Was Johann Bessler a fraudster?

[Roxaway59]

Hi John, the only thing I can suggest if you feel that you have finally found the answer is to do what I would do under those circumstances.

When I first came on the forum I really did not know if I had done the right thing and I felt skeptical of some of the forum members. Now I know with absolute certainty that I did the right thing and had I not done it I would be a lot worse off.

To be blunt, together we are stronger and the answers are becoming clearer.

If I thought I had the answer I would not hesitate to post it so that people could experiment with it.

Graham
Playing devils advocate.

[Roxaway59]

Tarsier79 wrote-

Good luck...

IMO, we have looked at the power requirements for fraud, and this cannot be done with a spring or weight preload. There is not physically enough space inside to house enough weight let alone the distance it is required to drop to achieve the runtime. Even building a wheel that could run for one day would be a problem.

What has been suggested, is two modes of operation. Again, this is highly improbable, as it would need to accelerate the 12 foot wheel quickly, requiring a large energy input, then switch to a lower energy running mode. This would require a very complex and IMO brilliant mechanism, like an extremely efficient automatic gearbox coupled with a secondary flywheel. Again, the energy density within the wheel is not likely to be enough given the power requirements to just keep a 12 foot cloth covered wheel running just to overcome wind resistance for the time required.

The run test was done with a sealed room with guards posted, so even if there was a secret passage into the room, the guards would have to be paid off so they ignored the sounds stopping every night while the springs/weights were wound up/reset.

IMO Fraud this elaborate, requiring this level of brilliant engineering and manpower is an unlikely scenario.

The good thing about doing this Tarsier is that either way it cant fail to give answers.
Just as with science its a bad idea to make assumptions about this story and if we stick to the known facts there may be plausible explanations as to how fraud was committed.

I will be attempting to find these explanations.
If nothing that I reason stands up to scrutiny then that points to fraud not being committed.

Graham
Playing devils advocate.

[Roxaway59]

thx4 wrote -

As soon as you ask yourself this question, you already have the answer. It doesn't matter whether B is a fraud or not. From the moment you take your ticket to explore this adventure, even though you know that physics teaches you that it's impossible, “move on without question or get off at the next...” Don't worry, you'll be back with new ideas before you know it.

I haven't given up looking for the answer to Besslers secret thx4 so I will still be coming up with simulations as usual.

When you say it doesn't matter whether B is a fraud or not I disagree. In my younger days I did it for my own reasons but now I continue to do it because no one has proved Bessler to be a fraud.

I would say that if Bessler was proved to be a fraud its extremely unlikely that anyone would make a working gravity wheel but who knows, strange things happen.

Graham
Playing devils advocate.

[John Collins]

Thank you for your sound advice Graham. I intend to do so, but I must try to finish this PoP wheel first if I can. The mechanisms are under construction and for the first time in my life I feel confident of success. A working model would be so much more convincing.

JC

[Roxaway59]

John I will keep my fingers crossed that you are right and I don't drink very often but if you manage to do it I will be celebrating for sure. Good luck.

Graham

[Tarsier79]

When Bessler demonstrated the lifting of weights from out of a window it is possible that a lot of the energy used was conserved.

How? It wasn't a Tesla with regenerative braking. While it is relatively easy for us to do today with modern technology, Im not sure even a similar concept existed in the 1700s. How would the energy even be stored when the weight tried to over-run the wheel during its drop?

ADD, would it be worth the space for the mechanism to store energy for a couple of drops? The wheel also had stampers and a waterwheel. Its main function was to run unloaded for 2-3 months.

[Roxaway59]

Well Tarsier I was going to bring in the theory of the time traveling Tesla using its battery to power the wheel later but you've ruined that now.

I might as well theories about how the wheel ran for weeks during that last test because I know you want me to.

I don't think it did if everything was fraudulent.

There are a number of scenarios I can think of to explain how it was hoaxed but non involve the wheel running for weeks.

In fact I would say that if anyone here can prove that the wheel ran for weeks continuously completely self contained then I might as well wrap up this topic right now and be done with it.

That's because only the most stupid of our scientists would believe that Bessler was a fraud after that.

The main problem with that last test unfortunately is that the room was sealed so no one ever knew if the wheel was still running.

This fact, that was suppose to support the notion that Besslers wheel was the real thing is actually a bit problematic because a trickster could take advantage of it.

Graham
Playing devils advocate.

