Kenneth W. Behrendt's Latest Opus

[ovaron]

Why should Bessler deny in his Apologia that someone has seen the inside of the wheel when Karl has seen it? That doesn't make any sense at all. On the contrary, Karl would have been an excellent witness to the authenticity of his wheel.
Maybe Bessler explained the function of the wheel to Karl beforehand. I consider a model to be rather unlikely, also because Besser was obsessed with the fact that someone could unintentionally get behind his secret.
In any case, nothing is documented that Besser demonstrated a model to Karl.

[Fletcher]

Thank you Stewart for the excellent post, good to hear from you again.

Good point DrWhat, although he might have kept the wheels in pieces.

JC

Hi John .. here's the list again of the death inventory for those interested in what it contains.

If it contains any wheel pieces then they are well disguised or mislabeled. That may depend on who compiled the Inventory of the Estate of the Deceased ?

It's possible someone spirited a completed or partially completed wheel away after JB's death but I think that unlikely, given that his wife would have control of his estate and possessions, and would likely know what he was working on at the time, and if it was missing.

On the note of potential mislabeling of wheel pieces I point to item 32. "48 iron gears for the water machine" as perhaps a candidate. Dax has mentioned this possibility before IIRC, but didn't go into any detailed speculation. Presumably the iron gears were cast items which is both expensive and time consuming.

Bessler indicated that he could make many types of PM wheel (his many principles) with his principle of PM. It is conceivable that he could make one with gear (sprockets, cogs, idlers etc) parts, perhaps instead of other mechanical ways to connect or communicate movement internally.

Bessler built in the end very large diameter wheels. One might assume that diameter rather than width/depth was therefore mechanically important. If so then it seems logical that that might be to allow more (a greater number) mechs to grace the largest practical diameter (radius dependent). In support of this we have MT drawings which show many different numbers of lever-weight systems for example. They have anything from 12, 15, 16, 18, 24, 36 (MT Bessler "No. 11 This figure is doubled, as one can see, and the form does not involve much, but there is more in it than meets the eye, as will be seen when I pull back the curtain and disclose the correct principle at the appropriate place, as mentioned previously.")

So considering the above, if we take 48 gears and perhaps assume they were direct meshed then it might be reasonable to assume half were idler gears i.e. used to change direction of rotational force. That would mean hypothetically 24 main gears and 24 idler gears between, to keep direction consistent. They might have all been the same size but without those gears it is hard to know.

24 connected lever-weight systems occur in MT's 12 and 14 for example. Perhaps Bessler found that 24 sets was the most practical for his larger wheels, because it developed most power density ?

It goes against your theory of 5 John, but perhaps my speculative thinking has some merit all the same.

[John Collins]

Thanks Fletch, it’s useful to be reminded of what was in the death inventory.

I’d like to make two observations here. Firstly when I die and they do an inventory of what is in my workshop, they will list every complete item or part of a recognisable item, but I doubt if they will record several odd pieces of wood, of varying length, numerous nuts, bolts, screws, three foot wooden discs full of apparently random holes of indeterminate use. There are several boxes of assorted pieces of metal which have been used as weights over many years, mostly with two or three holes etc. You get my point, I doubt if the recorder of the inventory was able to identify some parts and therefore ignored them.

My second point is that rumours suggested that no wheel was ever found, only some broken pieces which were either thrown away or used as firewood by Bessler’s widow.

So even though there is no mention of the wheel or it’s parts in the inventory does not mean that there weren’t any. In my opinion Bessler would not have kept something so important to him, complete, but would have kept it in pieces.

JC

[raj]

Fletcher, thank you for posting the above Bessler's inventory list.

It's the first time ever, I am seeing it.

I find items 4 ans 5 seeming something like my last three wheels drawing in my : An intricate system of strings an weights and Speed Doubler threads.

Raj

[Fletcher]

I could well imagine John no one bothering to itemize various flotsam and jetsam.

And I understand your first two points.

Your last opinion has my radar pinging however.

"So even though there is no mention of the wheel or it’s parts in the inventory does not mean that there weren’t any. In my opinion Bessler would not have kept something so important to him, complete, but would have kept it in pieces."

Where were the many weights ?

The weights (examined at the translocation test) were cylindrical about the size and shape of a coke can IIRC. They weren't square, or hexagonal, they were round ! Also presumably cast, therefore not something disposable or easily replaceable ?

They were allowed to be held but with a handkerchief covering them. So their weight could be judged and surface landscape explored in general non detail terms, but the ends could not be inspected. They must have had some attachment method to whatever, and that might have been a center thru hole ?!

Regardless where were they ? Perhaps by 1745 dedicated lead weights of one type of earlier machine were no longer necessary and that's why a chest of circular lead weights was not inventoried, they weren't there to be found ?

