An interesting paradox - what is right?

I have spent most of my life researching the legend of Bessler's wheel and I am convinced that his claims were genuine, But even I, have on occasion wondered if I have been fooled by an accomplished swindler.  Could it be that, despite all the circumstantial evidence that seemed to show that the machine was genuine and nobody lied, actually one or more people did lie?  After all it is being constantly rammed down our throats that Bessler's wheel is and was impossible and we are all fools for being easily deceived.

To get to the truth, only two people need concern us; Johann Bessler himself and Karl the Landgrave of Hesse who saw the inside of the machine and confirmed that it was genuine.  How can we tell if either or both lied?

If Bessler lied then he was taking an almighty risk.   He had engaged the attention of several people of high reputation and standing within three Princedoms. In each case he requested and received official examinations of his machine in front of Ministers, Clerks of the Court and religious leaders and of course the ruling Prince or members of his family. Any hint of duplicity and Bessler would face imprisonment and possibly execution as a deterrent to others.  He stated in his Apologia Poetica that if he was found to have lied he should be beheaded.

To secure their territory against attackers, usurpers and law breakers, the Princes dispensed justice swiftly and violently. Executions were public spectacles involving cruel methods. In addition, capital punishment was not reserved solely for the most serious crimes. Death was the penalty for a variety of minor offenses.  Bessler must have believed that he would be executed if he was found to be lying, so it seems obvious to me that he only told the truth about his machine.

One form of execution popular in Germany was the breaking wheel.  It was also known as the Catherine wheel or simply the wheel.  'It was a torture device used for capital punishment from Antiquity into early modern times for public execution by breaking the criminal's bones/bludgeoning him to death. As a form of execution, it was used from "Classical" times into the 18th century; as a form of post mortem punishment of the criminal, the wheel was still in use into 19th-century Germany.'  I can imagine someone might find that means of execution highly appropriate! See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_wheel

But if, for the sake of argument, we assumed he lied, how was he expecting to get his financial reward and leave without being arrested and thrown in jail?  He couldn't just run; the deal was that the buyer and the seller sit around a table and the purchaser puts a bag of money on the table and takes the wheel.  It seems to me that it would have been impossible for Bessler to leave without the wheel being opened and inspected and verified.  This thought must have been considered, before he went ahead with the negotiations.

All the above notwithstanding, if Bessler had lied then either he fooled Karl or Karl lied too.  Yet we know from well-documented history that Karl was regarded as an honest man of tremendous integrity.  He was in constant touch with the Kings of England, Sweden and Prussia, acting as an honest broker attempting to negotiate peace between these warring nations.  He was also known for his patronage of the latest scientific experiments.  He supported Dennis Papin in his steam powered experiments for several years and also financed a number of other fields of research.  This man was no fool and would have thoroughly scrutinised Bessler's wheel before giving it his approval.

So we know that Karl did not lie either, but let us again suppose that he did, just for arguments's sake. If Karl lied then he must have foreseen that at some point someone would offer to buy the wheel.  If the machine was a fake that fact would soon emerge and Karl would be found out, along with his accomplice, Bessler.  His reputation would be gone, his status as an honest broker ruined, his family the laughing stock of Europe.  It simply does not make sense.

We are left with a paradox; the wheel worked as Bessler claimed, but the laws of physics as they are currently understood say that it is impossible for a wheel to rotate continuously under the influence of gravity alone.  Bessler told the truth therefore the laws of physics are wrong on this point at least.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’

Bessler's Septagram/ Heptagram

When I described my findings on the MT 137 figure on my website at http://www.theorffyreuscode.com/html/mt_137_a.html
I showed how it represented the musical circle of fifths publicised by Johann David Heinichen, 1683-1729, a famous German musician who lived and worked in Weissenfels at the same time as Bessler.  See the first two figures below.  MT 137 on left, modern version of Heinichen's circle of fifths to the right

In part two of the same page of the website at
http://www.theorffyreuscode.com/html/mt_137_part_two.html, I showed how Bessler had included a hidden septagram or heptagram, which is a seven-pointed star drawn with seven straight strokes, and sometimes drawn inside a circle.  Deleting the black lines on the original MT 137, or circle of fifths illustration, as in the middle figure below, and redrawing them to skim the edge of the inner black circle produces a heptagram, as shown in the third figure below.   This geometric figure has numerous associations with occult and religious symbolism, but lack of space prevents those discussions here at this moment.

What I had not appreciated was just how difficult it is to draw a circle with seven equal divisions, and that means that the inclusion of the heptagram in MT 137 cannot be considered as a coincidence, but is deliberate.  A circle divided into seven equal segments has seven interior angles of 51.428571 degrees.  This makes it impossible to get an accurate measured angle and there is no system available using ruler and compass, although you can get an approximation by dividing the circumference by seven and walking a set of compaases around it, or simply dividing the circle into seven angles of 51.5 degrees. I drew a heptagram and tried inscribing a circle within it to match the inner circle in MT 137, it is not at all easy!

The two figures lend themselves to a simple code - draw the connecting lines from one point numbered 1 and then follow the logical progression clockwise or anticlockwise and you get, for instance in the septagram,
1 to 4
4 to 7
7 to 3
3 to 6
6 to 2
2 to 5
5 to 1 .  The same applies to the dodecagram using the numbers 1 to 12.

Curiously the sides of the Great Pyramid is said to have a slope angle which is close to one-seventh of a circle, i.e. 51.4°, so I guess a reasonable approximation could be 51.5 degrees.

The number 51.42857 contains six repeating digits of 1/7, and is the best-known cyclic number in base 10. If it is multiplied by 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6, the answer will be a cyclic permutation of itself, and will correspond to the repeating digits of 2/7, 3/7, 4/7, 5/7, or 6/7 respectively.

1 × 142,857 = 142,857
2 × 142,857 = 285,714
3 × 142,857 = 428,571
4 × 142,857 = 571,428
5 × 142,857 = 714,285
6 × 142,857 = 857,142
7 × 142,857 = 999,999

The last one, 7 times, is a surprise..  (found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/142857_(number)  )

So another mystery beckons - why did Bessler include a heptagram in MT 137?  5 or 7 mechanisms?

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’

Update.

Ok, so I'm not selling up and moving house after all!  We both admitted to each other that we didn't really want to leave this house and we have been unable to find one we like as much, so we've cancelled the sale.  No villa in Spain either, at least not until the wheel works!

My current build incorporates the principle I discovered two or three years ago, and it's proving difficult to get it to perform correctly.  I know it is in the right place and it operates as I think it should but it is not causing the weight to 'shoot up' quickly enough, as Bessler described it.  I feel confident that I will get the configuration right in time but now that I am free of the house-moving troubles I can get on with playing with variations on the leverage to generate enough lift to move the weight upwards quickly.  The speed of the lift will affect the wheel's speed - too slow and it will have a braking effect.
  

I have always insisted that there are five mechanisms, but it was interesting to learn that the sound of the Kassel wheel was described in a newspaper report as making seven or eight bumping noises.  This fits in with my belief that there have to be an odd number of mechanisms and therefore  includes the possibility of seven as described by me on my web site at

 http://www.theorffyreuscode.com/html/mt_137_part_two.html

Having said that, according to my own work on deciphering Bessler's clues, there are many more potential sources for various mechanical noises, and the seven or eight reported sounds must either be ignoring the lesser ones, or they have all been silenced in some way.  I note that the early wheels were remarkable for the amount of noise coming from them when they turned.  Bear in mind that Bessler said he had tried to dampen the sounds with felt on some occasions and this seems to lend support to the idea 

And another thing, Karl reported that the design of the wheel was very simple, but I am aware of the principle that permits the force of gravity to drive the wheel without conflicting with the laws of physics and  I do not think he could possibly have understood all of what he was seeing.  It would not have been at all obvious even to someone as intelligent as he was.  I suspect that Bessler showed him the internal workings without pointing out the particular features which make the wheel comply with the principle I mentioned earlier.  It will easily escape attention unless you know what you are looking for.

