Bessler's engine again!

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

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

In The Guardian Wednesday 26 August 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JC

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Apophenia versus Creativity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JC

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Update - Frustration leads to innovation!

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

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

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

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

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

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

JC

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The Mystery of the 684 X's in Apologia Poetica

Occasionally I've commented on Bessler's graphic codes, but have generally said little about the non-graphic ones.  But as the subject of the infamous x's scattered throughout Apologia Poetica, came up recently on Besslerwheel forum, I thought I'd update people on my own efforts to extract meaning from them.  I know this is not as interesting as discussing possble mechanical arrangements but there are many people who are still bent on deciphering what Bessler's secret message said.

The mysterious inclusion of 684 x’s scattered in an apparently random fashion at the ends of many of the 7000 plus lines of poetry which compose the Apologia Poetica, has been the subject of some debate.  In fact these x’s are actually abbreviations for the phrase et cetera, and one might think that that is a satisfactory explanation for their presence, but 684 seems an excessive use of the Latin expression and their numbers are reduced to a normal amount, less than ten, in his subsequent book, Das Triumphirende.  The presence of 28 &c's in addition to the et ceteras used, would seem to make the necessity of using the Latin abbreviation redundant, anyway.

The presence of so many et ceteras and the various hints at the existence of a hidden message within the Apologia Poetica lead one inevitably to question the large number of these abbreviations.  In some cases there are as many as seven consecutive lines each ending in the Latin expression.

There are 397 et ceteras in part one of Apologia Poetica, and 287 in part two, totalling 684.  I have omitted the  &c's and the many NB’s and NB’s because I am uncertain about their relevance to a secret message.  But just for the record there are 9 + 19 = 28  &c’s, and 20 + 176 = 196 NB’s. Anyway in preparation for devising his code, Bessler must have written his text and then looked for a way to hide it within his existing work.  I assumed that he then circled or underlined the letters or words he sought for his text and then used some method to identify the line containing that letter or word.  I suggest that he marked this line by placing the et cetera sign at the end of it. There is no mileage, in my opinion, in trying to read something in the positioniong of these abbreviations, either from the front or the back of the page; their positioning is too similar to each other for any one to detect any subtle differences.

The next step was to leave some means of guiding us to the correct letter or word on that line. I tried various ways of identifying a letter or word, but came to the conclusion that a letter was too time consuming and as he had a plethora of suitable words to pick from, why make his job more difficult if he could use full words and still hide them.  If one assumes an average of five letters per word then from a total of 684 ‘et ceteras’, he had about 137 words to complete his secret message, whereas if each et cetera indicated a whole word he would have potentially 684!  I suspect the answer lies somewhere between those two figures.

The method he used to hide his words had to be very strong.  This becomes even more obvious when you consider such passages as this one on page 27 of the Apologia Poetica, which has no fewer than six consecutive lines with the et cetera 'X' at the end.

If each lines contained a word from his text in the order in which it naturally ocurred, it would not take long to find the identifier and hence the whole coded message could be read. And that is not the only page containing six or more consecutive lines with  et ceteras at their ends.  An additional clue may be found in the presence of double et ceteras which appear in part two of Apologia Poetica. Here are a couple below:-

Note the second one is positioned just after two blanks.  The missing word is ‘Schelmen’ meaning ‘rogue’ or ‘rascall’.  For further information on the use of the blanks visit my web site at www.theorffyreuscode.com

I then wondered if the meaning and even the position of the et ceteras themselves were irrelevant.  Maybe the secret lay in the number of them per page.  If there was just one et cetera on a page, maybe that meant 'line one' held the missing word.  As a check I looked at the title page which has one et cetera on it and assumed ‘one’ et cetera meant line ‘one’.  The first word is ORFFYREI  which looks promising, but then it all goes wrong again.  In the subsequent page with et ceteras on it, nothing else supports this idea.  I tried various alternatives such as counting lines from the top on odd pages and from the bottom on even ones, but no dice.

But consider this, if each page which has one or more et ceteras on it, is meant to hide one complete word, there are potentially 226 words.  That is the number of pages which have et ceteras on them.  I feel that this way lies the solution.  It is too tempting to be drawn into considering the line with the et cetera on it rather than just counting how may X's there are and using that number to find the word.

One more thing might be worth taking into account.  The whole book is written in rhyming couplets except for part of Chapter 55, which I have discussed at www.orffyreus.net - maybe there is some way to assign the number of et ceteras to a couplet?

Good luck to those who are persuing this line of enquiry, and I know there are several, from my email correspondence.

JC

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I was contacted recently by a English journalist, Eve Pearce, who offered to write some content for my websites. I thought it was a good idea but as I am so busy at the moment, I had decided to leave my websites as they are for the time being,  so I offered her a guest spot on my blog to see what comments an 'outsider' would generate. I use the word, 'outsider', not in any pejorative sense, indeed I was delighted with her article, but in the sense that she is not part of our somewhat closed community and she can provide a fresh viewpoint to our research.

Her website is at  http://www.andalemono.com/  and here are some samples of her other work:-

http://www.antarcticconnection.com/blogs/Fiennes/

http://www.greenweddingconsortium.com/green-weddings/how-big-is-your-weddings-carbon-footprint/

http://www.oyetimes.com/lifestyle/homes/29907-is-the-canadian-housing-bubble-about-to

Her article follws:-

Perpetual Motion Machines in Use Today

Critics of Bessler´s Wheel would argue that perpetual motion in such instance would be impossible as it contravenes both the first and second law of thermodynamics; while energy is conserved, the energy of a closed system changes due to the transfer of heat and work between it and its environment and secondly isolated systems move towards thermal equilibrium, where entropy is at its greatest, so thermal energy is unable to be transferred for work. However, while they use their theories as evidence, they forget about the best evidence that we could possibly have for perpetual motion machines - those that are in use around the world today. A number of devices have already been invented that allow us to harness the motion in the environment that can go on indefinitely without any further human input; after all everything everywhere is moving - the Earth, its rivers and seas and the very atoms that everything on the planet is made up from. While the Cox Clock - which uses changes in barometric pressure to keep on running - may only be a relic in a museum, we consider another three devices that are examples of perpetual motion machines and are in use today.

