The ONE WORD that could give it ALL AWAY !

[Robinhood46]

it is only described, as I know, that there are impacts on the downgoing side.
There is no description about the intensity of the impact.
It is described as 8 impacts/hits per turn.
If this eyewitness discription is true, then the impacts occur regularly

My whole point is the lack of change to the intensity of the sound being heard, on the downgoing side.
Had the sound decreased in intensity, i think it would have been noticed and mentioned.
I thought it was described as "about 8 impacts/hits per turn" In which case, if the eyewitness account is true, could imply that the impacts didn't occur regularly, or that there was some kind of progression/regression between the weights and the wheel.
The weights being the cause of the sound is speculation and some part of the mechanism could well have been responsible for the sound.

[Tarsier79]

I believe impacts per turn might be difficult to count accurately, even as low as 20rpm. The 12 ft dia. rim would be traveling 180 degrees every 1.5 seconds.

From the witness testimonials they said there were 8 spokes, so these must have been visible supports on the side of the wheel even though this was not indicated on Besslers drawing of the wheel. with 8 impacts, there would be an impact aligning with each spoke segment. Although the timing would change with wheel speed, since we take it there are 8 evenly spaced, the impacts would remain consistent.

Imo, removing the weights without exposing the internals is another brilliant feat. Was the hole big enough to see in, or was he extracting and replacing weights by feel? He extracted the weights and immediately wrapped them before anyone could see? A hole or spring in the end would not have been enough to give away the secret of his wheel. IMO Covering them is an intentional distraction like magicians use. If you are wondering about each weight, you are not looking for other clues.

[Fletcher]

Thank you for the quotations above, fletch. Even though I translated and published the documents, it was a long time ago and it’s easy to forget the details over time and I must admit I never noticed that they had omitted the details of the weight removals in the official testimonies. Good find!

You are welcome John .. ateotd most of the reliable information (and context) comes from your books and sources. PM-AAMS? for instance, altho written by you some years ago, is still a very good source imo. The wheat and the chaff is largely identified and separated.

Because of your fact-orientated, no-nonsense writing style of 'PM-AAMS?', albeit rolled into a good yarn, I tend to place greater reliability and credibility on your research as opposed to some others with less discipline. And I assume that you were just as rigorous then as you would be today if writing it again. Your personality traits wouldn't change greatly, so I can't see why you'd be different if the clock were turned back, and hope it continues.

FWIW I just always assumed that everybody had noticed that the Testimonials didn't have accounts of the 'weights' being removed, handled, and replaced. And had wondered like me why that empirical information had been left out of the official (and serious) accounts. I'd say B's. theatrics around revealing and inspecting them had a good part to do with it. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valour, especially when reputations are at stake, possibly in the future.

[eccentrically1]

by eccentrically1 » Sun Dec 05, 2021 2:00 pm

fletcher wrote:
If we're rotating with the wheel it is show-stopping problematic IINM.
Right, so even if we nail down the energy source he tapped to lift the weights, the wheels weren't rotating because they were getting hammered by the weights. As Tarsier noted a few posts ago, Bessler said the clattering noise was a result of the motive force, not the motive force itself; paraphrasing.

That's why I keep hammering the table about the wheel and any boards the weights were striking are superfluous. He could have simply had levered weights on an axle, but they aren't rotating the wheel, the energy source lifting the weights is the rotater. And on a related note, since he did use a wheel and boards, there was no difference in speeds between the wheel and the weights that some think must be so. Everything was rotating at the same speed. That's just common sense.

I will disagree with the sentence "Everything was rotating at the same speed", because we deal in the wheel with the drive the driver problem.
The internal construction must be always faster than the rotating wheel which you will see outside.

In the wheel itself there are taking place different accelerations of the mass.
A hitting/impact noise on the downgoing side is an asymmetric action.
The rotating of the wheel is driven from a combined action which take place inside of the wheel.
The wheel rotation has a speed limit, which is depending on the building size, the diameter of the wheel.
This speed is the natural frequence of the wheel, when it is not under load.
So the action inside must split the movements of the weight into an up and a down force, and this action has to take place on the downgoing side.
An hit/impact always goes hand in hand with high acceleration values. They correspond. Here you have Besslers "up in a flash".
If a mass is accelerated upward with an high acceleration. it will also produce the opposite acceleration, which results in the rotation of the wheel.
The first fall has the hardest fall, because the internal construction not the single weight. fall against the rim.
In the start condition the movement of the rim is zero, so the impact is hard, we have a high speed difference.
When the wheel will begin to turn,rotate, the impact speed is reduced.
It is reduced more and more until the wheel is turning with its natural frequency.
It is a controlled positive feedback loop, where the feedback is reduced until we have the constant turning of the wheel.

