I’ve noticed over many years that some people provide descriptions and photos of their progress in building working models, but I’ve always been reluctant to share my work, preferring to wait until I’ve succeeded with a working model! The main reason being that if it doesn’t work why show pics of failures? But I think that at my age I should begin to tell you about my work and I’ll tell you why. I’ll be 80 years old next February and I’d hate to think I’d missed an opportunity to share the secret to Johann Bessler’s wheel, before I shuffled off this mortal coil and before I had a chance to publish what I know - because I do know the secret.
My models are sometimes made using parts of previous models, adapted or re-engineered to perform a new function or act differently to try to achieve a revised concept. They are not the most attractive models but are functional. In the past I have described many of my ideas and interpretations of Bessler’s many clues, but I have realised that without an animation to support my descriptions my words fall on deaf ears. I had already ceased to build models a couple of years ago…… but one morning last year, I woke up with a clear image in my mind and I knew it was the answer to my many years of failures. This concept is simple but overlooked. I decided to try to build it because a working model uncovered and open for all to see is the only way to convince the world that it was the solution to Bessler’s wheel.
So although I’ve known this secret for several months, I needed to get the construction right on paper before I began to build it. The concept is easy to understand and is undoubtedly correct. How can I know that without building it? It becomes obvious that it works once you understand the concept. The exact proportions of the actual construction of the mechanism is harder to work out but I’m using Bessler’s clues. Converting an idea into a physical reality takes time but I believe I’ve got it right in my mind and on paper. I’m laying out on the backplate the various parts of each mechanism to try to get all of it arranged correctly before I begin to assemble the parts.
My hands are a little arthritic but that won’t stop me, but maybe it will slow me down! I also suffer/enjoy the “never do today what you can put off until tomorrow”, syndrome! Not so much now, so in theory, l intend to try to work on the wheel every day but I have to work around a number of projects my wife lined up for me during the summer, but now summer is over (did it ever arrive!?) so I can get this project up and running asap.
To start with I’ve always believed that it was important to try to understand how the one-way wheel worked. The dual direction wheels are obviously more complex and it doesn’t make sense to try and understand them before you’ve worked out how the one-way wheels worked (nice alliteration?). So the simplest wheel was the first one he exhibited at Gera.
There are a number of facts relating to Bessler’s wheel, which I know to be true but which the vast majority of researchers in this field either dismiss, ignore or are unaware of.
The wheel I’m building has five mechanisms - not two, four, six or even 8! It never fails to amaze me that so many people think eight or four mechanisms hold the answer, despite the fact that Bessler laid out literally hundreds of pointers to the importance of the number five! He even embedded a part of Euclid’s construction of the pentagram in two of his illustrations. I know that Fischer von Erlach described the sound of about eight weights landing gently on the side towards which the wheel turned, but those words referred to the huge two-way Kassel wheel.
That one was designed to turn at half the speed of the other previous wheels because it was built to accomplish an endurance test of one to two months of continuous rotation, which it achieved. It was designed to turn more slowly but still retain the power of the earlier ones. Bessler admitted that he used felt to dampen and reduce the sounds in some wheels, to confuse the examiners, so there are good reasons to doubt the value of von Erlach’s statement that about eight weights were used. The Kassel wheel could turn in either direction, and one or more weights were felted and even von Erlach was only able to say that there was about eight weights.
The use of five mechanisms is actually described in words and drawings, all of which I’ve been saying here and elsewhere for ever, it seems, but still no one takes that information on board. There is also the fact that each mechanism worked with another one. They worked in pairs and were connected by a cord. As one weight fell it lifted another one. Don’t take my word for it, that’s what Bessler wrote.
The mechanisms consisted of a weighted lever which fell through a 90 degree arc, lifting the preceding weighted lever just 30 degrees - another of his clues written in his books. I first interpreted this clue on this blog back in 2011 and several times since but, alas my suggestion was ignored.
What was the point of using five mechanisms? The answer is simple; each weighted lever had to fall through 90 degrees, but the space each lever needed for its complete action left a gap between each mechanisms, which means that even if it worked, the action of the wheel when rotating could have could have been jerky or uneven and not the remarkably even motion described by so many witnesses. Bessler added an extra mechanism, making five in total. This removed any tendency to stutter or hesitate between each action. In fact without experimenting to test this next suggestion, I wonder if it maybe that continuous rotation could not take place if there were any gaps or pauses between each mechanical action.
We who seek the solution to Bessler’s wheel often test a configuration with just two mechanisms. But I think that Bessler realised that for continuous rotation you needed continuous overbalancing. Any gap would interrupt the continuity of the overbalancing action leading to hesitancy or even stoppage in rotation.
The fact that the wheel could be stopped in any position before allowing it to recommence rotation, confirms that the wheel was always out-of-balance, a well established fact recorded by the many witnesses who attended the exhibitions.
There have been so many statements over the last three hundred years telling us that a wheel driven purely by falling weights with no additional source of energy is scientifically proven to be impossible. Well I’m here to tell you that all those statements are wrong and I shall prove it.
I’m considering putting up some of the many clues which led me to the right conclusion, but there are so many.
So I’ll keep you informed from time to time about the progress of my build. I hope to finish it before Christmas and get ready to exhibit it in early 2025. In the mean time I’ll try to assemble some drawings to show the concept and how and why it works. I’ll post them as soon as they are ready, but it’s probably going to be close to the New Year.
JC
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