 Atmos clock

 This clock produced in Switzerland by Jaeger-LeCoultre is mechanical, but does not need to be wound. Instead it obtains the energy that it requires to run from changes in temperature and atmospheric pressure in its surrounding environment. The clock contains a mixture of ethyl chloride gas and liquid in an airtight capsule. With a rise in temperature and pressure the mixture expands into a chamber, causing a spring to be compressed; the converse occurs when the temperature or pressure falls. The temperature only needs to change by a very achievable 1C or the pressure by 3mmHg every two days for the clock to continue running. The clock is however helped by an internal environment that is almost friction-free and a torsion pendulum that uses less energy than a standard pendulum would.

 Tidal power generator

 Our high energy usage in our homes and businesses requires the use of vast amounts of gas and electricity. Consequently there has been much development in the renewable energy sector in recent decades, one area of which has been tidal power; the energy from the movement of tides is converted into electricity. Tidal forces are the consequence of changes in gravitational attraction exerted by the Moon as it orbits the Earth; in short its attraction to the seas causes their level to rise and water from the middle of the seas is forced towards the shore. Tides occur consistently as the moon has an unchanging orbit around our planet; this makes tidal power more reliable than sources such as solar or wind power, which can fluctuate significantly. Tidal power can be generated through use of a tidal stream generator, which uses the energy of moving water to drive turbines and then generators. Alternatively a tidal barrage uses the difference between the height of a high and low tide; a dam is used to hold back the water at high tide, allowing its energy to build up, and when released at low tide the energy is used to drive turbines.  There is also potential for the use of dynamic tidal power, which could use the interaction between the kinetic and potential energy in a tide.

 Geothermal power generator

 This renewable energy source relies on the energy released when matter is condensed by gravity. Geothermal power plants use the steam produced by geothermal sources to generate electricity. In dry steam power plants - the original method to harness geothermal energy - the hydrothermal fluids are largely steam, which drives a turbine directly; the knock on effect of which is to drive generators and produce electricity. Flash steam power plants are what are most commonly found today; high temperature fluid is pumped under pressure into a tank at surface level, where it is held at a lower pressure, causing some of the fluid to vaporize, which drives the turbines. In a binary cycle power plant the geothermal water or steam is never in contact with the turbines; instead the geothermal fluid passes with a cooler fluid through a heat exchanger, with the transfer of heat causing the second fluid to evaporate and then drive turbines and a generator Having considered these three devices that are driven by nature, could Bessler's Wheel have worked in a similar way through interaction with its surroundings? This theory was pondered by the mathematician Jean Bernoulli, who proposed that the motion seen in nature could support perpetual motion; rather than labelling machines such as Bessler's Wheel as working under artificial perpetual motion, they could move under combined perpetual motion with the help of nature.

Update on my reconstruction of Johann Bessler's Wheel.

Although I am unable to do any work on my wheel currently, I thought I'd update you on the situation as it is.  I'm still working with five mechanisms for reasons I have explained on my web site at http://www.besslerswheel.com/

You will also see that I am committed to the parametric oscillation theory in which a weight passes downwards in an outer position, relative to the axle, and then at six o'clock flies upwards in just the same way that a 'kiiking ' rider straightens his legs at that point in order to raise his centre of gravity towards the axle.

I am currently striving to get the weights to operate in the way Bessler described, shooting upwards at that point.  I completely understand why they must perform this part quickly and I can make each one ascend gently, but not actually shoot upwards and the result is that the lift is a too late.  

The idea is that once the wheel has completed a fifth of a turn, the next mechanisms acts in the same way to continue the rotation, however without a quick lift, the next mechanism doesn't arrive at the position in which it has to rise!  I believe I know how to improve the speed of the lift and make it shoot upwards and once I've constructed it and proved to myself that that part of the mechanism works, I should in theory be able to move on to the next bit which is constructing a fully working wheel.

The chief problem I have encountered over the last couple of years is getting the mechanism adjusted correctly.  I know that is an excuse everyone uses, but in truth, copying a working wheel might have seemed easy to Karl, who suggested it was so simple a carpenter's boy could make one if he was allowed to st udy it for a short while, but trying to get it right from scratch with nothing to guide you except some misleading clues is another matter.  In my case I have had to fall back on trial and error and it is a lengthy process but I remain confident that I shall get there eventually.  As before, once I know imy work is not going to result in a working model, I will release all my designs for public consumption.

By the way, the delay in wheel work is due to members of my family moving in to our house for a few months, but hopefully once the move is completed in the next couple of weeks, I can get back to work on my wheel.

JC

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The law of energy conservation proves that a single weight can't drive a gravitywheel.

Time to turn my thoughts to gravity again. Today's blog is a two parter but each is connected with the other.

Firstly, some say that Bessler never used the word 'gravity' in his writings, therefore he did not ascribe his energy source to gravity.  But the reason for its non-appearance is because he used such words as 'preponderance' and 'weight' instead.  Preponderance simply means 'a superiority in weight', in other words, heavier than something else.  

The apparently missing word, 'gravity', comes from the Latin word, 'gravitas'.  In Newton's time, Latin was the language used by the learned, and 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 native language.  Newton's use of the word, 'Gravitas', meant 'heaviness' or 'weight'.  But he suggested that 'weight' should no longer be regarded as simply a property possessed by a 'heavy body', but that a body that seems to be heavy is being attracted by another body with mass, in this case, the earth.  Thus the force of gravity was born.

