Blood From Stone

[John Collins]

I don’t want to muddy the waters, but it has always seemed possible to me, however unlikely people may view this suggestion, that Bessler offered a substitute weight for examination. In other words one that was either in the machine to add conflicting noise hints, or else it was just one which he kept for the purpose but which was there to throw the viewers off the scent so to speak.

Why he covered it with a handkerchief might be because it had no wear marks or because it had no attachment point because it was a dud.

Given his fear of giving his secret away accidentally I can imagine the above scenario taking place. Unless his weights were designed to roll, I can’t see much point in making them round. I suppose it could have been due to a manufacturing process which produced round bar?

JC

[Fletcher]

Your point remains a possibility John. However I seem to remember discussions in the past about just how honest Bessler was and whether it was productive in the quest to second guess everything he said or did. IOW's if you go down that track you disappear down the rabbit hole to where everything is questionable and misrepresented. So IIRC, to keep my sanity (questionable) I had to decide to accept what he said and did as basically honest representation (of course things could have other meanings or not be the whole story) unless a burden of proof showed otherwise.

Just as a matter of interest. Here are two quotes from Wolff's letters from 1715 and 1722 about the weights. They are similar but not the same.

.. he did not disguise the fact that the mechanism is moved by weights. Several such weights, wrapped in his handkerchief, he let us weigh in our hands to estimate their weight. They were judged to be about four pounds each, and their shape was definitely cylindrical.

.. b) Before translocating the wheel, the Inventor who was performing the test for the officially appointed Commissioners, took out the weights and permitted one of them to be touched, wrapped in a handkerchief. He did not allow the weight to be touched on the end, but lengthwise, it felt cylindrical and not very thick. One could hear the weights landing on the overbalanced side, as though they were swinging, from which one can assume that the overbalancing was caused by their impact.

In 1715 he says .. several weights, wrapped in a handkerchief, he let them hold and estimate their weight.

In 1722 he says .. took out the weights and permitted ONE to be touched under a handkerchief.

Now there could be translation nuances at play or it could be that Wolff's memory was sketchy. We all know that memory isn't photographic nor perfect and that the mind will stitch together a narrative if called upon. That's why eye witness testimony from a crime can be unreliable.

So it seems that B took out the weights for the translocation test (probably put in a box). It is not known whether these were sighted by the witnesses but I would guess that they were, at least in the box and being carried from support to support to be reinstalled out of sight. It would seem kinda important to me to see these weights.

There is no mention of their shape in the second letter but in the first he seems to say they were all identical and round shaped.

So altho a single weight could be available for misdirection it would not seem to fit the first letter description of multiple weights available. And then there is the case of weights being heard impacting inside the wheel on the down-going side. These weights would show impacts marks (n.b. a single flat spot if fixed) because IINM they were made of soft lead. No one noted a flat spot on the cylinder shaped weight they held so I would conclude that they were not fixed but pivoted and able to roll.

And so we come back to what B said about learning the hard way about failure of OOB systems. And yet he goes to great length to describe just such systems in his wheels it seems. He does not hide this and even encourages it (the mind trap). He even says in AP "as long as they stay out of the center of gravity".

So .. if there are OOB systems in his wheels that are torque symmetric, and therefore confer no sustained advantage to be described as excess impetus (momentum) then they by my deduction must have another purpose ? The apparent fact that the weights are round and must be connected to a shaft of some sort infers to me that they are likely able to roll. And the rolling capability is independent and separate from the function of weights in an OOB system, so rolling capability must be for some other purpose !

That could be to transmit an impulse as a weight slides and rolls beneath some other element inside the wheel IMO. And this casually transmitted impulse to the Prime Mover element occurring in weight transition movement to its wooden stop is what causes the wheel roll-on effect and excess wheel momentum in violation of CoE and CoM !

[John Collins]

Yes, in hindsight I agree Fletch, I had forgotten the mention of several weights, and perhaps my old age has made me doubt things I accepted at face value years ago.

Actually there is no good reason for him to produce false weights when the real ones were available to show to people. Covering them with a cloth would be just as effective at hiding some feature on the weight, as producing a fake one also covered with a cloth!

JC

[ovyyus]

...IINM they [the weights] were made of soft lead.

You might be right. Perhaps the reason Bessler covered the weight/s being handled was simply to hide what they were made of? Covering them up might also add a sense of mystery and drama to otherwise boring lumps of lead. If the prime mover lifting these weights is the real secret then the OOB weights could be relatively irrelevant.

[Fletcher]

He might have wanted to hide what they were made of Bill but I don't see any real value in that. He says in AP that they were many pieces of lead etc. It is more likely imo that he wanted to hide some physical facet of the weight(s) which I've discussed.

He also might have wanted to add an aura of mystery and drama to spice up the story; and you are right that it could be to deflect away from the Prime Mover which was the real secret, making the OOB system relatively irrelevant as you say.

