Bessler's Wheel - before and after him?

It has often been remarked that if Bessler had really discovered how to make a wheel turn continuously, someone would have rediscovered the secret by now, therefore because no one has, he must have been faking it.  But I'm more surprised that no-one appears to have discovered the secret previous to Bessler.  

This observation was in my mind when I first wrote my account of Johann Bessler in my first book, "Perpetual Motion; An Ancient Mystery Solved?"  So I did some historical research to try to discover if there was any evidence that anyone had indeed made this discovery before.  I found plenty of accounts of people who had tried to find the solution, but no convincing evidence that they had succeeded.

Following this I  reasoned that perhaps the secret had been found in the ancient past, and it might be that although no written account of it survived, perhaps an image relating to the successful wheel could have survived in some form?  Perhaps as a sacred image or sign or symbol.  The most convincing image that I was able to find was the yin-yang symbol. I have briefly touched on this symbol before on this blog but a recent email I received has persuaded me to discuss it again.

I have used this symbol for many years as an avatar on the Besslerwheel forum because it seems to me to have some resonance with Bessler's wheel, although I don't think the yin-yang symbol bears any similarity to it.

Taijitu is another name for the same image and both originated in China and a rough English translation is “diagram of ultimate power”. The Taijitu is one of the oldest and best-known life symbols in the world. At its heart are the two poles of existence, which are opposite but complementary. The light, white Yang moving up blends into the dark, black Yin moving down. Yin and Yang are dependent opposing forces that flow in a natural cycle, always seeking balance. 

Though they are opposing, they are not in opposition to one another. As part of the Tao, they are merely two aspects of a single reality. Each contains the seed of the other, which is why we see a black spot of Yin in the white Yang and vice versa. They do not merely replace each other but actually become each other through the constant flow of the universe.The image is designed to give the appearance of movement. The pattern is sometimes described as two fish swimming head to tail.

Curiously, patterns similar to the Taijitu also form part of Celtic, Etruscan and Roman iconography, where they are loosely referred to as yin yang symbols by modern scholars, however no relationship between these and the Chinese symbol has been established.

Celtic yin yang motif on an enameled bronze plaque (mid-1st century AD)

Shield pattern of the Western Roman infantry unit armigeri defensores seniores (ca. AD 430), the earliest known classical yin yang 

So by coincidence several different races from divers regions of the world have come up with an identical image and yet no connection has been established between them.  This curious coincidence implies a common beginning but did it originate from some archetypal imagery.  Wikipedia explains that 'an archetype is a universally understood symbol, term, statement, or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated. Archetypes are often used in myths and storytelling across different cultures.'  

To my mind the design of the yin yang is so close to the design of the Savonius rotor that it begs the question, did the yin yang symbol derive from the Savonius rotor or vertical-axis wind turbine, and not some Pseudopsychology?  Maybe, but as for an image of the mechanism inside Bessler's wheel being found in some ancient artifact.....there is no evidence that it ever existed before or and definitely not, after his time.......so far.

Thanks a usual to wikipedia for the above information.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

Bessler's Wheel and the Orffyreus Code

This is a little refresher on why we are researching Johann Bessler.  It's aimed more at the casual visitor but hopefully will galvanize my older readers  into renewed activity with the hope of success!

Bessler's original portrait with pentagram added

In 1712 Johann Bessler (aka ORFFYREUS) exhibited a machine which he claimed, drew its energy from gravity. Despite nearly twenty years of the most stringent tests, examinations and public trials, not the slightest sign of deception was ever found. Bessler died 33 years later, in poverty, still maintaining that his machine was genuine and there was no convincing evidence to the contrary.He had a number of supporters as well as enemies, and among his champions were some of the most respected men of the day. These men, included Gottfried Leibniz and Christian Wolff, top scientists of the calibre of Newton.

