My thoughts and questions about Bessler's writings.

[Daniel.R]

I'm still relatively new to this forum, but for 10+ years I have been impelled to search for a gravity-driven mechanism.

The thoughts of me succeeding grow fainter with more experience, sadly enough. But one has to battle through such things, as Bessler did. I recently bought John Collins' translations of both AP and DT.

Bessler was a special dude, no doubt, and I enjoyed reading about his life. He seemed highly intelligent in that he learned so many crafts in his life. Being somewhat of a dabbler in many crafts myself, I look up to such a force and hunger for knowledge.

Having the original language at hand, I asked ChatGPT for translations of the mentioned texts, especially the passages that describe the function of the mechanism. A lot of it has already been translated excellently, but why not see what ChatGPT makes out of it? I simply copied the text with the instruction to translate this 18th-century German text.

I will show some passages where ChatGPT's translations differ and may shed new light to that of JC's version.

From Bessler's riddle in AP p. 295:

"The children play on the columns with heavy spinning tops."

This translation points directly to spinning tops. This one is interesting in that it also coincides with Bessler mentioning that children play with his perpetual motion in the lanes.

One curious thing, which may have no substance, is also the fact that Bessler, in his second portrait in DT, points to, with his left hand. to a globe/earth-structure with a set of dividers, and in his right hand, he holds a pair of glasses. As if he is saying, "look here!" The spinning top on the toy page also has what seems to be an eye inside of it.
I'm wondering if he points to the rotation of the earth and wants us to look (glasses) at this special mechanical phenomenon that is precession (spinning top). Far-fetched maybe, but at least a possibility.

From AP 291, we have this translation from JC's version:
"For all the inmost parts, and the perpetual-motion structures, retain the power of free movement."

Comparing those lines to ChatGPT's translation:
"For all inner figures, perpetual structures, maintain their free hunt."

This notion of free movement or free hunt seems to me that Bessler found a force to be harnessed while maintaining the free movement of the weights. This also coincides with the idea of a precession effect, where the precession force comes from the free movement/rotation of an inertia disc.

I also want to highlight what seems to me like a contradiction. Bessler writes on the same page (AP. 291): "These come in pairs, such that, as one of them takes up an outer position, the other takes up a position nearer the axle. Later, they swap places, and so they go on and on changing places all the time."

Later on the same page, he writes: "Many would-be mobile-makers think that if they can arrange for some of the weights to be a little more distant from the center 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."

Isn't this a contradiction of the highest sort?
Or is there something to find here?

He later describes, "For the time being, let everyone guess by what marvelous deeds this weight turns to the center and that one rises." What would a marvelous deed be for Bessler? Could that of precession, which was not as defined as it is today, be a marvelous deed to Bessler?

Lastly, I want to show ChatGPT's translation from DT (p. 190-191):

"The internal structure of the drum or wheel is so arranged that weights, arranged according to the laws of perpetual or scientifically demonstrable mechanical motion, once set in motion and rotating, continuously impel the wheel and generate perpetual motion, as long as the structure itself does not lose its position and order; and this without any further assistance and without the addition of any other principle of motion that would require renewal.
My machine, to which no external source of motion is attached, should not be regarded outside its mechanism, unlike those driving forces which, by the force of weight, sustain motion as long as ropes or chains impel it, but the very principle of motion itself is perpetual and also mobile, or at least an essential and intrinsic part thereof, which receives and exerts a force and striving for advancement derived from the motion of the universe without limit (which indeed remains beyond the center of gravity), and it holds and exercises this within itself, once such a Machine is enclosed and arranged in such a manner that it never attains equilibrium or a point of rest but perpetually seeks it, and with remarkable speed, in proportion to both its own magnitude and that of the enclosed Machine, it should also carry and move other weights simultaneously, attached externally to the vertical axis of rotation."

This translation differs quite a bit from the John Collins version.

What is most interesting here, for me, is the notion of the weights themselves exercise the motion, and one could interpret that once the weights themselves are set in motion or rotating, they exercise this motion. He describes the weights as machines within the wheel. And that the motion or speed of these machines is proportional to both their own magnitude and that of the enclosed machine. So there are two types of machines: the machines that hold and exercise the perpetual motion, and the whole machine which the smaller machines are coordinated and enclosed into.