My wheel is quite complex, in that it has several components which interact with each other and it is this interaction which is causing me problems in finalising one perfect mechanism whose precise configuration I can transfer to the other four to produce an exact copy of Bessler's wheel.  Confidence is high!

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’

How Many Ways might there be to Solve Bessler's wheel? Update.

It has been said many times that even when we solve Bessler's wheel, we won't know for sure whether it will be the same design as his. Perhaps this doesn't matter but it seems an unlikely conclusion to me anyway.  I have known the principle or trick, if you like, to the secret of Bessler's wheel, for  a couple of years and I am certain that the principle I'm referring to is a vital part of the configuration; without its use the wheel will not spin.

I also know that if I hadn't found it, I would still suspect that there would only be one way to make gravity able to drive the wheel and therefore whoever solved the problem would still require this particular specific principle to be incorporated in its construction.  So for his wheel to work, Bessler must have known and used the same principle and therefore anyone having to use this same principle would result in a duplication of Bessler's wheel. If you consider that for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, man has sought the answer to this riddle, as far as we know, without success except for the once, there can surely only be one principle involved and therefore only an extremely limited number of ways it can be used - and maybe only one way.

I have give some consideration to potential alternative ways it might be used and I suspect that it might be possible to use it in a reactionless drive.  How this might be achieved using the principle I have in mind is beyond my engineering skills to make, although I have sketched some ideas.  When you consider that in Bessler's wheel you are attempting to convert the downward linear force of gravity into a rotational one, then it doesn't seem too big a jump to assume that you could reverse it and use a rotational drive to create linear thrust.  Of course I am fully aware that to date, no reactionless drive has ever been validated under properly controlled conditions but then neither has a gravity-driven wheel. It seems that a consequence of building either one would conflict with Newton's third law, (for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction), however the same principle which I think will work for Bessler's wheel should be available for use in the opposite direction and we are all working to prove Bessler's wheel because we believe it was genuine.  If the consequences of Newton's third law can be circumvented in one direction then it should also be possible in the other.

I guess you are asking, if I know the principle why have I not created a working model by now?  A reasonable question and I shall try to answer it.  I know and understand the principle and the reason why it will work, and I'm confident that everyone will agree with me when I explain it.  But finding out how to use it has proved more difficult than I imagined when I first found it.  I have over the last couple of years, through a combination of hands-on building, trial and error, and successfully teasing out the desired information from Bessler's drawings I have at last arrived at the correct configuration, and I am completing my final construction.  

My intention is to finish this model and - if it works - then I can finally publish the details.  If it doesn't work, I shall also publish the details of the principle and also the extracted information from the particular drawings I used. I'll explain how I arrived at my conclusions and let someone else carry it forward.  I will do this because I am certain that I have everything right, but who knows?  Perhaps the quality of my workmanship might result in a less than continuous motion.

I understand with the utmost clarity that the vast majority of readers here, will think I'm deluded and I don't blame you.  But, I am fed up with constructing endless stationary wheels and I want to share the only bit of real information that I do have, the principle!  But allow me, please to just finish this last attempt to build a working model.

The reason for my belated apparent haste after many years of procrastination, is because we are planning to sell our current home and buy a smaller one here and maybe a small villa in Spain, where we can try and avoid the miserable winters in England.   This means that my current project will suffer an extended hiatus  The house is being tidied up for sale and my workshop is suffering the same fate - being tidied up and all my work hidden away. If this one fails to rotate continuously and drive another device, then I will publish everything as video, digital and printed documents within the next few weeks.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’

What Secret Lies within Bessler's Portraits?

This is an interim blog which I decided to write concerning recent speculation about the Bessler portraits.

There has been much discussion about the two portraits of Johann Bessler.  Do they contain hidden information and what that information might tell us?

In extracting meaning from Bessler's portraits it can sometimes be helpful to try and put yourself in his shoes.  What information was he trying to convey?

Personally, I don't see how he could transmit sufficient information about how to reconstruct his wheel from anything he contrived to hide in his portrait or portraits, so what do all the apparent clues mean? I am expressing my personal opinion here and I have published what I have been able to discover about the portraits at
http://www.theorffyreuscode.com/html/bessler_s_portrait.html.and here http://www.theorffyreuscode.com/html/part_2_portrait.html and
also here http://www.theorffyreuscode.com/html/2nd_portrait.html

The only facts that we can reliably extract are the quirky finger gesture which seems to point at some hidden meaning and the odd writing below the portrait which contains some alphanumeric clues and some curious font variables, plus the objects within the portraits, some indicating memento mori, and of course there is the pentagon, but all of these details seem to lead us to a dead end.  These vague hints seem to point to some secret knowledge relating to the Freemasons, the Rosicrucians, the Jesuits or some other secret organisation.  They are definitely clues, but with this sketchy information it seems impossible to understand what he is trying to say. 

Approaching the puzzle from a different angle, I think that if Bessler wished to give us the information it, had to be in the form of detailed construction information in a separate place elsewhere, and maybe he designed the portraits to tell us where to look.

So where would we be likely to find the information that Bessler might be trying to point us to?Obviously the most important source would be drawings because a picture is worth a thousand words, but if its textual clues you want then you won't find a better place than his Apologia Poetica.  I have described some of my findings in my web site at 

http://www.theorffyreuscode.com/html/aps_chapter_55.html 

So somewhere in the design of the portraits lies a series of clues which may lead us to the source of the real secret - how to build a Bessler wheel..

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’

Bessler 's Curious Hand Gesture

I had considered posting the subject of this blog on the forum but decided against because of its length.  I have no objection to anyone taking the suject to the forum for further discussion.

Many years ago I commented on what I described as the poorly drawn hands in the main portrait of Bessler.  I wrote this because to me the hands looked unnatural and were therefore not well drawn. Subsequently I believed that I had discovered that the particular arrangement of the middle and ring finger being pressed together while the other fingers were held apart was a secret method of recognition among the Freemasons mainly in formal portraits.  I thought that this was probably not too surprising given the apparent involvement of Karl the Landgrave in the Masonic brotherhood. The subject of Freemasons has come up from time to time and suggestions have been made that perhaps Bessler was a Mason.   If the house of Hess at Kassel was deeply involved in Freemasonry then there is little doubt that Bessler was either made aware of it, or learned of it while he stayed at Hessen-Kassel.

Coincidentally the man to whom Baron Fischer wrote, in support of Bessler's wheel, Dr Desaguliers, Sir Isaac Newton's curator of experiments at the Royal Society, was, himself a keen Freemason and was mainly responsible for the upsurge in membership all over Europe. However further research indicates that Desaguliers was not connected with Freemasonry until 1719 and did not induct anyone on the continent before 1731 so I think we can dismiss any connection of Bessler to Freemasonry, at least while he was at Hess-Kassel.   Neither is there any evidence that Karl the Landgrave of Hess-Kassel was a member and anyway, it was too early for his involvement, although several of his descendants were.

