Additional Imagery in Support Bessler’s Wheel.

There are a number of images taken from Johann Bessler’s books which appear to support my previous post on Bessler’s Wheel Revealed.  I shall occasionally post some here.

One of the things that caught my attention in my physical build is the appearance of the mechanism reminding me of a peacocks tail. It’s just one mechanism but it does bring that image to mind.  I’ll post a picture of one of the mechanisms which demonstrates that.

The second thing is the clues which I know many people dismiss, but Bessler must have thought it worthwhile to include them, and he had a purpose in doing so. Here is an example of one of them.

JEEB, (his initials), J is the 10th letter, two letters E, which are the 5th letter. He added the J and one of the Es to his forename when he succeeded in building his first PM wheel. 

JEEB using the Caesar shift becomes WRRO. R is the 18th letter. W 23rd letter which doesn’t seem important but it might appear to be there for the following reason, W is composed of two Roman numerals, V meaning 5.

Apart from that the letter ‘J’ seems almost superfluous.  He gave us two ‘E’s which gives is 5 and 18, and the pentagram, why the letter ‘J’.

He often, (dozens of times) hand wrote the letter W as shown below as two Roman numerals linked together, and you can see it twice in the accompanying passage. Why did he want to show them linked?

The last picture I included include the ‘W’ in the scissors and although it may not look very obvious from my drawing it is very clear in my physical build.

 I always thought it unnecessary to add the ‘J’ and therefore the ‘W’ when he had already informed us of the importance of the two ‘E’s, but the ‘W’ as shown in the printed extract shown above mimics the W in my drawing. Notice how the centre of the ‘W’ has crossed lines as in the drawing.

Bessler used any opportunity to put a veiled reference to these numbers. I should also point out that the 2G’s, refers to his enemy in chief Andreas Gärtner. The 2 W’s refers to another enemy, Christian Wagner, the two B’s refer to the third enemy, Johann Gottfried Borlach.

NB - I only noticed the presence of the ‘W’ in my last picture a couple of weeks ago but I’m certain that it is one of the reasons he included the letter ‘J’ in his initials.

JC

Sharing Info MT 138, 139, 140 and 141- AKA — The TOYS Page

This post contains some of my ideas about where and how Bessler intended to reveal the workings of his perpetual motion device, or what is generally referred to as Bessler’s Wheel.  Without a working model this is speculation, but I believe it is based on some sound interpretation of the many clues and hints he scattered throughout his documents.

 I’ve written several blogs about the ‘Toys’ page so this is my latest and best attempt to explain all of it.

The figure below is from the original Maschinen Tractate, which is a name I coined for it because I originally thought that Bessler was referring to this collection of drawings in one of his letters but I think now he was talking about another project.

Underneath this original picture is the same figure cleaned up which is the one I’ll write about and explain what I believe is the true meaning of all the separate figures.

Notice first that items A and B can be split into five equal parts.  This signifies that there are five mechanisms.  Notice each figure in A looks similar to the two items C and D, this is to provide a hint that their actions very roughly mimic the actions of the actual mechanisms.  Each part of A is linked to the next part with a length of rope.

Items C and D are each labelled twice.  Both sets of figures show two figures working in pairs, which agrees with a statement to that effect by Bessler.  The two C’s have arms but the two D’s don’t. The two C’s show two of the figures working in pairs before they have acted; the two D’s shows the same two figures after they have acted. This implies that C did the work so was active but D was acted upon and was passive.  C lifted it’s paired mechanism and thus D was lifted. Item D has spirals which indicate that the figure is at a different angle to C, because if, for instance, C operates at the six o’clock radius the D is lifted from a different point on the edge of the circle.

It’s worth pointing out that he drew one of each mechanism but then added two D’s and two C’s to stress that the two figures were the same mechanisms working in pairs, but at different points in the rotation of the wheel.

Item B is an interesting one and I only understood why it was drawn in this way a few months ago. The answer lies partly in item E.  You can see in B that it consists of five straight vertical lines with one dot alternately on each side or, if you ignore the five separating lines, it’s a straight vertical line with those dots on alternate sides.

I’ll return to B in a moment, first let us examine item E. The items on the page are numbered 1 to 5, yet there are six, if you count the hand drawn spinning top.  This looks like a late addition to me which might explain why he wrote 5. next to his scribble note. But as someone pointed out to me many years ago, the number 5. with its clearly drawn full stop or period indicates not five items, but the fifth item - the letter E.  The scissor mechanism or storks bill.

Remember Bessler’s frequent use of alphanumerics, in this case his scribbled note in the Toys page, “5. Children's game in which there is something extraordinary for anyone who knows how to apply the game in a different way”, applies in particular to the scissor mechanism labelled E.

Now in another drawing which I’ll discuss in a later share, it indicates

that the scissor mechanism should be applied in a different way which looks like this one:-

In the above picture I have extracted items B and E because B shows which part of E you need to use. Notice the same dots are there in E but in B half of them have been removed leaving a single line. This shows the alternate swivel pins or joints holding the short lengths of metal at each end together. The middle of each piece of metal shows a pivot which allows it to rotate. If the figure B is accurate, and I’m sure it is, then there is one of these mechanisms in each fifth segment.

This is similar to the picture below which shows a simple mechanism used widely in organ building in Bessler’s time.  

Also remember Bessler’s comment in AP, “ A crab crawls from side to side. It is sound, for it is designed thus.”   This comment is a hint that this mechanism will work best in a horizontal position where there is no lifting required just side to side action.

The two short lines at the top end of the original version of B will be explained later but they indicate two positions of a short lever attached to the end of the zigzag line.

That’s all for now. More later.

JC

Spanish break.

Because I'm away to Spain for some R & R, and may have limited access to the internet I probably won't post anything on my blog for a couple of weeks. I have a plan written up for my return as I have worked out precisely what needs to be altered in the design of the mechanisms, but I shall mull over the design during my break. With luck I shall be back on course for reconstructing Bessler's wheel on my return.

It surprises me that, given everything I know about the mechanism, I should have made such a simple error as not ensuring that the mechanism operated at the correct time in the rotation of the wheel. I wonder how many other trials by other would-be inventors failed because of something similar, something that maybe went through unnoticed. How many near-misses have their been?

Lastly, thank you for the many messages of encouragement. I had no idea so many people were following this blog.

"Una cerveza, por favor!" - Make that "Una grande cerveza, por favor!" Just practising you know ;-)

Sadly for us Brits, we seem to be a country that is fast developing a binge-drinking culture with the predictable side affects of under age drinking. In Spain you see hardly any drunks and yet they appear to indulge for several hours a day. It must be the drip drip approach that allows them to maintain their dignity despite being several sheets to the wind. In the UK we seem to hit the ground running and attempt to get as many jars of the strongest nectar available down our necks in the shortest possible time - with predictable results.

What's that saying? Oh yes - Alcohol, the cause of, and the solution to all of life's problems.

See you when I get back.

Ciao.

JC