Underlying Principles and Design matters

I think I need to explain myself a little better as I have had some questions raised, and although my answers to them seemed clear enough to me, they obviously remain confusing to others.

My use of the word 'principle' may have unintentionally misled some people. In my mind the words 'principle' and 'design' have two different meanings and that is where the confusion may have arisen. I used the word 'principle' to refer to what, in my opinion, is the actual intellectual reason why Bessler's wheel worked. It does not mean the design of the mechanism. The underlying principle could rely on pendulums, or overbalancing by having some weights further from the centre of gravity when on the falling side of the wheel and nearer to it on the rising side; or it might require the use of an additional force such as ambient temperature changes; or electrostatic or magnetic attraction or a combination of them or centrifugal or centripetal forces or something else. Whatever method the wheel uses may constitute the underlying principle if it can be shown how the use of such forces can be applied to make a working gravity-driven wheel.

So when I say I discovered the principle a while ago, sometime last year or maybe earlier, I cannot remember when precisely, but I mean that now, finally, I can describe how it worked without it coming into conflict with any laws of physics. But the understanding did not arrive in a flash as a complete explanation but rather, it crept up on me in bits and pieces and in the same way, understanding developed in bits and pieces and that is why I cannot say definitively that I discovered the principle on such and such a date. There was, however a starting point which was sudden and dramatic, a bit like Bessler's dream, I imagine. But thinking it out was not enough by itself, to immediately design a working mechanism. That has taken time and I have had to constantly refer to Bessler's clues to gain further insights into how it worked.

So the underlying principle came to be understood by me some time last year and the initial flash of insight which eventually led to full understand occured even earlier than that, but I can't remember exactly when, because the insight did not reveal the full understanding immediately, so I did not know how important it was at the time.

Now as to the design, well there have been several but since the second part of last year I have been designing and redesigning a mechanism which is capable of operating according to the underlying principle. Whether you call it a new design or merely an improved design is a matter of personal opinion, but obviously it has changed over that period but only in detail. Again I may have caused confusion by saying when the design was made and the truth is I can't be sure exactly when this current design was first established as the fore-runner of the prototype but it was towards the end of last year.

All you perpetual motionists know that there comes a point where you are sure you have the final design and you want to share the good news. Then you discover a 'minor' hitch which requires some 'adjustment'. I've been there more times than I care to admit and it is hard to go public and admit you got it wrong. For me this last year has been unique because, as I now understand the underlying principle I know that it is the only way to succeed, but the mechanism has proved to be very difficult to design. Without Bessler's clues I would never have got this far. For instance the 'Toys' page is full of information but it is almost useless unless you have most of the design already down on paper.

One thing is clear; the underlying principle can be used by different mechanisms to achieve the same end, so my mechanism may not be exactly the same as Bessler's and I think that he has put clues out which show more than way to take advantage of this principle.

I hope that's clearer but I have feeling that there may be more questions.

JC

Never say never again!

I can see an end to all these years of research - I always was an incurable optimist! I have received a signed non-disclosure agreement from my American professor contact, and I have counter-signed it and returned a copy, so all that remains is for me to finalise my paper and send it to him. I am extraordinarily excited at the prospect that at last someone with intellectual 'clout' (as we say here) will read it and decide what to do about it. I am so certain that the principle I have described is correct and that it is the only explanation for Bessler's wheel, that I am beside myself! Just what does that mean? It doesn't matter - it describes my mood perfectly.

What if he dismisses my theory as garbage? Perish the thought!

In the mean time I'm still grabbing the occasional opportunity to work to finish my wheel.

I have resurrected my facebook account to see if it appeals to me more than before. I also used to have a twitter account but I couldn't see the point of that and shelved it, and I doubt I will ever bother with that again. But then I didn't think I'd start up my facebook again - so never say never!

JC

Time flies - and there isn't enough.

Time is passing at an alarming rate and I don't want to end up being too old to pass on the fruits of my labour, so I think that I must call a halt (officially) to completing my attempt to construct a working Bessler's wheel. I could continue 'to the last syllable of recorded time,' but I have to admit that the passage of time appears to accelerate with age and one must pick a point at which the pursuit of the prize must be subservient to the reality. And the reality is that I must stop sooner or later, not because I don't know how it worked but because I'm having trouble actually making it, and sooner is better than later.