As for Ken's findings on the subject of Bessler's portraits, I am neither supporting nor dismissing his work on deciphering the meanings he claims to have found - I simply don't know..  

In the main portrait Bessler's middle and ring fingers on his left hand, are held close together and anyone who wishes to research the significance of this in a formal portrait will find a wealth of information about the use of this symbol by the Masonic fraternity.  But I think we can ignore that information for the reason I have given above, so why was it used in his case?

The symbols shown in the portrait; the skull, book and jar are commonly used in art to denote the passing of time and our ultimate death and the words Memento Mori are ascribed to the notion.  It means remember, we die.  In my web site at http://www.theorffyreuscode.com/html/part_2_portrait.html I suggested a link to Mary Magdalene, Venus and the pentagram, which I admitted was highly dubious speculation.  In fact the answer is more prosaic.  I think that in addition to the alphanumeric cipher, as described on my website www.theorffyreuscode.com the two Roman letter 'M's in the bottom line below the portrait stand for Memento Mori.


But that still doesn't explain why Bessler used the curious finger gesture.  Around the year 1578 in Toledo or Madrid, Spain, the painter known as "El Greco", created a painting that is now called "El caballero de la mano al pecho" -- "The man with his hand on his chest."  In this painting the fingers , of his right hand are displayed as in Bessler's portrait except that Bessler has them resting on a book.  Space prevents me going into detail  about the various speculations about its meaning, but you can read a good review of the painting and its associated ideas at http://www.darkfiber.com/pz/chapter1.html

I should also point out that dozens of famous, and infamous people have had portraits done in which their fingers have adopted similar positions including Newton and Hitler, some are obviously accidental due to the position of their hands against their hip or leg..

My own take from this with regard to Bessler is this.  We know that in later life he published documents arguing for the unification of the Christian religions. I assume he included Catholic, Protestant, Jews and the Jesuits.  He spent a period of time in Prague meeting frequently with a Jesuit priest and Jewish Rabbi, and I suspect that it was there that he learned of the the hand gesture which is a type of Jewish secret sign that was used among the crypto-Jews (i.e., false Christians) of 16th century Toledo to recognize each other, much like a secret masonic handshake.  Bessler's gesture may originate from there, or another theory has it that the gesture was recommended by St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, in his Spiritual Exercises? There are also a number of paintings showing the virgin Mary using the same gesture while feeding the baby Jesus   The problem with all of these is that they place the hand on the chest or breasts as in the above picture.

I can imagine that Bessler might choose to use the Marrano gesture as it is called, but why not place it on his chest?  It looks to me as though his left arm originally came diagonally towards his chest ending up either with the hand at his chest or near to it.  The current left hand looks almost like a disembodied part simply placed there at the last moment.  Perhaps he intended to place it on his chest and then changed it at the last moment.  I wondered if the reason for his change of heart (pun!) was due to the fact that Loyola required that the sign be made against the chest for each sin the believer had committed, and I doubt that Bessler would have wanted such a public display of his sins.

I should also mention that there is a medical condition which causes a similar positioning of the fingers and as an alternative, the ancient art of dactylonomy may require a similar finger positioning, although I haven't been able find that precise one!

Any suggestions welcome.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’

Would Millions of Bessler's Wheels Affect the Planet's Rotation?

Previously there have been discussions on the BWF about the effects of having numerous Besslerwheels around the planet earth, all spinning and generating electricity (I wish!) and it has been argued that using weights and thus gravity, to drive all those wheels, will affect the rotation of the earth.  I assume the thinking is that with the force of gravity being used to continually drop and raise weights all over the world, the energy it spends in doing that is removed from the total sum pressing on earth?  It seems that some people think this would result in a slowing of the earth's rate of spin with some other, so far undefined effects?

What would the force of gravity be doing if it wasn't expending energy on moving Bessler's wheels?   It would be pushing or trying to push everything within its scope into the earth.  If some things are already in or on the earth does it still do work?  Yes. Does it lose some of its force?  No, because it's continuous. If a weight is driven around in a wheel by gravity, the energy is simply transferred to another form, first rotational and then electricity and then whatever electricity is used for.

I do not have an opinion on the likelihood of this action resulting in an effect which can be detected, and I'm doubtful that any number of Bessler wheels would have any impact on the earth's spin.  In writing this blog it occurred to me that, no one has proposed a similar result being caused by the millions upon millions of rotating engines all over the globe throwing weights around and around and up and down. All those pistons being exploded up and down and side to side.  What about elevators? Lifts in tall buildings going up and down, apparently the world's tallest skyscrapers are set to double in height after an elevator company developed a new super-strong 'rope' to haul lifts to the top.   Would a mass of 3 tons accelerating up and down the tallest building ( quarter of a mile) multiplied many time have any effect?  Seems unlikely.

Trains weighing thousands of tons travelling in excess of 100 mph accelerating and braking, or just shifting their mass across the surface of the earth; aircraft taking of and landing, moving their weigh from a runway and spreading it onto the atmosphere while travelling at many hundreds of miles an hour.  Huge cargo ships and tankers loading up and taking to the seas, spreading the load which was concentrated on a dockside onto the ocean. Aren't these kinds of activities just as likely to effect the earth's rate of spin as a hundred million Besslerwheels all rotating 24/7?

So the one difference between all of the above and Bessler's Wheel is that the latter will be driven by gravity, although many people believe that that is impossible and there is some other force driving the wheels, and that then puts it in the same category as those mentioned above.

I do not know if the concerns expressed here are legitimate or not, but I suspect the wheels will be produced regardless, if their existence proves commercially desirable.  That of course is another question which has exercised us over the years, can Bessler's wheel be justified as a generator of electricity? My personal view is that it could be.  To use an old English proverb, 'necessity is the mother of invention'.  In the Oxford Dictionary the proverb has been defined as – when the need for something becomes imperative, you are forced to find ways of getting or achieving it. And that is the key; if all alternative forms of energy creation become too expensive, detrimental to the planet or us, or unavailable everywhere then some one will take Bessler's wheel and use the concept which allows it to work without violating the standard laws of physics, and build a useful generator which can supply sufficient electricity for each one's needs.

For me the answer to the question posed in the title of this blog is - no, not at all and even if it did,not in any detectable way.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’

Breaking Down the Wall of Scepticism.

I have been immersed in Bessleriana for so long that I have become accustomed to the idea that it will only be a matter of time before we prove that Bessler was right and it is possible to extract energy from gravity.  Suddenly I realised I had got too used to the possibility and had forgotten what a bombshell that news would be should it come true!

The reminder came because I was rereading through Sir Isaac Newtons 'Quaestions' notebook the other day, and came across his brief comment about how perpetual motion might be possible if you could somehow shield half the wheel from the effects of gravity, when I sensed a subtext in his note. He wasn't suggesting that it was possible, what he was saying was that one way to achieve it would require the invention of a material which was utterly impossible.  In other words he was implying that it was impossible and you would have to invent an equally impossible method to achieve it. So even my attempt to vindicate my stance by suggesting that even Newton considered perpetual motion might be possible, was flawed!

But I do not accept that it is impossible, because I am completely persuaded otherwise by the huge amount of evidence in Bessler's work, but it does demonstrate very clearly the monumental task we have in trying to persuade anyone else of our conviction.  Newton has achieved an almost God-like status, and his work is taught world wide.  Other scientists of the era have also defined physical laws which still stand today, and every scientist, teacher and in fact anyone with even a little education knows that Bessler's wheel violates some law and is therefore inpossible, so how come we few are so convinced that we know better, that we are prepared to go against the tide and do all in our power to prove 99 percent of the world's population have got it wrong?