To me, with the previous mention of spinning tops, the smaller machines may be weights that exercise some kind of precession effect. They retain their free movement/hunt doing so (the rotation of the inertia disc in a spinning top is free to rotate and is not disturbed if the precession force is harnessed).

Further, he may have used the smaller machines (precession force-units) to move other weights around in the wheel. These apparently cylindrical weights (not the precession force units) may be what he showed to the spectators. They had no function other than to be moved by the precession units and create the unbalancing of the wheel. Alternatively, the cylindrical weights were in fact the spinning top, which may have had bearings in the middle of them.

If one has experimented with heavy spinning tops, as I now do, one can see that a heavy spinning top can exercise precession with very low rpm of the inertia disc, the trick is to have a very short torque arm, and the formula for precession shows the relationship clearly:

Ωp = T / I * w

Well, that is enough for now.

Hope you all are well! I look forward to hearing your thoughts on these translations and their implications.

/Daniel

​

[SHADOW]

Bonjour Daniel,
Interessant, si j'ai bien compris cela necessite la troisième dimension!
Toutes les idées sont bonne à prendre.

Hi Daniel,
Interestingly, if I understood correctly this requires the third dimension!
All ideas are good to take.

[Roxaway59]

Hi Daniel, I too think that there may be something to the idea you mentioned and I have talked about it on my thread a while ago.

I still haven't got around to experimenting with a real build on it yet but I will be doing that at some point.

The image that I had in my head was of weights corkscrewing around the wheel and for me this raises certain possibilities that didn't exist before.

Besslers first wheel was about 4 inches thick and some people assume that because of this there could only be a 2D action to his wheel. I disagree and it is possible to have weights revolving in a gyroscopic corkscrew action and it would make sense to keep the weights at a short radius.

I hope that you can show your real builds on the forum.

Graham

[Tarsier79]

Hi Daniel

"The children play on the columns with heavy spinning tops."
That isn't any translation I remember. There has always been argument about this passage though.

I have heard "precession" a number of times over the years, but never considered it as a potential answer, mainly due to the power generated by Besslers wheels and how much power is actually available in precession. But, if you are directed to an area of study that leads to something usable, even if it is a relatively weak force, that would still be an serious accomplishment.

Good luck.

[Daniel.R]

Bonjour Daniel,
Interessant, si j'ai bien compris cela necessite la troisième dimension!
Toutes les idées sont bonne à prendre.

Hi Daniel,
Interestingly, if I understood correctly this requires the third dimension!
All ideas are good to take.

Hi SHADOW!
This would indeed require the third dimension! Even the fourth considering timing of the mechanism as the fourth dimension.

Hi Daniel, I too think that there may be something to the idea you mentioned and I have talked about it on my thread a while ago.

I still haven't got around to experimenting with a real build on it yet but I will be doing that at some point.

The image that I had in my head was of weights corkscrewing around the wheel and for me this raises certain possibilities that didn't exist before.

Besslers first wheel was about 4 inches thick and some people assume that because of this there could only be a 2D action to his wheel. I disagree and it is possible to have weights revolving in a gyroscopic corkscrew action and it would make sense to keep the weights at a short radius.

I hope that you can show your real builds on the forum.

Graham

Hello Graham!

Interesting! I too have had images or visions of corkscrewing weights. Much like Eric Laithwaite's demonstration of lifting 40 pounds with ease, but with a considerably shorter torque arm, requiring much less RPM of the inertia disc. The good thing about low RPM is that air resistance is much less consequential compared to a high RPM disc.

The difficulty is in constructing such a mechanism. I do not see it going around in a wheel; I see the weights being lifted vertically in a corkscrew fashion. The challenge comes from being able to lift and rotate at the same time, and the complexity of the mechanism required to accomplish forced precession in an upward spiral. A simple screw could be a possibility, but it introduces a lot of friction and a rather slow vertical movement.

I have also considered the thickness or rather narrowness of his first wheel. If he used only, lets say, 90 or 180 degrees of the precession and not the full 360 degrees, then it is somewhat more plausible.

I will show my real builds if I happen to find something special!

Hi Daniel

"The children play on the columns with heavy spinning tops."
That isn't any translation I remember. There has always been argument about this passage though.

