Johann Bessler's small world of paragrams and chronograms.

It was while seeking for corroborative evidence that Bessler's MT 137 was derived from David Heinichen's circle of fifths (see my page at http://www.theorffyreuscode.com/html/mt_137_a.html ) that I found a thesis describing how JS Bach, a friend and colleague of Heinichen, had included in his works a system known as alphanumerics; the subject of numerology and the old Hebrew system of Gematria involved the use of similar alphanumeric manipulation ..and of course so did Johann Bessler.

In 1947 Friedrich Smend, published the first of four studies in which he presented his theory that Johann Sebastian Bach had used a alphanumerics to incorporate significant words into his music as part of a grander scheme of compositional number symbolism. Smend collected historical testimonies and musical examples which confirmed his theory,

By the seventeenth century, alphanumeric were known about in many parts of Europe. They seem to have been most popular in German-speaking countries, where they were most frequently used as a means of solving mathematical puzzles,decoding cryptographic messages, in cabbalistic gematria and in the poetical paragram. It is common knowledge that Bessler was fascinated by paragrams and used them extensively throughout his works, most obviously in the form of chronograms.

These paragrams were described by a certain professor Christian Weise, in one of his many publications. He was headmaster of the school In Zittau that Bessler attended. He became Bessler's mentor and his teachings had a profound effect on him.  Professor Christian Weise was famous as a German writer, dramatist, poet, and teacher.  Although he was Rektor of the Zittau school, he had previously worked at the court of Duke Augustus at Weissenfels.  Following his success at designing, building and exhibiting his perpetual motion machine at Gera and Draschwitz, Bessler had moved to Wesenfels in 1714, where he worked on the new two-way version of his wheel.

JS Bach applied for the position of the organist in Weissenfels but failed to obtain the post then, although he wrote works in praise of the Duke later, so there was no bad feeling between them. In 1717 David Heinichen became a colleague of Johann Sebastian Bach and in 1721, Heinichen married in Weissenfels where he had been born and where he lived for much of his life. I continue to believe that Heinichen passed on to Bessler his ideas on the circle of fifths because they all lived and worked in close proximity to each other and their fields of interest, music and organs overlapped, but I suspect that the alphanumeric system so popular in Germany at the time was also discussed.

It seem to have been a small world in which Bessler lived.  His headmaster worked for many years in Weissenfells, where JS Bach and David Henichen also flourished. Bach used some of Weise's poetry in his operas.  He wrote his own version of the circle of fifths which, although it bore no similarity to Heinichen's was based on the same theory.  Weise wrote knowledgeably about paragrams and it would seem unlikely that Bessler would not have leaned all about these popular number-alphabets directly from his mentor.

I'm writing a longer article examining these paragrams as they may hold one of the keys to deciphering much of Bessler published te xts. I'll publish it later on one of my websites.

PS the above information I culled from a varierty of web sites too numerous to mention, other than wikipedia.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

A typical conversation about gravity-enabled wheels remembered.

I was talking to a physics teacher yesterday, a man of some years experience teaching at a fee-paying school and we got to discussing my research into Bessler's wheel.  

"Of course you do realise that he was a fraud, don't you?" he said.  

"How do you know that?" I asked.  

"Surely you know that gravity is a conservative forece and as such it cannot be used to supply energy continuously to drive that wheel of his,"  was his response.  

"But, " I replied, "the evidence that his claims were genuine is overwhelming and the numerous witnesses  none of them fools, nor easily misled.  Many of them were scientists, teachera and engineers themselves and looking for the signs of fraud."

"I'm sorry, my friend," he replied, "but you must face the facts, it's impossible, and I'll tell you why. To make the weights move in and out to cause overbalance, they will travel on different paths - right?"  I nodded because I knew where he was going with this.

"A conservative force is defined as one where  the work done in moving an object between two points is independent of the path taken, so even if they move inwards and outwards according to whether they are rising or falling...makes no difference."

"Yes I am aware of that",  I said somewhat sarcastically, "gravity is a conservative force but just as a matter of interest, can you name a non-conservative force?"

"Yes of course, friction is a non-conservative force."

"And another one?"

"Well, right now I can't think of any others, but that is not the point," he said.

"But that is the point" I replied, "there are no others worth mentioning because almost all forces are conservative and although you may technically be correct I simply cannoit regard friction as the same kind of force as all the others.  Let me ask you this; is the wind a conservative force?  Is a current of water a conservative force?"

"Well yes but their interfaces are different."

"What d you mean?" I asked.

Gravity acts on the molecules constituting the weights, while those in the wind and water act on the external surfaces of the blades."

"Sorry," I responded, "that doesn't make any difference if, as you say, the path they take doesn't matter with a conservative force. Yes the shapes of the interfaces alter, but you can't say that that excuses the fact that even though it's a conservative force the wind can still be used as an energy source - or a stream of water.  They are conservative forces and yet they demonstrate the fallacy of your argument.  Maybe I can make the path of the weights make a different shape depending on whether it's rising or falling, just like the two surfaces of the windmill sails for instance."

"You are wrong my friend, science has taught us that gravity is not a source of energy, other than for the time it takes for a weight to fall, for over 300 years, but if you can prove them all wrong, I'll eat my hat!"

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’. 

Bessler's Codes - what do they mean?

This blog is sub-titled, "A blog about Johann Bessler and the Orffyreus Code and my efforts to decipher it", so it should come as no surprise if I occasionally actually discuss the codes I've been working on.  It has always puzzled me that few people discuss my efforts at decoding Bessler's works, other than an occasional mention in passing.  I assume that it is either because the codes reveal little of interest other than continual references to pentagons and the number 5 - or the argument I put forward in explaining the codes does not convince.

Despite the lack of anything of substance being revealed, obviously Bessler thought that anyone interested enough to find just the clues I've decoded, would seek to use the information to look for the real information so clearly hidden in all of his books.  Just because I have failed so far does not mean that someone else might not succeed and I hope that there are those out there working at the puzzle in an attempt to tease out what it was Bessler wanted us to know.