[Roxaway59]

I was going to deal with the main points of Besslers story in some kind of sequence but that seems to have gone out of the window so I will deal with things in no particular order.

Karl was the only other person to see the inside of Besslers wheel so this is very often used to back up the notion that it was a real over unity device.

I want to question this and see if the whole thing can be looked at in a different light.

This is from memory so if I get things wrong please correct me.

As far as I am aware there are a lot of things we don’t actually know about this viewing by Karl.

We don’t know -
If the wheel was run for Karl with the covers off or if it was still.
How detailed the scrutiny by Karl was.
Anything about the conversation that must of taken place between them.

All we know is that he saw the inside of the wheel, felt it was genuine and later made one simple comment on how simple it was. That’s all we know.

It is very often said that Karl was no fool but the problem with this is that I personally know lots of people that I would not regard as being foolish who have believed scams and still believe them to this day.

Generally speaking the masses have had the wool pulled over their eyes on many occasions and just so I don’t have to argue with anyone about more recent ones I would ask people to consider the now familiar examples of false flag events that have occurred throughout history.

It doesn’t really matter how clever you are because under the right conditions anyone can be fooled.

One of the main reasons that I think its possible that Karl was fooled is from my own experience with simulations. Some simulations have the look of something that might work.

This is especially true for something that visually oscillates because oscillators are a pain to work out visually anyway.

Its also true of the many designs that look over balanced.

The only reason a lot of us are not taken in is because we have spent years staring at these things but despite that it can still be tricky sometimes.

To the best of my knowledge Karl was not someone who was actively building gravity wheel ideas so if the likes of Bessler wanted to pull the wool over his eyes he could have done so.

All things considered it is not really possible to know if Karl knew what he was looking at and understood for definite why it should work.

Graham
Playing devils advocate.

[Fletcher]

There is an extra dimension to Karl and his viewing of a runner that I consider also to be relevant to my ultimate confidence in him ..

Not only was he a well educated man, who wanted to industrialize his country etc - he paid very real money ( 4,000 thalers ) for a private viewing to see how it worked before he paid across any money - he paid in full some time after the viewing having been satisfied it was genuine - and on top of that he gave B. a paid job as his court councilor, and gave him housing - and helped B. market and broker his wheels - he also provided a place to hold the " scientific tests " - first the Merseburg work and translocation tests ( official documents signed by invited witnesses, and by Karl himself ) - then again with the long duration test at Kassel ( another certificate on record ) - he signed a decree for everyone to stop libeling B. ..

But this is for me beyond reproach .. Oystein did a lot of background work many years ago - the Rosicrucian order ( Freemasons ) were based in Kassel at the time - and there is little doubt that Karl was high up the food chain in that order - it is also highly likely that B. was also a paid up member, because he sent annual birthday cards to Karl with number ciphers familiar to the elite and educated, and of course his use of sacred geometry that Oystein identified .. for me it is inconceivable that B. would defraud Karl, or that B. and Karl would defraud the rest of the Rosicrucian order, or eminent scientists, or politicians or educated dignitaries etc .. that would have been political suicide and career ending embarrassment when found out after a sale - of course we all know of the Freemason iconolgy of the square and compass etc ..

[thx4]

“Believe it or know it”, I know that B has realized several wheels, that is without question!!!!
Now comes the hard part: understanding how. Physics is unforgiving, it takes energy to maintain motion. So, how the hell did B do it?
For now, it's intuitive, but as the years go by, the analysis gets tighter. I'm more and more convinced that it's possible to find a solution.
B was a watchmaker, among other things. Many possibilities are possible from there. As soon as watchmaking moved from weights to springs, the chance of stumbling across B's idea narrowed.

[johannesbender]

Lets just put it blunt ,as far as fraud goes one can say oh bessler did this bessler did that and go in all kinds of circles and spit out all kinds of theories , but its not evidence that he did , no one alive can show what was inside the wheel , that means there is no direct evidence for fraud , everyone who studied this story knows this and the only way out for someone who wants to proclaim fraud is to say - "physics shows its impossible" .

The only other alternative is to build something that reproduces the demonstrations in a "fraudulent" manner ,i argue it would be nearly impossible to even do this , no one is going to take a concoction of words as proof for fraud because there is no evidence available that shows what was going on inside the wheel.

[Roxaway59]

JB you wont get any argument from me that ultimately a real machine demonstration needs to be built showing how the wool could have been pulled over peoples eyes.