As you can probably tell I like to examine as many aspects of the story as I can, to look into alternatives, so that I don't just plant a stake in the ground and wrap myself in a straight-jacket because of it. Been there, done that. Keepin a semi open-mind ain't easy.

As an example of slightly different perspectives I'll take you back to your comment about .. "If the prime mover lifting these weights is the real secret ..".

Your theory which makes a lot of sense and always did, is predicated on the weights being lifted against gravity by another 'force' i.e. energy input into the system. And as I said many times I could quite easily believe that it was an early heat engine except for the fact that that would be a significant and marketable accomplishment of itself without disguising it as a PMM. And that I would consider it a fraud no matter how clever the machine, even if well before its time; and notwithstanding that Heron had made such heat engines to do work in the temples of Alexandria to amaze the masses and earn a coin.

Anyways .. so what other alternatives do we have to the apparent necessity to lift weights inside a wheel to get sustained rotation of an OOB system ? An OOB system trades weight heights lost and gained with torque produced. They zero sum in every case I've looked into. With low frictional losses the energy wastage can be minimized but we won't get higher lift AND excess torque to self-sustain the rotation.

Maybe we are looking in the wrong direction to augment the lifting of OOB weights (either height or speed) ? Can there be another way to cause a wheel to accumulate momentum so that augmented lifting or falling is unnecessary, if not a redundant concept ? They did waste energy with collisions on stops and noise etc.

And if there was, to all intents and purposes, it would be a PMM or gravity engine/turbine/mill that had no apparent source of energy and bent out of shape the Newtonian Laws of Physics.

[ovyyus]

And as I said many times I could quite easily believe that it was an early heat engine except for the fact that that would be a significant and marketable accomplishment of itself without disguising it as a PMM...

I doubt Bessler would accept that a heat engine could be more significant and remarkable than a 'true pm'.

...And that I would consider it a fraud no matter how clever the machine...

I think that might be a little unfair, eg: years ago you experimented with aerodynamic effects and the possibility of heat energy entering a mechanical system as a byproduct of moving specific shapes through air. If a heat engine along those lines was cleverly implemented by Bessler then it would be far from fraud, especially in the early 1700's. While your research didn't seem to lead anywhere at the time, I wonder if the idea was properly exhausted?

[rlortie]

Fletcher writes:

Maybe we are looking in the wrong direction to augment the lifting of OOB weights (either height or speed) ? Can there be another way to cause a wheel to accumulate momentum so that augmented lifting or falling is unnecessary, if not a redundant concept ? They did waste energy with collisions on stops and noise etc.

The answer may be in the hands of a child... I have relieved a Great Grandson of a McDonald's Happy meal toy. It is a HotWheels toy car.

It is spring powered and I became rather inquisitive when I discovered that by pushing the car backwards one wheel revolution then releasing, the car will travel forwards 2.5 feet (76.2 cm) on a laminate desk top.

I can measure the distance of input and output but have no way of measuring linear torque or force required for input vs output. p reloading more than one revolution will send this little critter over eight feet (76.2 m) across a hardwood floor!

Ralph

[raj]

Imagine a bicycle wheel on a stand free to rotate.

Add identical weights on the rim at different distance.

Find a way to make more weights stay and in DISORDER on the rim on the desending side than on the ascending side continuously to provide torque for wheel to rotate.

If you can do that, then torque calculation can be done by junior school physics, just by drawings.

This is what I have done in the last few days.

Raj

[Fletcher]

LOL .. touche Bill. Seems I discriminate where the heat source is coming from.

Ralph .. kinda reminds me of the come-back can.

All I'd say is that these particular alternative concepts for a Prime Mover Input-Output such as you presented are able to be analysed by accepted physics and math.

What if what B did could not be proved by math ? It just was ! You'd have to see it to believe it.

Remember finding the solution did his head in for 10 years then he had a dream. He did some experiments and got some positive results and he finally knew why all the others had failed. He packed up, got married and went on holiday. When he got back he set about improving his initial good results into a self proclaimed self-sustaining true PMM, as he would have us believe.

Gotta go and take a lie down and hope I dream ;7)

[MrVibrating]

Just had a possible mad idea - in the current scheme we have all but one criteria met for OU:

- we can generate 'reactionless' angular momentum

- we can accumulate it, always adding more on top

- the per-cycle energy cost remains constant, in spite of rising RPM's

..this would be OU, but for the fact that our momentum yield's decreasing each cycle...

Why's it decreasing? Because the rate of change of momentum of a gravitating system is 9.81 p per kg-s of gravitating mass, and the motor can only torque against the stator while it's gravitating... however the time spent gravitating per cycle is decreasing with rising RPM's...

So we just need to make more time, right?

Maybe we can do this with MoI variations...

Suppose after each successive cycle, the MoI of the wheel increases...

..so we step up the MoI each time we add some momentum; extending the MoI doesn't alter the amount of momentum we already have, but it does apply a braking torque, slowing down the rotation...

IOW, thanks to the variability of angular inertia, gaining angular momentum doesn't necessarily imply gaining angular velocity!