On my chief decoding site at theorffyreuscode.com I have provided brief but logical descriptions of the codes I've fathomed, and they are only the ones where the proof of their existence is irrefutable. There are others which are more speculative and I am reluctant to detail them because of that very fact; they are hard to prove.

But the real question that absorbs me is what do these many references to fives and pentagons signify? I always believed that he meant that there were five mechanisms needed, but my own experiments and his comments about having just one crossbar hardly made the wheel turn at all, implies that five is not necessary although it could be the optimum number.

Considering my findings about chapter 55 in his Apologia Poetica,  which you can read at http://www.orffyreus.net/html/chapter_55.html you can see that this part obviously contains a coded message, and the reinforcements of this message, 55 verses  etc, confirm this.  The only drawing in Apologia Poetica, the Apologia wheel as it has become known, contains a pentagram above the words, 'do you still not understand?'  Surely this book but not this drawing is the place to start looking for an answer?  

What of Das Triumphirende?  There do not appear to be any mysterious Xs, nor blanks in place of certain words - but there are drawings full of mystery and intrigue.  And even his Maschinen Tractate contains at least pentagram... where,,,why number 55 of course!  Also MT137 an apparently random drawing thrown in to confuse has as its basis, not just the pentagram, but the 'circle of fifth's, well-known in musical instruction but not so well, outside the profession.  I speculated that it was the 'circle of fifths', because that particular invention is attributed to Johann David Heinichen, who coincidentally lived in the same village as Bessler did, at the same time, when he (Heinichen) was an aspiring musician, composer and teacher, and Bessler was making church organs for the same people.  The circle of fifths is built up from a simple circle within a square and the resulting points are connected at every fifth point producing the dodecagram familar to both MT readers and musicians.

So here are all the firmly decoded clues available for all since at least 2009 and yet barely a single comment about any of it.  What puzzles me further is that  there are people still trying to build wheels based on the Apologia wheel which I've demonstrated is no such thing but merely a pointer to a pentagram.  

Others ask questions which they could easily find the answer to, if they only look, or they make  assumptions  based on inaccurate information which lead to utterly erroneous conclusions because they did not take the trouble to study the information both here and on the besslerwheel forums.

Whew!!!

Meanwhile my wheel building continues and I hope to finish it before I take a break in about three weeks.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’. 

"...is it really a wheel, for it does not have the normal type of rim."

I had an idea about the above comment of Bessler's while considering something unrelated to it. My current build has one mechanism and I was considering how, in a future build, I would fit five mechanisms onto the face of the wheel and realised that it would be easier use the other side or face of the wheel as well.  Then I fell to wondering if that's how Bessler did it.

I have always assumed that his wheel consisted of two discs firmly connected together with all the mechanisms installed between them, but in fact it would be much easier to build the whole thing on a single disc, using each side.  This would explain the need to cover the two faces of the wheel with oil cloth.  I thought it strange how the reports described  the look of the wheel and could not see why he needed oilcloth to cover the sides, if two discs were underneath and therefore covering the insides.  But in fact a simple frame attached to the single central disc would suffice to support the oilcloth, or the thin deals described in another report.

Then we come to the above quote; the word used for 'rims' is 'Felgen'.  There is no other possible translation, however 'rims', these days, in relation to wheels are the outer edges of a wheel, holding the tire (tyre).  They make up the outer circular design of the wheel on which the inside edge of the tire/tyre is mounted.  Before rubber was invented, the first versions of tires were simply bands of iron that fitted around wooden wheels to prevent wear and tear. In the 1st millennium BC an iron rim was introduced around the wooden wheels of chariots.

So when Bessler says it looks like a wheel but it has no rim, he means that it can be described as a wheel but it wouldn't be any use as one because it has no rim or tire/tyre.

Note - Apparently the word 'rim' relates to Old Norse, 'rime, rimi, a raised strip of land, ridge'.

And from the online etymylogical dictionary - 'tire (n.) late 15c., "iron rim of a carriage wheel," probably from tire "equipment, dress, covering" (c.1300), a shortened form of attire. The notion is of the tire as the dressing of the wheel. The original spelling was tyre, which had shifted to tire in 17c.-18c., but since early 19c. tyre has been revived in Great Britain and become standard there. Rubber ones, for bicycles (later automobiles) are from 1870s.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

Random Thoughts and Events and Updates.

There are times when I can't think of anything to write and others where I have to store pages for future publication.  But I notice that the number and quality of comments both here and on the Besslerwheel forum have dropped off. So in the face of  my own 'writer's block', or as it is sometimes called, 'Literary Constipation', what is one to do? Looking to the wisdom of those who came before me; I should take a break, write something entirely unrelated to the usual stuff. 

Someone asked how my work on Bessler's wheel was going and why did I say nothing about it?  I don't say much because there isn't much to say.  I could describe the many hours I spend designing and building new configurations and also the many times I've eventually dismissed them as unworkable, but there is little of interest there.  I don't post images because if I did, and the design worked I'd have given it away, on the other hand once a design fails I cannibalise the parts so there's nothing left to see.

I have a number of different tasks associated with Bessler's wheel and I have to fit them in with my more mundane chores such as keeping the garden tidy and responding to my wife's pleas for a new tree here, dig up one there, clean the gutters, paint numerous parts of the house and outbuildings, everywhere.  Not to mention removal of the bees which have invaded our attic and found their way into the bathroom via the downlighters!  The final indignity was when one of them stung Mrs C!  These particular bees are bumble bees and quite large, hairy and scary.  You're probably familiar with the venerable line about scientists having proved that a bumblebee can't fly which appears regularly in magazine and newspaper stories, but it's not true, however I can tell you from direct observation that they are incompetent fliers, bumping into each other, tumbling about and missing the hole in the wall etc etc!  Really quite funny - funny, but a nuisance - of course in this country there are laws against killing bees - and foxes and squirrels for that matter, each of which think our garden (backyard) is their personal residential play area.