I have heard "precession" a number of times over the years, but never considered it as a potential answer, mainly due to the power generated by Besslers wheels and how much power is actually available in precession. But, if you are directed to an area of study that leads to something usable, even if it is a relatively weak force, that would still be an serious accomplishment.

Good luck.

Thank you, Tarsier!

The translation is ChatGPT's translation of the original German text. I simply prompted ChatGPT to translate the 18th-century German text.

The power of Bessler's wheels is indeed quite perplexing. However, the first prototype barely rotated, but he then succeeded in perfecting his mechanism, which consequently increased the power of the wheel.

I do not claim that this is the answer. However, there is, to my discernment, some evidence that he used precession as a motive force. My intent is therefore to experiment with different arrangements of spinning tops with low RPM to see if there is something to be gained here.

/Daniel

[Daniel.R]

More from AP (p.293)

All these quotes in this post are from JC's original translation:

"I'd be lucky, actually, if it did run that long, for with you near it,
even though it be the truest of all possible machines, there's
always the danger that a surreptitious shove would knock it out of
balance and bring it grinding to a halt."

So, enough of a shove would knock the machine out of balance... How can we interpret this? Would it become out of balance in its mounting, or is the internal mechanism a sensitive, balanced symphony of weights?

From AP (p. 307)

"A useful artefact both on land and sea"

Bessler talks about his perpetuum mobile being useful at sea. This again raises the question of the balance of the mechanism and whether the use of mere pendulums or other free linear movements (remember how he said that his perpetual structures retained the power of free movement, AP, 291) could work in rough seas. If a shove could grind it to a halt, how could it work at sea?

AP (p. 307)

"It took a tremendous amount of calculation before I was able to devise this machine! It took a great deal of time before it was all properly figured out!"

This, to me, indicates that he didn't find a mere mechanical solution of levers, pulleys, or other linear mechanical devices. The motion he discovered seems, according to these lines, to be quite complex and difficult to tame. These words, together with the fact that it took him six months to build one machine, suggest that the system was indeed quite complex and required fine-tuning.

I am aware of Karl saying, after seeing the internal structure, that the mechanism was simple and wondered why no one had thought of it before. Could someone guide me to the text where Karl said that?
I can only find Bessler stating that the principle is simple but well hidden. The above quote from Bessler seems however to indicate that he had a hard time incorporating that simple principle into a working wheel.

Now, from DT (p.203)

"For instance, those of the radiant heavenly bodies, which proclaim Your honour. And of those wonderful motive forces which demonstrate your ceaseless, ever-present power."

Is Bessler talking here about the ceaseless, ever-present power of moving heavenly bodies? If so, that perspective differs from our modern view of how and why the heavenly bodies move about. Bessler seems to suggest that there is a motive force hidden in the heavenly bodies themselves. However, according to modern science, the planets move only because of gravity and residual inertia.

If, however, Bessler found a way to power his wheel with the help of precession/rotating bodies, our understanding of the solar system and the movements of the planets might need an important update. In his riddle in AP, he says that Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter are ready to join in any battle. Perhaps the battle is a load applied to his wheel, and the rotating bodies, due to free rotation and the apparently reactionless effect of the precessing units, are able to withstand and supply power even under load.

I apologize if these writings of Bessler have already been discussed in this forum. However, repetition might not be a bad thing considering the cryptic clues Bessler left us.

/Daniel

[SHADOW]

Bonjour Daniel,
La friction dans le système vis écrous n'est plus un problème il faut y mettre des billes ou des galets.
J'ai ce projet depuis plus d'un an mais je ne vois pas le moyen de le réaliser ( Budget limité).
Les leviers tournent et descendent toujours ( c'est la théorie).

Hi Daniel,
The friction in the system screw nuts is no longer a problem it is necessary to put balls or rollers.
I have had this project for more than a year but I do not see the way to achieve it ( Limited budget).
The levers always turn and go down ( this is the theory).

[Daniel.R]

I recorded a short video that demonstrates the low rpm needed for a 2.25kg disc to exercise precession.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5bB4QaF-iw

It fascinates me how a heavy weight at such low RPM can exhibit this phenomenon.

/Daniel