Call it instinct, intuition, a feeling, a hunch, a sixth sense, a gut feeling - whatever it is, it has been in the mind of man for thousands of years.  There was a magnetic wheel design in 8th Century Bavaria, and a design for another  perpetual motion machine by Indian mathematician–astronomer Bhaskara in 1159.  There are hints that they were being investigated as far back as the Sumerians, 5000 years ago. Somehow, we just know that it is possible to create a continuously turning wheel powered by weights, and therefore gravity.  In Bessler's day the possibility was discussed by the intellectuals but most of those who understood the argument were swayed by those who said it was in violation of certain physical laws which could not be argued with. The mere fact that it was so hotly debated suggests that the idea went against man's intuition.

The sceptic's argument was logical and those who espoused it were unable to find a concept which would allow such a device to work.  Phillipe de La Hire (1614-1718)  wrote that 'one would need to find a body that was both heavier and lighter at the same time', as equally daft an idea as Newton's gravity shield - and yet there is a certain truth in the statements.  La Hire's reflects Newton's idea too. Either the object changes weight or the effect of gravity on it varies; the end result is the same, the  amount of the perceived weight alters.

There is a scientific consensus that perpetual motion in an isolated system violates either the first law of thermodynamics, the second law of thermodynamics, or both.  The only question is this; is gravity an external force or not?  To me it is obviously external.  All physical bodies of mass are attracted to each other by the 'action at a distance' phenomenon hence the force must be external to the wheel - no question.  We can therefore dismiss the 'scientific consensus that perpetual motion in an isolated system violates either the first law of thermodynamics, the second law of thermodynamics, or both'. That consensus does not apply here, a gravity-powered wheel isn't an isolated system.

In the end, simulations, learned texts littered with illustrations, lectures - none of them will persuade the hard-liners; only a working model will convince them that after 300 years Johann Bessler's claims were justified.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’

Would Bessler's wheel be patentable?

This question seems to have surfaced again recently and despite reading a lot of patent advice I am uncertain if I can answer the question asked in the title of this blog. What follows is my take on the issue but it is quite possibly erroneous in some aspects, for which I apologise.

Let us assume for the sake of argument, that a means has been found to produce a continuously rotating wheel, driven only by the force of gravity.  This has nothing to do with Johann Bessler's work.  It seems safe to assume that this would be patentable, in the USA and many other countries.

However, suppose someone should come along and announce that the wheel in question is an exact copy of Bessler's wheel, and therefore it could not be patented.  This raises two questions, firstly so what? Bessler did not patent it so it's fair game for someone else to patent, and secondly how do we know it is an exact copy of Bessler's wheel; everyone knows that he did not reveal the secret of his wheel, so  we can never prove or disprove that as a fact.

The decision on the first point may depend on the outcome of the second point.  If it was proved that the new wheel did in fact copy Bessler's wheel exactly, would that negate the possibility of patenting it?  Personally I don't think it would, even if it was proved that it was exactly the same design as Bessler's.  Look at a patent today; it covers every possible alternative reading of an invention.  It tries to cover all eventualities because the patent lawyer knows that the opposition will read everything in the patent to try to find a chink which he can use towards a new patent application.  Bessler's clues leave the field wide open for similar patent applications

The fact that Bessler left sufficient clues to allow someone to reconstruct his wheel exactly would not, in my opinion, be enough to make any future patent application invalid.  The clues, such as they are, are so obscure as to allow the formation of numerous designs which 999 times out of every thousand will undoubtedly fail due to the fact that he wrote them deliberately obscurely to keep them secret, and as I said recently, I think they were only there to allow him to point to them post the sale of his wheel, to show how devious and clever he had been.

I am aware of only two people who believe that they have solved most of the clues and are close to achieving success, and expect a working device soon, either simulated or an actual build - myself and Ken.  Having said that, in illustration of the difficulties in deciphering these clues, both Ken and I have arrived at our widely differing solutions via completely different sets of clues.

I should also mention that there are others who also feel that they are making progress in the right direction although I'm not aware of any soon-to-be announced working models.

This blog raises one more point.  It has been said many times, that even if somebody succeeds in making the continuously-turning wheel there will be no way of knowing if Bessler's wheel resembled it in any way.  I would reject that argument utterly, my own design has borrowed extensively from Bessler's work and while I am unwilling to share anything until I have finished it, I am confident of success, but does that mean that Ken's wheel will fail?  I have no idea, but I have made mine without any springs and that he will see as a major error.  LOL

Finally, should any of us succeed and knowingly base it on the information Bessler left in his clues, would it be morally wrong to patent it without acknowledging Bessler's part?

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’

How will you choose a verifier of high repute?

Recent discussions on the Besslerwheel Forum have revealed a minor conundrum.  One member has assured us that his wheel works and as proof he will take a video of it running, albeit with covers over the sides to prevent us from seeing how it works.  As proof that the video is genuine he says that he will include other devices running at the same time. Leaving aside the question of trust, it seems to me that such a demonstration would prove pointless anyway.  If no one can see how the wheel works, how are they to judge it?  All that will be visible will be the speed and regularity (or not) of the spinning device. No matter how you try to prove the wheel is the genuine article there is no way to establish its validity unless someone can see it, understand how it works and vouch for it.

The question then arises, who might be the most suitable person to provide his assurance that the wheel is genuine?  It is critical that an independent examination is carried out by someone who has no personal interest in the demonstration and is seen to be impartial.  This rules out family connections, employment relations, patrons, friends, others with an interest in the device, potential buyers, financially interested people and the majority of members of the forum, including myself.  Obviously he would require expertise in the subject.

Johann Bessler had exactly the same problem.  He tried to prove the wheel did work as he claimed by demonstrating a number of tests that he and Gottfried Leibniz thought were compelling at least if not irrefutable.  He also sought the most reliable and trusted person possible, to validate his machine, a man of unblemished reputation and one held in the highest respect by other rulers and their subjects. Despite this, the modern world seeks to tarnish Karl the Landgrave of Hessen Kassel's reputation by casting doubt on his honour, trying, it seems to me, to find a chink in the armour of good solid, but circumstantial evidence in favour of Bessler's wheel.

At that time the most sensible suggestion was that another ruler hold a sum of money equal to the price Bessler demanded for his secret, in escrow pending the verification of the wheel.  An escrow is a deposit of funds, a deed or other instrument by one party for the delivery to another party upon completion of a particular condition or event.  That the suggestion failed was partly down to the chosen escrow holder taking offence at a related matter and partly down to the fact that Bessler did not trust anyone.

Even if the escrow arrangement had been accomplished, a reputable person would then have to be found who could verify or not the wheel's behaviour and then inform the escrow holder so that the money could have been handed over.  But one person of unimpeachable reputation had already given the wheel his seal of approval, Karl who insisted that he must verify Bessler's claims before agreeing to provide his patronage in the form of employment, room and board for Bessler and his family.

It seems to me that trying to do the same thing today would be just as fraught with difficulties as Bessler discovered. There will always be a feeling that some agreement has compromised the reliability of the verification.  There are however, some excellent forum members who I would trust absolutely, but perhaps like me, they would prefer not be involves in such an important role.

