Thanks for the link - I've book marked it for future reference - thoroughly enjoyed reading the context of Drebbel et al that other sources don't always impress upon you.ECC1 wrote:Don't you think if Karl had known about Drebbel's inventions - which as you say, he probably did given his interests - he couldn't have mentioned them in reference to Bessler's wheels without 1) giving away the secret, or 2) connecting Bessler to Drebbel's reputation as a sorceror/magician? Karl was limited to what he could say.
The other witnesses statements don't reference Drebbel because they didn't see the secret. How could they know whether or not that was how they worked? They testified it was true PM, right, but again, that definition included Drebbel's method.
That there didn't seem to be any comparison "in the flesh" because of say, how fast his wheels turned, still doesn't rule out that method. In fact, it could have been the very thing that fooled the witnesses. Bessler could have taken the method and improved on it. Remember they both shared similar interests, traits and personalities.
Here is a book written about Drebbel's demonstrations of refrigeration and submarine:
http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/first/ ... -zero.html
I've read your reply and some thoughts come to mind. I won't address each point separately but sort of combine into what I hopes not an entrenched rant.
First off, none of us can ever prove a negative or provide negative proof. So without positive proof we are reduced to perhaps informed speculation. I'm as guilty as the next guy but I do it in the interests of establishing a likely balance of probabilities i.e. likelihood that something is logical or should be reasonably expected.
Karl was limited in what he could say. He said 4 things. It was so simple he was surprised others had not thought of it. A carpenters apprentice could build it. It ran of its own innate momentum, until the parts wore out or it broke. It deserved to rightly be called true PM.
Some witnesses testified that it earned the title true PM, including Karl, who did see how it worked. Some witnesses were more circumspect and said the internal motive force was as yet unidentifiable with certainty, but there must be one, and so it may or may not be true PM i.e. it might run down over time or suffer a mechanical failure. This tells us that there was not exactly a unified narrative on just what constituted true PM. I've seen Cox's much later autonomous clock described as having met the threshold for true PM (by those commentators of that time), and I guess by inference that would include Drebbel's clock in retrospect for those same later commentators.
My point about being blown away when looking at a Bessler wheel in operation, so much so that thoughts of bladders, bellows, or slow moving pistons etc being moved by changes in ambient air pressure or diurnal temperature is purged from your mind still holds. First you have to assume they knew about Drebbel and how his clock worked. If they did not, no foul. If they did then you have to apply your rationale, that the slow responding ambient force effect is boosted by mechanics to allow a fast turning wheel that could also do recorded work on loads. And this is where it all falls apart imo. Up till then it looks like its plausible. [On that note so is the 'fire' option but that would need a conspiracy to defraud with it very likely it would be later found out on sale.] Back to the 'Drebbel effect'. No one, even today, has been able to harness these well known forces to output anything remotely close to Bessler's wheel performances. Not even with today's computing power and materials and resources. Why didn't the genius Drebbel himself make a PM wheel, by upscaling (or boosting) his method ? Because he couldn't, just as we can't.
If you doubt the inventiveness and skills of those scientists and craftsmen, take a look at the resume of a few. I'll give you a case in point. John Rowley. You can read about him in chapter 9 of John Collins book PM-AAMS ? Rowley went to Kassel and saw JB's wheel. He was enthralled by it. He could not explain it. He spent the rest of his life in London trying to duplicate it, without success. He was perhaps the most eminent scientific and mathematical instrument maker for his king of the time in England. He perhaps read about Drebbel before embarking on his quest to discover how Bessler did it, and after his trip to Kassel. It is well worth reading JC's book in its entirety for context and cogent thoughts, but for brevity I'll include a relevant excerpt to give some background.
https://www.google.com/search?ei=aH59XI ... ABGTQ7l0T8
So, the upshot being that accounts of Drebbel's inventions and patents were available in Bessler's time, in London at very least. Yet not even the educated native Englishmen witnesses thought to give a mention to Drebbel when speculating on Bessler's wheels to their masters or contemporaries, yet they, or at least some by probability and connections, were acquainted with Drebbel and his story. Either they didn't consider Drebbel's method as true PM or it just wasn't in the frame for performance reasons, IMO.John Collins Page 137 wrote:.. The reason for including this information about Rowley's visits to the library is that they only began after his return from Kassel, and then he made three visits in a short space of time. There were books on the very subject that Rowley wished to know about. One of the books in the Harleian Library was the Marquis of Worcester's Century of Inventions (1655), which included his description of a perpetual motion machine which he is said to have exhibited before King Charles I. Another book in Harley's library was written by Thomas Tymme, a Professor of Divinity. It consists of an account of the invention by Cornelius Drebble (1572-1634), engineer to King James I, which I described earlier. A third book might have been Mathematical Magic (1648) by Bishop John Wilkins in which the author describes attempts at perpetual motion machines. Many other books in the library contained references to perpetual motion machines. These books could have been consulted by Rowley on his return from Kassel, and it was, I suggest, for the express purpose of trying to discover Orffyreus' secret that he went to the Harleian library.
So we can bat the ball back and forth forever on what's plausible or not. In this quest to solve the impossible scenario it is difficult to find a thermal and rise above our education that PM from gravity is impossible. Very difficult but not impossible to suspend our disbelief. Then perhaps difficult but not impossible to solve.
