending enough tax already, in another article I found this remarkable comment - "the UK defence budget is currently the 2nd largest in the world, after the US!" I think we are punching way above our weight - But isn't it splendid!

JC

Final few days and the Virgin Challenge

After assembling and correcting various items on the reconstruction I am at last approaching completion. I just hope that my engineering skills, puny as they are, have accomplished the required quality of build which will allow the various bits to react as planned. My main fear is that if one or more of the mechanisms fails to operate, it will bring the wheel to a halt, or worse, stop the wheel from turning at all. I understand the basic principle behind the wheel's actions and the design fulfills the principle, but there are still one or two variables which may or may not affect the running of the wheel.

If this model fails it won't be because the design is wrong, it will be entirely due to my poor workmanship. This is going to be a hard thing to prove and if I can't build it myself then I am going to have to find someone to help me. I have already had several offers but I am going to await the results of the first test run which should happen in the next two or three days or so, before deciding on the best course of action.

What action that might be is open to question. I am still being urged to forward details of how the wheel works to an American professor who has been encouraging me for some years. I am willing to go that route provided there is some assurance that I won't be side-stepped and my ideas buried. I had thought of trying to get the Virgin Challenge interested but apparently they are after something far more exotic, i.e. "Does your technology sequester greenhouse gases from the atmosphere?"

It seems to me that they are reaching for something that will be beyond the power of human intervention for many years to come - on the other hand a device which generates electricity at no cost and completely cleanly is something to be greatly desired. I realize, of course why they will ignore me - until I produce the goods, gravitywheels fly in the face of science as we understand it - or so they believe.

JC

Construction, composition and update

This is a brief update, because I have so many things going on at the moment.

I have been unable to do much work on my reconstruction recently, although things are looking more promising next week. Hopefully I can get some way towards finishing it. I have had numerous emails asking for clues about the principle behind my wheel and I have not revealed anything yet, however some people may be interested in having some of the details about the construction itself, now that it is nearing completion.

It is built with 40 moving parts, plus several swivel posts and stops all mounted on an MDF backplate or disk, which is only two feet in diameter. The axle is a threaded rod, held in place by two heavy nuts and washers and the whole thing rests in two plastic cup-shaped bearings which were originally designed to hold central-heating pipes to the walls. There is a little friction but not enough to stop the wheel turnng easily, and anyway the wheel is designed to do work so a little friction should not be a problem for the proof-of-principle demo. I've used two kinds of material for the parts, mostly mild steel but some GRP.

I acquired an old set of meccano parts but I have found that they are proving awkward to accomodate in the design, partly because this model is so small (my fault!) and partly because they are old, bent and buckled, (sounds like me) and the fiddly nuts and bolts are too small for my large and arthritic fingers! I am using alternatives that seem to be ok.

40 moving parts may seem like a lot but when you consider the number of parts composing a number of mechanisms and weights it's not so much. The basic principle which, I believe, lies behind the successful operation of the wheel is simple but it is something I have never heard or seen described. The only clue about its operation which I can give is to quote Bessler himself who said something along the lines of, 'I found it where everyone else had looked'.

I have a deadline of three weeks for completion.

JC

Bessler's wheel the solution to global warming?

It might be thought that I am only concerned with building a copy of Bessler's wheel and not with what might happen with it afterwards. Nothing could be further from the truth. I see this device as offering the best solution to global warming and saving the planet. How might this be done?

I was reading an article about maritime emissions - it seems that the world's shipping is emitting double the amount of CO2 the aviation industry emits and yet they are not covered by the Kyoto accord, so there's no cap on how much they can emit..

Separate studies suggest that maritime carbon dioxide emissions are not only higher than previously thought, but could rise by as much as 75% in the next 15 to 20 years if world trade continues to grow and no action is taken. The figures from the oil giant BP, which owns 50 tankers, and researchers at the Institute for Physics and Atmosphere in Wessling, Germany reveal that annual emissions from shipping range between 600 and 800m tonnes of carbon dioxide, or up to 5% of the global total. This is nearly double Britain's total emissions (we are the 7th worst polluter in the world) and more than all African countries combined. And yet we are warned about the effects of such carbon emissions from aircraft and the virtues of carbon credits are extolled. How come shipping has escaped censure?

