This is a precursor to my sharing of what I believe will prove to be the solution to Bessler’s wheel. It’s just to explain how I got to this point and to prepare the ground for my posting of the most important parts of my information.  There are many additional pieces of information which all go towards confirming my findings, but they would fill a book, which is what I’m doing.

Johann Bessler deliberately left a treasure trove of clues which once solved would, he must have hoped, lead to someone finding the solution to his perpetual motion machine. This would give him the acknowledgement he sought, albeit after his death. He wrote that he would rather receive that than just give the secret away during his life.

So how did he intend us to find his instructions for building his perpetual motion machine? First he adopted the name Orffyreus, which was a simple ROT13, or Caesar shift code. This code was a well known cipher that he knew would be picked up but maybe only followed up by those whose curiosity was piqued about the wheel.  That led to more complex coded stuff.  He dropped hints that the secret was available if you knew where to look.

You know the old adage, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’, I believe Bessler left pictures of his machine showing how it worked and he also left written descriptions for two reasons. One reason is that although a picture may contain useful information, it may not be enough to complete the necessary detail, particularly because it has to be disguised so that no one could happen upon it by chance and understand it easily - and more words will be necessary to fill in the gaps even leaving out the fact that the picture had to be camouflaged for security reasons.

He disguised the information that revealed his secret by using a number of different codes both textual and graphic. I always believed that the best ones would be found hidden within an illustration and that is what I found. In my blog dated 8th June 2019, more than four years ago, I wrote,  “The most instructive drawings have proved to be those found in DT. They contain everything you need to know about how to reconstruct Bessler’s wheel - yes, everything”

On the 15th November 2017, six years ago, I wrote, “So the four drawings in Das Triumphirende contain just about all the information you need to build Bessler’s wheel.”

On the 29th May 2012, eleven years ago, I wrote, “In fact only the toys drawings in MT contains useful information. There are additional hints in MT137 and in the letters 'A' which he used in MT, and there are hints too in some of the illustration numbers. The remaining drawings he was referring to are the five which appeared in his Das Triumphirende and of course the one in Grundlicher Bericht and the one at the end of Apologia Poetica. These five drawings hold almost everything you will need to build his wheel.”

For so many years I studied those illustrations without finding the key.  But over the last year or so, I believe I’ve unravelled the complex weave of hints, red herrings and sleight of hand to produce a likely contender for the solution. Like Bessler I’m going to try to demonstrate my reasoning by using illustrations more than words, but both will still be necessary.

I’m writing a blog containing the information about the design and configuration of his wheel, once it’s done I will post it here and on Besslerwheel forum for anyone to attempt a sim.  I’m also building a prototype but I’m very busy with other time- consuming activities so it might be that the model isn’t finished until some time in January.  But you never know, it’s not a very complex design, maybe I’ll get a chance to finish it earlier. Of course it could happen that a sim proves my design before I finish my prototype - or someone else does.

Finally, if I’m right about the above suggestions about the solution being hidden in plain sight in his published illustrations, and someone finally builds Bessler’s wheel according to the design I’m going to publish, it will prove beyond all doubt that we will be able to reproduce a model of Bessler’s Wheel which exactly replicates his own wheel.

I intend to publish the big reveal either on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day depending on how I am feeling on the Eve!

JC

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