When Johann Bessler exhibited his wheel for the first time in Gera, Germany, 6th June 1712, he had worked out in his own mind that all he had to do was provide some evidence that his wheel was genuine and the rest would follow - money, fame etc.
The next few years proved his optimism was seriously undeserved. No one was sufficiently persuaded of his claims to make an outright payment in full without seeing for himself that the wheel was genuine.
Gottfired Leibniz tried to guide him by suggesting several tests which would add weight to his claims by being difficult if not impossible to fake. They included translocation to a different set of wheel supports; lifting as high as possible a heavy load; driving an archimedes screw; a long endurance test under guard, lock and key and seal - and most importantly, if he could bring himself to allow it, the public confirmation by a well-respected person, of the genuiness of his wheel, by revealing the internal workings for his close inspection.
All these requirement were eventually carried out, but still no buyer could be found who was not prepared to pay up without first assuring himself that the device was real by looking inside it.
This sounds depressing and we may feel sorry for Bessler, but there is good reason to suspect that exactly the same response or lack of response would follow similar claims today. You might think think that a patent would be proof enough, but consider how many hundreds of perpetual motion machine designs have been registered with various patent offices over the last few hundred years and you can see that a patent proves nothing even if it might offer some limited protection against competition.
The only answer, it seems to me, is to reveal the design within a video of a working model; a full explanation will need to accompany the video - or find that reputable person, like Karl the Landgrave, who will verify your wheel. But you still need that working model, I know, I'm in that situation now.
There is one more possibility to my mind and it is this. There must be a configuration within your wheel which will demonstrate how the mechanism works, without having to complete a whole wheel. The weights which fall have to be returned to where they started from at least once in each turn of the wheel, and your mechanism must be able to demonstrate how that can be achieved, and that is the route I intend taking once I get my workshop back.
JC