The word for gravity in German today is 'Schwerkraft' but that did not come into common use for many years after Bessler's death.  So just because the particular word 'gravity' isn't there doesn't mean that Bessler wasn't referring to it in his writings and the circumstantial evidence is clear enough that that is what he meant.  If he could do it, then it can be done

Secondly, we've been taught that gravity is a conservative force and therefore it cannot be used as a source of energy.  I have repeatedly pointed out that the forces of wind and water are also conservative forces and they provide excellent sources of energy.  You can't have it both ways; either a conservative force cannot be used as an energy source.... or it can! 

In relation to our research, the law of conservation of energy only defines what happens for a single weight mounted on a wheel and driving a gravity-enabled wheel.  Picture Bessler's horizontal windmill, the one he was building at the time of his death; the wind acted on both sides of the vertical axle and with a number of sails or scoops, it was designed to rotate in the wind. if there had been just one sail or vane or scoop, it  would have made half a turn and stopped - it needed several of them to work with each side on either scooping up the wind or deflecting it, to make a full rotation.  

The same goes for an overshot water wheel for example.  If it had just one bucket it would stop after half a turn.  It needs a succession of buckets to make a full and continuous rotation. 

A Savonius windmill still requires a miniumum of two blades or scoops to allow it to rotate and there are designs using three or more blades.  My point is that even though gravity is a conservative force that does not rule it out as an energy source - as long as there are sufficient weights in complementary action.  

None of the above wind or water driven designs will work with just one blade, unless of course, as in the case of the former one, it is designed to operate face-on to the wind. The different designs mean that the wind and water wheels use surface-changes to their vanes, scoops or sails to interact with their relevant forces to gain mechanical advantage, whereas gravity-enabled wheels use position-changes of their weights to interact with gravity for a mechanical advantage.  

Horizontal windmills, or Savonius windmills present a larger surface area on one side of their axles than the other, which gives one side more leverage and makes them turn.  It's just the same with gravitywheels, they present the weight on one side further from the axle which gives one side more leverage and makes them turn

The whole argument against gravitywheels is based on the calculation of one weight operating the wheel and not several.

I've said all this before, on my other web sites and on the forum but I will repeat it and repeat it until someone listens and makes the required paradigm shift.

JC

Johann Bessler's graphic clues to the mechanisms in the Orffyreus wheel.

Someone grumbled that I haven't posted any interesting clues lately, well I can't give out any hard and fast clues yet, but here are some pointers to how I interpreted some perceived clues and got their meaning 

As I've said before, the most useful of Bessler's clues are those which show the actual mechanism.  They are contained in a few illustrations. That being so, how come no-one has been able to build a working model based on those clues?  The answer is, because Bessler deliberately confused the simple interpretation of the drawings by omitting some features, adding unecessary pieces and moving others into the wrong position, and pointing out what he had done, in other drawings.  

One particular example can be interpreted by re-orientating the drawing to the position in which the mechanism would naturally respond to gravity.  If you study the drawing, one part of the mechanism is semi-detached, and consequently by re-orientating the drawing, and allowing gravity to act as if it was a real mechanism and not just an illustration, thus changing the position, the item then shows itself in its correct position.  Reversing the orientation of the drawing again does not mean that the item discussed should return to its former position as this would then be incorrect for the functioning of the mechanism.

It is this kind of encoding that permeates Bessler's clues and requires a certain amount of lateral thinking.

One drawing is, as I have mentioned before, not showing the wheel in its true dimensions, but this advice was dismissed as wrong or irrelevant, which is of course the reader's prerogative.

Another one shows the two positions of the mechanism and how they vary in their connections with other parts of the same mechanism, during their range of movement - the connectedness principle.

Yet another drawing provides corrective information about a particular item in a different drawing and this can be established with a fair degree of certainty once you know what to look for.

There is one drawing which also hides the principle which I have described, but encoded, at the end of each post on this blog. I even described the clue on my website, www.theorffyreuscode.com, although I did not understand what it meant at the time. I stumbled on the principle by chance and then had it confirmed by the clue in question. This principle is the one which Bessler says he found where everyone else looked.  It is the one thing you need in order to build Bessler's wheel.

I can't put it better than Bessler did, "no illustration by itself contains a description of the motion; however, taking various illustrations together and combining them with a discerning mind, it will indeed be possible to look for a movement and, finally to find one in them."

I apologise if people do not find this helpful, but I wish to retain what I know for my own build.  Of course I might be completely wrong and I wouldn't want to lead anyone else up the wrong path.  There is much more to be learned from Bessler's drawings and they would not have been so carefully drawn and included for our consumption unless they were there to aid reconstruction, but, to the casual eye, they offer nothing of use to anyone seeking the answer. 

JC

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A sawmill such as Bessler's wheel would have powered.

Bessler probably acquired his timber from a sawmill and yesterday I came across this amazing saw mill built in 1673 at the Willermershof farmstead in Schwarzenbach, this 'Knocking' Saw was in use until 1963 when it was moved to Vogtsbauernhof in south-eastern Germany. 

You can see from the video that it is driven by a waterwheel which uses precisely the same 'three tusked cams', or lifting arms, fixed with tenons, that are evident in one of Bessler's drawings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0teYGke_Lc

From the above video, "farmsteads operated their own saws when the property had a considerable amount of forest area. They cut their own timber for private use as well as to sell commercially. Contracting the saws out to other farmers was also an additional source of income. There was a widespread use of 'knocking' saws in the Black Forest starting in the 16th century. The technique originated in the 13th century.

The 'knocking' saws is driven by a middle-shot water wheel. This turns a shaft axis that has three tusked cams, or lifting arms, fixed with tenons. When rotated, these cams knock against the overhead saw frame, thereby lifting it. With each turn of the water wheel, the saw frame is hit upwards three times. 

This hitting motion creates a knocking sound that can be heard from quite a distance away. When the frame has reached its highest point, it drops down suddenly. Upon falling, the saw blade cuts the trunk. The trunk is fastened down to a sled. By dropping, the saw frame sets a mechanism into motion shoving the sled towards the blade of the saw.

