Electricity from windturbines? No thanks!

A report by the UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change says a huge expansion of green energy is planned, with up to 32,000 new wind turbines and many thousands of transmission pylons as it struggles to meet greenhouse gas emissions targets.

This news report got me thinking.  Obviously it would be wonderful if Bessler's wheel could be part of the energy supply sysytem - but that is but a possibility glimpsed in the future, at this time.  So in the mean time we must have the windturbines - apparently.  So, how efficient and how green are these wind turbines?

"Passed by millions of drivers a year, it is one of England’s best known wind turbines. It is also one of its most useless. According to latest figures, the 280ft generator towering over the M4 near Reading worked at just 15 per cent of its capacity last year. And although it generated electricity worth an estimated £100,000, it had to be subsidised with £130,000 of public money.  Since it was switched on in 2005, it has been given £600,000 in public subsidies while working at an average of 17 per cent of its capacity."  Not very efficient then and certainly not cost effective.  (Daily Mail)

When we drill for oil or mine coal, the fossil fuels obtained result in a net profit to the energy companies because more energy is created than is used to obtain the fossil fuels. They make a profit because the consumer places a certain value on a gallon of gas; he pays for the fuel to drive 20 miles, instead of walking, bicycling or riding a horse.

That is not the case for wind turbines. The energy they create does not even pay for the costs of obtaining that energy, therefore they do not create energy. Each dollar represents a certain amount of energy. A 2MW turbine costs $3.5 million dollars according to wind turbine sources.  The lifespan of turbines is estimated to be about 20 years. If you financed the entire $3.5 million at 7% it would be require a payment of $330,000 per year. This does not include the cost of maintenance, transmission line or back-up conventional power plants to balance the fluctuating output.

If we construct the 2MW turbines in a favorable position it will produce about 30% of 2MW or .0.6MW over the entire year. There are 8760 hours in the year yielding a production of 5300 MW-hours. Multiply by 1,000 to convert to kWh's and the yield is 5,300,00 kWhs. Each kWh is worth about 5 cents wholesale for a total production of $262,000 per year, yet the owner will have to pay $330,000 per year to cover capital costs. A rough estimate reveals at least another $70,000 per year to cover maintenance, landowner leases, local government kickbacks, transmission lines and extra costs of conventional power plants backup. Generally there is approximately 1 full time worker for every 4 turbines. Even using the gross under-estimate of $70,000 per year of ongoing costs the investors would need to spend $400,000 per year to yield only $262,000 in electricity payments.

Where's the money?  Where is the profit?  The profit for the investors comes from Government subsidies and tax credits which ultimately means you and me!  But hey, no worries - wind turbines are green!

From a local residence point of view they are harmful to wildlife such as bats, songbirds, and raptors such as golden eagles; they ruin the views and hurt tourism; they cause noise and light pollution; and diminish real estate values.  There is also the NIMBY factor (Not In My BackYard), and I wouldn't want one in mine.

Also, many sites for wind farms are far from demand centres, requiring substantially more money to construct new transmission lines and substations.

The performance of wind mills depends on wind, weather and geography. Wind is a fluctuating, unpredictable source of energy and is not suited to meet the base load energy demand unless some form of energy storage is utilized (e.g. batteries, pumped hydro).

The manufacturing and installation of wind turbines requires heavy upfront investments – both in commercial and residential applications.

Wind energy, compared to solar panels, requires greater maintenance due to moving parts and the bearings of the turbine require changing once every 5 years.

In the process of reducing emissions, people are building sea-based windmill parks to harness energy from the wind. The question remains as to how these windmill structures, which rise out of the sea, will affect the marine ecosystem. Will seals and porpoises be disturbed by these structures? How might other parts of the marine ecosystem be affected by these windmills, and how might impacts on invertebrates and fish affect marine mammals? 

Havas and Colling (2011) wrote a paper entitled: Wind Turbines Make Waves: Why Some Residents Near Wind Turbines Become Ill. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 31(5) 414–426.