I should point out here, that I am completely against patenting the device because I think it's a waste of time and money.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

Do we know, or are we Guessing, Speculating or do we have a Hunch about how Bessler's Wheels worked?

I sometimes wonder if Bessler had any qualms about publishing his Apologia Poetica and his Das Triumphans books.  Did he fear that he had provided clues that were too easy to decipher?  I know I am reluctant to give any hints about my current thinking for fear of giving anything away and I suspect most of us are of a similar mind.

However, I think he must have been pretty confident that the clues were too difficult to decipher otherwise he would never have published them.  But that raises the question are they too difficult for us too?  He must have thought that at some point people would work on his books in an effort to extract the original meaning he intended us to grasp; but that this should begin to happen three hundred years after his death was probably not something that occurred to him.

He published the books when he was at the height of his fame and confident that his wheel would be sold, in which case the books were just there to allow him to reveal that the clues had been there all along and only his own cleverness had kept them invisible.

I have been criticised in the past for publishing speculation without labelling it as such, thereby giving the impression that my speculations were factual. I hope I corrected that impression but I think there is a thin wall between what we think is fact, speculation, following a hunch and guessing.

Speculation is the consideration of some subject which leads to a conclusion or opinion reached by such contemplation. Often such speculations are impossible to verify, and one can say that it is the forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence.

Besides speculating, I have followed many hunches over the years most of which ended in a firm conviction that my hunch was wrong. Other hunches I chased have led me to believe they were correct or true, even though I did not have any proof.  Like all hunches these were based on a feeling or guess, based on intuition rather than fact.

Guessing combines elements of  hunches and speculation but is broader based.  For example you can guess the next roll of a dice but you can't speculate what it would be.  It won't be accurate at all because the dice has no memory of previous rolls, but you can speculate what the dice roll will be, based on, for example, looking at the statistical distribution of past rolls and so forth. But it just won't be very accurate.

So I think that speculation is an informed guess.   But a hunch is something extra; some unconscious conclusion about the way to the solution.  I often awaken in the night having had a sudden revelation about something I had been thinking about during the previous day or week.  Often it it proves unfounded in the cold light of dawn, on the other hand I have made some major discoveries which I was able to verify subsequently.

But some of the most interesting revelations have come to me as I was writing descriptions of my various discoveries. These have confirmed what I considered was hardly more than speculation at the time  and thus became facts.

So revelations can materialise out of the blue and I'm sure they stem from unconscious activity in a part of the brain which appears to be able to work unsupervised, independently and in a focussed way.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

The High Power Potential in Bessler's Wheel.

There seems to be a body of opinion among Bessler researchers that even when someone does eventually build a successful version of Bessler's wheel - a working wheel - that it will prove little more than a novelty item that will be of no practical use in today's world.

I have written of this before but I thought I'd try again to convince others that this opinion is not supported by the facts relating to the original wheels.

We know, for instance that three of the wheels rotated at speeds of up to 50 revolutions a minute.  We also know that the third wheel, as well as rotating at 40 rpm, also turned in either direction.  Added to that the fourth wheel turned at 26 rpm also in either direction.  Bessler also said that he could make the wheels turn slowly or quickly, lifting the same heavy weights.

So we have the knowledge that the wheels could be designed to run fast or slow, in one or both directions without loss of power or speed and yet all could lift at least the same weights, regardless of their outer dimensions.  This suggests that today we could design a wheel which ran faster than 50 rpm, in a larger scale and probably do so while coping with a much heavier load.

Electricity generators need to be able  to run at a certain speed and be able to deal with occasional heavy loads.   50 rpm does not seem fast enough but with appropriate gearing the right speed could be obtained.  Take wind turbines for example they turn at speeds of between 6 and 22 rpm. Their blade lengths vary - from 102 feet to 208 feet!  They produce between 1.3 MW of electricity to 3 MW and one produces 7.6 MW. and that's the biggest one. That one has its hub 443 feet above the ground! Even the smallest one's hub is 197 feet above the ground.

A megawatt (MW) is one million watts and a kilowatt (kW) is one thousand watts. Both terms are commonly used in the power business when describing generation or load consumption. For instance, a 100 MW rated wind farm is capable of producing 100 MW during peak winds, but will produce much less than its rated amount when winds are light. As a result of these varying wind speeds, over the course of a year a wind farm may only average 30 MW of power production. Similarly, a 1,000 MW coal plant may average 750 MW of production over the course of a year because the plant will shut down for maintenance from time-to-time and the plant operates at less than its rated capability when other power plants can produce power less expensively.

The amount of electricity consumed by a typical residential household varies dramatically by region of the country.  I found that in the USA, monthly consumption of electricity in residential homes varies on average from 610 kWh to 1151 kW each month, which takes account of areas using air-conditioning and others needing heating.  Roughly speaking, I'm told that one megawatt can power one thousand homes.

A large generator sufficient to supply all of the average home's need might need an out put of about 10,000 - 15,000 watts, at the most.  High fuel consumption would rule it out but not if the fuel was free as in gravity.  If 1 MW equals one million watts and the average residence requires one thousand watts per month we need a Besslerwheel generating one hundredth of the amount the smallest wind turbine can provide - and that is a theoretical figure as we saw above wind turbines only produce 30 percent of the potential power because of fluctuating wind speeds.

So given the enormous structures being built for the generation of electricity it seems to me to be perfectly possible to generate the same levels of power with Bessler's wheel with the latest technology but of far more compact proportions and with a considerably more appealing aspect and able to operate almost anywhere, unlike the wind turbines.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

Bessler Wheel update, March 2015

On the besslerwheel forum, the enthusiasm, drive and ingenuity of the search for the solution to Bessler's wheel seems to have faded to a marked degree.  65 pages of thread titles and 5814 topics, 1663 users - and yet the most active topic is....'A working wheel is only days away!' with 2753 replies and not one millimetre of advance in almost two years of hot air, bluster and bragging.

The number of posts per month have dropped by at least 30 percent, from a peak in 2010. The same fall is reflected in the number of topics, down a similar amount over the same period.  The number of new users is way down too.  To what can we attribute this sad demise of a once fascinating and exciting field of research?  Well it isn't truly a new topic is it?  It seems to have occupied the mind of man, and not at all of woman, for at least three thousand years, and in all that time just one example of apparent success.

I say 'apparent' but it would be hard to ignore the overwhelming evidence that Johann Bessler succeeded...if only it wasn't for the fact that what he did is supposed to be impossible.  I think the birth of the internet spread the word about the legend of Bessler's wheel and attracted the attention of all sorts of people from all over the world, but that initial spurt of excitement and enthusiasm has kind of petered out, like an auto running out of gas.     The gas was the sudden spread of information about Bessler but that information is still out there and yet the car is about to stop.  There is some other factor having a braking effect and I think it is the result of too many people crying wolf, I don't exclude myself from this allegation and I understand all too well how it happens.

To succeed would be such an extraordinary achievement that each of us dreams of the esteem and approbation due to the inventor, and every so often a sudden revelation strikes one so hard with such conviction that it is almost impossible to restrain one's enthusiasm enough not to publicly announce success, even before a single mechanism has been put together.  In the course of our research most of us learn to restrain our enthusiastic urge to shout the news from the rooftops.

The other reason for the drop in new people coming to this subject is probably a result of the publicity it has garnered over the last few years and which has also inspired an even greater number of sceptics to air their own views to the detriment of the potential newcomer's intentions.  There is nothing like being the subject of scorn, derision, sarcasm and pity to put people off investing time in the subject.