So I have decided that I must share what I know and what I've discovered, and relinquish my manic grip on it, and pass it into the hands of a good American friend so he can test the theory and see if I am a genius - or utterly deluded - and very sad!

To that end I have written requesting an NDA from him which he has obligingly agreed to do, and in the mean time and for the last several weeks I have been writing a long document describing everything. I shall pass this to him, sometime next week I guess, and then I shall await agog (or as the dictionary defines it - highly excited by eagerness, curiosity, anticipation, etc) to hear his opinion.

Should he fail to be persuaded by my amazing vision of how Johann Bessler's wheel really worked, there is one more avenue open to me and, failing that, I shall publish said document for all to read and try to see where I may have gone wrong - and maybe help them towards the real solution.

But of course confidence is sky high that I have got it right, so I have no fear that my learned friend will fail to see the light. In fact my explanation is the only one that fits, unless you think that Bessler lied, and that is now unthinkable.

And of course, like some perpetual motion machine I shall continue to strive to complete this complicated construction in the hope that I shall, in the end, triumph over my artless artificer's actions and make a working wheel!

Sorry for the lousy alliterations, but I find it hard to resist - so I don't ;-)

JC

Why Bessler's wheel was able to accelerate to full speed in three turns.

Further to my last blog,I posted my thoughts on http://www.besslerwheel.com/ forum, about something that to me seemed to be illogical; the fact that the torque appeared to be greater for a one inch movement horizontally on a smaller wheel than on a larger one - and in the process found myself corrected. The torque itself remains the same but the acceleration of the overbalancing effect due to a one inch difference between the two positions horizontally, is greater on a smaller wheel than on a larger one - or when the action takes place closer to the axle. So although my means of getting there was wrong my conclusions were correct.

I had compared the speed of reaction on two rods balanced on a pivot at their mid-point. One rod was two foot long and the other was six foot long. In each case the same weights were attached, one at the end of the rod, the other, two inches inwards towards the centre of rotation, at the other end. The torque was the same in each case but the shorter rod accelerated into its unbalanced position much quicker. This suggested to me that, with the limited range of movement available from my mechanism, it would be react to imbalance more quickly if I placed the weight as close as possible to the axle.

This may explain why Bessler's wheel accelerated to full speed in just three turns - because although the weights moved a small amount, they did so close to the centre of the wheel rather than near the edge. I believe that this is a useful piece of information and one that is generally ignored or perhaps people are unaware of its significance. I certainly didn't consider it of any importance, but when I found I was limited by space for the mechanisms and sought a way around it, this fact supplied not only the solution to the problem but will, I believe, also deliver an improved reaction to the movement of the weight.

JC

Was Bessler's mechanism design counter-intuitive?

I got back to the workshop again yesterday, despite the snow, and made some adjustments to the mechanism. The reason being that while I was kept indoors by a chest infection I kept thinking about the reasons why, in my opinion, Bessler's wheel worked, and at the same time, wondering why none of us had ever thought of the solution. I realised that although the solution is simple enough and we see the principle in operation every day, how you can make use of it is not so easy to work out. As if this did not make the solution harder to find, it was extremely difficult to get the mechanism right because, I discovered during my days off, that the way I had designed it to work was incorrect in one very important detail - a design feature which requires some counter-intuitive thinking.

Even the simple arrangement of two weights diametrically opposite each other on a free-wheeling disc, can, under certain circumstances, give rise to incorrect weight placement when designed to overbalance the wheel. I called this counter-intuitive for good reason. I have only just worked out why Bessler showed some of the mechanisms the way he did, not because they were deliberately done that way to confuse but because that was the correct design for them. I'll explain what I mean in more detail at www.besslerwheel.com in a day or so. But for now I have to work to catch up on the time lost recently.

JC

A vertical or horizontal axis gravity-driven wheel

I was thinking about the fact that windmills can operate in the wind with either vertical of horizontal axes. The axle can either be in-line with the force of the wind or across its path. The same thing applies to water-driven wheels too. Over-shot and under-shot water wheels have an axle which lies across the path of the water. Water turbines have their axle in line with the flow of water. I have from time to time attempted to design a gravity wheel which would have a vertical axis, looking somewhat like the vertical axis windmill that Bessler was building when he died. I have never been able to find a theoretical solution to this problem and yet it seems to me that it ought to be possible.