People who live near wind turbines complain of symptoms that include some combination of the following: difficulty sleeping, fatigue, depression, irritability, aggressiveness, cognitive dysfunction, chest pain/pressure, headaches, joint pain,skin irritations, nausea, dizziness, tinnitus, and stress. 

These symptoms have been attributed to the pressure (sound) waves that wind turbines generate in the form of noise and infrasound. However, wind turbines also generate electromagnetic waves in the form of poor power quality (dirty electricity) and ground current, and these can adversely affect those who are electrically hypersensitive. Indeed, the symptoms mentioned above are consistent with electro-hypersensitivity. Sensitivity to both sound and electromagnetic waves differs among individuals and may explain why not everyone in the same home experiences similar effects. Ways to mitigate the adverse health effects of wind turbines are presented.

June 13, 2012.  For years doctors at Women’s College Hospital, in the heart of Toronto, have been diagnosing patients with environmental sensitivities that include multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) and electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EMS). They have a long waiting list and if you sign up it will take 9 months to a year before a doctor has time to see you.  Some of these cases have been attributed to the close proximity of wind turbines.

BUT, that's not all! In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment is Pollution on a disastrous scale

"A toxic lake is poisoning Chinese farmers, their children and their land. It's what's left behind after making the magnets for Britain's latest wind turbines... and is merely one of a multitude of environmental sins committed in the name of our new green Jerusalem.  On the outskirts of one of China’s most polluted cities, an old farmer stares despairingly out across an immense lake of bubbling toxic waste covered in black dust. He remembers it as fields of wheat and corn.

Vast fortunes are being amassed here in Inner Mongolia; the region has more than 90 per cent of the world’s legal reserves of rare earth metals, and specifically neodymium, the element needed to make the magnets in the most striking of green energy producers, wind turbines. But there is a distinctly dirty truth about the process used to extract neodymium: it has an appalling environmental impact that raises serious questions over the credibility of so-called green technology.

The reality is that, as Britain flaunts its environmental credentials by speckling its coastlines and unspoiled moors and mountains with thousands of wind turbines, it is contributing to a vast man-made lake of poison in northern China. This is the deadly and sinister side of the massively profitable rare-earths industry that the ‘green’ companies profiting from the demand for wind turbines would prefer you knew nothing about. Hidden out of sight behind smoke-shrouded factory complexes in the city of Baotou, and patrolled by platoons of security guards, lies a five-mile wide ‘tailing’ lake. It has killed farmland for miles around, made thousands of people ill and put one of China’s key waterways in jeopardy. This vast, hissing cauldron of chemicals is the dumping ground for seven million tons a year of mined rare earth after it has been doused in acid and chemicals and processed through red-hot furnaces to extract its components.

Rusting pipelines meander for miles from factories processing rare earths in Baotou out to the man-made lake where, mixed with water, the foul-smelling radioactive waste from this industrial process is pumped day after day. No signposts and no paved roads lead here, and as we approach security guards shoo us away and tail us. When we finally break through the cordon and climb sand dunes to reach its brim, an apocalyptic sight greets us: a giant, secret toxic dump, made bigger by every wind turbine we build.

The lake instantly assaults your senses. Stand on the black crust for just seconds and your eyes water and a powerful, acrid stench fills your lungs. For hours after our visit, my stomach lurched and my head throbbed. We were there for only one hour, but those who live in Mr Yan’s village of Dalahai, and other villages around, breathe in the same poison every day." Thanks to http://www.dailymail.co.uk and various other sources.

JC

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Perpetual motion or gravitywheel or infinity engine.

I was thinking about whether Bessler's wheel was a perpetual motion machine and/or a gravitywheel.  We routinely describe Bessler's wheel as a Perpetual Motion machine but I have always argued against the term because, back in Bessler's day, they defined it as a machine which would run with no external energy source, which is obviously impossible.  But when you consider the words themselves, out of context, there is some validity in describing his wheel as a Perpetual Motion machine.

