Besslers prime mover and its enabler.

[Roxaway59]

Hi Fletcher the way you describe the thought experiment if you move your arm faster the bolt will swing more.

I actually tried putting this idea on a wheel and to a certain degree it works. If the rpm is fast you can get it to the point where the weight stands on end.

Graham

[Roxaway59]

Hi Shadow, I am glad that you are experimenting with these ideas.

There are times when the solution seems tantalizingly close and if the solution really is simple then we are never too far away from it.

Graham

[Fletcher]

Hi Fletcher the way you describe the thought experiment if you move your arm faster the bolt will swing more.

I actually tried putting this idea on a wheel and to a certain degree it works. If the rpm is fast you can get it to the point where the weight stands on end.

Graham

Yowza Graham .. in a previous life you must have been a pitcher for the NY Yankees, to get it to stand upright lol ..

2 cents on the thought experiment .. we see the hanging ( pivoted ) bolt ( aka lever-weight = lw ) immediately gain in GPE ( its Center of Mass ( CoM ) is lifted ) - the "lift" does not use "Simple Machine" technology i.e. passive/conservative leverage, Law of Levers, techniques ( Mechanical Advantage ) to achieve the gain in PE - it just takes a semi-aggressive horizontal push followed by a pull force, which is a different beast from MA - the act of horizontally accelerating and then decelerating the lw, because of its inherent inertia, causes its CoM to raise up and trail behind our hand when under acceleration phase - in the deceleration phase it falls back down and then swings upwards again to the same height gain as previous ( lets say 30 degrees from vertical as we are not major league pitchers ), and leading our hand ( and pulling it ) this time ..

Now I digress for a moment with our thought experiment .. some electric cars are very good at recovering energy under braking - ask Mr Musk - you plant boot and it accelerates and drains some of the battery energy - you stand on the brake ( or when running down hill etc ) and the motor becomes a generator recovering energy and charging the battery reserves i.e. almost a zero sum energy game in our imaginary world ..

Now let's, with the power of imagination, extrapolate further on the aforementioned thought experiment such that the lw pivot ( previously held by your two fingers with a light grip ) is now a one-way bearing, allowing the lw to "swing" in one direction only - also, instead of having a single horizontal hand travel/track we mount a series of identical, evenly spaced, hanging one-way lws at a common radius inside a wheel forming an interior circle - if we push the wheel CW sharply some of the one-way lws will swing and gain PE and others will not be able to - when we pull/brake the wheel some of the one-way lws will swing upwards and others will not be able to etc, because of the one-way bearings ..

Possible result - we potentially have simple one-way lws with a lifted and shifted CoM giving a biased offset system COM and positive gravity torque ..

hmmm .. we'd need an energy efficient method to pump and dump the wheel RPM to get the reset of the one-way lws as the wheel rotated ..

Thought experimenting on .. I wonder is there is anything in the Toy's Page that might suggest or be symbolic of any of this ? Curiously, and maybe coincidentally, item E ( the vertical SB ) - it lifts a weight upwards gaining GPE - by applying two opposing horizontal forces to the lower handles to get a vertical lift - and the afterthought hand drawn in spinning top - tops are given rotational velocity and they stand themselves up - just maybe we could get a wheel to continue spinning with the COM not lifted but shifted and maintained sideways ..

And dang it .. if items A & B don't look a little like one-way lws that could form a circle if joined up end to end - and the B pivots alternate, go figure .. hmm ..

Thoughts for today ..

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

[SHADOW]

Bonjour Fletcher,
Question: ai je bien lu quelque part que Bessler avait découvert le principe suite à une erreur de sa part ou est ce une interprétation d'une tierce personne? ou pire encore une vue de mon esprit!

Hi Fletcher,
Question: did I read somewhere that Bessler discovered the principle following an error on his part or is this an interpretation of a third person? or worse still a view of my mind!

[Sam Peppiatt]

SHADOW!
Sounds good to me. I think it was about ten years of errors-----------------Sam

[Fletcher]

Hi Fletcher,
Question: did I read somewhere that Bessler discovered the principle following an error on his part or is this an interpretation of a third person? or worse still a view of my mind!

Hi Shadow .. good question - here's what he had to say about the process of discovering the new principle, and developing it into a runner .. I include the full chapter for context ..

.. ( inside brackets, underlining etc mine ) ..

From John Collins AP pgs 298/299

XXII. Since I had realised that organ-craft would be of use to me in the quest for my Mobile, I set to work with a will. I made many calculations and constructed many models ( he says he made over 100 models/experiments ). Parts from all over the area were collected for making machines. When all the parts were ready, I would fit them together with painstaking care, and when things had reached the point where the wheel should have revolved freely...well, if it refused to do so you can imagine how frustrated and angry I became! I would complain to no-one, but would take solace in thinking about other matters.

But no true revolution manifested itself, whatever I did! What's more, funds were getting low, because all the bits and pieces cost no small sum! And my poor young assistant - he stood there glumly, scratching his head after labouring so long in vain. I too beavered away endlessly, and night and day my head was filled with conjectures. I relished no food; the project was making my head spin. But I always came back again and undertook new experiments. I was "perpetually" devising new ideas in secret, and these I would boldly incorporate into yet another new wheel.