It has always seemed to me to be a remote possibility that Besslers wheel might somehow be encapsulated within an automobile to provide free, clean transportation - it is much more likely to be used to charge the batteries of an all electric car. But a complete impossibility, I think, to place such a device in an aircraft, but what about ships?

These enormous container ships and of course the mighty supertankers, have huge amounts of space within their hulls to place giant besslerwheels. Could they be engineered to provide sufficient power to drive these leviathans of the deep?

Motor vehicles are one of the biggest source of atmospheric pollution, contributing an estimated 14% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions, a proportion that is steadily rising, but electricity generation is responsible for 40 percent of all CO2 emissions.

So, we could, in theory, cut almost 60% of global CO2 emissions by simply using Bessler's wheel to drive ships and charge up electric autos and to generate domestic electricity. A pipe dream? Maybe, maybe not.

Bessler's wheel is real; it does not conflict with the laws of physics; it will be a major contribution to saving the planet from the excesses of global warming.

I am continuing to work at the reconstruction and I hope to have it finished soon. Recent calls on my time have prevented me from finishing the prototype but it should be ready soon - I hesitate to predict a finishing date since things have a habit of spoiling one's plans but I do recall placing a bet that it would be ready before 2009 is out. It should be much sooner than that, but in any case I know there are others in this race who are as confident as I, so all being well, one or more of us will cross the finishing line in the very near future so we shall have Bessler's wheel within weeks.

JC

Proof of principle device almost finished

It has been suggested that as I am nearing completion of the reconstruction of Bessler's wheel that I should write something every day, detailing my progress, however I think I would bore my readers to death with the minutiae of my daily construction efforts. Having said that perhaps it might help some of you to understand why it is taking so long to finish what seems, on the face of it, a relatively simple thing to complete, if I describe my latest problems which have led to this delay.

I have made a new set of mechanisms in new material and when moved by hand they perform as designed, but it's still difficult to get the actions perfect and I have to keep altering the way things are arranged, not because the design doesn't work, but to get the various pieces to work together without either missing each other entirely, or getting entangled and locking together. It is surprisingly difficult to transfer a design which is both in one's mind and on paper into a practical reality. Everything works as it should do when moved by hand, but then you find that under its own steam, so-to-speak, or rather gravity, the levers are either too close and bump into each other, or too far apart so that an engagement designed to occur, misses! There is some flexibility in the levers giving rise to too much lateral movement. But if I tighten them down to limit the lateral motion, they become stiff and don't move easily. I may have to add some kind of lateral bracing to support them unless I can produce a proof of principle (POP) wheel without further delay.

I have found that by altering the order of the pieces I have eventually achieved the best arrangement. The order can be changed throughout the depth of the mechanism, by that I mean, not the plan view, but the sideways elevation. It doesn't alter the way the mechanism works but it does improve and free-up the action.

I had fitted five mechanisms to the backplate but as they were unable to move properly and freely, due to entanglement, I have rearranged them and three are now fitted and working as designed. The remaining two will be done as soon as I can get into the workshop again. On some days I only get ten or fifteen minutes in my workshop and sometimes none at all.

I am doing this on a shoestring, as I always have done, just to make a POP machine, but I have seen estimates of money spent on prototypes, posted on various forums, and I am surprised at how much people spend, because I have spent no more than about £100 (about $160) in the last ten or maybe even fifteen years of modelmaking! I have to admit that some of the models shown are amazingly well engineered, rugged-looking and most impressive, but I suspect I could have built half a dozen rough and ready models in the time it takes to build just one high quality one. In the end we only require a working model to prove the principle, however roughly constructed. Once that has been achieved then a high quality product based on the original design can be built.

And another thing; people often describe the high quality bearings they use to reduce friction but I worry little about friction, as long as there is enough energy to turn the wheel continuously against any friction that is all that is needed. My axle is a threaded rod and it rests in a couple of plastic copper plumbing pipe wall supports screwed to two upright pieces of wood. Cost was less than a pound for a pack of five.