Perpetual Motion means motion of some kind which is never ending. This definition is open to interpretation; it can also mean that the energy source is always available, so the machine keeps running. So a perpetual motion machine would run for ever as long as the materials of which is made did not wear out or break down - and its energy source was always present - a description straight from Bessler.

A theoretical perpetual motion machine would run for ever, or as buzz lightyear said, to infinity and beyond! If there was a way of continually topping up an auto's fuel tank while its engine was running, that would also seem to comply with the definition of a perpetual motion machine, i.e. as long as its parts last and it has enough fuel to continue running.

Talking of infinity, the symbol for infinity refers to something without any limit, and is a concept relevant in a number of fields, predominantly mathematics and physics. The English word infinity derives from the Latin, infinitas, which can be translated as unboundedness, itself derived from the Greek word apeiros, meaning endless.  So perpetual and infinity both mean endless. Endless also means extending indefinitely which is what we do when we continually top up the fuel tank to keep the auto engine turning, or continuously supply electricity to electric machines.

So Bessler's machine was a perpetual motion machine as long as it had access to an unending supply of energy - which I believe was the force of gravity. The infinity symbol, called a lemniscate, see above, looks like the figure eight lying on its side. Coincidentally I have argued on one of  my websites that the shape seems to relate to the movements of a person on a swing, demonstrating parametric oscillation.  What a marvellous coincidence if this shape should prove to be representative of the action of the weights within Bessler's wheel - an infinity symbold for an infinitly moving wheel.

So we can conclude that both terms, perpetual motion and gravitywheel, can apply; perpetual motion is endless if it has an energy supply and in Bessler case the energy was the force of gravity.

JC

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Johann Bessler's clues - real or imaginary?

A recent email prompted me to review Bessler's clues - did I think they were real or imaginary?  I resolved to re-read my own conclusions and also why he might have left them for us, if they were fake.

The first and most obvious one was his pseudonym - Orffyreus.  It is easy to see how he arrived at it but not so clear why.  Many writers from every age chose pseudonyms - modern day pseudomyms include the following; Mark Twain's real name was Samuel Clemens; Woody Alle - Allen Stewart Konigsberg; Fred Astaire - Frederick Austerlitz.  In and around Bessler's day; Molière - Jean Baptiste Poquelin; Voltaire - François-Marie Arouet  - and Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, 1493-1541, physician, alchemist, and mystic, more popularly known as Paracelsus!.

But the way Bessler chose his pseudonym was unusual.  The method, described as the atbash cipher is a simple substitution cipher for the Hebrew alphabet. In the English language the first 13 letters: A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M are place above the last 13 Letters: Z|Y|X|W|V|U|T|S|R|Q|P|O|N.

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

The order of the underneath row can be reversed as in Bessler's case. A similar cipher, known as the albam cipher required two alphabets.

We know he learned some Hebrew in Prague while staying with the Jesuit and the Rabbi, it seems obvious that he learned of the cipher then, but why would he choose that method to create a pseudonym?  No simple name changes as in the examples above and as far as I can find out, no-one else adopted such a method for their pseudonym - nor the encodement of their real name.

The reason must be linked to a desire to at least convey the impression that he was knowledgeable about ciphers and it is but a short step to conclude that he did that because he had put some encoded writing where people could read it.  I can see no reason why he would have wished to convey that impression unless there was a good reason for it and that conclusion is supported both by his own comments in Apologia Poetica as well as subsequent discoveries indicating the presence of alphabetic/numeric ciphers.

What information might that have been?  Either his chance to have the last laugh by explaining how he cheated everyone - or the real explanation of how his wheel worked, and I simply cannot accept that the former might have been true.  His tortured writing about the misery he has suffered at the hands of Gartner, Wagner and Borlach ring true.

Over the last few years I have published on my other websites my theories on why his machine did not violate the physical laws and also I have provided many examples of encoded material - too much to explain away as coincidence in my opinion.  I have a number of other examples which I am not ready to share yet but in summary I don't think there is any doubtr that Bessler left clues behind him.  Their purpose was two-fold, firstly to make people think there was information about his machine to be found within his published works, and secondly that information was there to be deciphered and it would explain how his wheel was constructed.  As I have said several times now, the information is both graphic and textual and should mainly be looked for inhis published works.