Trunks measuring up to 20 ft in length could be cut. Sawing a 20 ft board or plank takes about 45 minutes. Generally, boards and planks of a thickness from 3/4 to 3" were cut. Squared timber, such as used to build houses, had to be clouted with an ax. Boards and planks were needed to build houses, furniture, and wagons."

Boards of 3/4 of an inch  still sound a little on the thick side for Besslers' wheel but I guess they could be trimmed down some more - or even sliced in half.  Teuber described the Merseburg wheel as being covered by thin deals which I presume would have been thinner than 3/4 of an inch

It seems clear that a similar mechanical arrangement could have powered other kinds of mills.

NB More clues to come in next post.

JC

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Petrol from Air!

This morning's news reveals that a British company is making petrol from fresh air!  There are a number of articles about it, for instance this one http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/fuel/9619269/British-engineers-produce-amazing-petrol-from-air-technology.html

'The “petrol from air” technology involves taking sodium hydroxide and mixing it with carbon dioxide before "electrolysing" the sodium carbonate that it produces to form pure carbon dioxide.

Hydrogen is then produced by electrolysing water vapour captured with a dehumidifier. The company, Air Fuel Syndication, then uses the carbon dioxide and hydrogen to produce methanol which in turn is passed through a gasoline fuel reactor, creating petrol.

Company officials say they had produced five litres of petrol in less than three months from a small refinery in Stockton-on-Tees, Teesside.

The fuel that is produced can be used in any regular petrol tank and, if renewable energy is used to provide the electricity it could become “completely carbon neutral”.

The £1.1m project, in development for the past two years, is being funded by a group of unnamed philanthropists who believe the technology could prove to be a lucrative way of creating renewable energy.'

At first sight this looks as though it might spell doom for Bessler's wheel, however, the process has to be a viable commercial operation to succeed and to produce just 5 litres in 2 months does not seem too awe inspiring, but then this is just a test facility and something much larger looms on the horizon.

Can they produce petrol at a better rate than the current rate for a barrel of oil (42 US gallons and about 35 UK gallons) which is currently between $92 and $112 per barrel?  Possibly, but the governments will still tax it to death.  Of course the same goes for Bessler's wheel but it is the greener option, despite the claims that this new process is greener than anything so far produced.  The carbon-neutral aspect of it could be supplied by Bessler's wheel and an electricity generator.

We must await developments meanwhile, on with the build!

JC

Johann Bessler's wheel was ahead of its time.

We routinely discuss the various tests that Bessler's wheel was subjected to, such as the 70 pound lifting test, the translocation to a second set of bearings, the 54 day endurance test and the turning of the archimedes pump. Plus, the ability of the latter two wheels to turn in either direction... and there were numerous examination carried out over the twelve years or so, most likely executed by persons determined to prove the alleged scoundrel a fake, but no one succeeded, hence our view that he was genuine.  

I was considering what other tests Bessler might have included to try to prove his machine was genuine and I couldn't think of any.  In Gründlicher Bericht he describes the possible uses his machine could be put to, such as driving a mill wheel, cable making, glass or stone polishing, alloying, laundry and bleaching, in clocks and machinery associated with hydraulics; pumping water for various uses. I don't think that any of these could easily be added to the ones he demonstrated at the castle.

I have always assumed that during his two meetings with Gottfried Leibniz, Bessler asked what tests the latter could recommend he arrange, and perhaps the endurance test would have been suggested, along with the advice to ensure the wheel bearings did not seize up, perhaps by slowing the wheel down. They might have also discussed the ones described in the previous paragraph, but I think they were probably dismissed as unworkable or not worth the trouble?

As far as I can see the only additional possibility available to him, was to find a man of unimpeachable reputation for absolute integrity who, having seen the interior of the machine, could vouch for its validity  - and Bessler found that man in Karl, the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel.  

This leads me on to another thought.  In those suggested uses Bessler provides in his Gründlicher Bericht, there isn't really one that could be put to beneficial use in place of the existing methods used at that time.  Pumping water out of mines seems to me to hold the most potential but there was competition in the form of the steam engines of Savery and Newcomen.  But Savery's engine was limited to a depth of 10 meters (just over 30 feet) and Newcomen's, operating huge pistons, eventually prevailed.  

But these machines were steam driven.  It is hard to imagine Bessler's wheel drawing up much water by means of an archimedes pump!  No wonder Karl did not buy it for his cascade.  All cascades and fountains of the time were gravity-fed from a number of reservoirs on the top of the hill ... how ironic!

I think that Bessler failed to sell his machine for the simple reason that his invention was ahead of its time. Many inventions are conceived simultaneously by several different persons because the time is "right", meaning that a technical and scientific foundation exists and that there is demand and business potential for the invention, but Bessler's wheel came at a time when there was no way of using it to pump water.  Piston pumps using one way valves had existed but they were few and far between and too small for Karl's cascade. Now, however, the conditions are perfect for Bessler's wheel as an electricity generator  and all the other things we can imagine; I suspect it will be discovered simultaneously by different individuals from many different places, because the conditions for its entry into the modern world are right.at last.

JC

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Parametric oscillation applied to Bessler's wheel.

I recently posted a response to a comment, pointing out that I had been recommending the study of parametric oscillation as an aid to solving Bessler's wheel, on the undermentioned web site for some years.  I was surprised therefore, to receive a number of emails telling me that they had never been to the website as they didn't know about it!

This has surprised me, as all the links to my websites are there in the side panel to your right as you are reading this.

I guess that the problem lies in the similarity of the domain name with Scott Ellis's besslerwheel.com website, which is an excellent site with a forum dedicated to Bessler.  People may have thought it was a link to his web site and having been there already, ignored it.  My domain name has an 's' on the end of 'Bessler', and his doesn't.

So just to be clear,  the website details my theory about how Bessler's wheel worked using parametric oscillation, or swinging, and I describe 'kiiking', an Estonian version of swinging which in my opinion provides additional information.

www.besslerswheel.com/

JC

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Bessler's wheel was not just a toy.