I have to admit my own shortcomings at this point.  Although I have helped to spread the information about Bessler which I have gathered over many years, I'm aware that I have not revealed much of the designs I have worked on.  But I have endeavoured to put out as much information as I have been able to with regard to the encoded material Bessler left behind, but of course seeing the codes and even working out what some of them say, does not seem to advance us one tiny bit on our path to success.  So I promise that later this year I will publish all that I have found including the principle I discovered, even if my own wheel fails to materialise.  This will happen because of certain constraints upon my own situation which forces me to present my findings as soon as possible, with or without a working wheel.  It's nothing bad but I just need to get on with my research and present my findings while I am still (relatively) young!

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

Bessler's Wheel and Inertial Propulsion Drive

Ever since I stumbled on the secret to Bessler's wheel, more than two years ago now, I have been trying turn it to my advantage, but knowing the basic concept and finding ways of using it are two different things.  Gradually, through trial and error and through occasional sudden revelations in connection with Bessler's clues, I think I am on the brink of success.  I noted down a brief description of the principle I discovered and jumbled up the letters and it has appeared under almost every blog since then.

I know there are many, probably 90 per cent, who think I'm suffering from premature perpetuation, (don't you just love that phrase!  I owe that one to Stewart of Besslerwheel forum fame.) but I am sure that when you know the principle you will share my enthusiasm.  The reason for this blog, is that I often get asked for more information on what I have discovered and I am hard put to reveal any of it in case I let slip too much information.  However there is a clue I can give albeit a vague one.

I am sure that this same principle will be available for another mechanical enigma which has entertained and puzzled us for many years.  I refer to the inertial thrust or propulsion engine, also known as reactionless drive.  I believe I'm right in saying that to date, no reactionless drive has ever been validated under properly controlled conditions.

The name derives from Newton's third law, which is usually expressed as, "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." The Gyroscopic Inertial Thruster amongst other proposed sensible concepts have been researched but so far without success.

Without giving too much away I am convinced that the principle I have found will also be a significant inclusion in the configuration of any successful inertial thruster.  This means that there may be a reactionless space drive for the future and of course there is potential for ground a sea transport too.

When you consider it, if Bessler's wheel worked as we all believe it did, then what ever mechanical arrangement inside it must be transferable to an Inertial Drive Engine because in order for it to work Bessler's wheel must have overcome Newton's third law:- "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

Did Bessler use invisible ink?

Someone emailed me the other day suggesting that Johann Bessler might have used invisible ink either under his portrait, in Maschinen Tractate or even in Das Triumphirende or one of his other publications.  My first reaction was instant dismissal of the idea, but later I thought it might be interesting to investigate what was known about such things at that time just to see if it was even a possibility.

Surprisingly there is plenty of evidence that the subject was widely understood and used in particular by those in high office.  No lesser person than Mary Queen of Scots while in prison plotted to over throw Queen Elizabeth I and used invisible ink in her letters to her co-conspirators to convey her wishes.

The history of invisible ink goes back more than 2,000 years and was used by the ancient Greeks and Romans. The first record of it comes from Pliny the Elder in the first century AD, who mentioned using the milk of the tithymalus plant as an invisible ink in his Natural History. Invisible ink continued to be used during the Renaissance; statesmen used it in their letters, and Ovid references the practice in his Art of Love. Giovanni Battista della Porta, an Italian polymath, developed a formula for invisible ink.  Many others, including Roger Bacon and John Dee, were familiar with its use.

For our purposes one of the most interesting facts is that Prague was a hot bed of ciphers and codes and the constant ethnic tensions between the Jesuits and the Jews who lived there resulted in the need for secure communications between those on opposing sides who still wished to consult each other and invisible ink was a common method used.

Remember Bessler's account of his time in Prague when he conversed with the Jesuit priest:-

"You seem to be a clever, skilful and strong young fellow, and if you're interested we could join forces together with God, in the hope that He would let us make this discovery. Now as it happens, I know a wise man who, on proper reflection, could well help us, and it would be a good idea if you were to go to see him frequently, as it is no longer really fitting for me to do so, because I've been seen too often recently going into the Hebrew quarter, creeping to see some Rabbi or other. It doesn't take our Brothers long to sniff such a thing out! Since you and I seem to be at one in these matters I think you will be a perfectly satisfactory substitute for me on these journeys - we'll keep the whole thing a secret, shall we?"

It has always seemed to me that the two priests used Bessler for their own purposes besides helping him with his search for the secret of perpetual motion.  Later he wrote of the Rabbi:-

"He also taught me hieroglyphics, the language of Nature and the writings of the Angels."

Interestingly, in 1705 a mysterious female German alchemist seems to have been the first person to identify bismuth-cobalt as a valuable substance from which to make invisible ink. This alchemist was also the anonymous author of three books, including one with the alluring title 'On the Key to the Cabinet of the Secret Treasure Room of Nature', which included a discussion of the changing bismuth-cobalt colours.  That book title seems to ring closely with Bessler's 'language of nature', and given his extremely open and curious mind I am certain that Bessler was taught, or taught himself, the art of making and using invisible ink.

Given his obvious interest and extensive use of several different kinds of codes and his self-evident determination to provide many clues, some of which I know refer exclusively to the design of his wheel, it seems perfectly possible, after all, that he might have used invisible ink somewhere.

So it's not impossible that he might have written on some pages in invisible ink.  Unfortunately I no longer own an original manuscript by Bessler so any research into the possibility will have to be done by another.  I'm undecided about its use by Bessler, but I decided to fly a kite, to see if anyone thinks there might be something in this idea.

(To fly a kite, is a term used in politics in certain English-speaking countries to describe a tactic, whereby a politician, usually through the media and often by way of an intentional leak, raises an idea to gauge the general and public reaction to it.)

NB The mysterious female alchemist was thought to be Dorothea Juliana Walchin.  Her findings were supported by George Ernst Stahl (1659-1734) a well-known German chemist and physician.  I mention this because there was a lot of research being carried out at that time into the use of dies for writing, printing and painting - and invisible ink.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

Bessler a Fraud? Prove it.

When our old friend Herman Helmholtz presented the original formulation of what is now known as the First Law of Thermodynamics, beginning with the axiomatic statement that a Perpetual Motion Machine is impossible, he was referring to the idea that a machine that had no external source of energy would run out fuel very quickly and stop.  Such a concept was and is obviously impossible. We, on the other hand, often, mistakenly in my opinion, use the words Perpetual Motion when referring to Bessler's machine, despite the very strong evidence that it acquired sufficient energy to run continuously as long as it was operating within a gravitational field - an external energy source and therefore not a Perpetual Motion machine as such as was discussed by Helmholtz.  He was describing a closed system.

This habit of calling Bessler's machine a perpetual motion machine is like putting our collective heads into the lion's mouth.  We are asking for our ideas to be shot down in flames, because as Helmholtz said, no one had ever invented such a machine therefore they must be impossible.  (Sorry about the mixed metaphors!)

That idea, that Perpetual Motion machines are against the laws of physics, has stayed with us, and it is a seemingly insurmountable wall that has included the Bessler type of machine.  For the purposes of this blog I shall refer to Helmholtz's Perpetual Motion as PM and Bessler's  as PM+G. In other words 'Perpetual Motion with the aid of Gravity'.  I came to this conclusion while trying to understand why everyone else on the planet knew with utter certainty that Bessler was a fraud.