I hadn't mused upon this question for some considerable time and inevitable my thoughts turned to my current understanding of the principle which works Bessler's wheel and I realised that for the first time I could visualise a workable system using the same principle for a horizontal gravity wheel. I will not be making one soon, as I have to finish my basic model which has had to await my recovery from a secondary infection I got after my cold the other week. But it seems to me that this might be a method of discovering if anyone else's design will work. If it can be converted to work with either a horizontal axis or a vertical one then it just might be the real thing.

JC

A film about Bessler and my life researching him

Since my lung operation in november 2008, I hadn't caught even a sniffle, and that's as well because they warned me never to catch anything ever again! Unfortunately, having managed to stay clear of infection for over a year, since I caught a bad cold on or about Boxing day just gone (2009), I have been having one cold after another and I can't seem to shift it. My wife thinks it's because I spend too much time in my cold old workshop, but actually I wish I could be there for longer, so I can finish the wheel. Now we are back to the arctic conditions and there is no way I can spend any time there even with my faithfull old patio heater. And that's another story. The problem with the heater is that it roasts the top of my head and allows my nether regions to develop icicles - nasty!

Anyway I received an email from a couple of guys who are into film production and they have decided that they want to do a documentary on Bessler and my search for the truth about him. They came here about eighteen months ago and interviewed me on film for about half a day, but since I hadn't heard much from them I thought the project had died. Now however they have time and the project has been revived and they have asked me to write a film script for the documentary.

I've never done one before but I am using the texts of such programs as 'Horizon' and 'Cutting Edge'and similar documentaries as a guide so that I have some idea of how to proceed. I guess that there will be considerable editing to do before it gets the go-ahead. We want to include animations and also visit some of the places where certain events in Bessler's life occurred. Because it is also about my search it will have to be slanted to my perspective which I like - and I may get to do the voice over. Of course it might never get off the ground - unless I produce a working version! Lets hope this cold weather warms up real quick.

JC

I'm 65 today!

I'm 65 today! I can now officially retire...except that I already did so a few years ago. On such a day I am allowing myself a little frivolity and I tried to write a limerick about me for my birthday, but I haven't managed it yet so here's one I wrote about Johann Bessler.

There once was a guy called Orffyreus,

Whose claims were regarded as spurious

He said with some levity

plus a morsel of gravity

The spins of his wheel were continuous!

And if that isn't enough here's one I did earlier:

There once was a guy called Orffyreus

Whose invention, they said, was ingenious.

He created a wheel

but would not reveal

What made it spin so continuous.

I shall of course return to my wheel work and sobriety tomorrow.

JC

The current build and why five?

Here is an update on the current build.

This model has presented some problems which I'm trying to sort out. It is a constant learning process and my latest revelation has explained another aspect of Bessler's clues which I had thought I'd already understood, more or less to my own satisfaction, previously. However I found that I could not make the mechanisms operate exactly as I needed to do, according to the principle I believe lies behind Bessler's wheel and I was tinkering with the various parts of the mechanisms and suddenly grasped why Bessler had done a certain thing and it was a real eureka moment!

I have had a number of these revelations over a period of time and some have turned into cul-de-sacs but others have proved invaluable. I know that I should not parade my hopes so publicly because if I'm wrong its a long way to fall and even further to climb back up - but (and as I heard it said on TV the other day - its a 'J.Lo but') I am so excited at the prospect of finally getting to the end of this life-long search that I cannot contain my exuberance!

I think that people will be surprised at how simple this machine really is. Even though I'm having problems building it, the basic idea is so simple that, as Karl commented, I cannot understand why it hasn't been discovered before. Bessler gives an amazing assortment of clues which all make sense once you have the whole picture but individually they seem to counter each other.

I still maintain my belief that five mechansisms are required and I'll try and explain why without giving too much away. If you assume that a piece of the mechanism has to fall at some point, then it is logical to think that the maximum benefit from that fall will be obtained from a right angled fall, i.e. 90 degrees. You could increase this up to 180 degrees, but half of that fall would be counter productive because .... think, which might be more effective? To start from twelve o'clock and fall to three, or start at three and fall to six o'clock. Any angle outside those two and you stray into the other angle's area of effectiveness.