So by gradually cranking out the MoI as more and more angular momentum's added, we can hold the RPM's, and thus per-cycle momentum yield, constant, at least across some useful range..

Busy at work last few days, but up for trying this ASAP..

[sleepy]

Hey Ralph,
You must remember that your giant human hand is putting like a thousand times the force to wind that little motor. So then the little car,which weighs less than your finger, uses all the force that your hand and arm put into the spring to shoot forward. Did you at least get a few fries with that car?

[IamAllergicToEntropy]

MrVibrating I used to use electronics simulation IsSpice4 years ago. They highly recommended training seminars using the software. I wanted to save money and declined. (Was doing my own private inventing.) Professional software is very expensive and complex. It even used a dongle key on the computer to use the software (piracy). What I found the hard way is some devices had around 50 distinct parameters per device. Designing Integrated circuits is somewhere around 100 parameters per device. Multiply that with 1 Billion transistors for example! This is why chips always even now have flaws and bugs.
What I am getting at is you are better off doing real physical tests than relying upon software. When you start seeing "new" or "missed physics" in the software ALWAYS suspect error somewhere. Sorry if I am being depressing, but that is reality.

[Fletcher]

Just had a possible mad idea ...

... Suppose after each successive cycle, the MoI of the wheel increases...

..so we step up the MoI each time we add some momentum; extending the MoI doesn't alter the amount of momentum we already have, but it does apply a braking torque, slowing down the rotation...

IOW, thanks to the variability of angular inertia, gaining angular momentum doesn't necessarily imply gaining angular velocity!

So by gradually cranking out the MoI as more and more angular momentum's added, we can hold the RPM's, and thus per-cycle momentum yield, constant, at least across some useful range..

Busy at work last few days, but up for trying this ASAP..

Hey Mr V .. just some thoughts on your 'mad idea'.

Two opposed weights on a wheel connected by a scissor arrangement or pulley arrangement can allow you to increase radius and increase MOI.

Getting weights outwards (tangential inertia) is not a problem but getting them to the center with increased rpm can be.

...............

@ All ..

Reading IAATE's post reminded me of something. B said there were 'Laws of Perpetual Motion'. Obviously we haven't nailed down those 'Laws' in math form as equations like Newtons' Laws etc. You're working on it Mr V :7)

B was also rated as a bit of a mathematician. Yet he said strangely (and I seem to remember him teasing Wagner about it (W was a mathematician IIRC)) ..

you'll soon find, you splendid mechanics, that this is a nut you can't crack!" - AP pg 362

B was a mechanic and mathematician himself, so does that mean he couldn't put the Laws of PM into equation form ?

He also said ..

I make my machines in such a way that, big or small, I can make the resulting power small or big as I choose. I can get the power to a perfectly calculated degree, multiplied up even as much as fourfold." - AP pg 355

So it appears to me that once he knew how to make his wheels self-sustain he could define 'conditions' to formulate axiomatic Laws of Perpetual Motion, but not necessarily nail down the math behind it like a Newtonian Law is expressed.

And once he knew those conditions within the Laws of PM he could manipulate the inputs so that he could get the power output calculated with accuracy.

Just drawing the distinction between being able to do sensitivity analysis on variables and inputs to predict power, speed, diameter outputs etc, without necessarily knowing or identifying the particular math to explain it ?!

Perhaps that is why many who take the I'll crunch the numbers route struggle to find a math answer dropping out - in current thinking and wisdom there isn't one ?

I once had hopes that Oystein would find some sort of simple formula representation in his research that would give us a pointer to B nailing the mathematical detail of his Laws of PM.

[MrVibrating]

Done the 2nd cyc totals..

Cyc#2 input work: 41.87097 J


Cycle began with 40.216704 J

Ended with 80.428379 J

80.428379 - 40.216704 = 40.211675

So same input energy for each cycle, despite the rising RPM.

1.6 J missing each cycle - 3.2 J after two cycs; poss. due to inelastic collision of weight stopping in the center, also it doesn't rotate, eliminating any angular momentum it would've had as it enters the center... No biggie for now.

So, speed-invariant per-cycle input workload = good.

Speed-dependent momentum yield = bad.


So the plan looks vaguely something like this:

- net some momentum this way

- then extend the rotor's MoI, converting most of its RKE into sprung PE:

- this slows the rotation, without reducing its momentum

- 2nd cycle thus spends same time gravitating as 1st cycle


With any luck, this should result in both cycles netting the same rise in momentum for the same energy cost, resulting in an OU sum of RKE + sprung PE.

Will try it over the w/e, too knackered tonight..

[daxwc]

"(Page 63) And in truth it now seems to me that the time is long
overdue, now that I have achieved my goal, once known only to
God, that I and the world should see this principle, in itself so
simple, and yet at the same time so deeply hidden, of
everlasting motion, described in total detail and in mathematical
simplicity, in praise of God’s boundless wisdom, and for the
benefit of the entire world." DT