Since Bessler's day people from all over the world have strived to duplicate his wheel, so far without success; and yet there are still only two reasons given why the claims must be false; one is that such machines break the laws of physics, and secondly, that if such a device were possible someone would have invented it.  To put it another way, PM machines must be impossible otherwise someone would have invented one already. Both points originated from Herman Helmholtz, almost 200 years ago. This reasoning is irrelevant if you accept that Bessler did indeed invent a PM+G machine.  That one fact destroys the second point, but only if you are talking about Helmholtz's PM machine.  The fact that Bessler succeeded obviously means that his machine did not break any physical laws.

Space prevents me from rehearsing the reasons why many people now believe that Bessler's claims were genuine and that he did invent a machine which ran continuously with no obvious external supply of energy. If people wish I can briefly go through them in a future blog, but all the information is out there especially on the besslerwheel forum, which you can find at http://www.besslerwheel.com/forum/index.php There is more than enough evidence to show that he discovered a way of using falling weights in his wheel, therefore he used the force of gravity to drive his machine.

We are all aware of the many experiment carried out over the last 300 years to try to find the source of energy he used, on the assumption that there must have been some external energy supply, and yet not one single source has been found which would supply enough energy to duplicate the output of his machines.  It is quite clear that it was gravity and not one of the other more unconvincing sources suggested.  In which case if we assume that Bessler was honest it must be possible to make use of gravity without breaking the laws of physics.

There is no good reason why gravity may not be so used, and the idea - the premise - that gravity cannot be so used is wrong,  It is said that 'if the premise is true, then the conclusion must be true', but the reverse is also true, if the premise is wrong then the conclusion must be wrong.  When Helmholtz stated that PM machines were impossible, he was right, but he was not suggesting gravity driven machines were impossible, he wasn't even discussing them. 

The whole house of cards was started, even before Bessler's time, because no-one understood the force of gravity, and any and everything which suggested that something was a perpetual motion machine was lumped together with the PM+G machines as well as the more obvious PM machines whose secret of construction were still being sought despite the obvious fallacy in their design concept.  Despite my many attempts to reprogram people's thinking, the impossibility of PM+G is still lumped to together with PM and, as Mike Wech wrote,'Some things in life become ingrained in your psyche. You can't shake them no matter how hard you try. They're tattooed inside your skull, lying dormant, 'til the moment you need to draw from them.'

Knowing this I am absolutely certain that the sceptics will not accept this possibility until someone produces a working model demonstrating the use of gravity as a fuel and probably not even then.

However I don't see why we should do nothing about their demands - we are doing our best to prove Bessler's claim - so I say, if they are so sure that Bessler was a fraud, why don't they duplicate his wheels and the tests they underwent, but using only the materials and technology that was available then? They cannot use gravity because they say its impossible, but surely someone could have managed to build a fraudulent version in the last 300 years, if his was a fake - and if it was possible? 

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

Our Archaic Measuring System.

During my research into the legend of Bessler’s wheel I quickly became aware of the many variations between apparently similarly-named weights and measures, across Germany and elsewhere. Eventually I sorted out the correct ones, and I came to the conclusion that all these weights and measure definitions must have originated from some identifiable source and one that provided a means of verifying a particular measurement.  It seems to me that resource which was once identifiable has been largely lost.

The lost resources were replaced by traditions that can seem amusing.  For example in the 16th century the lawful ‘rod’ was decreed to be the combined length of the left feet of 16 men as they left church on a Sunday morning.  I assume that they would be dressed in their best, including good shoes which might have been larger than their normal work wear shoes, to aid accurate measurement.  The rod in question  (or pole, or perch) is a surveyor’s tool, 5 and a half yards, which is equal to 16 and a half feet and that probably explains the use of 16 men’s feet as a rough guide. Another apocryphal tale records that Henry I decreed the lawful yard to be the distance between the tip of his nose and the end of his thumb.

Traces of those lost resources are still evident in some of our commonly used measurements. Degrees for instance; why are there 360 degrees in a circle?  

This question puzzled me as a schoolboy and the answers I have found over the years have been few and unsatisfactory in my opinion.

The usual suggestion is that it has come down to us from the Babylonians and before them the Sumerians, who, we are told, used a 60 base system of numbering.  They thrived some 6000 years ago and obviously had good reasons for using such a system.

It has been suggested that 60 was used for a base because it has so many divisors. 60 is the smallest number for which 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 are divisors – plus 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30. That makes it much better to work with than a 10 base, so yes that is one reason but is that really the only reason.  Bear in mind that they also used a 10 based system alongside the 60 base.

The Babylonians and their predecessors were familiar with the seasons and knew the earth’s rotation was about 365 days. They used the 360 day and added the additional 5 later. As we saw above 360 subdivides in so many ways.  Seasons included summer and winter, spring and autumn, 90 days each. They divided the 90 days into three lots of 30, making twelve months of 30 days each - all based on 60.

Each day was divided into two lots of 12 hours because that was the average of the summer and winter day lengths. Each hour was subdivided into 60 minutes and each minute into 60 seconds. Each day is equal to 1 degree of the earth’s annual orbit around the sun so 360 degrees for a full circle made perfect sense. At midday in midsummer the sun was overhead so they could mark the middle of the day as noon, and call after noon, well, afternoon! That gave them 6 hours on either side.  

With all these divisions and sub division, they could measure how far the earth rotated in, say, 1 hour or even 1 minute or a second.  1 day = 360 degree rotation and that is also 24 hours, so the shift per hour is 360/24 = 15 degrees /hour and 1 degree = 4 minutes.  Today we know that each degree of latitude at the equator equals nearly 69 miles; each minute of latitude equals just over 1 mile; and each second of latitude equals a fraction over 100 feet.

You can see that the 360 degrees that the earth moves can also be used to measure the angle of arc but the Sumerians also knew that the perimeter of a hexagon is exactly equal to six times the radius of a circumscribed circle, in fact that was probably another reason why they chose to divide the circle into 360 degrees.

I mentioned the ‘rod’ in connection with 16 left feet – why the left feet?  Perhaps it was common knowledge that, contrary to popular belief, the left foot is 80% of the time, the larger foot and 80% of the population is right hand dominant. Anyway, getting back to the rod, the rod is useful as a unit of length because whole number multiples of it equal one acre of square measure. The 'perfect acre’ is a rectangular area of 43,560 square feet, bounded by sides 660 feet by 66 feet long – clearly another pointer to the base 60 system. 

The Sumerians gave us base 60 and thus the analogue clock.  Time is measured in hours, minutes and seconds, all base 60.

Minutes of arc (and its subunit, seconds of arc) are also used in cartography and navigation. At sea level one minute of arc along the equator or a meridian equals approximately one Nautical mile (1.151 miles). A second of arc, one sixtieth of this amount, is about 30 meters or roughly 100 feet. The exact distance varies along meridian arcs because the figure of the Earth is slightly oblate.

Positions are traditionally given using degrees, minutes, and seconds of arcs for latitude, the arc north or south of the equator, and for longitude, the arc east or west of the Prime Meridian.

There is so much more to say about these ancient measuring systems, but there are some who have suggested that the rotation of the earth was only 360 days in ancient times, and was forced into a larger orbit by the close bypass of large asteroid.  This would explain the Sumerians choice of the 60 base even better and there are other related factors.  Perhaps the alterations in orbit might have led to a re-jigging of the distances I mentioned above to a more precise and accurate total.  So each minute of latitude might equal exactly one mile, and each second of latitude equal exactly 30 yards.  This knowledge would provide a constant source of verification of various measures.