So a 90 degree fall would fit with a four mechanism wheel. But a fall takes time to start and accomplish what ever it is designed to accomplish, so part of the fall will be ineffective because it is falling and not landing. If you also throw into the mix the fact that the fall cannot start early nor over-run, you can see that although it is designed to fall 90 degrees, in fact it is only going to be effective for slightly less than a full 90 degrees.

What is the next whole number after four that would fulfill the need to have a continuous input from falling weights? Five.

If that is a confusing explanation, I apologise. I thought I'd have a go at explaining my conviction that Bessler used five mechanisms without giving away the solution. Maybe I have?

JC

Gravitywheels for Reactionless Drives?

I'm probably going to be accused of jumping the gun because no such device currently exists, however I, a least, am confident that a reconstruction of a working Bessler wheel is almost upon us, in which case the following speculation might be of interest.

If I am right in my thinking, I believe that the simple fact that Bessler's wheel, or gravitywheel, is a real device then it should be possible to employ, say, an electric motor which can be used to drive it, taking over the role from gravity. What possible reason might one have for doing such a thing? A gravity wheel depends for its power on the force of gravity and what it does is convert the linear force of gravity into a rotational force. If we then apply power to the same device, forcing it to rotate, we should be able to obtain linear thrust, creating a linear propulsion engine or reactionless drive.

This is a well-known characteristic of many mechanical devices. An electric motor is also an electric generator. In its simplest terms you can turn the coil to produce an electric current or you can apply an electric current and turn the coil. So how could we use this potential inertial thruster?

Such a mechanical arrangement has been sought for years for space ship drives. Currently the options are limited to rocket power, although antimatter drives are being researched because it is reckoned to be the most potent fuel known. While 15 tons of chemical fuel were burnt per second to propel a rocket-powered human mission to the moon, just a few tens of milligrams of antimatter will send a ship to Mars, but imagine how much simpler the research would be, and cheaper, if a technique based on a gravity wheel configuration was available.

There are many other potential uses for such a machine and I'm sure that once a working gravitywheel is verified, the floodgates will open and a torrent of new ideas will come pouring out all based on the simple principle of a gravitywheel.

The employment prospects allied to this invention are probably higher than anything else ever invented.

JC

Back to wheel work imminently.

My flu-like symptoms are fading at last (I don't know if it was flu or just a bad cold, but the effect was the same). The weather here in England has been cold, at or below freezing since before Christmas, and well-below at night and we have had several inches of snow and the wind is blowing straight from the Russian steppes - it's cold bbbrrrrrrrr! Last night's temperature fell to 9 degrees below, here and 28 below in Scotland. More snow forecast for this afternoon.

I have cleared a footpath through the snow to my workshop and have dragged an old garden patio heater into it. Unforunately the gas bottle is empty so I am going to get a replacement one today, if I can drive the car to the store without wrecking it - the icy roads round here are lethal! Once the heater's working I shall be able to get back to work and finish this darned wheel!

LATER - got the gas and the heater works!

JC

Happy New Year - and my new year resolution.

Happy New Year to all.

I predict that this year, 2010, will be the year that Bessler's wheel finally returns to its former glory, to spin continuously, powered by gravity.

I have made my New Year's resolution to finish this last prototype of Bessler's wheel as quickly as my health and the weather, allows. If for some reason it doesn't work, I shall publish details of the principle behind it because I know that this at least is correct and it explains why no-one, apart from Bessler, has succeeded in building a gravity wheel, or gravity converter, call it what you want, in recent history. Failure of my wheel to run will be down to my own lack of skill in building it.

My previous predictions have fallen woefully short and my efforts to complete this task sucessfully must be be taxing most people's faith to the limit, but for the first time in my life, I have found the true reason why everyone has failed to date, and it is this knowledge that drives me on.

It was during the first half of 2009 that the truth dawned on me how we might achieve a gravitywheel but it wasn't until the latter half that I actually worked out the real meaning of Bessler's clues and subsequently the actual principle that would drive the wheel.