A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I/J	K	L	M
N	O	P	Q	R	S	T	U/V	W	X	Y	Z

Alphabetic substitution gives Orffyre from Bessler

Bessler wanted to sell his machine for the sum of £20,000, a fortune in those days, equivalent to well over a million Pounds today. Despite the apparent stupidity of asking such a large sum of money, it was not unique and in fact Bessler based the sum on the one offered by the British Board of Longitude, which, at the same time, was offering £20,000 to the first person to discover a means of locating the exact position of a ship at sea, longitudinally. John Harrison eventually won the money although it took him and his son many years to get all of it from a reluctant British government.

First drawing of wheel with added pentagram, Grundlicher Bericht

A picture of the remains of Bessler's windmill.

Bessler failed to sell his machine, not for a lack of customers, but because he refused to allow access to his secret until he had the money in his possession. He offered his head to the axe man if he should be found to have deceived his prospective clients. But his determination not to risk being cheated of his reward, defeated all negotiations. He died in harrowing circumstances years later, building Northern Europe's first horizontal windmill to his own design of course. In mid-winter, starving, weak and in debt, he fell to his death. The massive base of the mill still stands, decaying, weatherworn and utterly neglected, in the small town of Fürstenberg in Germany.

Last page of Apologia Poetica with added pentagram

The primary purpose of this blog is to discuss matters pertaining to the successful search for the solution to Bessler's wheel.  There is good evidence that the inventor left behind him sufficient clues to permit someone to reconstruct the wheel.  This information is formed from textual, graphic and encoded clues.  On this page are examples of his hidden pentagrams but there are many more clues offering other hints as to the way his machine worked.

Other clues appearing throughout all of his works, implicate the number five. I have suggested that perhapst five mechanisms are needed to build a successful machine, but it may indicate a phase in deciphering his encoded material.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

Bessler's windmill and his self-moving wheel.

I have spent several hours of computer time arguing that the wind is a conservative force, like gravity, and yet it can be used to drive windmills, therefore gravity can be used to drive gravitywheels. There have been two chief arguments against this idea but both are easily refuted and I'd prefer not to open that can of worms again here. This time I am approaching the subject from another angle in the hope of persuading some of you to my point of view.

When Bessler left Karl's employment he continued to invent new ways of using his gravity-enabled engine, describing ever-lasting fountains, continuously-playing carillons and even a submarine capable of providing continuous fresh air. All of these clearly depended on the driving force of his self-moving wheel. This fact alone supports the view that he was honest.  But his last invention was potentially a winner, if only he had succeeded in finishing it.  He fell to his death from a new kind of windmill which had a vertical axle and presented its sails to the wind regardless of what ever direction it came from.

The earliest recorded windmill of this design was found to be of Persian origin, and was invented around 500–900 AD. This design was called a panemone, with vertical lightweight wooden sails attached by horizontal struts to a central vertical shaft. It was first built to pump water, and subsequently modified to grind grain as well.  Later the Savonius wind turbine was invented by the Finnish engineer Sigurd Johannes Savonius in 1922.  This design bears a  a surprising similarity to the yin-yang symbol familiar to the Japanese and Chinese.  There are some who support the idea that the yin-yang design originated in ancient times in China where it was originally a windmill very similar to a Savonius windmill,  and which was used for pumping water and grinding corn, and whose design gradually became associated with the religious leaders of that era and subsumed within the Taoist belief system. Certainly it can be argued that the attributes belonging to the yin-yang are similar to the associations applicable to a gravity wheel, as for instance this description, "yin and yang,literally meaning heavy and light, and it is used to describe how polar opposites or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other in turn in relation to each other. Yin and yang are not opposing forces, but rather complementary ones, that interact to form a greater whole, as part of a dynamic system".   I may say more about this in my next post.

These windmills with their vertical axes present their blades parallel to the wind and reflect the same attitude as gravity does, acting on a gravity-enabled wheel.  It takes but a moment's thought to see that Bessler must have considered the attitude his wheels had to have, in order to take advantage of the downwards force of gravity and he applied the same logic to a windmill to take advantage of the wind.  Unfortunately his desired position on the top of a hill was denied him and it is doubtful if it would have worked where he was forced to build it, lower down in the village of Furstenberg.  It is unclear exactly how his sails were designed although I have posted the only known drawings of it, left to us at my website at http://www.orffyreus.org/  It is possible that drawings exist showing the details of his planned sails and these might give some indication of his design for the gravity-enabled wheels.