JC

A hiccup, but I'm back on track

I have just realised it has been over a week since my last post, but the reason for the lack of communication is down to my problems with over-used, cannibalised material in my prototype. No progress means I had nothing to report.

It was held up for a while because I have been using parts from previous constructions and the result was a mess with some parts catching on others and locking the whole structure. But not only do I now have a new back plate but I bit the bullet and bought new material for the various parts.

The mechanism looks simpler now without the fabricted joins, bent and restraightened levers and the numerous drilled holes from previous incarnations of Bessler's wheel, and I aim to finish it as soon as possible.

In my opinion, knowing why it works, I think that Karl might not have fully understood the concept behind it and his comment about it being simple was the result of not having had it fully explained to him. I can imagine Bessler keeping his explanation brief in order to allow the misapprehension of the concept thus avoiding an explanation of the finer points of the device. The design is more sophisticated than might be apparent to an observer and an assumption made about its method of converting the force of gravity to rotary motion, innaccurate. Having said that, it is not a complicated idea and once explained, easily understood.

I hope to have it finished within a week. Then what? That is the multi-million dollar question. I have some ideas but nothing is set in stone.

JC

The solution is under your nose.

It was mentioned here very recently that we had been searching for some 300 years for a solution to Bessler's wheel and had found nothing but fraud upon fraud - and of course endless failure . We continue to search for that elusive design which will provide a continuous sequence of accelerating turns of the wheel, without success. One must conclude that the basic design concept we are using to achieve our aim must be wrong.

Throughout the history of the search for perpetual motion, (for gravity-wheels) the aim has been to get weights to overbalance a wheel by getting them to move, under the force of gravity, into a position from where they can apply their overbalancing effect. And yet we know, because physics tells us so, that such configurations cannot work. Gravity can react to an overbalanced configuration and make the wheel turn, but it cannot make the weight also return to its starting point. So as long as we continue to design wheels which rely on the same old concept we shall continue to fail.

It is apparent from posts by some members of http://www.besslerwheel.com/ that they believe that a separate additional force is required to engineer the movement of the weights into their overbalancing position. Such forces as CF and CP, magnetism, electrostatics and changes in ambient temperature have all been suggested. No-one to my knowledge has come up with a working hypothesis.

It seems to me that what we are all searching for exists but we are not looking in the right place - or rather we are looking but not seeing. Bessler said he found the answer where everyone else had looked. In other words the answer is right there under our noses.

JC

Tilting at windmills

According to my local paper, The UK government has assigned a large tract of open countryside, to the south of where I live in England, to be used for developing several large windfarms. Naturally the protesters are out in force, claiming that these vast machines will desecrate some of the most beautiful countryside we have, spoiling the view and scaring the wild life.

Some people argue that the sight of these majestic windmills is beautiful and almost other-worldly and well might that be, if there was just one, but a phalanx of them, marching across to the horizon is another matter altogether.

From my own perspective, what I wonder, will become of them once the solution to Bessler's wheel has been found? It seems crazy to be building these behemoths ( I always wanted an excuse to use that word!) when a much better alternative is so close. It isn't until the prospect of having one of these things in your own backyard that the implications of such devices hits you. I can imagine vast acreages of these monstrous windmills standing motionless for years and years, no longer required and too expensive to take down and recycle. I fear that once they're here they'll be here for a long time.

I have been away with my family for the last few days and have been somewhat frustrated to be enjoying the sunshine, food and wine in Spain when I could have been working to finish my Bessler wheel reconstruction - is that stupid or what? Any way, back to work today and I must admit that a few days away has crystallised my thinking and I am clear in my mind about what to do if and when it works. Somehow I always have to include that little word 'if'. It's the same as touching wood for luck except that if I didn't include it I would think I was tempting fate - pride before a fall?

JC

A secured record, just in case...