In the act of getting closer to the bees by climbing onto the flat roof of an adjacent building, in order to see how they were getting in, I happened to observe that the gutters were full of dead moss, leaves and the occasional small bird; and so I've bought a stand-off extension to my ladder so that I can get at the gutters and clean them - never mind the fact that I have a fear of heights and shall have to overcome it to do the job!

We also have a small bird-bath outside one of the garden windows, which is shared by a blackbird and a robin.  I never realised that robins love to bathe six or seven times a day and make a great show of splashing everything around! He bathes even if we are sat four of five feet away - magic! I also have a photo of my feet resting on a foot-rest in the garden, a glass of wine in one hand and the robin perched on the end of my foot watching for worms and grubs to appear in the grass, what a cheek! 

As for my Bessler project, I have completed my tests on a test-rig and my mechanism does what it is designed to do, (I'll say no more for now, on what that might be) and I've cut two MDF discs for use as the basis for my final wheel and a spare, incorporating the mechanisms.  I'm starting with just one mechanisms and will then advance to two, three and finally five to try to discover what difference if any, the numbers make.  Everyone knows that I think five is the optimum number but Bessler seems to suggest that fewer will provide enough stimulus to rotate the wheel, just - so, we shall see.  My chief problem in have five mechanisms is how to fit them all in.  I anticipate that squeezing them all in will be a bit like herding cats and prove equally impossible.

I have finally completed my book to follow up and update my previous one which came out in 1997!  I'm not going to self-publish it this time, but will wait until either I or some other person has succeeded in building Bessler's wheel at which point hopefully someone else (a publisher!) might be interested in taking on all the work involved publishing.  If not I'll offer it as a digital download at some point in the future.

I hope this was not too random and uninteresting.  These ordinary accounts of everyday activities make a break from the serious stuff.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

It's not just MIBs; it's commercial interests that want your discovery too.

The news about Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who exposed the NSA’s PRISM surveillance program and also implicated the British security service and others, is one thing - and knowing the paranoia that permeates the minds of those who continue to research Bessler's wheel, I'm not surprised if my fellow researchers are dismayed to get confirmation of this governmental facility - but there is another scandal brewing which should cause futher alarm and despondency to us.

According to the Independent newspaper a previously supressed report reveals that law firms, telecoms giants, and insurance companies routinely hire criminals to steal  information on business rivals and members of the public.  Of course we all suspected that has been going on but now an official report has surfaced which appears to confirm it.

According to this report the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) knew six years ago that these large firms, were hiring private investigators to break the law and further their commercial interests, yet the agency did next to nothing to disrupt it.

One of five police investigations reviewed by SOCA found private detectives listening in to targets’ phone calls in real-time. The report said a “telephone interception specialist manufactured several devices which were physically attached to the target’s landline at the relevant signal box by a British Telecom-trained telecommunications engineer.”

Illegal practices identified by SOCA investigators went well beyond the relatively simple crime of voicemail hacking and included live phone interceptions, police corruption, computer hacking and perverting the course of justice.

Despite the widespread criminality uncovered by Project Riverside between 2006 and 2007, none of the suspects identified in the report was charged with criminal offences until after the phone-hacking scandal four years later. Police were finally forced to act after the scandal that caused the closure of Britain’s biggest-selling newspaper ( Murdoch's News of the World), the resignation of two Scotland Yard police chiefs and the establishment of the Leveson Inquiry.

Forget MIB's and government snooping, it's commercial interests that will be hacking into your computer to retrieve your records on solving Bessler's wheel. Should anyone of us be approaching success it seems that the safest option might be to commit everything to paper, lock it away and wipe the computer clean of all records of your work - otherwise your patent applicatiuons will be worthless.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’. 

The Trials and Tribulations of Translating.

The Besslerwheel forum has again debated the accuracy of the English translations I provided in the Bessler's books I publish.  I don't need to rehearse the many arguments I put forth in support of the work of my friend Mike Senior, but there is another aspect to this subject which is worth bearing in mind.

I refer to the change of meanings in words over a period of time, or as wikipedia puts it, "semantic change is the evolution of word usage — usually to the point that the modern meaning is radically different from the original usage. Every word has a variety of senses and connotations, which can be added, removed, or altered over time, often to the extent that cognates across space and time have very different meanings. The study of semantic change can be seen as part of etymology, onomasiology, semasiology, and semantics."  - some words there, I've never encountered before!

( etymological dictionary at http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=p&allowed_in_frame=0,  )

There are numerous examples which I needn't repeat here but you can read the article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_change - my point is this; consider the words of William Shakespear written over 400 years ago, many people find it hard to uderstand some of his writings, but if you think they're confusing, you shoud try reading Geoffrey Chaucer writing over 600 years ago!  So what are we to make of Bessler's words written only 300 years ago?

Samuel Johnson, a contemporary of Bessler's and famous for publishing the first English dictionary wrote numerous articles and books, wrote for example, ""He that has much to do will do something wrong, and of that wrong must suffer the consequences; and, if it were possible that he should always act rightly, yet when such numbers are to judge of his conduct, the bad will censure and obstruct him by malevolence, and the good sometimes by mistake."  It's easy enough to understand but the sentences are long and convoluted and you can doubtless imagine trying to translate that into German, for instance.

(Samual Johnson's dictionary at http://archive.org/stream/dictionaryofengl01johnuoft#page/n5/mode/2up  )

But there is another aspect to take into account and that is Bessler's use of slang.  He was taught to use robust language in his poetry, by Christian Weise his teacher, and he did so with enthusiasm.  We therefore have to take into account the use of slang and try to understand its relationship to modern meaning.  One way to appreciate the difficulty with this is to consider just the differences between British English and American English - and we reputably, speak the same language, imagine the difference between English and German slang, separated by 300 years!

Finally there is Bessler's use of metaphors in his writing.   Metaphor is a figure of speech that describes a subject by asserting that it is, on some point of comparison, the same as another otherwise unrelated object, and it compares two objects or things without using the words "like" or "as".  How are we to always understand that he is using metaphors in his descriptions of things?  Sometimes it's obvious, but not always.

Bessler described a land where"roast pigeons fly into your mouth," not likely but an agreeable metaphor.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’. 