I think it's time to question the apparently widespread assumption that Bessler's wheel, which, while it might make an interesting toy, could not generate  any useful electrical power because it would be too puny.

The Kassel wheel was just over eleven feet in diameter and eighteen inches thick and, with a rope wrapped around the eight inch axle, it could raise a box of stones weighing seventy pounds.  The Merseberg wheel, which was a similar diameter but only one foot thick could also raise the same weight of seventy pounds. Both wheels could turn in either direction but the Merseburg turned at 40-50 RPM whereas the Kassel one achieved a maximum of 26 RPM.  

Wolff describes how the Merseburg lifted the 70 pounds through a pulley which had to be reduced more than four times, making the lifting quite slow. Now on the face of it this would indicate that the wheel was barely able to lift the seventy pounds, however it may also indicate that Bessler wanted a slow lift to make more impact on his audience.  At 40 - 50 RPM the lift would be over too quickly and would require him to lower it and relift it too often or too soon.

If, as I have often suggested, in the two-way wheels, the driving mechanisms are mirrored within the wheel to provide rotation in each direction, logically the one-way wheels had more power than the two-way versions. This is because the redundant mechanisms in the latter, would have to be turned in the wrong direction and must therefore have added resistance to rotation.

The narrower Merseburg wheel was designed to spin faster than the larger Kassel wheel, and yet was capable of raising the same weight of seventy pounds, aided by the load-reducing pulleys - there was no record of the pulleys being used on the Kassel wheel.  .I suggest that Bessler deliberately designed the Kassel wheel to turn more slowly, and I have argued previously that this was done in order to allow it to complete the long endurance test with out fear of it stopping prematurely due to wear and tear. It seems reasonable to assume that the internal design of each machine differed in some way, and it will be recalled that Bessler mentioned in Apologia Poetica, "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, if I arrange several bars, pulleys and weights, the machine can revolved muster faster." So perhaps the Kassel wheel had fewer cross-bars but then Bessler added more weight to compensate for the reduction in power.  These would be added in line sideways or horizontally, leading to the increased depth or thickness of the wheel.

The second wheel was nine feet in diameter and only six inches thick and yet it turned at 50 RPM too - as did the first one which was only four feet wide and four inches thick - it seems as though 50 RPM was the normal spin speed.

Bessler said that he could design his wheels to turn fast or slow with greater or lesser power.  We can believe him because he showed it with the four wheels he exhibited, and of course he hadn't sold one at the time of writing, so his integrity would have been called into question if he could not do as he claimed.

It's worth pointing out the limitations within which Bessler worked.  70 pounds was probably the most he would want to handle during his exhibitions. Also the rope used to lift the weight had to be thin enough for use in the pulleys and yet have sufficiently high breaking strain to lift 70 pounds, probably not a problem.  He repeated his lifting and translocation demonstrations many times and most likely tried to make it as easy for himself as possible, hence the extended slow lifts.

One more thing; any engine can be scaled up to produce more power and this applies to Bessler's wheel just as in other instances.  This being the case it stands to reason that there is much more potential power to be had from Bessler's wheel than anyone seems prepared to admit.

JC

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Looking for a modest investment with a guaranteed return? Look no further than Bessler's wheel!

Occasionally, it suddenly hits me, what a massive wall of scepticism faces us in our determination to convince others that Bessler' wheel was a real machine.

To me the evidence is clear, but convincing anyone else is not so much an uphill climb, as a verticle ascent of the severest difficulty with a multitude of overhangs, loose rock and perilous falling boulders - in bare feet!

I think we all understand the difficulties of explaining how it is possible to have a wheel turn continuously, purely from the falling of weights which have to be lifted again at every revolution - we can't ....yet! Hopefully, if you are here, then you probably believe it is possible to achieve this without violating any laws of physics.  You are not alone - I have received, over several years, many emails in support of my contention that gravity-enabled wheels are a legitimate source of power for charging batteries and driving mechanical systems.

Three of those emails have come from professors who were openly supportive of the idea, but left it to me to discover how! Others came from people who wanted to express their support in writing but could not be seen publicly expressing their approval.  Then there are the hundreds who have over the last sixteen years (my goodness, has it really been that long!) supported my efforts and agreed that there is something worth looking into.  The fact that these people are educated and familiar with the laws of physics has given me some optimism that at least a working model would be accepted by them, but what I would really like is for some large company with a decent research budget to take a look at the evidence and put some money into finding the solution.

The amount of money being spent on alternative energies which don't include gravity-enabled wheel is huge and doubly frustrating when our own efforts which cost peanuts in comparison, could revolutionise the energy market overnight once the correct solution is known.

Here are a few figures gleaned from google.  There is, for instance, the failed solar company, Solyndra,  which received $535 million in federal aid before it went bankrupt in 2011, what a waste!

In the California Valley Solar Ranch, a 250-megawatt utility project is being built by NRG Energy on more than 4,000 acres of dry, sun-drenched land in San Luis Obispo County, northwest of Los Angeles. The ranch's 1 million solar panels will provide enough power for 100,000 homes, but at the cost of $1.6 billion — nearly all of which, according to the Times, will be paid for by government subsidies.

Last year, global spending on new renewable energy projects hit a record of $195 billion. According to the analysists at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, annual spending on new clean energy projects will not only surpass that amount in the coming years, but double it. By 2020, annual investments in adding clean energy capacity will reach $395 billion, driven largely by fast-paced growth in solar and offshore wind. Spending levels will grow to $460 billion by 2030, the group said in a report released today.

When is someone going to direct their attention towards Bessler's wheel and inject some of that money to prove that it works?  I know the answer of course, not until someone produces a working model!

JC

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Storing electrical energy in liquid air.

On the news this morning: from  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19785689

Turning air into liquid may offer a solution to one of the great challenges in engineering - how to store energy. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers says liquid air can compete with batteries and hydrogen to store excess energy generated from renewables.  IMechE says "wrong-time" electricity generated by wind farms at night can be used to chill air to a cryogenic state at a distant location. When demand increases, the air can be warmed to drive a turbine.