Perhaps the design of Johann's gravity wheel gave him the idea of adapting some of its features for use in his new windmill.  This would seem to imply that he also thought of gravity as similar to the force of the wind.  During his years of research we know he studied wind and water mills carefully and must have linked the forces of wind and water to that of gravity and come to the conclusion that they were similarly capable of driving a wheel.

JC

Bessler's Revelation - God or Intuition?

Bessler's belief in God seems to have been a constant theme throughout his life and I wondered at one time if  all his loudly proclaimed faith was genuine, but latter events seem to confirm its validity.

Johann Bessler attributed his success to his own determination to succeed - and more importantly, to God.  This fervent religious belief is something I have tried to understand without success.  I can't help that I'm not a believer, in fact I am an agnostic atheist. One of the  best definitions of such, is that of Robert Flint, in his Croall Lecture of 1887–1888 (published in 1903 under the title Agnosticism).

"The atheist may however be, and not unfrequently is, an agnostic. There is an agnostic atheism or atheistic agnosticism, and the combination of atheism with agnosticism which may be so named is not an uncommon one.

If a man has failed to find any good reason for believing that there is a God, it is perfectly natural and rational that he should not believe that there is a God; and if so, he is an atheist... if he goes farther, and, after an investigation into the nature and reach of human knowledge, ending in the conclusion that the existence of God is incapable of proof, cease to believe in it on the ground that he cannot know it to be true, he is an agnostic and also an atheist – an agnostic-atheist – an atheist because an agnostic... while, then, it is erroneous to identify agnosticism and atheism, it is equally erroneous so to separate them as if the one were exclusive of the other.."

So when Bessler awoke from his strangely invigorating dream which gave him the confidence to carry on to success, he attributed it to God.  He would never have considered that it might have been intuition. Intuition may be defined as "understanding or knowing without conscious recourse to thought, observation or reason. Some see this unmediated process as somehow mystical while others describe intuition as being a response to unconscious cues or implicitly apprehended prior learning."  Dr. Jason Gallate & Ms Shannan Keen BA.

Many, if not all of us, have experienced that moment of revelation in the night or upon waking which seems to provide a light at the end of the tunnel, something which might lead to success or at least progress.  This revelation is, in my opinion, the result of "understanding or knowing without conscious recourse to thought, observation or reason", or to put it another way, the subconscious has continued to worry at the problem and supplied its solution upon waking.  Dreams are often recalled upon waking and yet vanish in the light of a later dawn.  Our subconscious is closer to our waking minds at that moment of transition, when we finally awaken or if we surface momentarily during the night and it is then we can connect, however briefly, with it.

I have no wish to impugn other people's religious convictions, and I have sought to understand them over the years, but in the end one's beliefs are a matter of personal conviction which does not require explanation to anyone else.  To me there is an odd dichotomy between religion and science.  Many top scientists as well as the vast majority of the world's population follow a religion.  But how is it that on the one hand those experts teach us that Bessler's wheel was impossible, because of their rational, objective, non-magical view of the world - and yet on the other hand they state with absolute authority and sincerity their utter belief in the existence of God with no evidence whatsoever other than their subjective experience. Surely two such differing views must be mutually exclusive? How can rational scientists state unequivocally that Bessler's wheel was impossible then go to church on Sunday and 'pray' or talk to a being whose very existence is unknowable.

I read that Science is natural and that:-

• It explains the existence & order of the universe & human consciousness.
• It is rational, fact-based, objective & non-dogmatic.
• It is antithetical to sectarianism, dogmatism, intolerance & violence.
• It does not indulge in magical thinking.
• It deals with human reality, which is the material world.
• It is progressive, evolving as we evolve.
• It is self-correcting, acknowledges its mistakes & moves on.