While discussing certain matters with a friend, the other day, he raised a point of concern. He said that if I was so certain that I understood the basics of why Bessler's wheel worked and why it did not challenge the laws of physics, then I should get it written down and placed in some secure place so that, should something happen to me, it could be found, opened and shared. Otherwise it might be lost and would have to await someone else's discovery, which could be next week, next year or never.

I'm not one to worry about what might happen to me and I don't fear MIBs or any of their clones, but it did make sense to make sure my own research didn't get buried, just in case I wasn't looking while crossing the road or had my attention distracted from driving... So what was I to do?

The first thing I did was to write down everything about the basic principles that underlie a successful working Bessler wheel. It's not that complicated and it is, as Bessler said, to be found where everyone else has looked. The second thing is to encrypt it so that it can only be opened either when I have disappeared off the face of the planet or when I am ready to open it myself. PGP is the obvious choice and the only other thing is to find somewhere to post it. I could post it here and might well do so. Another idea is to copy it on to a CD and post copies to various people around the world and at the appropriate moment post the pass word key here there and everywhere. A posting on to another web site forum is a possibility but not without the agreement of the site owner.

Readers of this post may be thinking I am deluding myself if I really think I know the secret of Bessler's wheel, but the truth is that once you know it, it is obvious and leaves no room for doubt. The only problem left once you know the principle behind it, is to design a mechanism which incorporates the principle - and that is slightly more complicated!

I was hoping to finish my own proof-of-principle model before jetting off to Spain again, but alas the hours have overtaken me again so it will have to await my return in a few days. I am leaving to celebrate my older daughter's 40th birthday (she won't thank me for broadcasting that!) in the sunshine of the Costa Blanca.

NB in response to anonymous's comment, yes sorry. I should have said that steps have been taken to ensure that a public key is available. And yes you're absolutely right, I am trying to prove I came up with something first, in case I don't get to finish my own project before I go. So there are two things; one is to prove my priority and two is to ensure it is saved and not lost.

JC

A simple mechanism? I don't think so.

I have been working on my attempted reconstruction of Bessler's wheel for several weeks, on and off, and I'm finding that the mechanism is more complex than Karls' comment about the wheel being so simple a carpenter's boy could make one, might seem to imply. I think seeing a mechanism operating as a finished item is understandable and you can copy it easily enough so you could say it was simple - but making it up as you go along with only the barest outline of how it works, coupled with an understanding of the basic principe is much harder.

Firstly I found that making and fitting the mechanisms was not too difficult. Secondly, during this process I checked and rechecked their range of movement to make sure they operated as I intended - and they did. But (you knew there was going to be a 'but'!) once you raise the wheel to the vertical position in which it will run and allow the mechanisms to take up their natural position under the influence of gravity, it's then you discover you haven't got it quite right!

The mechanism has to do a certain thing at a certain time and getting that right is the hard part - I understand why Bessler complained about his own difficulty in setting the mechanisms correctly in his two-directional wheel but that was more complex than the single-direction ones. It tells me that he was a much more highly skilled engineer than I am.

Part of the problem lies in the way the various parts of the mechanism interact with each other. In my case I have a two foot diameter backplate on which to attach the mechanisms, but they take up approximately two inches of depth - I mean that they stand out from the backplate about two inches. I have redesigned them or rather rearranged them so that one lever is now operating under another one instead of over it and this has meant that I have had to increase the height (depth) above the backplate of the weight. This does seem to have improved the action of the mechanism so I continue.

I know this is difficult to comprehend without a drawing but I think you get the picture - it's proving difficult but not impossible to complete this project and definitely taking longer than I thought it would.

One point occurred to me; Karl's reference to a carpenter's boy suggests that the mechanism was made entirely of wood other than the weights? So the levers etc would be wooden rods I presume. I always imagined that it would have steel or rather iron levers.

PS Sorry, I forgot to say why it was giving me problems. In the first place the weights were taking longer to react to their changed position than I had anticipated so they did not create the reaction soon enough. That is not hard to fix, but the other problem was that the weights were catching one of the levers as I crossed its path and that required a change of the arrangement of the mechanism as I described above. This is not a situation where the design does not work because it is wrong but because the design does not allow clean uninterrupted range of movement .