Engineers say the process to produce "right-time" electricity can achieve an efficiency of up to 70%. IMechE is holding a conference today to discuss new ideas on how using "cryo-power" can benefit the low-carbon economy. 

The technology was originally developed by Peter Dearman, a garage inventor in Hertfordshire, to power vehicles. A new firm, Highview Power Storage, was created to transfer Mr Dearman's technology to a system that can store energy to be used on the power grid. The process, part-funded by the government, has now been trialled for two years at the back of a power station in Slough, Buckinghamshire.

You can see a video of the engine at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOImbv_xcT8

I've posted about this because this technology for storing electrical energy might also be applicable to electricity generated by Bessler's wheel.

JC

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The tax advantages of the Bessler automobile.

What follows is speculation based on numbers obtained from a variety of sources and they may be open to question but the basic argument  remains unaffected by any discrepancies later revealed.

I had to fill up my car's fuel tank today and it cost me £75, or $120 US dollars.  Petrol or gas costs upwards of  £1.36 per litre here in the UK, which works out at £5.14 per US gallon, or $8.20.  Suppose that one of us succeeds in replicating Bessler's wheel and further development eventually results in an automobile engine that can replace the traditional internal combustion engine..  

In the UK, about £27.3 billion was raised through fuel tax in 2010/11, so if our little enterprise should result in the eventual demise of the old gasoline engine, or at least to its reduction to an insignificant level, where will the government be looking to find their missing billions? Not hard to guess!  Scary as this thought is, it is going to happen sooner or later regardless of which engine replaces the current ones.  So I'm sure that somewhere some accountant has already worked out how to screw similar amounts from the poor old taxpayer.

I suspect numerous road tolls will proliferate - we don't have many currently, here in the UK - and maybe an annual tax, or excise duty, will be applied to each car, just to be allowed to use it on the roads.  But even if that happens will they find the £27 billions from the, roughly, 31 million cars on the British roads?  And that is a falling figure.  That works out at approximately £840 or $1344 per annum from each driver.  All they (the government) have to do is slap a £1000, or $1600, tax on every car using Bessler's wheel - every year -  and they're covered!  However although that sounds like highway robbery think of the savings in not having to buy fuel.  In 2010 it was calculated that we spent about £1500 a year on fuel for our cars, so there's saving of £500 already!

Of course the Bessler engine will (should) be simpler and cheaper to buy as well as to run, so perhaps it will work out even better for us in the long run...and very much greener.

This is not too serious a comment, just a bit of musing for those interested in the possible long term  potential ramifications of replicating Bessler's wheel.

JC

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The purpose of the waxed linen covering and pivot points

Bessler is said to have covered his wheel with waxed-linen. Considering this fact led me on an interesting mental ramble.  

The German words used to describe the cloth covering in Das Triumphirende is leinwand which means canvas/linen/fabric. The other German words used are überzogen, which means  covered/drawn-over; and äusserlicht meaning external/outside.  OK, but in the Latin text he uses the words linteo = linen, cerato = waxed, and vestito = covered/clothed.  So I'm assuming it was waxed linen or canvas.

When I build a test model, I fix everything to a single disc, mounted on a free-spinning axle. The disc is made of medium density fibreboard (MDF) and I can drill holes and fix pivot points and add stops easily.  The only difficulties arise if I need a lever to pass over the top of another pivot point, or another lever with a weight attached to the end.  In those cases the pivot point has to be made shorter to allow the passing lever to pass over it and not get stopped too soon.  It's a bit like watching the hour hand pass over the minute hand of a clock, the hour hand has be nearer the clock face than the minute hand, so it can easily pass over it.

This is all fine and well until you wish to build a more substantial model that will do work - or you need to exhibit it and wish to cover the inner workings.  The obvious thing is to attach another disc to the axle to cover the mechanism and this requires all those pivot points to be attached at their outer ends to the new disc.  Those pivot points that you shortened now need to be repositioned because if you don't they will obstruct the passage of the other lever you had designed to pass over it.  It takes time and trial and error to achieve the new positions without affecting the continued operation of the mechanism and these new positions explain, for me, some of the mysteries about Bessler's drawings.

As for the waxed linen, I think the purpose of using it to cover the sides of the wheel was to hide any clues the spectators might get from seeing the placing of the various pivot points and other fixings.  Without the covering of the waxed linen the positions of all the pivot points would be visible to the examiners and therefore potentially offer clues as to their purpose and action.  

Also, he is said to have introduced a flap in the cloth which gave him access to the interior so that he could remove the weights prior to moving the wheel from one support to another.  But here is another mystery.  To get all the weights out, or at least to get all the weights he could reach, out, he would surely need several flaps?  They couldn't have all been accessible from one position in a twelve foot diameter wheel.  He must had to lock and unlock the wheel as he removed the weights otherwise it would spin until balanced again.  Maybe he had one flap at each weight access point?  It is a pity nobody counted the flaps.

But ... he might have accessed the weights by unbuttoning the edge of the linen, then he wouldn't need a special flap.

JC

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Could a carpenter's apprentice really have understood how Bessler's wheel worked?

Johann Fischer von Erlach, in his letter to Sir Isaac Newton's curator of experiments, Desaguliers, wrote of Karl, that "His Highness, who has a perfect understanding of mathematics, assured me that the machine is so simple that a carpenter's boy could understand and make it after having seen the inside of this wheel, and that  he would not risk his name in giving these attestations, if he did not have knowledge of the machine."

Now that is a misleading statement, in my opinion - it wasn't meant to be, but that is how it has turned out.  The problem is that he uses the word 'understand', suggesting that a carpenter's boy could make it after having studied the inside.  The implication being that it is simple and obvious, even to a young inexperienced apprentice.  Apparently Karl declared that he understood it too, sufficiently to risk his good name in saying it was genuine. But if the machine was so easy to understand why has no one thought of the way to replicate what Bessler did, in the 300 years since he proved it was possible?  I think the reason is because there is a principle involved which was overlooked by everyone including Karl.