One more thing; before the UK went decimal we were used to some old coinage.  12 pence to one shilling, 240 pence to one pound, four crowns to one pound - a distant echo of the 60 base numbering system?

So the old resource which allowed the precise determination of, say 1 foot, or 1 yard, by anyone, then they must have measured the earth, which begs the question if in fact the above is true, how did they know the earth’s size – exactly?

JC

John Collins is 70 today!

I'm seventy years of age today and in this year, I'm determined to show a proof of principle wheel or how to configure one - and soon.  I am confident that I have the whole solution and it has only taken me 55 years to get here!

I was about 15 when I first read an account of the legend of Bessler's wheel and I spent much of my youth doodling designs which I now know were way off the mark.  When I was about 30  I came across the same book I had read when I was 15 and it re-inspired me to look again into the mystery of Bessler's wheel. I remembered my own scepticism about the assumption that Bessler was a fraud and why, and I determined to get to the truth.  The book was the famous, 'Oddities', by R.Gould and it has served to re-inspire me over the years.

I sought original documents from all over Europe and the USA.  It took years and even when I had copies I couldn't read any of it because it was mostly in German.  I knew I would eventually get it all translated but I did not realise how expensive a task that was going to be.  In the end I advertised in a local paper for someone who was prepared to translate 18th C. German documents for free.

I had about eight replies and although I gave samples to all the respondents, only one stood out. Mike Senior with degrees in 18th C. German - and ancient Greek, astronomy and botany of all things!  He also reads Latin and can quote verbatim from memory, from the ancient Greek texts - and of course speaks fluent German. He is a member of Mensa and regularly has letters published in various science magazines.  Mike has done all my German translations and when he asked me if I wanted a literal translation or did I prefer something more readable that conveyed the spirit of the what the author was trying to say, I chose the latter.  I never realised at that time how Mike's words would be pored over, criticised and sometimes dismissed as inaccurate.  We had no way of knowing that future researchers would seek out clues from the very words used and perhaps I should have stuck to the literal, but it is what it is.

I'm pleased that so many people around the world now have Bessler's words, drawings, thoughts and clues and I hope that they will soon lead to the solution.  The worst thing would be for his work to be lost and for another 300 years pass before the solution was found again.  I really don't think that is going to happen!

So I'm of going out today with my wife and two daughters to celebrate my 70 years and then tomorrow I shall return (at last) to work on my Besslerwheel and finish it!

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

Springs? Not in the way you mean.

Many researchers are convinced that Bessler's wheel contained springs for some undetermined use and I agree that there probably were.  Bessler stated that there were no springs such as are used in clocks and all the usual uses for which his opponents implied.  They suggested that without the springs the wheel would quickly come to a stop.  I have noted many times that Bessler suggests that there might have been springs but they were not crucial to the wheel's operation.

In my own work on this project I have noted that there are situation where a spring could be useful. If you have a lever with a weight on the end and the wheel is rotated by hand to a position where the weighted lever is ready to fall, it has reached what I shall call, the pre-fall position.  At that point you hand-rotate the wheel one or two degrees and the weight falls, right?  But in a real time scenario the wheel is rotating, let us say, under its own steam, or you have given it a push so that it rotates, the weighted lever does not fall just after the same pre-fall position that it did when you hand-turned the wheel.  It goes on for perhaps another 10 or 15 degrees before it grudgingly falls.

In this instance I have placed a weak spring with a fairly long amount of travel in it for the weighted lever to land on and compress.  It is, as I say, very soft and when the wheel and its lever continues to rotate to the next pre-fall position, the inclination for the lever to fall is activated more immediately because the load holding the spring compressed weakens as the lever approaches the pre-fall position, giving  it a little push to bring about the fall.

This fact is due to the wheel's rotation while the lever is about to fall.  When stationary the lever responds to the next incremental degree of rotation and falls; when the wheel is already in rotation the combination of wheel travel and lever-tipping is merged so that the lever is actually falling while its position on the wheel is also falling.

Another way to engender a faster response in the fall of the lever, is to find the pre-fall position first, and then set the lever forward a few degrees so that it begins its fall ahead of the pre-fall point at which its position on the wheel begins to fall.  This does of course limit the amount of travel available for inducing overbalance, but even the smallest difference should be sufficient to overbalance the wheel.

My apologies if this is difficult to explain but it is a genuine problem and solution.  I suggested many years ago that the amount of travel by the weights would  prove to be limited for just this reason. Those who sought success by designing weights to move a maximum amount from inner to outer would be sure to suffer failure in a working model.

As a committed hands-on builder, I am sceptical about simulation software revealing the above facts and so I continue to build.  I am sure that many will jump to the defence of simulation, but I am sure that such niggles will prove invisible unless the input includes such variables.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

Update - I am right and everyone else is wrong?

Having spent three weeks away recently, I was looking forward to returning to work on my latest version of Bessler's wheel, but this intention has been thwarted by several illnesses in my family.  My family comes first so I have managed to spend less than half an hour there, since before the Christmas holidays..  I had hoped to prove my design for my own satisfaction very soon but it looks as though it will have to wait.

This is a little frustrating for me as I wanted to get the model tested before completing it.  How can I test an incomplete model?  I think that if two mechanism work as I predict they will, then the rest is plain sailing.  I just have to complete the other mechanisms.

One of my recurring concerns is reading about other people's theories about what this or that clue meant.  The authors sound so confident and yet when I read about how this or that design is supposed to fit in with this or that clue etc, part of me wants to show them the errors they are making, because I know how it is supposed to work.

I understand that everyone has their own pet theories and there can't be two which apply equally if they are different, so why should mine be any more likely to lead to the correct solution?  I made a major discovery, possibly as long as two years ago now, and yet I have only recently worked out how to apply it and that after several false starts.  I made this important discovery and subsequently found out exactly what Bessler was intending to convey in his various clues.  Finding further support for my conclusions became a matter of rereading everything, relating what I found to the clues themselves. This being so I am unceasingly surprised at claims similar to mine but which are clearly no way the same as mine. I read their explanation and the temptation to show them why they are so far off the correct interpretation is difficult to resist.  But perhaps it is me who has got the wrong end of the stick, or is it the other guy, or are we both wrong?

What I do know, and this is the vaguest of clues, Scott Ellis founder of the Bessler wheel forum put me on the right track many years ago although I did not recognise it until recently.

For what it's worth, I do not find anything of value in designs for Bessler's wheel which include the use of springs, magnets or temperature variations, I am satisfied that it all hangs on gravity and it will be shown that there is no conflict with the laws of physics.  In fact it has to be gravity and it can't break any physical laws.

My feeling is that my understanding is correct and everyone else is wrong.  It’s very hard to be a lone voice in the wilderness, as we all are. It’s difficult to feel, know, and speak your truth and be greeted by either the dull thud of indifference or the resounding bellow of opposition, scorn and even anger.

The way you respond says a lot about your character. Do you fold up, shut down, or otherwise retreat from speaking your truth? Do you fight back until you wear yourself out? Do you try to prove that what you are saying is right, and that what everyone else is saying is wrong? But one thing is clear: if the upstart perpetual motionists prove to be right, and the others were wrong, what a day of celebration!  So despite opposition and competition I shall continue to seek the solution until I succeed.

 May this be an inspiration to you.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.