Wheel speed is RPM. Internal construction can’t accelerate above the wheel speed, it’s just common sense.
The only way that’s possible is if the wheel and its spokes weren’t being impacted by the internal construction; IOW, there was a clapping apparatus to fool them into thinking the weights were impacting the wheel at the same RPM, while the internal construction was revolving at your higher levels. Anything is possible, but no one has considered that scenario, if I’m not mistaken.

[Robinhood46]

"Wheel speed is RPM. Internal construction can’t accelerate above the wheel speed, it’s just common sense."

This "common sense" is exactly why i started the thread; Gravity wheels with a fundamental difference.
Maybe common sense is what is getting in the way of finding the answer?

[Tarsier79]

They may have 4 x mechanisms travelling at 2x wheel speed impacting the sides. That would give 8 impacts per revolution. For this to happen you need an earth reference, or an MT13 hanging weight used as an earth reference. Bessler was apparently skilled with gears.

[Fletcher]

Fletcher,
Let me get this straight; you are saying that John Collins book is all wrong, Burckhard is all wrong, Wolffe is all wrong, and Fischer is all wrong, there were never any weights in Bessler's wheel, with springs on them. Is that right; is that what you are telling me---------------------Sam

That's for you to decide Sam. What I am trying to do is not perpetuate false myths and flags, and perhaps give good cause to reexamine things you'd previously thought squared away.

To directly answer your question .. my opinion is that there were formal 'weights' in B's. public wheels. Some of these undoubtedly being the objects handled and seen under cover of cloth at the translocation test at Merseburg, by Wolff etc. Tho B. could also have made wheels without formal 'weights' per se !

And .. there were no "weights in Bessler's wheel with springs on them" as you put it and I would understand springs to generically mean; other than possibly in a minor role of convenience, and not as causation of, or contributing assist of, self-moving rotation.

[Fletcher]

it is only described, as I know, that there are impacts on the downgoing side.
There is no description about the intensity of the impact.
It is described as 8 impacts/hits per turn.
If this eyewitness description is true, then the impacts occur regularly

My whole point is the lack of change to the intensity of the sound being heard, on the downgoing side.
Had the sound decreased in intensity, i think it would have been noticed and mentioned.
I thought it was described as "about 8 impacts/hits per turn" In which case, if the eyewitness account is true, could imply that the impacts didn't occur regularly, or that there was some kind of progression/regression between the weights and the wheel.
The weights being the cause of the sound is speculation and some part of the mechanism could well have been responsible for the sound.

Quite so RH46 and Georg, imo ..

Any change in the intensity (decibels) of the contact sound should have been noted, IF there was a change in decibel level. It was not noted, or recorded, therefore the noise level was near consistent, from start up to full rpm. Simply noted by Fischer etc as about 8 sounds per revolution. And this observation goes some way to discounting swinging weights in the traditional sense where Cf's/Cpf's would tend to oppose gravity acceleration rate in the upper quarters and add to it it in the lower quarters, thus changing those decibel (energy) levels depending where it migrated to, imo.

What we might expect and perhaps deduce would be for the area from where the sounds came (say 3 o'cl radial for example) to migrate up or down (advance and retard) as the wheel reached new rpms on the way up or down, stabilizing position at full rpm. Based on the premise that a weight must fall some set distance inside the wheel, and the quicker it is rotating the more it moves on (arc distance) before reaching its limit of travel. If the noise is associated with that action of weight movement I would expect it too to migrate and also change intensity level as you put it. Apparently it did neither enough to be worthy of note by the likes of engineers like Fischer and Mathematicians like Wolff and 'sGravesande etc. !

[Tarsier79]

It may not have, but the wheel accelerated up to full speed in about 10 seconds. Most of their obsservations would be made while the wheel moved at constant speed. Even under the loads applied his wheel only slowed slightly. I am sure Bessler carefully calculated all the loads he would attach to make sure nothing would overload and slow it too much.

[Georg Künstler]

by eccentrically1 » Sun Dec 05, 2021 2:00 pm

Internal construction can’t accelerate above the wheel speed, it’s just common sense.

Here the common sense is wrong.