I think that Karl understood the mechanism but did not appreciate the whole process it underwent in rotating the wheel continuously. This is difficult for me to explain, but I'll try. If I had been able to look at the mechanism in Bessler's wheel and I saw a weighted lever, for example, falling outwards or inwards and in doing so lifting another lever, I might well understand what I was seeing.  I would make an assumption based on what I knew, but if there were restrictions on what could be achieved by the first lever because it might be insufficient to lift the second lever enough, then perhaps a spring attached to the lever being lifted, to assist in the initial lift might be required - but would I have seen the spring?  If I hadn't then I might think the first lever easily lifted the second one; but if I did noticce it, would I make the right interpretation of its use?  And yet without the spring the whole thing might fail.

Having said that I don't think that springs were used in that way in Bessler's wheel.  But I do think that Karl's understanding of the wheel's mechanism was incomplete.  I have good reason for reaching this opinion as I have found a number of intricate requirements and restrictions for the mechanism which are identified in Bessler's drawings but which are not easily recognised without actually building the assemblies - and this, by the way, is the main reason why I think that the efforts to achieve success through simulation alone are doomed to failure.

The second thing is that whatever each mechanisms did, it had to be reversed or reset in order to operate again, to continue the wheel's rotation, but did Karl actually see this other part of the action?  Perhaps Bessler simply said that the action was reversed on the other side of the wheel, but perhaps there were actions which only ocurred on the resetting side of the wheel - in fact, as I have discovered, there were.

Finally, we don't know which wheel Bessler showed to Karl, but I can't really believe that Karl would have waited for six months to allow Bessler time to build the big wheel, before giving the device his blessing, so he must have seen a smaller portable version of the wheel, and this would most likely have been the one-way wheel - a more simple device. 

So I think that Karl was not made aware of this unknown principle which permitted the wheel to work within the current laws of physics. He may have seen it in action but not understood the restrictions imposed on its actions. I know this principle but have not yet incorporated it within a wheel.  I have designed and built a mechanism that performs according to the principle - it does what it's designed to do.  I know people will say that there cannot be a secret principle which obeys the laws of physics and yet works a gravity-only wheel but there is.  It doesn't conflict with any law and the fact that gravity is said to be conservative does not enter into the equation.

JC

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Bessler's shared drawing features

I'm posting some of my musings on the various graphical  features in much of Bessler;s work.

I noticed a comment on the besslerwheel forum regarding the drawing of a Roberval Balance parellogram on page 556v (page 169 in my published version of Maschinen Tractate). It said that Bessler's drawing showed the Roberval Balance at an angle and therefore, it looked as though the weights were not equal. 

Stewart responded thus, '... It won't self-level, and you can move the parallelogram up and down with ease and it will remain stationary when you let go. This is not a "normal balance" and is a very interesting demonstration that should be studied and understood.'  Below is Roberval's balance drawn in 1669.

I think it worth pointing out that this system was designed to allow the weight of any thing to be checked against a known weight. The object to be weighed is placed on one of the two weigh-pans and checked against some known calibrated weights on the other pan, until balance is achieved.  The big advantage is that it doesn't matter where on either pan the object to be weighed, or the calibrated weight, is placed.

With differing weights the balance will be tilted downwards by the heavier weight, but because the weights were of a similar mass the two pans were always in equilibrium, whether tilted an angle by hand, or level with each other.  

The weigh-pans on the Roberval balance are fixed to a multi-jointed parallelogram whose two other sides are pivoted in their midpoints to a vertical post.  This parallelogram bears similarities to the figures 'C' and 'D' on the 'Toys' page, (MT138-141).  It also has a passing resemblance to the lazy-tongs shown as figure 'E' on the same page.

It seems worth pointing out that the ubiquitous letter 'A' with the sometimes bent middle arm in the Maschinen Tractate, can form a parallelogram but is also similar to the pantograph, a device for replicating a design in a larger of smaller scale.  

To me the pantograph shown below and drawn in 1867 look somewhat similar to the square and compass so often attrributed to the Freemasons, but also in the second Portrait.  

Do these various depictions have any connection with each other, or do they just bear a passing resemblance to each other?

JC

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The "Connectedness principle" revisited and "the pull-not-push" arrangement

In his Maschinen Tractate, Bessler notes that 'number 9 will not work without the application of his "connectedness principle"'. In my published version of MT I retranslated the original text as 'number 9 will not work unless my "principle of movement" is activated'.

I explained my reasoning by saying that the words ‘principis agi..t’ derived, in my opinion, from the Latin ‘ago’, ‘to drive’ or ‘put in motion’, and that this translated as ‘principle of motion or movement’, however Stewart's work on the translation has persuaded me that his translation, 'connectedness principle' is correct and it seems to fit better with the preceeding text.

I've had some more thoughts about this phrase and I think one can infer that it refers to either a connection between two objects or an interconnection between several.  I prefer the idea of two-part connections because I think he would have used some word such as interconnectedness to describe a connection between several objects. He also states that his weights worked in pairs, and that seems to fit.  But what else can we gather from the phrase?

Connectedness implies a degree of connection somewhat less than a full connection and I'm thinking of something like, for instance, a length of rope between ones-self and a heavy object. You can pull it but you can't push it, so it's a one-way connection.  My research has has shown how this is used in Bessler's wheel and he has used two similar arrangement for moving weights in both direction but only pushing them, and then he allows one hald of the pair of weights to return under its own steam and the other is brought back by the pull-not-push method.

But there is another version of the pull-not-push which gives additional advantages.  Using a lever which is articulated or hinged a point between the two ends allows one to pull another object but also to push it and, with the desired proportions, to push it with extra force over a shorter distance.  A combination of these features is used in Bessler's wheel.