In the (hopefully) unlikely event that my prototype fails and my published work is also rubbished, I am sure that much progress will have been made leading to a greater understanding of the way the wheel worked. If this leads to someone else succeeding, good luck to them. This task is worth more than a single person's dream.

I added that last paragraph to cover all eventualities but in fact I don't anticipate complete failure as described, but if it happens it happens and I shall admit my fault with as much grace as I can (probably grudgingly) muster!

JC

More cold, and a cold.

Well I shouldn't be criticised for having good intentions but even the safest-seeming plans can suddenly become too hard to accomplish - they can go astray at nature's whim. Only days ago I believed the cold snap was over. Soon I would be back in my workshop to finish my final prototype (as I like to think of it); Christmas day followed with all the glad familial diversions it brings; more of the same on Boxing Day, to recover and then the freezing temperatures returned and I awoke with a throat that felt as if broken fingernails were wripping it apart! A fresh fall of snow of some 8 inches is forecast and it looks though my plans have been scuppered again!

It is only just over a year (November 5th) since I had a large portion of my right lung removed to rid me of a small benign tumour. I asked if I needed to take any precautions after my surgery and was told "no, just steer clear of infections"; I saide "OK - for how long?" "For ever" was the response.

So = now I have an infection and I have to keep warm - what a "*^$-8:/><*!"

I have finished my 'paper' on the workings of the gravitywheel and I'm ready to go public but just let me try to complete this final fiasco first ! (I love alliterations - in fact I find 'front'-rhymes fascinatingly fortuitous. The repetitive rearrangement of rhyming rear-end rhymes rate rather less rewardingly for reasons I realize are probably personal.)

I'll be back as soon as possible, confidence is sky high!

JC

Too cold! Time is short! More Bessler stuff decoded.

Since the weather has been consistently on or below freezing since my last blog entry, it has proved extremely uninviting and inhospitable in my workshop; so I have not been in there, other than for about twenty minutes a couple of days ago, when my finger actually stuck to a piece of metal I was trying to attach. I am desperate to finish construction but I'm thwarted at the moment, but there is still time before the year's end!

I've used the time to write up another description which I intend to publish on my web site and it should satisfy those who are convinced I've lost the plot or think I'm some poor deluded soul who builds gravitywheels in the air.

Even at this late stage I have made further progress in deciphering Bessler's work and I doubt that anyone else knows why Bessler included the 'Die Andere Figur' and the adjacent one in 'Das Tri...'. On the face of it there is nothing useful in the drawings so why bother to include it? Yes it has a simple bit of number code but there is more, as there always is with Bessler. Happily for me, it only serves to confirm what I already know.

JC

Yin yang, Tesla and Bessler.

In 1997, I wrote about the principle of yin and yang in my biography of Johann Bessler. I argued that it had very little provenance and yet it was widely revered as a philosophy. I know this word, provenance, is usually attributed to paintings and describes records or documents authenticating them or the history of their ownership, but I was trying to describe the odd lack of explanation of its origin and development. I am fully aware of the philosophy behind this important symbol and have read a number of theses on the subject but there is absolutely nothing which explains its derivation or origins and I suggested that perhaps it derived from a design for an actual machine - many eons ago, as the SciFi books say. This is not the place to enlarge on my theory but suffice to say that all references to yin and yang include descriptions of various kinds of energy and that and the lack of provenance was the basis for my idea.

I went on to compare the yin yang design with the design of the Savonius Rotor, but subsequently I felt that there was too little substance to add to my suppositions on this matter to pursue it and I had more or less dismissed any thought of further research from my mind - other than using the device as my avatar on www.besslerwheel.com - until today. Imagine my surprise to discover a link between yin and yang, something I call Bessler's principal and a diagram by Tesla. I don't wish to reveal anything more at this stage but I cannot help but marvel at the strange circuity of events that we encounter in a more or less haphazard manner throughout our lives, which seem to have a connection, however nebulous. I don't use the word circuity in its implied sense of a roundabout way of doing something, but more in the sense of a circuitous connection between two or three apparently disparate events which seem to add up in the same way that two plus two equals four.