In order to build such a machine it first needs to be understood what is physically possible with the technology of those times and real experiments undertaken.

If it turns out that it is possible to make a large clockwork wheel with the power to lift weights and rewind itself when the weights are lowered then that would cast some doubt on the Bessler story.

As you are saying words are not enough it needs to be demonstrated and to begin with I will be attempting simulations to explore that possibility.

Graham
Playing devils advocate.

[Georg Künstler]

From that what I have read about Bessler, it is for me out of doubt that this wheels are running with gravity force.

Definitely he was able to show two different cases.
What does this two cases have in common ?
They were simple mechanical oscillators.
They were oscillators which are self amplifying.
Look at a modern amplifier, how is this done.
You do some action with an 180 degrees offset.
Bessler managed it to create a positive feedback loop.
He must be able to do a lot of calculation how this oscillations are interacting.
In my opinion, he does not hurt any law of the physic.
The one directional wheel needs the outside seen pendulum to create a speed control, without that it will automatically self destroyed.

The bi-directional wheel has the speed limit included, because it uses the speed difference between the inner and outer wheel.
It is self-regulating.

[Roxaway59]

Fletcher wrote -

There is an extra dimension to Karl and his viewing of a runner that I consider also to be relevant to my ultimate confidence in him ..

Not only was he a well educated man, who wanted to industrialize his country etc - he paid very real money ( 4,000 thalers ) for a private viewing to see how it worked before he paid across any money - he paid in full some time after the viewing having been satisfied it was genuine - and on top of that he gave B. a paid job as his court councilor, and gave him housing - and helped B. market and broker his wheels - he also provided a place to hold the " scientific tests " - first the Merseburg work and translocation tests ( official documents signed by invited witnesses, and by Karl himself ) - then again with the long duration test at Kassel ( another certificate on record ) - he signed a decree for everyone to stop libeling B. ..

But this is for me beyond reproach .. Oystein did a lot of background work many years ago - the Rosicrucian order ( Freemasons ) were based in Kassel at the time - and there is little doubt that Karl was high up the food chain in that order - it is also highly likely that B. was also a paid up member, because he sent annual birthday cards to Karl with number ciphers familiar to the elite and educated, and of course his use of sacred geometry that Oystein identified .. for me it is inconceivable that B. would defraud Karl, or that B. and Karl would defraud the rest of the Rosicrucian order, or eminent scientists, or politicians or educated dignitaries etc .. that would have been political suicide and career ending embarrassment when found out after a sale - of course we all know of the Freemason iconolgy of the square and compass etc ..

I think I would first have ask why would a man who wanted to industrialize his country not buy the wheel so he could help his country do that?

For me this is one of the many questions that hang over this story.

The fact that Karl viewed the wheel in all its glory is one of the most important details presented to us. Its used almost like a club to beat people over the head with.

If I was Karl and I was giving Bessler money, a job, a home, I would want to be pretty sure that I wasn’t being duped. I would want to do more than just walk around the car kicking tyres.

I would want to hear the engine running and maybe take a test drive. I would be asking lots of questions and would have to be very sure before I bought it.

Unfortunately I did that with the last car I bought and ended up driving off in a turkey.

The real question is could Karl have been fooled by Bessler and given that people in high places are very often fooled the answer is yes. Because it happens all the time and sometimes with teams of people making an error in judgement.

In 1992 George Soros broke the bank of England and walked off with one billion pounds.

Lets imagine that we went back in time and stood there observing the wheel with Bessler and Karl.

If the wheel had no hidden compartment near the axle to hide anything and no chance of hiding a hand crank mechanism and Bessler showed the wheel working then we would both agree after seeing how it worked that it was the real deal.

On the other hand if it had a hidden compartment near the axle and it wasn’t obvious how it overbalanced then we would have a problem.

We will never know what Karl saw but we do have to accept that its possible that he was fooled.

Graham
Playing devils advocate.

[John Collins]

The reason I think Karl did not buy Bessler’s wheel was because his only personal need for it was limited to finding a way to pump water back up his 350 meter cascade. He had already carried a number of experiments with Bessler’s predecessor, Denis Papin, using steam to pump water, and knew it was incapable of pumping water so far and so high. He was also aware of the Newcomen machine so ruled out Bessler’s wheel. Instead he arranged for a number of reservoirs to built at the top of the hill to feed the cascade.

He was content to promote Bessler’s wheel as he believed it was a valuable invention.

JC