I'd like to be very clear about one more point. Many wheel makers think if they arrange for their wheel to be constantly out-of-balance with weight more distant from the wheel center on one side than on the other side, then surely their wheel will keep turning. But everyone must learn this bitter lesson for themselves through personal experience..
Read the following very carefully. Understand that Bessler is actually being sarcastic toward Wagner after Wagner wrote extensively about rising and falling weights turning a wheel.
Here Bessler is writing in reply to Wagner's writings. Wagner made the same assumption as everyone else. He assumed that Bessler's was claiming an over-balanced wheel turned by gravity. Wagner went to great length to explain that this would require a lighter weight to lift a heavier weight. So Bessler answered Wagner in a mocking fashion.Bessler, in AP, wrote:But I would just like to add this friendly little note of caution:- A great craftsman would be that man who can "lightly" cause a heavy weight to fly upwards! Who can make a pound-weight rise as 4 ounces fall, or 4 pounds rise as 16 ounces fall. If he can sort that out, the motion will perpetuate itself. But if he can't, then his hard work shall be all in vain. He can rack his brains and work his fingers to the bones with all sorts of ingenious ideas about adding extra weights here and there. The only result will be that his wheel will get heavier and heavier - it would run longer if it were empty! Have you ever seen a crowd of starlings squabbling angrily over the crumbs on a stationary mill-wheel? That's what it would be like for such a fellow and his invention, as I know only too well from my own recent experience!
I also think it's a good thing to be completely clear about one further point. Many would-be Mobile-makers think that if they can arrange for some of the weights to be a little more distant from the centre than the others, then the thing will surely revolve. A few years ago I learned all about this the hard way. And then the truth of the old proverb came home to me that one has to learn through bitter experience. There's a lot more to matters of mechanics than I've revealed to date, but since there's no urgent need involved, I'll refrain from giving more information at the moment.
You will not see the humor in Bessler's words until you understand that Bessler is talking about what Wagner had said. Bessler is laughing at Wagner. Bessler says sarcastically, you would be a really great craftsman if you could get a light weight to lift a heavy weight. But if you are unable to sort out how to do that, then your wheel will remain motionless. Note that this paragraph starts out as a warning of advice to any would be wheel builders. At the end he says that if you keep adding weights in an attempt to make lighter weights lift heavier weights, then your wheel will remain motionless.
Bessler claimed a perpetual motion wheel. He never claimed a gravity wheel. People simply assume his wheel was a gravity wheel. Many people can only imagine gravity wheels. Most people cannot imagine a wheel rotated solely by the in and out pumping motions of weights, like a child pumping a swing. They cannot envision anything other than gravity.
Note that Bessler explains that his wheel was rotated by "excess impetus". In other words his wheel was rotated by more (excess) impulse force in the forward direction than in the reverse direction. The wheel was pushed around by the motions of the weights, and not by gravity. Bessler's early one-direction wheels stored OOB force when they were stopped and then used that OOB force to re-start. Bessler's two-directional wheels were always gravitationally balanced. They required a push so as to start the weights moving. Their reversed mechanisms simply coasted since any motions of its weights caused them to loose force rather than gain force. The forward mechanisms gained force when its weight moved and the moving of its weights inertially pumped the wheel rotation. Gravity force was not a factor in the later wheels. The two-way wheels could have operated laying down sideways if the structure could have supported such a position.Bessler, in AP, wrote:XX Water-power especially is inadequate for perpetual motion
Wagner, red in the face, declares that, just as no arrangement of weights can circle round of its own accord, so too no device using water will work, because water, like other things, cannot artificially be made to rise against its natural tendency, and cause a certain fair Wheel of artistry to turn spontaneously. Oh of course! Its bound to stand still! Wagner says it can't move! Anyone who asks about water is no longer on board the ship.
XXI Here Wagner lists all mechanical implements.
Wagner seems almost to have run out of fancies. He says nothing can be achieved with "mechanical implements", the gist being that my Mobile must be impossible because I designed it to be driven by some "mechanical power". But did I not, in Part One, devote more than one line to a discussion of the type of "excess impetus" that people should look for in my devices? Once more I will humbly extol the virtues of this passage to my next worthy reader. Even Wagner, wherever he is now, will have heard that one pound can cause the raising of more than one pound. He writes that, to date, no one has ever found a mechanical arrangement sufficient for the required task. He's right! So am I, and does anyone see why? What if I were to teach the proper method of mechanical application? Then people would say: "Now I understand!�
You can either believe Bessler's words, or you can believe what you THINK Bessler said. I'm simply pointing out things. I've attempted before to point out that Bessler never claimed to have a gravity wheel, but was slammed real hard for it. People have this preconceived idea that the only way for a "weight" to rotate a wheel is by using gravity. Weight has more meaning than simply gravity weight force. Weight also implies inertial weight, inertial resistance to motion, and momentum resistance to being stopped once in motion. You cannot have inertia or momentum without weight. In Bessler's early writings he tried to convey the concept that his wheels worked without weights. He was trying to convey the thought that gravity weight was not the motive force. Wagner condemned Bessler by pointing out that obviously his wheel had weights. Bessler said his wheel was turned by weights. But it was like the two of them were speaking different languages. Wagner, like most people, never grasped the concept that it was the motions of the weight and not the gravitational force of the weights that produced the impulse to rotate Bessler's wheels.
OK, I'll now crawl back under my rock else I'll get stoned by flying rocks. I'm simply trying to offer an alternate to the most common concept that Bessler's wheels were rotated by gravity.