I don't think I'm a gullible fan of mysteries and the so-called suppressed inventions, so I try to treat gossip and rumour ,with a generous helping of salt, as unsubstantiated and prefer to work out the truth myself where possible, but I once saw a sketch which was reputed to have been drawn by Tesla which, he apparently said, showed the shape that all energy derived from. There were some similarities to the yin-yang symbol. I have been unable to locate any copies of this sketch although I have looked from time to time and its possible that I have a copy in my Bessler archives somewhere. I shall endeavour to find it and will post it here if I'm successful - or someone else locates it and sends me a copy. How reliable the information is that Tesla did really draw this sketch, I don't know, but at least it makes an interesting coincidence if nothing else - and I can confirm there does seem to be a link between the yin yang symbol and Bessler's wheel.

JC

Hostage to fortune.

My seeming confidence in my ability to successfully reconstruct Bessler's wheel may seem like I have given a hostage to fortune - and yet, despite the limited time left to achieve my goal, as far as my wager goes, I remain buoyantly unconcerned at the possibility of failure. The reason for my apparently disproportionate feeling of optimism lies, not in my current construction, but rather in the sure and certain knowledge that I know what principle lies behind Bessler's wheel and which powers it. I can say without any fear of correction that there has not been a single suggestion by any person, past or present, which explains this principle, although there have been a number allusions to it in a general way but which have missed the truth by a whisker or two. Because of this knowledge, I'm confident that I shall succeed, if not this month then next month or the one after.

Now before certain people jump on this carefully considered comment as a sign that I am getting ready to admit failure, I would like to assure them that I have not failed as I have not finished the construction. However, I have heard it said that when man hatches plan, God dispatches man, so I have taken time to record my thoughts on this matter and have taken steps to ensure that, should my end arrive prematurely, my efforts will not have been in vain and hopefully we shall see this miracle of simplicity, operating around the world . Antoine de Saint-Exupery once wrote, "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away". I cannot say that this design is perfect but it is extremely simple to understand - if only it were as easy to construct!

My insurance in case of a sudden exit from this world has taken considerable time to complete and that task has looked more attractive to me than contemplating the prospect of standing in my workshop during the weather we have been subjected to during the last two weeks. But that task is done; the sun is out; it's very cold but dry, so back to work!

JC

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

Reconstruction almost finished

I have made and assembled all the mechanisms required for my reconstruction and three of them are fitted and working as I intended they should. I only have to fit the remainder and see if it works.....?

I should be excited but I have been at this point so many times in the last thirty years that a working wheel would be something of a shock. Yet I have never been more certain that I have it right, so I shall approach the moment with at least some anticipation and some nervousness, but if it should fail... well that's that. I cannot spend any more time on reconstruction myself but must spread the information I have, as widely as possible and rely on my book to bring in some funds for my ensuing years.

JC

'Et In Arcadia Ego' and Bessler's wheel

OFF TOPIC

Going off at a tangent here; many who have studied the life of Johann Bessler will be aware of his portrait and its inclusion of certain objects. The vase, skull and book are usually representive, in works of art, of Memento Mori, to show the mortality of man. I was researching the history of this subject with a view to getting a feel for the times that Bessler lived in when I serendipitously made a small discovery unconnected with Bessler. It has to do with the phrase 'Et In Arcadia Ego'.

A subject that has attracted my curiosity from time to time but which had dropped from my field of focus, so-to-speak, has suddenly re-emerged. Several months ago I posted an extremely speculative theory relating to the books, 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail', 'The Da Vinci Code' and the legend of Rennes-le-Chateau and all that that entails, on an obscure web site which I use from time to time, to post ideas not necessarily related to Bessler. Imagine my surprise therefore, after several months of hearing nothing, to receive a commission from a magazine to enlarge on
the subject matter. Unfortunately I simply do not have the time nor it must be admitted, the inclination, to do further research, however if anyone is interested, they can read up on the small amount of information I have published at http://www.247website.co.uk/ and perhaps follow it up with some further research themselves. If you then wish to get in contact with the magazine in order to offer them an article on your research, you can email me at my usual address, and I will pass on your details.

The subject matter concerns the true meaning of the phrase 'Et In Arcadia Ego' used variously as a memento mori in some famous paintings. Even ignoring the dubious claims presented in many books concerning the history of the Priory Sion, the phrase itself seems to have no real provenance. I know this has nothing to do with Bessler but I originally posted the information to those forums which indulge in gossip about the legend of Rennes Le Chateau in the vague hope that it might attract additional attention to Bessler by leading them to my site. No such luck!