Write without slight - and hearsay evidence is not persuasive.

It's funny how we each believe from time to time that we have solved Bessler's wheel - or at least have taken a significant step along the path to success. Our path, to what seems like a valid conclusion at the time, is filled with moments of revelation interspersed subsequently with the inevitable realisation that we got it wrong. Often these 'discoveries' don't always appear to have been arrived at through a logical chain of reasoning, but are often regarded as instant revelations when the solution seems to jump out at us and we know that we have found the answer! The power of this personal conviction is of an intensity which is so powerful that the urge to share our good fortune is almost irresistible.  Is this certainty a part of a psychological flaw in our make-up, or evidence of a talent for imaginative cognitive scientific research that finds ingenuity to be essential in human reasoning?

I have had a number of these so-called revelations which supply a surprising and previously unthought of piece of artistry in a particularly dramatic way.  Many of these come in the middle of the night and lead to sleeplessness - until dawn sheds her harsh light of truth and reality and on the  subject and what seemed like a momentous revelation turns out to be a momentary lapse of reason.  Those that arrive while I'm at my workbench seem much more logical and worthy of exploration.

I completely understand why some people occasionally wax enthusiastic about the latest lightening bolt of inspiration that's hit them and make announcements which have no basis in fact - to everyone else it is nothing more than hearsay, a feature of the justice system which is not even generally admissable in court.  I tend to empathise with those who make premature announcements - been there, done that - and abusing them for doing so does not help and neither does the growing trend on the besslerwheel forum for being disrespectful to others. It's commonly advised that you shouldn't write anything to or about anyone that you wouldn't have the guts to say to their face.  But as well, the effect of the words may be softened in the presence of the recipent, by the body-language of the person uttering them.  Unfortunately the body-language element is missing on the internet and therefore the words may appear more abrasive than they seemed to the author.  Please think before you write, it may cause a slight. (definition of slight - a deliberate discourteous act usually as an expression of anger or disapproval)

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’. 

Gravity - or the force of heaviness.

I've discussed this before but it seems an apt moment to mention it again, following comments on the Besslerwheel forum.

Many people search for the word "gravity" in Bessler's writings and some suggest that since he didn't use the word he did not ascribe the energy which drove his wheel to gravity.

Sir Isaac Newton described gravity, but he didn't use that word either.  He wrote his book, 'Philosophiæ naturalis principia mathematica', entirely in Latin, because that was the language used by the learned, and many books on academic and scientific subjects were written in Latin so that they could be read by people in all the European countries regardless of the reader's own native language. The name "gravity" comes from the Latin word, "gravitas", which means "heaviness". 

"Gravity" is a force that's exerted between heavy bodies that had what Newton called mass, Newton was saying that weight shouldn't any longer be regarded as simply a property possessed by a "heavy body", but that a body that seems to be heavy is in fact being attracted by another body with mass, in this case, the earth.

The fact that Bessler used all kinds or words to describe gravity is simply because the word, "gravity" had not yet been recognised in its own right as a name for the force of attraction Newton was describing.  He describes it as a heaviness, out of balance, preponderance, etc etc.

"Principia" came out in 1687 and took many years to become known throughout Europe and it's unlikely that Bessler ever had access to the book, but even so the word used was simply "heaviness" in Latin, and was not generally understood as an attraction between two masses.

So accept, as I have always done, that Bessler's wheel derived its energy from gravity - or the force of heaviness.

NOTE - you can read Newton's Principiua on line at the Cambridge digital library.  The website is http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/PR-ADV-B-00039-00001/1

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’. 

Update - and problems encountered along the way

This is partly an update and an account of my thoughts during the current build and the problems I'm encountering.

Bessler once commented in his Apologia Petica, "If I arrange to have just one cross-bar in the machine, it revolves very slowly, just as if it can hardly turn itself at all, but, on the contrary, when I arrange several bars, pulleys and weights, the machine can revolve much faster...'.

Now I have always believed that Bessler had five mechanisms in his wheel (and I could supply convincing evidence that this was the optimum number) and that anything less was a waste of time, but it is obvious that just getting a wheel to turn continuously, no matter how slowly, would be a perfectly acceptable proof of principle and a major achievement.  So what's the problem?

I recently decided to build just one mechanism on a test rig and try to perfect it before building more for the wheel itself.  But instead of then assembling four more mechanisms and attaching them to the wheel, I realised that the next logical step would be to test the wheel with just one mechanism - which isn't the same thing as building a single one and then making the wheel with however many I designed it for. Having designed mechanisms which operate as one of three, four or five, I see a problem in designing a wheel using just one of my mechanisms. With more than one, they are intended to operate in conjunction with each other, but with just the one, I'm wondering how to use it effectively.  Do I add one or more weights at certain points to counter the missing mechanisms and their weights?  Should I reposition the mechanism so that it is more central?  I depends on how big it is relative to the wheel's size and more importantly, how it is designed to work.

So now I have a mechanism that appears to do what I want it to do, but it is hard to fit five of them on a wheel, which means either making each smaller, or using a larger wheel.  Much better to try to adapt the single mechanisms to operate on its own in driving the wheel "very slowly,just as if it can hardly turn itself at all!" Of course another option is to build it with more than one, maybe two,three or four mechanisms, I'd have no problem fitting two or three on the existing wheel

The mechanism works according to the concept I have encoded at the end of each blog.  I know that some have suggested that I should include pictures of my work, but I can't yet until I know that it won't work.  I will try to post some pictures of my failed design using the 'kiiking' principle, unfortunately I cannibalised the parts to make this next desing, but I may have some parts remaining.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’. 

Google login now required - sorry anons

Sorry guys, but the comment section has turned into a sordid mess of foul language, tantrums, vicious retorts and tit-for-tat recriminations, which has nothing to do with Bessler or the blog.  Against my wishes,  I must require a log in to at least see who is commenting.  Why people resort to moronic name-calling I don't know; why they consistently refer to slang names for actions and parts of the human reproduction system I don't know either.

