Besslers prime mover and its enabler.

[Daniel.R]

Thanks, Fletcher and jb! That's exactly the one.

What does he actually mean by this: "And when a pound drops a quarter, it flies four pounds four quarters high"?
Is this the same as lifting 4 kg, 4 meters high with the energy from 1 kg falling 1 meter?
That implies an overunity of 1500%! Such a mechanism with that much energy gain must be impossible. If it did exist, I think we would be able to observe it in nature.
Nature is beyond clever, and her mechanical solutions and designs are everywhere to be found.

We often look to make a wheel with a tiny bit of induced overbalance so it will revolve. Even 5-10% overunity might be enough for a runner if the mechanism has low friction. But 1500%?!

So many inventors have tried their hand at this, yet no one has discovered 1500% overunity, simple but well-hidden lifting technique. No one has even discovered 1 % overunity. I have a hard time wrapping my head around that.

Either way, he must have found a way to move weights around in his wheel in a counterbalanced manner, with weights working in pairs, switching between being placed at the axle and at a larger radius (as the man said himself). The overbalance torque would then power this moving of perfectly counterbalanced weights. It essentially becomes a battle between gravity-induced torque from leverage versus inertial and frictional resistances. Gravity will win that fight.

Or... he actually found a bizarre way to lift weights with an efficiency never seen before or after his invention. Or is the above method the one that leads to weights being lifted higher than their starting position? like a self-inducing oscillation... Either way, I find it to be a very weird and bizarre statement from Bessler.

/Daniel

[Sam Peppiatt]

A good way,(that no one likes), is with Ring & Rollers but, keep looking; maybe you can find a preferred way-------------------Sam

[Roxaway59]

Hi Tarsier79, really when I am talking about switching I'm not getting fixated on one thing.

The thing is its obvious that Besslers wheel abruptly changed state. The knocking sound itself is a sign of that and for now I think its good just to concentrate on all the ways that a mechanism can do that and make a difference to the balancing of the wheel.

Graham

[Roxaway59]

He will be called a great artist,
Who can throw a heavy thing up easily,
And when a pound drops a quarter,
It flies four pounds four quarters high. x
He who can speculate this out,
Will soon perpetuate the course;
But he who does not yet know this,
All diligence is in vain;

I'm probably going to regret this because I usually dodge these kind of remarks but I'm not on this occasion.

Lets take it literally and he really did do this. You can indeed do what he is saying but the only logical way that it can be done is if the pound weight possessed energy.

So on his wheel he would first have given the pound weight energy before it could get the job done.

Graham

[Kattla]

"And when a pound drops a quarter, it flies four pounds four quarters high"?

Use a reverse double pulley system. Reversed, as in you pull the pulleys apart instead
of pulling the rope to pull them together.

This comes at the cost of needing at least 4 times the force. However, one can add counterweights to help balance out those "4 times" the force.
The weights you are lifting will also go up 4 times faster then you pull, so they will "fly" as B. said.

If it's any useful to do it this way, i do not know , since it is probaly not self repeating.
But it is a way to solve his puzzle. Not necessarely his wheel though , but hmm, he wasn't speaking about his wheel in this riddle i think.

[Roxaway59]

Further speculation.

Lets say that Besslers mechanism (special principal) was a way of 4 pounds giving its energy to 1 pound and vice versa. In effect wouldn't that be the work around for the law of the levers?

Because instead of weight the levering weight would possess energy and all the wheel cares about is weight.

Graham

[Sam Peppiatt]

Kattla, others,
I think he was talking about the wheel, 1/4 being 1/4 turn of the wheel. Like so: If the rollers weighed 8 lbs. each, (16 lbs. for two); they would apply a small down ward force, say 4 lbs.,(when they are vertical), for @90 degrees / 1/4. This small force would be enough to roll the much greater16 pounds of the horizontal rollers, far enough to one side, to cause it to turn one complete revolution, or 4 quarters. Would this happen in actual practice, I'm not so sure but, that seams to be what he is claiming, FWEIW---------------------Sam

ETA It was John Collins that figured out what the quarters meant.

[Fletcher]

... What does he actually mean by this: "And when a pound drops a quarter, it flies four pounds four quarters high"?

Is this the same as lifting 4 kg, 4 meters high with the energy from 1 kg falling 1 meter?

That implies an overunity of 1500%! Such a mechanism with that much energy gain must be impossible.

If it did exist, I think we would be able to observe it in nature. Should be there somewhere ..