WHEEL RECONSTRUCTION PROJECT

Now, back to the workshop where I'm pleased to say the mechanism is finally right and working as it was intended to do. I have to make several copies, assemble them, and fit them to the backplate.

JC

Was the mechanism really so simple?

I was working on the mechanism I believe was used in Bessler's wheel, yesterday and it occurred to me that this construction was not as simple as we all believe.

The problem lies in the fact that when you see machinery working it is not always too difficult to understand how it works. You might see an animated schematic of a combustion engine working and understand how it works but few of us would even consider trying to make one. A skilled engineer with all the right equipment might be able to, though. In the same way I think that Karl, the Landgrave of Hesse, the only man allowed to see the interior of the wheel, described the wheel as being so simple a carpenter's boy could make one after studying it for a few minutes. A carpenter's apprentice would have access to all the right equipment and be able to copy what he had seen, but that does not mean it is easy to make; just easy to understand.

This is how I was justifying to myself that what I am building appears to be more difficult to construct than Karl's statement would imply. Bessler himself expressed concern that once seen, his wheel would appear to be too simple to justify the large sum of money he was asking for its secret.

I have concluded that the design is simple to understand once you see it in motion and it looks easy to make but perhaps not so easy to design well without the detail required to make it in the best way possible.

Bessler says he had a dream which revealed to him the answer; I suspect that knowing the principle and making a machine which follows the principle were two different things. Construction of the working wheel time took him many more weeks of laboured improvisation before he succeeded. I know the principle but I didn't think of it unaided and I am not as skillful as Bessler was and neither am I working as intensively as he did so things are unfolding at a much slower rate than they did with him.

In operation my design does indeed look simple, but it has not been simple to construct. Is it the right design? I don't know and I won't until I've got all of the mechanisms attached and tested. The only thing I know is that they do work according to the principle of the wheel's operation, as I understand it.

JC

Spontaneous Rotation? Yes!

Work on the mechanism proceeds with more adjustments necessary. The drawings marked 'A' and 'B' on the 'toys' page have suddenly assumed added significance to me, as I understand them as a pair of informative designs. The horizontal on 'A' and the two lines on 'B' are to be taken together, and supply information you could only get, in my opinion, if you have the right mechansism on the work bench in front of you.

Even though it was reported that Bessler's first wheels were able to begin to spin spontaneously, it seems that most people don't think this was likely and that there was some kind of subterfuge in place to give that impression. The truth is that they were able to spin spontaneously, with no prior careful placement of the wheel at the stop position. I don't know why it is so hard to believe this as a fact and I see absolutely no reason for thinking that this feature of the wheel was artificially induced.

This seems to me to be such an obvious result of the design of a gravitywheel that I have ensured that I have incorporated the idea or requirement into the design I'm working on at present. Consider the following;

1. You have a wheel which spins through the overbalancing of some weights which are able to move within the confines of the wheel.
2. 
   Those weights respond to the rotation of the wheel and are designed so that they 'drop'into a position which must unbalance the wheel, which then rotates in search of balance again. The cycle is then repeated.
3. This, it is said, leads to continous rotation, which has to be forcibly stopped and locked in position once the demonstration is over.

From the above, it is obvious to anyone, I should have thought, that the wheel must be permanently unbalanced and capable of spontaneously beginning to spin from any position in its rotation.

JC

300 year old code contains solution to global warming and an alternative energy source.

In my previous post I mentioned the likelyhood that Bessler left some kind of instruction or clue on his headstone that would provide help in discovering the secret his wheel. I'm certain that that instruction would lead to the decipherment of the Bessler code. My own research has confirmed that the code holds the information for reconstructing his gravitywheel. I have deciphered much of it but the main text continues to defeat my best attempts.

This is an extraordinary situation, given the state of the oil industry; the increase in global warming and the pollution caused by carbon emissions. It continues to amaze me that this potential solution to these problems is right before our eyes as it has been for almost 300 years and yet the evidence, such as it is, is determinedly ignored by the rest of the world who continue to believe that gravitywheels are impossible.