It seems to me that the people who are interested in solving Bessler's wheel are intelligent, reasonable and capable, so it cannot be they who persist in demonstrating their inadequacy by resorting to schoolboy taunts more suited to the children's playground than to intellectual persuits such as we enjoy.

The use of swear words is usually done for gratuitous effect and is often associated with stress in an individual, but it also demonstrates a lack of imagination and imagination is one of the chief requirements in Bessler research - and a lack of it is not something you could ever accuse Bessler of..  In his words, "Oh - be gone!, you evil hornets, you prattlers swollen with poison, you envious wretches who have so vilely debased me! Only your lap-dogs will be enticed by your poisonous crumbs!"

JC

Invention suppression or merely paranoia

The suppression of alternative energy inventions has long been a cherished bête noire in this field of research.  I noted some comments on the besslerwheel forum on the subject and because I hadn't looked into it for several years I did a quick survey via google.  I came across the same old stories about various amazing discoveries in the field of energy, the benefits of which we should all be enjoying, but which were apparently suppressed by Federal Government, Big Oil, Big Energy, MIBs or the inventor himself.  The problem I have with this informaton is that it seems to consist of recycled information - and the authors and their subject matter, seem to be the same ones I read about over ten years ago; there's very little that's new.

There are two kinds of suppression described, one is where the invention is taken by guile or force and buried and the inventor dies or disappears in mysterious circumstances; and the other is where the inventor himself is 'bought off', or paid an attractive sum of money or benefit to drop his research and remain silnent to the end of his days.  The latter is hard to prove or disprove since the mechanics of the action would prevent such knowledge being known - other than as hearsay or gossip and that in my opinion probably applies to all of it.

I confess that I find all accounts of suppression of any sort highly suspect but as I suggested, the very nature of the supposed suppression would be tend to create that effect I suppose.

On the other hand I have been in regular contact with professor Hal Puthoff for many years and we have often discussed the perceived problem of 'big brother' control of new energy systems and he has made strongly persuasive arguments against such reported suppressions.  I'm sure that there are some who will say that professor Puthoff would take that point of view and express it forcefully, because he was at one time one of a number of scientific advisors to the US government on energy research.  However given his own work in related fields and his considerable support for other amateur reseachers as well as my own efforts in bringing information about Johann Bessler to public view, I'm satisfied that he would not support any kind of suppression.

Google can produce over one and half million webpages on suppressed inventions and despite looking through dozens of them, I came to the conclusions that what such websites display owes more to paranoia than actual evidence.  Without exception each author modifies his introduction with such words as 'Some examples may be cause for scepticism', and this apologising in advance for the so-called facts which are about to be paraded for our benefit, and which are in the main indigestible, is understandable.  Of course this incredulity which they invoke should not negate their validity but their very ubiquity does raise the suspicion in ones mind that they are all copying each other and perhaps the original source for the information has been forgotten.

Knowing the intense pressure experienced by all commercial interests to find a money-making scheme to increase profits etc, it is scarcly credible that any of them would bury a new idea.  The only area of doubt, it has been suggested, is the government - any government - they, it is claimed, have a vested interest in suppressing anything which might affect their tax revenues accrued from the sale of petroleum products. However, given the rapid depletion of oil reserves and its likely eventual affect on the tax-take anyway, and the fact that they are all actively seeking an alternative to which they can attach another form of tax revenue which could be equally profitable for them and without the concomitant disadvantages of its predecessor, does throw doubt on that assumption as well.

For those who think that the oil companies would like to suppress any new energies, remember the no-doubt apocryphal, comment by one oil CEO, 'Burning gasoline is like keeping warm by burning Rembrants!'  Remember that one 42-gallon barrel of oil creates 19.4 gallons of gasoline. The rest (over half) is used to make over 6000 items and you can see a list of just 144 at http://www.ranken-energy.com/Products%20from%20Petroleum.htm  petroleum is not just used for fuel and the bi-products are of far greater value than gas.

Finally, however effectively the inventions were suppressed in the past, and in my opinion that fact is of doubtful authenticity, it would prove extremely difficult to do so now, with social networking, forums and online document storage and other facilities available via the internet.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’. 

Size need be no object.

I don't know why some people believe that Bessler's wheel would prove to be too weak to produce sufficient energy to be of any practical use.  

Take a look at this project, http://www.rarenergia.com.br/

It is huge!  The two brothers, Ribeiro, from Brazil have been in touch with me from time to time over many years, but when I saw their latest venture I had to rethink my ideas about the size of Bessler's wheel and how big it would have in order to be really useful. I have no idea of the value of their project but seeeing the pictures of it got me thinking and when I considered the sizes of various energy devices throughout history, I realised that Bessler's wheel could be whatever size it needed to be to produce useful electricity.

John Rowley designed and built a new tidal wheel to pump water to Windsor Castle, from the river Thames, nearly three hundred years ago. I quote from the records 'John Rowley, master of mechanicks, for making a dam before and behind the engine, for clearing the old foundation, for setting down a new frame,  for the new wheel of twenty-four foot diameter and twelve foot broad; for the new brass engine with brasses to the crank, forcing rods and a new crank etc' . OK it's just a tidal wheel for pumping water, but the size was not a deterrent, even 300 years ago.

Newcomen's engine had an enormous beam, over 20 foot long in some instances, and capable of pumping hundreds of gallon of water a minute, albeit using an excessive amount of coal,and it was incredibly inefficient.  But making it big enough was not a problem, even three hundred years ago

More recently, Aldo Costa's wheel - about 60 feetr in diameter - is huge and of doubtful use for energy, but the size did not deter him and he wished to build one of over 150 feet in diameter!

My point is this.... if Bessler's wheel produces any energy at all .....then it can be scaled up to produce a useful amount of energy, and if the size of the Kassel wheel could only produce a small amount of electricity then the wheel could be made big enough to do the job required.

Karl the Landgrave wrote that , 'He [Bessler] has no doubt that once the sale of the machine has been accomplished, a much bigger machine can be built provided that more space is made available and more assistants employed.'