JC

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A confusion of clues.

I've had some requests asking for more clues and it's not easy to point to the clues without giving too much away too soon!  I say this because I still would like to try and make my own prototype first.  However I think that unless you know the principle which drives the wheel, the clues may not be any use anyway.

  

Obviously the most useful clue would be one which would lead to an understanding of this principle, but again, I really don't want to share that yet.  On the other hand there may be people out there who do know the principle but have not yet worked out how to incorporate it within the wheel, so they might indeed find my clues useful.

It has always been clear to me that if Bessler wished to preserve and subsequently reveal his design for the benefit of post-humous recognition, or to prove he thought of the solution first, it would have to be contained within some drawings, as well as in text.  It seems to me to be almost impossible to describe the function of a machine in text alone. Sure, you can give some good clues but a picture is worth a thousand words.  So the drawings hold the best clues, but which are they?  In my opinion he would have set down those clues as soon as possible, which means the drawings in Grundlicher Bericht, Das Triumphirende and Apologia Poetica contain the original graphic clues.  I agree there are clues in Maschinen Tractate but they are not as useful as some others, apart from the 'toys' page.

As far as I know, the drawing at the end of the Apologia Poetica is only of use in telling us that there are five mechanisms in the ideal machine - and the same can be said for the MT 137, but I may be wrong about that - or my interpretation of what the fives mean may be wrong or inadequate.  I should also remind everyone that it might simply point to chapter 55 of his Apologia Poetica which obviously contains a wealth of undeciphered hidden text.

For me the portraits only hold information which points to a pentagram.  As before, I assume this refers to the number five again. I'm not convinced that Bessler would or could have included any clues which would show how his machine worked, within the portraits, however I am well aware that at least one other person has found what they regard as useful information there, so I must await the revelation of that information before I can arrive at an informed opinion.

I think it was John Worton who commented that Bessler hid in plain sight the secret of his machine in his woodcut images available for all to see for three hundred years. What better place to hide such information than within a drawing which is open to public scrutiny and has been for 300 years?

And finally I must echo Doug's words, 'some of us have been looking at simulations way too much..'

JC

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Divided Opinions

Great comments guys, on the clues and which are the best and which aren't really clues and the various interpretations of each.  I may not comment much myself, but I love reading them, so thanks and keep it up!

Ever since I became acquainted with the legend of Bessler's wheel, I have been aware that opinion is divided into those who believe Bessler's claims that he had invented a perpetual motion machine, and those who reject them utterly. The latter group is vastly larger than the former.

As time has passed I have become increasingly surprised that there aren't more people, other than we few, who have looked at the evidence and concluded that there must be something in his claims.  But of course the reason is clear, science states that such machine are impossible, and so well-entrenched in our minds is this view that nothing but the clearest evidence of their own eyes would convince those sceptics that such a machine is possible.

I know that on our side of the chasm there is a subdivision; those who believe Bessler's claims but still reject the gravity-only thesis.  This is actually an encouraging fact.  I say this because obviously the evidence which most of the world ignores has convinced some people, despite the apparent impossibility of the claims, that Bessler did not lie.  Those people seek an alternative hypothesis and some suggest the presence of an additional force which assists gravity to complete the closed circle.

It seems to me that if the evidence that Bessler' wheel really worked is strong enough to convince such people, then it should be strong enough to convince more people and maybe some within the scientific community.  Part of the problem may be that there has been no theory published which might plausibly explain how such a device could overturn the entrenched view.  I have a theory in mind and it is instantly understandable once it is described and it requires no working model to prove it.  But it is one thing to know why it is possible but another to construct something which uses that information effectively.  I'm confident that I'm right but of course only a working model will prove it.

My own construction is mostly complete, although I'm only working with one mechanism at the moment.  This is because I have to get this one right before I adjust the others.  The action is almost there but I'm not happy with its range and I shall continue to adjust it until it performs as expected.

JC

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Did Bessler's wheel arrive too late or too early?

The timing of Bessler's discovery, after some ten years research, was unfortunate - 6th June 1712.

Denis Papin's experimental steam cylinder and piston was published in 1690 and he finally left Kassel in 1707.  After more than ten years his research culminated in 1704, with a ship powered by his steam engine, mechanically linked to paddles.  He died in London in 1712.

In 1698 Thomas Savery patented a steam-powered pump.  It was not as powerful as the Newcomen engine.

In 1712 Thomas Newcomen built the first successful steam engine in the world which was used for pumping water from coal mines. Savery's original patent of July 1698 gave 14 years' protection; the next year, 1699, an Act of Parliament was passed which extended his protection for a further 21 years.

Savery's patent covered all engines that raised water by fire and Newcomen was forced to go into partnership with Savery. By 1712, arrangements had been made with Newcomen to develop Newcomen's more advanced design of steam engine, which was marketed under Savery's patent. Newcomen's engine used the piston concept invented in 1690 by the Frenchman Denis Papin to produce the first steam engine capable of raising water from deep mines.

Unfortunately for him, the work of these men accidentally conspired to rob Bessler of his rightful place among the engine pioneers of .the 18th Century.  Their machines were designed and built by creditable 'gentlemen' and backed by establishment and  members of the Royal Society in London..

I often wonder what might have happened if the others had not been there when Bessler exhibited his machine - and if he had sold it!

Some people have speculated that it was because we experienced the steam age which, via the internal combustion engine, led to the petroleum age and hence the discovery of the many other benefits from the expansion of research into crude oil, and that we might have omitted that era if we had taken hold of Bessler's wheel and thus side-stepped much that we take for granted?  My personal opinion is that combustion engines would still have prevailed.

Even as far back as 1673, Huygens carried out experiments with a basic form of internal combustion engine, fuelled by gunpowder, and although he never succeeded in building one that worked, his attempts were helpful to those that were successful.  It seems to me perfectly reasonable to think that all the same engines and their fuels would have been developed in more or less the same time period as happened, with or without Bessler's wheel. 

JC