JC

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IT'S 2013 - HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I know I said I wouldn't say it ... but I really do have a strong feeling that 2013 will see the solution to Bessler's wheel!  How can I explain it?  Sometimes you have a feeling that something is going to happen and you can't explain why or how you know; you just know - and sometimes you are right!  That's how I feel.

It's a new year and I feel full of optimism.  This year of 2013 will be the year that Bessler's wheel will be reconstructed.  Furthermore it will be exactly the same internal design as he had, although there may be some minor differences in sizes and ratios. How will we know?  We'll have to wait for it to appear, then I'll show you.

I cannot wait to get back to work to prove my design and let the world have it for free.  No patent, no license, no sale - just the widest possible dissemination by every kind of media.

I know there are many who oppose my no-patent persuasion but that is a view I arrived at after many years of deliberation - and anyway, it might be you who discovers the secret, not me!  You must do what seems best to you.

Here are some reasons for optimism in 2013 :)

1. “We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” - Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962

2.    “Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances.” - Dr. Lee DeForest, Inventor of the TV

 3.    “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” - Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

 4.    “640K ought to be enough for anybody.” - Bill Gates, 1981

 5.    “The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C,’ the idea must be feasible.” - Yale University management professor critiquing Fred Smith’s paper proposing what became FedEx

 6.    “Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929

 7.    “Everything that can be invented has been invented.” - Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899

 8.    “Louis Pasteur’s theory of germs is ridiculous fiction.” - Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

9.    “If excessive smoking actually plays a role in the production of lung cancer, it seems to be a minor one.” - National Cancer Institute, 1954

10. “Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote.” - Grover Cleveland, U.S. President in 1905

11. “I’d shut [Apple] down and give the money back to the shareholders.” - Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell, Inc., 1997

12. “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.” - Western Union Internal Memo, 1876

So when someone tells you that you can’t do it, remember these quotes, charge forward, and just focus on making it happen. Cheers to an innovative and productive 2013.

(thanks to Forbes magazine)

Good luck to all of us - and good health, wealth and happiness. :)

JC

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HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

I'm not sure if I shall post another blog before Christmas as our house is now bursting at the seams!  My elder daughter, son-in-law and two of my grandchildren are all here and eating and drinking us out of house and home!  Two of them are now six foot four and can eat for the olympics, and we have had to resort to alcohol to de-stress! It was also my younger daughter's birthday, yesterday, and we are having ten for Christmas dinner.  Great fun though and I wouldn't miss it for the world, but getting time to blog when there is so much going on is not so easy, but I do get up early every morning, always have done, and that may be my best time to write.

My long search for the solution to Bessler's wheel..............continues!  I don't know how many times, as each year draws to a close, I've written that I'm sure that next year will be the year somone somewhere succeeds in solving this puzzle.  So what about 2013?  Will it be the year?  I don't know and perhaps it is a good idea not to tempt fate by saying that I have a feeling that it will be the year when Bessler's wheel rolls again!

I'm disappointed that we didn't succeed during this 300th anniversary year but that would have been a mighty coincidence, wouldn't it - to actually solve the problem on the 300th anniversary? So next year will be the 301st since Bessler exhibited his wheel, but of course he probably built his proof of principle wheel the year before so maybe it will be 302 years since he actually discovered the secret.  It simply doesn't matter whether we time the solution to a nice round number of years as long as we do make the discovery - and the sooner the better.

There are lots of discoveries to celebrate every year but mostly only the more famous ones get a centenary.  Somehow I feel that when this one surfaces it will earn the right to have centenary celebration.  So forget the 300th anniversary, next year will do just fine for the discovery of how Johann Bessler built his self-moving wheel.  Good luck to us all and I wish everone a Merry Christmas or a Happy Holiday according to your personal preference.

JC

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A reminder of my position on Bessler's wheel.