Bessler himself suggested that it should be possible to construct a machine over 35-40 feet in diameter and there is no reason why several such machine could not be supported on the same axle.  If size is limitless then so is the potential power it could generate.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

Restrain your excitement and your need for approbation, or suffer from premature affirmation!

I've strived to understand how Johann Bessler produced what appeared to be a continuously-turning wheel, sometimes called a Perpetual Motion machine, and in doing so I've suffered from a variety of psychological stresses. Some  don't believe in Bessler's claims but are intrigued to know how he fooled everyone, both then and now.  They make their opinion clear and in turn receive the brickbats from those others equally vociferous in defence of the legendary inventor.  Others such as myself, are firmly of the opinion that his claims were just and honest and I've spent my life seeking the answer to this puzzle but from the stand-point that he knew the real secret to perpetual motion.

As a researcher I spend every hour available for research, striving to be the one who succeeds in the search.  This is not necessarily due to a desire for fame and fortune, though I cannot think that anyone would reject some kind of recogition for success. Neither do I blame anyone for seeking those attractive rewards which should be given to that person who finds success in this rather limited field.

Politicians often fall back on something they refer to as 'received wisdom'. Basically it is the official, stuffy, unimaginative and conventional viewpoint. And it sometimes turns out to be wrong. In this field of endeavour it is the idea that a gravity-enabled wheel that turns continuously is not possible.  Speaking for myself, I am desperate to prove that the received wisdom is wrong and many times in the past I have posted on forums my personal conviction that I am about to prove it, only to find that I was wrong.  Even as far back as 1997 I thought I had solved the mystery and having said so publicly, received many scornful comments and suggestions  that I should either put up or shut up.  These responses hurt at the time but experience teaches us humility and the wisdom to know when to keep silent and let only the successful machine speak for itself.

I am frequently surprised to read so often of others who make the same mistake that I made - and I still do in private conversations!  Why is it so hard to control the exuberance, excitement and utter certainty that I'm on the verge of success?  Why can't I restrain this strange desire to trumpet my news abroad before I have the certainty of a working wheel? It doesn't seeem to occur to me at the time, that everyone feels that they are on the verge of success, or have had a revelation that they believe will lead to success

I confess I don't know, and I have to admit to suffering mild irritation when reading such comments as appeared recently on the besslerwheel forum and from time to time here on this blog.  Let people tell the world after they have the proof, and not before. Without the working wheel there is nothing to shout about.  

If I succeed in building a besslerwheel you will only know of it when it is running, and not before.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

Thought for the day - String's the thing!

I have long believed that Johann Bessler used some cord, or string if you prefer, in each of his mechanisms.  I'm sure that this statement will please at least one contributer to this blog, but I insist that there was only one cord per mechanism.  In his Apologia Poetica, XLVI, Bessler included a strange passage which contained the following comment :-

The dog creeps out of his kennel just as far as his chain will stretch.

This has always seemed to me to describe a flexible link from the 'kennel' to the 'dog', and a piece of chain is similar to a length of cord in that you can pull with it but you can't push.  It is a reversable, one-way, force transmitter.which can only pull.  In his Maschinen Tractate No 9, Bessler writes

nothing is to be accomplished with any device unless my principle of connectedness is activated.

I think his  principle of connectedness referred to the cord or chain he described in the first quote above.  As I've said before, the word connectedness implies a  degree of connection and also leads one to conclude that two items are indeed connected, no matter that it is not a rigid connection.  What would be the point of such a connection?

If the 'dog'  'creeps' out of its kennel, it seems like a slow action as if it is dragging a weight. Before this action Bessler writes:-

cat slinks silently along and snatches nice juicy mice

This looks like  a much quicker action and it takes place before the slow action of the dog,  I think the mice refer to weights as do the horses mentioned later in the same passage.  So a quick action followed by a slower one might be the falling of a weight (quick) then the slower replacement of the same weight.

The point of having a flexible connection seems to me to suggest that the weight drives its second weight into the desired position, but gravity is allowed to act in returning it because if the connection is rigid the mechanism will remain balanced.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

Bessler's use of the circumpunct in his pseudonym, Orffyreus.

Before you begin, let me say, this is largely speculative!

A circumpunct is a circle with a dot or point in its centre. Bessler used it in place of the letter 'O' in Orffyreus, in almost all of his abbreviated signatures as well as many of his full ones.  The above two are typical examples.  I used to think that it was his own invention and simply represented his wheel, however in the last couple of years I have begun to think there is more to its presence than I had originally thought.  It was, as is the case with every little personal addition of Bessler's, deliberate, planned and with a double meaning. 

The circumpunct symbol has a long history and has represented the sun,  and was the hieroglyphic for the the Egyptian God, Ra.  As a nazar it was believed to protect against the evil eye.  It was the Alchemical symbol for Gold.  Its use dates back to the Hebrews and Egypt and for all I know further back.  It was used by Dan Brown in his book, 'The Lost Symbol', and interestingly has links to Freemasonry, where it was used as the symbol of an Entered Apprentice. This title refers to a junior member of the Freemasons and might apply to Bessler, but for what purpose I do not know. He might have been pointing to some kind of code system used by the Freemasons.  However, I'm not convinced that he was an accredited member, even if he was familiar with much of their history and methods; although he seems to hint at the square and compass in his drawings and of course they are crudely represented on the plaque at Carlshafen, bearing his image. Two of the three famous Rosicrucian Manifestos were published in Kassel and it was always recognised as a centre of Freemasonry and I'm sure that Bessler learned quickly all he could about the subject, given his propensity for doing so in other areas of interest.  I note that in the Masonic Lodge, the emblem is associated with St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, whose feast days fall on the summer and winter solstices.

In Cabbalistic mysticism, it represented the archangel Michael, - and it is related to the monad, which is a whole new can of worms.

To the Pythagoreans, the point and circle represented eternity, whose “centre is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.” This symbol was used by the Greek philosophers to represent the point of the beginning of creation. From this symbol they evolved towards the additional rules of creation including the Golden Ratio. 