JC

Priorities, patents and publishing

The realisation hit me yesterday that I had got my priorities all wrong. How could I be sitting on the biggest discovery of my life and wasting time on other persuits, some related to Bessler's wheel and others not? Time passes at an alarming rate and it seems scarcely credible to me that I have understood the basic principle that lies behind Bessler's wheel for over a year and yet I have not yet completed a wheel that actually runs incorporating this principle.

The time has not been entirely wasted as new insights have come to me through building what I thought was what Bessler intended, however time is now the most important factor to me and I am going ahead with finishing what I started. All five mechanisms are finished and three are attached to the backplate but I ruined two of them by drilling holes in the wrong place and I am having to rebuild them because the cannibalisation of old parts which I have habitually used over the years has made some of the material I use - unusable!

Assuming that the wheel works, what then? Advice from a good and knowledgeable friend has made me rethink my decision not to patent. His argument being that I can still give the design away if I wish but at least I would retain some potential for future financial independence. That seems like sound advice but also raises its own concerns. Suppose this model works - do I announce it? Or do I say nothing and get the patent applied for? If I say nothing I will be chased by those many others also researching this subject and working on their own projects who are expecting me to say whether this model worked or did not.

If I announce it and also apply for the patent will I withstand the pressure to say nothing further until the patent process has made it safe for me to share what I know? Actually I think I have the answer now but I need to think carefully about it.

But then again, just like a hundred times before, maybe I'm fooling myself and it won't work - again!

In order to concentrate on the project I have removed much of the information I had published about the so-called code. The reaction to the publication of my speculations about Bessler's encoded information disappointed me and I realised that I have been too close to it to see it objectively. I may publish it again at a later date but I think it is best left safely filed away until I can reassess what I have written in the light of another day.

JC

www.theorffyreuscode.com

Following discussion about the pentagram which is hidden in some of Bessler's drawings, I have finally posted a web site (http://www.theorffyreuscode.com/) which details some of the pieces of code I believe I have deciphered. I'm sure that I have missed some elements of some of the pieces of code that Johann Bessler buried in his books and equally, I'm sure that other pieces will be discovered by other researchers - and some may be able to point to where I may have erred in some cases. I simply don't know at this point, so I welcome the new openess as I have been keeping to myself much that I had discovered over the last few years and wondering if others have also found stuff which they have held close to their chest as I have. Now I think that new minds brough to bear on the problem will help to increase the amount of knowledge we have about the codes.

It is plain to me that Bessler hid a large piece of information in text and that the number 55 (or 5 and 5) is the key to deciphering what he wrote. Discovering how to decipher this will, in my opinion, reveal the full details of his wheel, and allow us to reconstruct it - if I or some others who appear to be close to success, don't do it first!

As for my own reconstruction, it progresses with painful slowness because I have so many other calls on my time. I try to do something towards reconstruction each day, even if it is only for two or three minutes.

JC

There is a Pentagram in Bessler's wheel

Finally it happened! Yesterday someone published information about the presence of a pentagram on the besslerwheel forum. I had originally discovered this geometric feature some years ago and kept the information to myself, deciding to work at it slowly over the years in the hope of extracting the practical meaning of its presence in Bessler's drawing. I believe that I fully understand why it was placed there and have also discovered more information since then.

Strangely, the publishing of this information closely coincided with a decision I had already taken, to publish the same information myself - possibly as soon as this week, once I had completed my own final attempt to reconstruct Bessler's wheel. Sometimes chance seems to be guided; it must be six or seven years since I discovered the pentagram and yet yesterday the same information was published just days before I intended to publish it.

Anyway I'm glad the news is out and what other people may make of it, I don't know, but I do know that it took me years to make complete sense of it, but results may happen more quickly now that many are thinking about the meaning of it.

I really think that now a successful machine will be created, if not by me then by another member of the forum within a few months, maybe before the end of this year. They will discover that the concept which forms the basis of the operation of Bessler's wheel is closely connected with the pentagram.

JC