On the other hand I read that Religion is not only subjective, it’s irrational, and therefore cannot be a source of truth for the following reasons:-

• It was invented by man.
• It misrepresents the origins of man & cosmos and represses human intellect.
• It is irrational, dogmatic, subjective.
• It gives rise to sectarianism, disunity, intolerance, repression & violence.
• It indulges in magical thinking.
• It combines servility & solipsism.
• It represents an anachronistic, Bronze Age philosophy.

And let's not ignore the common man, if he will forgive me for referring to him (or her) thus?  How many believe in ghosts, good luck, superstition, life after death, psychic phenomena etc, etc?  None of these things are proven and yet people would rather believe in some subjective absurdity that they have been persuaded is real than a well documented machine whose only failing was that it appeared to conflict with the laws of science as laid down by those God-fearing men of 300 years ago.

On the other side of the coin, I think there is a strong possibility that those revelations, I mentioned easrlier, that we experience in the night are sometimes proven correct and sometimes turn out to be an example of apophenia.  Remember that definition - the perception of patterns, meanings, or connections where none exists?  Is religion based on seeing patterns where none exist; seeing God's hand in places or events where a more mundane explanation which did not require such divine intervention would suffice.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

Bessler's engine again!

OK this is me day-dreaming again! A while ago I suggested that Bessler's wheel might be used to drive a vehicle of some sort. There was some considerable scoffing at the prospect of a Bessler wheel engine mounted in a vehicle, so I thought I'd better stick my head up above the parapets and risk some more brickbats!

I wonder if Richard Trevithick (1771-1833) who built the first steam engine tramway locomotive, on February 22, 1804, thought that his engine was too big and unwieldy?  It weighed five tons, its boiler was eight foot long and four foot in diameter. It could hit 4 miles an hour BUT it was able to haul a load of 10 tons of iron, 70 men and five extra wagons 9 miles.

In The Guardian Wednesday 26 August 2009

"A century old record has been broken after Inspiration, a twin-finned car that looks like a prop from Thunderbirds, achieved an average speed of 139.84mph on two runs over a measured mile, at Edwards Air Force Base, California. That may not sound fast when a car has already broken the sound barrier, but this was a steam car, and the record for this type of machine was set in 1906, at an average of 127.7mph.

The British car, with British born driver Charles Burnet III at the wheel, reached a maximum of 151.085mph, a speed greater than the 145.6mph recorded in 1985 by Steamin' Demon, a car designed by Jim Crank of California and driven by Richard Barber along the Bonneville Salt Flats."

Coincidentally there is a video of steam-driven vehicles at http://archive.org/details/BeslerCo1932 by the Besler Corporation Promo Film: Steam-Driven Vehicles] (ca. 1932-1933)!

After the 1973 global oil crisis, the Swedish automaker Saab developed an innovative nine-cylinder axial steam-car design that used electronic controls to improve efficiency and reduce the size and weight of the boiler, and added a compressed-air pump to speed up acceleration.  The car used only miniscule amounts of fuel to heat the boiler and generated almost no greenhouse gas emissions. But after the oil market stabilized in the 1980s, the Saab steamer never got off the drawing board. In the 1990s, German researchers came up with a low-emissions engine design, the ZEE, that used ceramic cylinder linings instead of oil as a lubricant. 

The point of the above being that even steam engines can be technologically advanced to compete with the modern petrol engine, so...

OK, I know a steam engine is a more reactive and portable kind of engine than a gravity powered engine seems to be, but don't be so keen to rule out technological advances.  We don't even have a working model of a Besslerwheel yet, and we have no idea of its potential.

I envisage an Besslerwheel engine mounted on gimbals to allow it maintain its vertical axis, what ever direction it is heading and at what ever angle to the horizontal.  Reduce its height and compensate by lengthening it.  In a previous post, I suggested mounting several wheels on one axle, but in fact it might be possible to design it to have one of each weight, whose horizontal length is increased to the length of the wheel's width. So in effect you have squashed down wheel and made it much, much wider.  There may be ways of shaping the weights or altering the levers to gain further mnechanical advantage.

And such an engine might be used to generate electricity to drive the vehicle.