There is one other possible connection and that points straight to Francis Bacon and his bilateral cipher. This alphabet clearly shows the circumpunct and if Bessler was familar with Bacon's work as well as the symbol he would have thought it perfect for use in his signature, both as a link to his wheel but also, possibly, as a link, potentially, to his use of the bilateral code.

I guess it would look something like the above in print:-

and here, just for my own amusement is my name, suitably embellished;

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

Update - and musings on the word 'pairs'.

The test rig did not perform as I had hoped.  I completed the construction of the single mechanism and oriented it so that when one weight fell, the other weight was lifted in a certain way, but there was insufficient mechanical advantage available to achieve the full lift.  I would like to show the details so that you can see why I was optimistic that this would work, but I'm not ready to show that yet.  The concept hidden below my initials at the end of each blog, is still the key to success in my opinion, and I have another design to work through before I can discuss this openly.

My theory that parametric oscillation was the key to understanding Bessler's wheel has kind of dropped in importance. I still think it has a part to play, but only in the way that moving weights within the wheel, back and forth, within the period of one rotation, will overbalance the wheel. "A parametric oscillator is a harmonic oscillator whose parameters oscillate in time. For example, a well known parametric oscillator is a child pumping a swing by periodically standing and squatting to increase the size of the swing's oscillation" (from wikipedia).  So the parameters of the weight's positions alter during the time of one rotation.  In other words I have discarded the notion that replicating the actions of a swing might be the answer, but I still believe the correct movement of the weights will lead to success.

One of the strange features of this research is that one can become completely convinced that a particular design concept is the answer. No other method can even be considered - that is, until you have proved to yourself that you were wrong.  Now another plan has slipped into my mind and is supported by another revelation about Bessler's words!  How cunning that man was, to present us with ambiguity upon ambiguity! One of the things I've learned about what Bessler wrote - and I guess it's fairly obvious when you think about it - he describes things in an ambiguous way, yes, and his words are accurate, but only in hindsight.  His intention was, in my opinion, to write comments which could be understood in more than one way, but even the alternative way was not right because only after his wheel had been built and sold could he then point to the many clues he had left and with a certain amount of glee, and say "that is what I meant when I said, blahdeblah!"  The words were written in such a way that no-one could doubt their actual meaning once it was explained.

Take this translation of one famous comment, "He shall be called a great craftsman who can easily/lightly throw up a heavy thing, and when one pound falls a quarter,it shoots up four pounds four quarters. &c." Apologia Poetica

There is an abundance of clues wrapped up in this ironic comment.  I found seven separate pieces of information in it, and the clever thing about it is that if is misinterpreted, or should I say, alternatively interpreted, it reveals another double meaning one of which is also valid. Plus of course it is also tongue-in-cheek by suggesting that it would indeed take a great craftsman to achieve something that appears, on the face of it, to be impossible - when another interpretation reveals what he really meant.

I will discuss the designs I have been working on upon my return from Spain, but for now I shall just comment on the following passage from Apologia Poetica.

" So then, a work of this kind of craftsmanship has, as its basis of motion, many separate pieces of lead . These come in pairs, such that, as one of them takes up an outer position, the other takes up a position nearer the axle. Later, they swap places, and so they go on and on changing places all the time."

Later translations suggest that the literal reading of the text goes, "a work of art must be driving many pieces lead; they are now always two and two;"  I did not see this apparent mistranslation when my friend Mike Senior first showed it to me.  Later he admitted that he took the meaning as 'pairs' simply because that is what he thought Bessler meant.  

But the word for pairs is variously, 'PAIRS = paarweise {adv}; in Paaren; PAIR of twins = Zwillingspaare; paar = twos; paarweise = in pairs; in twos; by pairs'.  Why didn't Bessler use that well-known word paars?  I have a theory....

If you had two weights working together as a pair you would use the word 'paar'; but if you had three weights, A B and C, working together, first you might have weight 'A' move weight 'B' and then upon weight 'A's return under gravity, again, it moves weight 'C', 'B' having already returned under gravity.  So out of three weights you are using two and two = AB and AC, alternately.  In confirmation of this possibility  note that there are two drawings in Das Triumphirende, which show wheels with three weights to each mechanism.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

The Legend of Johannn Bessler's Wheel, also known as ORFFYREUS.

This blog is temporarily closed to comments while I take a break and continue with my experiments to reconstruct Bessler's wheel.  My first task is to complete a test rig I'm building to evaluate the design of one mechanism; this is an attempt to try to make it perform in the way I have designed it to.  If this works I shall make several identical mechanisms and attach them to the wheel.  I am undecided as yet, whether I should immediately have five such mechanism on the wheel, or initially test it with fewer.  I have always believed that Bessler recommended five for the working machine, but he seems to suggest that he was able to at least obtain some very slow rotation with just one mechanism. For me the problem is that one mechanisms would require more careful balancing than multiple numbers and therefore something between three and five seems to be the better option if I wish to obtain a proof of principle.

If the test rig fails to deliver - despite any adjustments I might see fit to make - then I shall probably publish my design and explain how I came up with it; if it does work then the final test, which will require that I attach a number of mechanisms to the wheel, will follow and, I hope, prove that their operation is working according to the correct principle.  In this case there will be a further delay before I open my blog for comments again, while I follow a plan I devised should I ever meet with success.

During this period I shall put up a brief account of the Legend of Bessler's Wheel., as follows:-

The Legend of Johannn Bessler's Wheel, also known as ORFFYREUS.

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.

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.

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 defeated all negotiations. He died in harrowing circumstances years later, building 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 a small town in Germany.

A lifetime's research has convinced me, against the traditional teachings of science, that Bessler's wheel really did work and it completely convinced all who examined it.  I first encountered Johann Bessler at the age of fifteen, and I'm now sixty-eight and I have total conviction about his claims to have designed and built and continuously turning wheel.  There has never been a more urgent need for this 300 year old technology to be rediscovered than right now.  If you are only the slightest bit intrigued by this story, please visit the websites linked at the edge of this blog.  