It seems clear to me that Bessler's wheel was in a state of continuous imbalance.  The first wheels which only turned one way, had to be tied down or locked to prevent them turning. Witnesses reported that the wheel began to turn spontaneously as soon as the lock was released. Bessler said that his "weights are themselves the PM device, the ‘essential constituent parts’, which must of necessity continue to exercise their motive force indefinitely – so long as theykeep away from the centre of gravity."

It has been suggested elsewhere that perhaps the wheel was tied down at a certain point so that it would begin to turn of its own accord when released.  I think that if you have a wheel which must be continuously out of balance, which is what I believe a gravity-driven wheel would be, then there would be no need to tie it down at a special place; every position of the wheel would be out of balance.

Bessler wrote textual clues in two ways; he said exactly what the clues suggest he meant, as in the above quotation - or he wrote in ambiguous terms so as not to give too much away; but he did not lie.  The sincerity in his words shines through, he was excited about his discovery and, just as we do, he liked to tease us with bits of information. So when he said "weights are themselves the PM device, the ‘essential constituent parts which must of necessity continue to exercise their motive force indefinitely – so long as theykeep away from the centre of gravity," that is what he meant.  You can try to read between the lines and get at some other hidden meaning, but there isn't one; it does what it says it does.

I'm well aware of the facts constantly repeated for my benefit, that gravity is not a source of energy.  Fine!  You believe that if you want to. Bessler's machine worked; he stated that the weights themselves were the PM device; that means that they needed gravity to work, because weights are inseparable from the effects of gravity. Now you may say that gravity cannot provide a force, but falling weights can and do. So the force comes from the weights which respond to the effects of gravity.  A simple weight-driven clock gets its energy from falling weights - if that is not tapping the force of gravity then I don't know what is.  The solution to the apparent problem of returning the weight to its starting point has been described by me in outline elsewhere and I have also solved the problem of leverage issues - which I haven't described elsewhere.

I know there will be a torrent of attempts to correct my misguided beliefs, but I shall continue on my way content in the knowledge that I am right and you are wrong.  I mean those of you who persist in believing that what you have been taught about gravity is the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and insist that gravity can't be used to drive the weights which turned Bessler's wheel. :)  Scientists (some of them) maintain that gravity is one of the four forces in physics, albeit the weakest one. In physics, a force is any influence that causes an object to undergo a certain change, either concerning its movement, direction, or geometrical construction.  Weights fall under the influence of gravity so it must be a force.

There are other arguments which say that it depends on the theory and framework you're using. If you invoke Newton's mechanics in trying to answer why a ball falls down to earth after you throw it upward, then gravity is certainly a force. If, however, you look at the revolution of the earth around the sun in the context of Einstein's general relativity, then it is less of a force and more of the tendency of massive objects to form curves and dents in space-time. 

The answer is much simpler than that - all that matters is that gravity acts like a force here on earth, regardless of how it came about.

JC

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Could scientists solve Bessler's wheel - or will it be an amateur?

Gottfried Leibniz has been described as a polymath.  This word comes from the Greek, and means "having learned much", and it describes a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas. The term was first used in the seventeenth century.

According to wikipedia, most ancient scientists were polymaths by today's standards - what does that mean?  It means that scientists these days are too specialised. The subjects we are taught are very compartmentalised. To get the best marks we choose those subjects we excel at and not necessarily those we are interested in, because the whole system is based on competition, and we compete, not only against other people but we pit one of our subjects against another.

Many who attend University seek a degree in their best subject because it is the one in which they obtained the highest exam marks.  They study to become expert in that field with the result that they know everything (they think) there is to know about it.  At first sight this makes sense, but it is to the detriment of a wider general knowledge, and unfortunately there is no advantage, career-wise, in learning about allied subjects and certainly nothing about those which have no connection with it.  They are experts within a very narrow field, consequently they know relatively little about matters outside their speciality.