Yes this is pure speculation, but don't dismiss it as a possibility; we won't know what it will be capable of until we have one to develop. 

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

Apophenia versus Creativity.

Recently an anonymous commenter used the word 'apophenia', and I had to look it up to learn its meaning.  Thank you for that anon, I am always pleased to learn a new word and 'apophenia' is an excellent example.

'Apophenia' describes the phenomenon of the perception of patterns, meanings, or connections where none exists. It’s like looking at a Rorschach ink blot and telling the analyst what you see.

In the world of statistical analysis, apophenia is known as a "Type 1 error". This is often called the “false positive” and happens when data is interpreted as confirming a hypothesis when in fact it does not. It’s effectively when you see a pattern where there isn’t one.  

The human brain constantly searches for patterns; it's a learned behaviour which developed in response to danger. Patterns are recognised as established order, and breaks in patterns suggest danger.  So although we say we seek patterns what we really do is watch out for breaks in established patterns but the result is the same - we monitor patterns constantly.

We Besslerites are convinced that Johann was genuine, despite what we have been taught and we therefore seek to confirm our belief by reproducing his wheel, not just for that reason but for the benefit of mankind, as we see it. But, as someone put it recently, when you think you might have solved the problem, "the chances are that you are having an apophenic experience and you need to remember to clean your cognitive glasses in a little reality solution."  This sounds rather depressing but actually it isn't.  Looking for the solution involves much trial and error and therefore apophenia is a necessary part of the process.  

We all have our pet theories and each is different to the rest, and we have no way of knowing, so far, if any of them are right, but we seek to prove them by building or simulating the finished wheel, according to whatever hypothesis we are committed to.

Searching for the solution to Bessler's wheel is a bit like connecting the dots to make a recognisable picture.  Sometimes the dots don'tproduce the picture we want.  But have faith, according to Karl Brugger, "The propensity to see connections between seemingly unrelated objects or ideas most closely links psychosis to creativity ... apophenia and creativity may even be seen as two sides of the same coin."  So be creative and let the reality check take care of itself and if the result is attributable to apophenia keep looking for that break in the pattern.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

Update - Frustration leads to innovation!

My wheel project is stationary at the moment for reasons I have explained previously, but things are gradually improving. Unfortunately I am still restricted by lack of space, however this has forced me to concentrate on the most basic requirements for solving this enduring puzzle.  I have built a simple test rig to try to solve the problem currently occupying my mind; how to make the weight fly upwards at the critical moment.

The pictures below give some idea of my working environment!  I'm sharing space with my son-in-law's two bikes, his cross-trainer, his complete tool chest for maintaining his bikes, a fridge-freezer, dishwasher etc etc.  Now they are formally in residence we are trying to make more room, but for now I must just bite the bullet.

I used to have the run of the whole workshop but hopefully things will return to normal at some point earl;y next year!  All my tools and equipment have been crammed into a small corner on the right in the above picture, to allow for the removal of the bikes from time to time.  I can barely turn around in the space left, but I will keep at it because I need the buzz I get from building new mechanisms and testing them to see how they work. 

I had been working with the whole wheel and all its five mechanisms but it is pointless to keep everything in a state of flux when all I need to know is how to get one mechanism to act the way I wish it to.  My test rig is just a simple two foot square of MDF which is painted white and has the critical angles marked out on it.  Certain angles, although apparently necessary to the succesful mechanism have to be omitted from the range of movement for reasons which are clear once you know how the whole thing is meant to work, and they are painted yellow and the critical one to abide by are in red, the rest is as I say, white.  I'm finding this detail  helpful in keeping the design within the limits of my self-imposed strictures which I believe apply to a successful mechanism.

At the moment I'm transferring some parts of the mechanism from the wheel to the test rig and then at every opportunity I return to it and continue my research. I'm certain that once I have achieved the reaction I am looking for I won't need to build the wheel to prove my point because it relates to something I have referred to from time to time and which is secreted in the string of letters I always include after my posts....but of course I will build it!

PS. I know the test rig isn't really an innovation, I just liked the ring of the title!

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.