...

We often look to make a wheel with a tiny bit of induced overbalance so it will revolve. Even 5-10% overunity might be enough for a runner if the mechanism has low friction. But 1500%?!

So many inventors have tried their hand at this, yet no one has discovered 1500% overunity, simple but well-hidden lifting technique. No one has even discovered 1 % overunity. I have a hard time wrapping my head around that.

... weights working in pairs, switching between being placed at the axle and at a larger radius (as the man said himself).

Or... he actually found a bizarre way to lift weights with an efficiency never seen before or after his invention. Or is the above method the one that leads to weights being lifted higher than their starting position? like a self-inducing oscillation...

Either way, I find it to be a very weird and bizarre statement from Bessler.

Hey Daniel .. for decades members here have pondered the meaning of this passage in AP - is it literal, or figurative, or a metaphor etc ? - my friend Tinhead ( Rainer - native German by birth - no longer active ) originally pointed out that no units are given - a quarter and four quarters, no units ! - could be anything including divisions of a wheel etc -- without units we have no firm ground to stand on ..

The next thing to consider is the greater context - this passage occurs in AP which B. wrote as a type of Rhyming Prose ( Poetry ) - this means that it is unlikely to be literal because word count, rhythm and cadence were important for the rhyme to sound natural and "enjoyable" - this also limited his choice of words to use to get some sort of sentence rhyming and "flow" going on, so his choice of words may not always be descriptively accurate, and perhaps more indicative for expediency .. I think of it more like a word-salad to convey a general impression than to be taken literally meaning ..

So for me it boils down to what is the main message of the passage - while, as you do, reflecting on the fact that no one has ever got 1 % OU, let alone 5 % or 10 % or 1,500 % ..

What for me is obvious is that he made an overbalanced wheel that was self-moving and had sustainable replenishing torque - but once again did the weights ( which were the PM itself ) literally "swap places" or is that just a liberal generalization - because he also says a wheel is half full and half empty, just as it should be etc etc .. so imo given the positive things he says about many MT's including the likes of MT's 44 and 48 ( not your traditional overbalanced format ) then on balance of probabilities it seems more likely that he had one type of weight shifting arrangement, with a discounted cost prime mover structure to do the "cheap" lifting of weights into position to continue the overbalance - and this one simple primordial setup could then be bolted onto any other MT and together they would perform the 'dance of the runner' - in that the MT wheel of choice would act as a bad flywheel and mainly a passenger only ( technically not necessary ) ..

.. There is imo a telling passage in B's. DT that also mentions pounds .. n.b. DT was not written in rhyme and is more a chronicle account .. it is the DT section which is a Rebuttal to Wagner's published Critiques .. Wagner's critique section is headed "Mechanical Tools" - B. replies with the heading "Mechanical Implements" in his formal rebuttal .. i.e. tools or implements, sufficient for the job ..

From John Collins AP translated by Mike Senior ..

(mine .. AP XXI Bessler’s chapter heading Mechanical “Implements” / Wagner’s chapter heading Mechanical “Tools” )

Even Wagner, wherever he is now, will have heard that one pound can cause the raising of more than one pound. mine .. Low key, factual statement, with no embellishment/hyperbole - more for less is possible ..

He writes that, to date, no one has ever found a mechanical arrangement sufficient for the task.

He’s right ! So am I, and does anyone see why ?

What if I were to teach the proper method of mechanical application? Then people would say: “Now I understand !”

– AP pg 331

And perhaps you can see how I/we might arrive at a 'discounted cost of lifting theory' to reconcile B's. ( insightful & inciteful at the same time ) words to Wagner aka. a tool or implement is required, but not a tool or implement ( i.e. application ) previously used to lift weights internally into a favourable torque position ( recover GPE ) ! .. B., imo, found his mechanically unique discounted prime mover principle/technique/application, and in conjunction/feedback/frequency with his one-off overbalancing weights, was able to constantly reset both of them in a continuing dance of overbalance, imo !

ETA .. IMO .. he found a 'proprietary mechanical method' ( for less energy cost than MA / Law of Levers ) to lift internal weights into position restoring GPE, and facilitate a repeating wheel overbalance and rotation, resulting in an acceleration and sustainable gain of wheel Momentum and Rotational Kinetic Energy available to do external Work ..

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

[Fletcher]

My apologies - the Bessler formal Rebuttal to Wagner's Critiques was the second part of AP, and not DT as I had said above ..