On the other hand, for instance, Leibniz, a member of the Royal Society. invented a calculating machine, wrote an overview of the history of the earth, describing how the planet formed, subterranean fires, and the formation of fossils. He developed an explanation of matter known as Monadology, suggesting that any substances were individually 'programmed' to act in a predetermined way but which could not affect the preservation of free will. He made significant contributions in physics, logic, history, librarianship, and of course philosophy and theology, while also working on ideal languages, mechanical clocks and mining machinery. He also studied numerous aspects of Chinese culture!

Leibniz was of course, the most famous supporter of Johann Bessler. Another supporter, almost as celebrated, was Christian Wolff, a rationalist polymath and an influential leader of the early German Enlightenment. He pioneered socio-economics, and made lasting contributions to international law. He revived ontology as a systematic framework for the empirical sciences. He studied and taught mathematics and researched military architecture, natural history, and natural philosophy. He had a natural aptitude for mechanics according to one correspondent and of course he too, was a member of the commission which examined Bessler's Merseberg wheel- and of the Royal Society.

These men who examined Bessler's machine were not just experts in a particular field but were people whose knowledge spanned a significant number of different subject areas, giving them a wider knowledge base upon which to form an opinion about Bessler's machine.  They were able to make the intellectual connections and accept the evidence of their eyes in a way that today's 'experts' would find challenging. 

To have an in-depth knowledge about one aspect of a particular subject may deprive one of its wider ramifications, not through lack of general knowledge so much as an excess of knowledge about that one aspect. In trying to solve Bessler's wheel, we here, seek answers from a more generalised knowledge base, examining every possibility and excluding nothing, whereas 'experts' know that Bessler's claims are not possible because that is what they have been taught and they are either reluctant or incapable of re-examining their 'knowledge'.  This may be due to peer pressure, fear of ridicule, or simply a feeling of smug moral superiority derived from a sense that their beliefs, actions, or affiliations are of greater virtue than those of the average person. 

But not all 'experts' need to be highly educated scientists. They may have a prolonged or intense experience through practice and education in a particular field. In specific fields, the definition of expert is well established by consensus and therefore it is not necessary for an individual to have a professional or academic qualification for them to be accepted as an expert. In this respect, a shepherd with 50 years of experience tending flocks would be widely recognized as having complete expertise in the use and training of sheep dogs and the care of sheep. I consider myself something off an expert with regard to Bessler and his claims but I have no university degree in either mechanics or history, just the experience of forty years of engineering.  I do not  know that Bessler's wheel was impossible therefore I continue to work at it.

Thanks as ever to wikipedia. :)

JC

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Each Engineer doth protest too much, methinks!

I've been interested in Johann Bessler and his wheel since I was about fifteen years of age, when I read Rupert Gould's account of him in his book 'Oddities'.  At that time I dreamed of the possibility of building a similar machine, however I knew already that science said they were impossible, I dreamed and speculated and drew hundreds of designs, but I said nothing to anybody.

At the age of about 28 I chanced upon a copy of Gould's book, 'Oddities', and I was struck anew by the quality of the narrative and the evidence described and how utterly convincing it was.  I resolved to research the subject as thoroughly as possible even if it took me the rest of my life.  In the intervening years I occasionally told people about him and about my ambition to reconstruct his wheel - and quickly got used to the scorn and laughter which erupted at my articulated aspirations! It seemed to me that Gould himself was sufficiently fascinated by the story to do some research and in my opinion became convinced of the inventor's sincerity.

But Gould was not alone; I've always thought how remarkable it was that Henry Dircks, author of the two compact volumes detailing the history of the seach for Perpetual Motion, should have spent some twenty years researching every single mention of the subject and reproducing them in his books, complete with drawings of numerous failed designs. Then there is Arthur Ord-Hume's book on the subject, another accountof the history of such machines. Like Dircks, Ord-Hume was an engineer, and like Gould wrote extensively on antique clocks and other mechanisms.  Was it simply interest that drove these authors to spend years researching the subject - or was there a discreet longing to believe; to discover the secret apparently found only by Johann Bessler? 