I'll be reporting back as soon as I have something to say.  In the meantime, keep working at the solution guys!

For those who don't know, the odd collection of characters after my name hold the secret principle of Bessler's wheel, encoded for now, and deciphered by myself some three years ago from Bessler's papers, all availbale from my websiteat www.free-energy.co.uk

John Collins  (JC)

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

Update and a short hiatus for me.

My work on my own project to reconstruct Bessler's wheel is progressing at last and I plan to complete my single mechanism test rig in the next day or so.  When and if that works as I hope, then I will build some more mechanisms and test the final wheel in the next couple of weeks.  If the test rig experiment doesn't perform as I hope, then apart from seeing if there are any further adjustments I can make which will improve the situation, I'll have to reconsider my options.  I await the results of Øystein's build with great interest, but the two of us seem to be approaching the solution from two different perspectives and who is to say whether either or both, or none of them will prove right or wrong.  There are others out there who also believe that they are on the brink of success, but it would be foolish not to remember that we have been on the brink of success for what...300 years now!

I mentioned above that I intended to add 'more mechanisms', but I did not say anything about adding the ubiquitous five!  The reason for this is that lately I have come to the conclusion (as everyone has been telling me for the last, I don't know how mnay years!) that perhaps having five mechanisms wasn't strictly necessary for a proof of principle wheel.  Bessler said, "If I arrange to have just one cross-bar in the machine, it revolves very slowly, just as if it can hardly turn itself at all, but, on the contrary, when I arrange several bars, pulleys and weights, the machine can revolve much faster..."  If my wheel turned so slowly but still continued to turn without stopping then I should consider that proof enough for me.  Then I could add sufficient to make a clear demonstration of the wheel's power.

I  have written 309 blogs and received 334,815 visitors over that time which works out at just over 1000 per blog, from more than ten countries.  I'm proud of this but it doesn't really compare with other blogs and to tell the truth I'm running out of ideas to write about.  What I thought I'd do is to leave the blog as it is for a few days to guage reaction and then leave it closed for some weeks with just a brief account of Bessler wheel on it until I have something useful to report.  That would either be some more information about my own theory or the revelation that my wheel worked.  If the information related to the latter then there would be some short period of time before I was able to say anything publicly anyway.

So it's time to take a break (not my Spanish break yet!) and see if anyone wishes me to continue writing and perhaps some will offer subjects to comment on.  

In the mean time a big thank you to all who commented, both positively and negatively - you can't have one without the other.

Best wishes to all and good luck.- and keep me informed!

JC

Look for a different principle for the solution to Bessler's wheel

After a liftetime's experience in Besslerland, one thing I have learned is this; there are hard and fast rules in physics and they cannot be bent or deformed to accomodate personal convictions about how Bessler's wheel worked and even though you may come up with numerous ingenious designs for gravity-eneabled wheels, they all have to be compatible with the laws of physics.  That is why I do, from time to time, suggest such things as the parametric oscillation (PO) as holding the key to the solution.

The reason why I do this is because I want to get people thinking about how it might be achieved without going the 'over-balancing route'. This particular blog is not so much about parametric oscillation (PO) but more about the need to find a way to use gravity to drive round a wheel, that is compatible with the laws of physics, but, most importantly, leaves behing for the lessons of history, the simple over-balancing wheel.

PO is simply, swinging on a swing and maintaining the motion by altering the position of the body relative to the fulcrum or crossbar on which the swing hangs.  Oscillation by itself will simply slow down until it comes to a stop, so you need a way to generate energy to maintain the swinging. Traditionally people have sought to overbalance the wheel by moving weights inwards and outwards from the centre of rotation, but it must surely be obvious by now that, as the scientists confirm, such a method will not work.  After hundreds of years without a single runner, except for Bessler's, no show means no go, pardon the aphorism.  

Did Bessler use PO?  In my opinion,yes.  He said that simply overbalancing a wheel was a waste of time and piling more weights on simply confirmed that it would not work.  But PO doesn't simply mean overbalancing although it does form a part of the action.  First you have to generate the initial energy which is induced by allowing a weight to fall, and it isn't necessary to have it fall into a position which would overbalnce the wheel.  It's job is to move another weight of identical mass and size, into a position which will then lead to a small angle of rotation in the wheel. 

Compare this action to that of the person on a swing.  To initiate movement the swinger leans backwards to start a small angle of rotation, and then forwards to repeat the action in the opposite direction.  With the right timing, he or she, can add the force generated in the first action to the second one, thus increasing the distance rotated back and forth.  The rider's action produces rotation just as the first weight does when it falls and moves the second weight.

The rider flexes his arms or pulls on them to move his body into an overbalancing position and that starts rotation so the movement of the arms is similar to the fall of the first weight.  Separate from the arms is the body which is equivalent to the second weight.  In the case of the sitting swinger, when he leans back, his weight is moved behind the fulcrum, thus moving the swing seat forward; and then he leans forward to bring his body weight in front of the fulcrum thus pushing it rearwards again.  

A more efficient method for our purposes is for the swinger to stand on the seat.  In this case he moves his body weight closer to the fulcrum and further from it dependant on whether he is swinging forwards or backwards. Of course he still needs to start the movement by altering his body position to the front or rear of the fulcrum, then he can adopt the rise and fall method This is more efficient use of the rider's energy.  In Estonia, as I have mentioned several times over the years, they have a national sport called in Estonian 'Kiiking'. In this case the swing has rigid ropes made of steel and the rider is fixed by his feet to the swing seat and this permits him to swing back and forth with increasing momentum until he completes a full turn and several afterwards.  In competitions the Estonians lengthen the steel ropes which makes it much more difficult to generate a full turn.

It is this technique that I am sure we can turn to our advantage and I believe is what Bessler incorporated within his wheels.

However if you do ot subscribe to this theory then you must find an alternative that does not depend entirley on simple overbalancing and as far as I know the only other potential techniques currently being studied either avail themselves of the centrifugal/centripetal force generated in turning the wheel, or David Cowlishall's Gyroscopic Inertial Thrust (GIT!).

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.