[johannesbender]

A key aspect is that he used the words to indicate drop and lift and mass , not rotate or side wards etc . (if the translation is correct)

Of course if you could do it up and down (greater output than input) then you could argue doing it side wards (greater output than input) too , but he seems to be talking about height and mass specifically , like we talk about gpe today .

But this is frequently interpreted differently.

Like Fletcher wrote , how do we even know he means it literal , just because its not a proverb does not mean its literal nor does it mean its not , "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink" you could argue that this proverb is literal or extract multiple meanings from it , you could argue that he means lifting and dropping and gpe but also argue he just means more for less or small actions and large results etc.

However like Fletcher mentions , he had a wheel that rotated and claimed he finally learned why the previous failed ...

[Sam Peppiatt]

The quarters / motion, meant rotation of the wheel.. If the rollers weigh 16 lbs., they raise and lower, lift and drop 16 pounds twice per revolution of the wheel and normally would be perfectly balanced. But, the weights for the wheel to turn, have to shift out on the down side and in on the up side. To do that they have to move side ways--Sam

[Roxaway59]

Going back once again to Besslers first wheels.

What we know must be the case is that the wheels internal form always kept itself in a very overbalanced state. This was not just a little overbalanced.

What must also be the case is that the potential energy of that overbalanced state was enough to dynamically keep moving the internal structure into that permanent overbalanced state or as we often say reset itself. It did this so easily that it had ample energy to spare.

People very often talk about things of this nature and say this is equivalent to a person trying to lift themselves up by their own bootlaces.

Lets say that besslers wheel was made from modern light weight materials and only the parts that really needed to have weight had it.

We then make it so the wheel is on a light weight platform and we attach a rope to the platform and up and over a pulley attached to a beam high above the wheel and then to the wheels axle.

Presumably the wheel would be able to lift itself up especially if the gearing was correct. So what does that mean?

It would mean that we had a device that could harness the force of gravity and redirect that force so it could lift itself up off the floor against the force of gravity.

Not quite the same as a person lifting themselves up by their own bootlaces but pretty neat all the same.

Graham

[Fletcher]

Going back once again to Besslers first wheels. i.e. the one-way wheels ..

What we know must be the case is that the wheels internal form always kept itself in a very overbalanced state. This was not just a little overbalanced.

Yes, the magic 'instantly teleporting mass upwards sims' show just how VERY overbalanced, and torque producing, they were - these sims "lifted" internal weights a prescribed set height, so that they rotated with the wheel and came back up to their original starting height ( no higher ) i.e. a circulation pattern was established ..

What must also be the case is that the potential energy of that overbalanced state was enough to dynamically keep moving the internal structure into that permanent overbalanced state or as we often say reset itself. It did this so easily that it had ample energy to spare.

Yes, it could accelerate quickly up to RPM in only a few turns, and then maintain that steady RPM indefinitely - it could also overcome not only internal energy losses to frictions etc common to all machinery in motion, but also had enough surplus overbalance torque ( Kinetic Energy / Capacity to do Work ) available to also do external Work tasks assigned to it for an indefinite period ..

People very often talk about things of this nature and say this is equivalent to a person trying to lift themselves up by their own bootlaces.

Lets say that Besslers wheel was made from modern light weight materials and only the parts that really needed to have weight had it.

We then make it so the wheel is on a light weight platform and we attach a rope to the platform and up and over a pulley attached to a beam high above the wheel and then to the wheels axle.

Presumably the wheel would be able to lift itself up, especially if the gearing was correct. So what does that mean?


It would mean that we had a device that could harness the force of gravity and redirect that force so it could lift itself up off the floor against the force of gravity.

Not quite the same as a person lifting themselves up by their own bootlaces but pretty neat all the same.

Graham

When some people talk about PM and "bootstrapping" in the same breath I often think they have a wrong mental picture for the reasons you give Graham - they show a bloke sweating buckets bending over like a half opened pocket knife and pulling upwards on his boot laces with a crazed look in his bulging eyes - with a thought bubble, why can't I lift myself off the ground and fly around, lol ..

Nothing can move, right ? - his boots are on the ground and there is no means to leverage himself upwards - simple mechanics ..

Your thought experiment is much more interesting .. an aside .. we know that the M. wheel ( OK, not a one-directional ) was seen to expand and close a horizontal crack in one support post anchored floor to ceiling - ergo there was a temporary upwards force present ..