John Rowley was another one.  He was Master of Mechanics to King George 1st and held a reputation as the finest instrument maker in England, and praised as such by none other John Harris, inventor of the Marine Chronometer which eventually won the prize offered by the British Board of Longitude for providing a means for finding a ship's longitudinal position at sea. Rowley spent his remaining years trying to duplicate Bessler's wheel having seen it during a visit to Kassel.

These men, all experts in their fields, seem to have been drawn to studying Perpetual Motion, and even if some of them declared their scepticism publicly, I have a feeling that privately they were not so cynical and perhaps yearned to discover that there was a way to achive the impossible.

My own suspicion that the historical accounts were wrong in assigning Bessler to the ranks of the fraudulent and the criminal, was first roused when I read Gould's account of the reported actions of Bessler's maid.  She stated under oath that she was forced to turn the wheel by means of a secret lever from the adjoining bedroom.  I simply did not believe that it was possible to turn a wheel measuring twelve feet in diameter and eighteen inches thick, by means of a simple system of levers which she said, applied their force to the quarter inch bearings at the ends of  the axle.  As if this wasn't enough she also claimed that she was able to turn the wheel which lifted the 70 poinds weight from the castle yard to the roof several times!

One of the problems we seem to encounter regularly is the intransigence of all those we  ask to reconsider the evidence.  No one will do that because they believe it would counter certain physical laws - it won't, but until the reason is explained and made clear they will continue to dismiss all such claims. 

To repeat myself - only a working model will do it.

JC

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Karl's steam-powered boat and Bessler's wheel.

I've mentioned Karl's involvement with Denis Papins before, but something occurred to me recently and I thought I'd post my thoughts here. Prior to Bessler's arrival Karl had funded the experiments of Denis Papin who was attemting to develop a steam engine.  Papin stayed with the Landgrave for ten years, finally leaving, having been invited to London in 1707, he died there in 1712.

During his stay in Kassel, in 1704, he constructed a ship powered by his steam engine, mechanically linked to paddles. This made him the first to construct a steam-powered boat. How successful it was we don't know, but I suspect that it wasn't the complete solution Papin envisaged.  He left his wife at Kassel when he went to London, possibly thinking he might return in the near future, and I've found a letter written in 1708, referring to Karl's hope that Papin would return to Kassel to continue his experiments.  I suggest that it was perhaps news of Papin's death in 1712 that persuaded Karl to accommodate Bessler in his castle at that time.  Curiously it was also this year that Newcomen exhibited his first Newcoment steam engine at Dudley castle in England.

Fischer von Erlach examined Bessler's wheel and must have been invited to the court by Karl - they couldn't just turn up uninvited. Professor 'sGravesend was also invited and I had always assumed that they were there to examine Bessler's wheel, but taking into account the fact that Papin had carried out experiments on the lake near to the castle, to build a steam-powered boat, I suspect they were there for another purpose. Leibniz had aided Papin in the development of a steam engine based on an invention by Thomas Savery, but this had proved problematic to construct. Details of the engine were published in 1707.

Both 'sGravesende and von Erlach, and indeed Desaguliers, were closely involved in the development of Captain Savery's engine, but this was eventually dropped in favour of the more powerful and reliable Newcomen steam engine.  I suspect that Karl was motivated by thoughts of adapting either Newcomen's or Savery's engine to power the boat.  To this end he sent Captain Weber to England in 1716 to obtain information on the Newcomen steam-engine, and he is also recorded as being the leader of the surveying team for a projected series of canals which were to enable  Karlshafen to become an inland port. He was Karl's chief engineer and was charged with the task of draining the marshes to create canals.  But Captain weber's efforts to try to learn the secrets of the Newcomen engine came to no avail, they were just as secretive as Bessler was.

Steam-powered boats? new canals? Steam engines?  Put them together and knowing that the cascade at Kassel was powered by four man-made lakes above the start of the cascade, and therefore did not require Bessler's wheel to pump water to the top, and you have the beginnings of an attempt to produce steam-powered boats designed to ply the canals bringing goods to and from Karlshafen.  Perhaps Karl had considered the possibility of trying to adapt Bessler's wheel for use in a boat?

JC

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