I could describe the reason why they are possible right here and right now and even those who have refused to reconsider the evidence would be forced to admit that there is no longer any reason to think that such machines would violate the laws of physics. The answer is simple and once understood I think that there would be found many other ways of building gravity wheels that differ from Bessler's.

In anticipation of the questions I will probably receive, such as 'if I'm so certain why don't I publish this explanation here and now', I will explain, again, that I will publish this information as soon as I have completed this final attempt to use my amateur engineering skills to reconstruct the gravity wheel. If I fail then that does not mean my understanding of why such devices do not break the physical laws that bind us is incorrect - it just means that my expertise is not up to the task. In that case I shall share what I know.

The story of Bessler's wheel and the existence of the code reads like a Dan Brown novel, only in this case the truth is stranger than the fiction. The code once deciphered will reveal a new source of energy which can help alleviate many of the problems that we face today. Bessler's wheel will not require the consumption of any fossil fuels, other than, possibly, in its construction; it won't produce any CO2 nor any other toxic substances; its proliferation will reduce the need for the traditional form of electricity generation thus accelerating the decrease in CO2 emissions and helping to counter the increase in global warming.

The technology is so simple that vast numbers of people will be able to build or buy home-based electricity generators producing sufficient for their domestic needs - free. The poorer nations of the world will benefit the most but of course their voice is the least heard; on the other hand, given the growing clamour from the wealthy nations to find an alternative form of producing electricity which doesn't require us to burn fossil fuels nor produce nuclear fuels which cannot be neutralised, you might think that someone somewhere with the necessary contacts and funds might just reconsider the evidence that Bessler's wheel was genuine and realize that here was a potential solution.

What fame and fortune might accrue to such a person! I don't need the fame nor the fortune - just the solution. Where are the entrepreneurs who see opportunities where the rest of us see problems?

JC

Heatwaves, patents and codes

This last week has seen unusually warm, humid weather here in England. The temperature in my workshop hit 93 degrees fahrenheit several days in a row and it has proved to be too hot and way too humid to stay in there, even with the doors at either end open, so I have had to postpone work on reconstructing Bessler's wheel. Thankfully things have eased and the temperature has fallen to a more reasonable 82F and I can now return to work. The backplate is finished and one of the mechanisms is also finished but not perfect yet. It has been more difficult than I thought to get the mechanism to operate as I 'saw' it working, but I'm getting there and this weekend should see it functioning correctly. Once that is done its simply a case of copying it a number of times and fitting the rest of them to the backplate.

I've received a couple of emails suggesting that I should reconsider my belief that, should it be successful, this reconstruction should not be patented. Their arguments were strongly made but in the end patented or not, someone somewhere will improve it, apply for that improvement patent and mine will be just a record of who first patented the original, which is nice but if I want it I can get that recognition without the hassle of a patent application.

Again I have received numerous questions regarding Bessler's code and I have done my best to answer them without actually giving away anything prematurely. The sketches of the mechanisms I referred to in an earlier blog are available for all to see, you just need to know how to decode the information you're seeing. Bessler himself referred the reader to some 'drawings' and that is what I am doing. But the codes are in all of his works - without exception - and they are not always in the form of drawings!

You need to read his 'Grundlicher Bericht', 'Apologia Poetica', Das Triuphirende...' and of course 'Maschinen Tractate' in order to view all of his encoded material. The best clue I can give you is that the codes are partially alphanumeric and partially alphabetical substitution - and that isn't really new information because as everyone knows he encoded his name 'Bessler' by transposing the letters of the first half of the alphabet with those of the second in order to get his pseudonym 'Orffyreus'. Just because we are familiar with that fact should not be a reason to ignore it - it was a deliberate clue just as the one at the beginning and the end of the Apologia was an example of alphanumeric substitution.

One more thing; it has been suggested that the codes are vague and were there simply to enable Bessler to be able to point to the clues should someone else claim to have been the first to invent the gravitywheel. I can emphatically dismiss this point of view because it is as clear as daylight that Bessler anticipated a post humous acceptance that he had discovered the secret and that his claims would be vindicated shortly after his death. For this reason it is safe to assume that there was a significant clue left behind him, in addition to the more obscure ones I have discovered. I must assume that it was either in the windmill from which he fell, or (more likely) it was included somehow in the tomb which he was permitted to construct in his garden.

I shall continue this theme in another post.

JC