Back to your reasoning - if the one-way were on a square frame with a jacking method ( e.g. vertical linear ratcheting jack ) at each corner, could it jack itself upwards by running a rope around the axle and over a ceiling pulley back down to the wheel frame ?

Theoretically yes, no problem at all - it could jack/lift itself upwards and continue at the same RPM, if we have all the information ..

Food for thought - according to Newtonian Physics and Classical Mechanics ( and the Laws of Thermodynamics ) we can't create energy out of nothing - we can only transform it from one form to another - therefore the energy ( capacity to do Work ) must be continually entering the rotating wheel system and is being transformed into Work Output - in this case maintaining the wheel RPM whilst also jacking itself up from the ground until it can rise no further .. looking thru that particular lens it also seems possible, providing we have an unlimited availability of external energy ( or equivalent ) constantly flowing into the rotating wheel system to output as Work, whether external or lifting the same wheel upwards .. one point of difference to bootstrapping that we actually have a way to leverage ourselves upwards, while it did not ..

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

Visitor .. more to consider coming to you soon ..

[Fletcher]

The Other Astounding Fact About The Wheels to ponder and consider .. for both one-ways and two-ways ..

We know, whether one-ways or two-ways, that each type could accelerate very quickly to operating RPM in only a few turns .. the "teleporting" sims show us that the overbalance torque must have been prodigious to rapidly accelerate to RPM that quickly ..

The other thing noted by the witnesses was that each wheel had an ideal operating RPM ( harmonic frequency ?! ) - they quickly accelerated to that RPM ( with force ) and then immediately settled into that RPM - i.e. upon reaching that RPM, even more quickly, the acceleration washed-off to zero, meaning there was no more practical torque to continue acceleration ! - it also took a lot of force to stop them ..

So for me there are 2 potential scenario's coming to mind in explanation of this Topped-Out RPM ..

1. .. a moment before that particular RPM was reached there was no more overbalance torque produced or to be seen i.e. the overbalancing weight system was maxed-out - the system COM was as far right as it could circulate - it could not shift any further right, hence it ran out of additional torque to cause further acceleration and RPM increase .. "the runs out of puff theory" ..

2. .. the overbalancing torque from weights displacement wasn't the top-end RPM limiter - perhaps the acceleration was manually restricted by the wheels competing internal mechanics physically choking or governing the maximum RPM it could achieve ..

i.e. say we have 2 competing mechanical systems to a runner - say mass in rotational motion, and mass in reciprocating movement - they interact in a designed feedback loop producing a natural harmonic ( frequency ) - that is the operating RPM reached .. let's say for arguments sake that the reciprocating movement is a pendulum-like movement of near-continuous falling and rising as it swings back and forth - at the end of each rise it must physically be brought to a complete halt and its direction almost instantly reversed ..

Q. .. would the aggressive braking to a complete stop at Top-Of-Climb ( TOC ) be a limiting/constraining factor to top-end RPM achievable ? - or could a wheel just get faster and faster even tho there are 2 forced direction reversals as the pendulum swings back and forth etc ? - when would the direction reversals "physicality" become a seriously RPM limiting factor from a practical mechanical application standpoint ? .. this is "the wheel RPM was choked theory" ..

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

[thx4]

https://youtu.be/aIZYi1uFrtg?si=TVlHsAS1FPINKPyU

Au-delà d'une certaine vitesse en supposant que les poids qui tombent accélèrent la roue, la vitesse maximum tourne autour de 60 RPM, plus vite c'est la cinétique qui est en jeu, donc on va ralentir si les poids ne tombent plus....
B a peut-être utilisé un disque d'inertie (la roue) pour lisser les mouvements interne, et pour aller plus vite.
Des poids tombent sans aucun doute, mais pour avoir une accélération telle que décrite, il y a forcement (lol) un engrenage différentiel.
Les poids tombent à une certaine vitesse (très lent) et la roue tourne beaucoup plus vite,50 RPM.
Moralité, "faites tomber des poids" 🙂

Beyond a certain speed, assuming that the falling weights accelerate the wheel, the maximum speed is around 60 RPM, the faster the kinetics, the slower we'll go if the weights stop falling....
B may have used an inertia disk (the wheel) to smooth out internal movements, and to go faster.
Weights undoubtedly fall, but to have an acceleration as described, there must be (lol) a differential gear.
The weights fall at a certain speed (very slowly) and the wheel turns much faster, 50 RPM
Moral, "drop some weights" 🙂