If you put an stick into a wheel vertical, then the stick will fall either to the left or to the right.
It will produce also an impact when the stick is falling to the rim.
The fall speed of the stick end is higher than the speed of the rim.
Also the fall speed is depending on the diameter of the wheel and the stick length.
In any case the impact is being heard on the down going side, if the wheel is able to turn.
Of course the falling stick is a one shot and cannot be repeated again and again.
To repeat the falling stock example you need a stucture.
If you create with 2 sticks an X-cross and put in in the wheel, then you will get an tumbling X-cross which is falling inside of the wheel.
So you have two conditions which happen in a sequence, the X-Cross is travelling with the wheel rim until the X-cross will tip over and fall on the down going side.
It will produce an periodic impact during the turn of the wheel.
The internal construction is falling faster than the outer wheel is being turned.

What is being not nice with the X-cross is the impact point on the down going side.
The impact point is in the lower half of the wheel and we don*t have the correct angle.

We need an impact point which is in the upper half of the wheel.
Here the storkbill construction can help us.
The storkbill will create an impact point which is in the upper half of the wheel.
A storkbill is a combination of 4 falling sticks, a structure, a movable parallelogram.

So the storkbill allowes us to create an impact/hit in the upper area of the wheel.
That is the special function of a storkbill.

[Tarsier79]

I think the important thing, is not that anybody is right or wrong, or even that there is a consensus about any component or working of the wheel. It is that anything you believe is true about the construction or inner workings of the wheel might actually be incorrect.

[johannesbender]

I suspect , the whole so called inner "structure" was a mechanism/s that had nothing to do with the "frame" / "wheel" seen ,
as in ,It seems likely that the "wheel" was just a frame around the axle ,
to round off and conceal the inner area from prying eyes and granted easy access to the inner for B,
instead of a solid disk like structure with movement guiding features like slots or curves etc.

Hence the many mentions of being able to see through cracks , indicating there was no solid interior shape or not a complete circular solid shape,
and there would be no need to cover with a cloth if the "wheel" / "frame" was not a hollow .

And i suspect that such a frame that needed a covering (in case of cloth covering),would not stay sufficiently in shape for long enough use under load,
unless build very strong , time and use would slowly disfigure and dislodge joints of such a frame ,
so to me that would eliminate a large solid disk like form on the inside and the wheel/frame being part of the function,
and instead i imagine that some kind of mechanism/s being the whole inner working structure.

[Robinhood46]

I agree.
The wheel/frame the observers could see, could have been stationary, surrounding the hidden mechanism.
The hidden mechanism could turn perpetually without it affecting the cylindrical structure hiding it.
The need to transfer the energy created, by the hidden mechanism, is only necessary because of the desire to hide the mechanism.
Bessler was able to create a cascade of falling weights, continually replenished. This cascade of falling weights needed to be transferred to rotational force, he achieved this by building a waterwheel type structure that is fed from the inside. Hence the rotating wheel/frame that has nothing to do with the mechanism.

[WaltzCee]

Has anyone mentioned the noise on the downside might have been caused by a rocker arm redirecting a downward force up a 100% (or so) grade?

some redirection?

[Fletcher]

It may not have, but the wheel accelerated up to full speed in about 10 seconds.

Most of their observations would be made while the wheel moved at constant speed. Even under the loads applied his wheel only slowed slightly. I am sure Bessler carefully calculated all the loads he would attach to make sure nothing would overload and slow it too much.

10 seconds is enough time to note a change in pitch and loudness I would have thought. These were 12 commissioners, who were educated and respected men of their community, hand-picked for their talents and professions, and levelheadedness I'd suggest (they read as considered and thoughtful). I'd say their powers of observation were better than most. Privately they would speculate and jump to conclusions based on what they knew of, like anybody else would, and in that they are no different than anybody else attempting to fill a vacuum of empirical data. They weren't 12 men press-ganged after closing hours with a few under their belts ;7) For me the door is still wide open that the noise heard was a nearly constant noise, because there is no report that says one way or another. Dynamics can change a perspective.

I think the important thing, is not that anybody is right or wrong, or even that there is a consensus about any component or working of the wheel. It is that anything you believe is true about the construction or inner workings of the wheel might actually be incorrect.

Ain't that so ! Nature abhors a vacuum. And so we fill the gaps in hard evidence with educated guesses and intuitive reasoning (reasonable approach, if not conservative). But as history and the passage of time has shown we must be zigging when we should be zagging; we took and continue to take a wrong turn at the cross-road, IMO !