[ME]

High carillon with a special name, thus an invention, automatically plays hundreds of songs, is not at all finished and is lacking the bells.

1 drum with 100 songs, or a place to hide 100 drums?
Likely a bit smaller than this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9-lcnZgOLM
Perhaps hinted in MT135. Which may not represent an axis, but a (drum) weight

[John Collins]

I am unsure what items remain in the archives at Kassel, but if you read this account of one man’s search for the original MT one might get the impression that there could be other stuff stored within the bowels of the museum, of which no one is aware. I have visited the museum but had no time to arrange for an extended search, so there is still that option open to anyone who has the time and inclination to try. Maybe there are other pieces awaiting the light of day?

I wrote about this in my blog last November. The account is as follows. You will need to read to the end of the chapter to get to his description of his find

https://www.irvthomas.com/Innocence%20A ... nce15.html

JC

[MrTim]

Why should Bessler deny in his Apologia that someone has seen the inside of the wheel when Karl has seen it? That doesn't make any sense at all. On the contrary, Karl would have been an excellent witness to the authenticity of his wheel.

Because he wrote & published AP before or while he made arrangements with Karl.

[ovaron]

Why should Bessler deny in his Apologia that someone has seen the inside of the wheel when Karl has seen it? That doesn't make any sense at all. On the contrary, Karl would have been an excellent witness to the authenticity of his wheel.

Because he wrote & published AP before or while he made arrangements with Karl.

Very unlikely. Bessler wrote or completed his Apologia when he was already living on Weissenstein (1716 -- 1717 ). If one assumes that he had printed the Apologia when it was completed in 1717, he would have made a correction if Karl had seen the mechanism at that time.
It is much more probable that he explained the mechanism to Karl, but Karl could only examine the finished wheel.

So it is unlikely (and absolutely no fact) that Karl saw a table top model beforehand, or Bessler did not write the truth in his Apologia, which is also unlikely. IMO

[ovyyus]

If Karl paid Bessler 8k in two instalments then the first 4k was probably for a verbal and/or diagram description of the wheel (which Karl must have understood) and the second 4k was paid after seeing inside the completed wheel. If Bessler's Apologia was completed before the second instalment viewing then Bessler's comment about no one having seen inside his wheel would have been correct.

Nice to hear from you Stewart.

[Fletcher]

Whether Karl saw a working previous wheel, parts for a previous wheel, a diagram of a wheel with its PM principle, or just heard a verbal description only (not likely on its own imo), its principle of operation was simple enough and convincing enough, once understood by Karl, for him to move forward and meet the additional contract terms (Go Past Go And Collect $4,000 Thalers).

Imagine you parting with $100,000 for a diagram and a verbal. I might do it if I had 100K spare and I had heard of your 3 previous publicly displayed wheels. It'd be a punt to big for me all the same.

Regardless, without a working wheel to examine the PM principle would have to be so outlandishly simple and obvious for me to even seriously contemplate moving on to stage two of the contract.

But then I'm not a prince and not much of a gambler. But I reckon Karl was savvy enough to know exactly what he heard and saw, and what he was doing.

[John Collins]

I should point out that AP contains some 7000 rhyming verses plus at least one chapter which seems to contain some deliberate coded information, plus a second part responding to Gartners accusations. It seems likely to me at least, that Bessler had begun writing the book at least a couple of years or perhaps longer, before he even entered into negotiations with Karl.

Also printing was an extremely laborious process and required the author to check and double check every page for mistakes. Bessler couldn’t have simply called into the printers and ordered an alteration, especially once the book had been bound. The date may tell us when the book became available but should not be taken as indicating when it was written.

The book contained a number of small clues such as the dashes for missing letters etc (see my www.orffyreuscode.com site for info) which were also included within the actual date on the first page. Nothing is as simple as it seems.

JC

[ovaron]

@ John
Good points, but from the Apologia it is quite clear that Besser still wrote about it when he was under Karl's patronage.

XLVI
Nunmehro mag im Hessen-Garten
Die ehrliche Machine warten,
Bis daß die rechte Stunde kommt
Und ihre Frucht gedoppelt frommt.
Mit GOtt, die Zeit ist bald vorhanden, 1717.
Wenn Christen singen: “Christ erstanden!� –"

Bessler would not write that the machine in the Hessen-Garten waits "until the right hour comes" if he wasn't already under contract and building a new wheel.

From this I conclude that Karl did not see the inside when Bessler started to build his new wheel.

[WaltzCee]

bump

[WaltzCee]

@Andreas Schmitt
People currently aren't using it because physical versions his wheels have not yet been produced. One of the goals of my book is to change that situation in the near future. What people will learn from the volume is that Bessler's wheels actually did have an onboard energy supply of which he was unaware, thus, he was not hoaxing his wheels.

Mystery solved.