This one just had to work.....How nicely it stayed put! How much I regretted the time and, especially, the money I'd put into it all! It would have been difficult, in the face of all this, for anyone to pluck up the courage to make new efforts. The net result of it all was sure to be the same as last time. But I doubt if anyone, in any country, has ever had the patience and diligence I showed in my obsessive fancy. While other people were being carefree, I'd be tearing my heart out. I'd discover something wonderful, on which I'd staked everything, only to be heard loudly lamenting, a few days later, at the thought that the years of work had been fruitlessly expended.

I'd be overcome by great sorrow, would go to my bedroom full of anguish and weep bitterly, till finally God took pity on me, showed me his love, and blessed with good fortune my ensuing labours. I had a rare dream, which gave me strength, happiness, air and space. For weeks I forgot the outside world and concentrated on my innermost self. Soon I was free of cares and greatly comforted by a new enlightenment.

God had sent Joy after sorrow. After barrenness, the finest silk was being spun. For I put together the very first device which could [ spontaneously - the word 'spontaneously' is not in the original language ] revolve a little.

I saw that I had finally made the right choice, and why the earlier ones had been wrong. My heart leapt for joy at the sight of this genuine Mobile.

IMO rather than some lucky happenstance error I believe he had a major change of direction - i.e. he entirely overhauled his thoughts and the old thinking was completely replaced with the new, from that moment on - the penny well and truly dropped and he suddenly knew why all ( his and everyone else's ) previous mechanical arrangements had been WRONG ( the wrong mechanical approach based on MA lifting into position principles ), and why they could not give continuous reset and maintain a torque biased rotation .. imo ..

[SHADOW]

Merci Sam et Fletcher pour les précisions, je me sens un peu moins fou!
Est-on sur qu'il n'y avait pas de ressort? car la roue à secteurs me fait penser à un barillet que trois poids sur cliquets remonteraient en permanence.

Thanks Sam and Fletcher for the clarification, I feel a little less crazy!
Are we sure there was no spring? because the sector wheel makes me think of a barrel that three weights on ratchets would rise permanently.

[Roxaway59]

Fletcher I agree with you that there has to be something or combination of things that we are missing. I believe that these combination of things are simple but when put together and used in the right way something wonderful happens.

Just simply trying to lever something in the way we usually think of is not enough.

I don’t know how many times I have tried simple approaches like that but its definitely very numerous.

Spoiler alert. Bessler did exactly the same thing.

I think I said this before but it kind of reminds me of the monkey trying to get nuts out of the bottle. His hand will go in the bottle but once he grabs hold of the nuts he cant take his hand out but you try telling him that.

There is something very tantalizing about these tried and trusted approaches and for a long time now I think from a psychological point of view I know what it is. They all very nearly work.

So we desperately hang on to them trying what seems like different ideas when in actual fact they are the same flawed ideas packaged up differently.

Yes I think Bessler simply woke up one morning and just realised that he had to let all of the old ideas go and started doing things differently and it was then that he had his breakthrough.

I’m not saying that we should forget all about levers or anything we couldn’t get away from them if we wanted to. What we do have to do though is start using other techniques and combination of techniques to operate them.

For the time being I don’t think it matters if a lot of these new or hardly explored ideas are flawed ideas because lets face it most of them are.

What matters is that we take a new approach to trying to find the exit out of the maize we are in.

Just to get the ball rolling I’m going to put an idea together today and present a picture of it and I will probably do it using Algodoo. It may take me a while to do it.

Graham

[Sam Peppiatt]

Fletcher, Graham,
Inventing is mostly hard work, a lot of hard work, with little flashes of logic. Edison claimed 1% inspiration. You might argue with the percentage, but the idea that the ten years of trial and error had nothing to do with his success, seams unrealistic to me.

SHADOW; springs, a good question. I do not know--------------Sam

[Roxaway59]

I agree with you Sam.

What Bessler did was a marriage between inspiration and gut wrenching work that most of us will never do.

The only reason that we may stumble on what he did is because we know he did it and he left breadcrumbs for us to follow.

One requirement that we cannot do without is perseverance because we definitely cannot do it without that.

Graham

[Roxaway59]

By the way I meant maze of course. I hate making mistakes but I suppose its all part of life.

Graham

[Sam Peppiatt]

What I was trying to say is; it was the very long period of learning, that gave him the in site on what to do. Rather than any great stroke of inspiration but, then what do I know. The more I learn about it, the less I know-----------Sam

ETA I didn't notice.

[Roxaway59]

I think Bessler was a very unique person with a personality that enabled him to be the one to do this.

We do have the ability on this forum to do it on our own but we are far more likely to do it working as a collective.

Bessler did work with other people too.

Graham

[Roxaway59]

Here is a picture of the idea.

The two mechanisms turn at different speeds and the yellow weights move in and out depending on the mechanisms RPM altering the orange weights position as they move.

The one on the right is turning faster than the one on the left moving the orange weight further out on the wheel.

The gearing is organised so that as one mechanism gets faster as it moves around the wheel the other is getting slower.

In this way energy is conserved.

Graham

[Roxaway59]

Notice that on each mechanism the weights form a triangle.

Graham