Bang the drum ... the Acoustic solution

[greendoor]

If it turns out that Bessler was a fraud - it remains to explain how he managed to input power into the device. Fairly credible witnesses didn't find any cables or visible inputs of mechanical energy.

There is an obvious solution that I have never seen discussed ...

The outer drum was covered with taught wax-covered fabric. This was thought to be for hiding the mechanism from sight. Maybe it was the primary input source ...

Bessler worked with church pipe organs, and would have had a good understanding of acoustic energy. It would been completely possible to tune the drum to a low sub-audio frequency - say 10Hz. By setting up a power input source to transmit acoustic energy at this frequency, he could have provided power from a distance with no obvious connection.

The vibrational energy could have been converted into linear or rotary motion with cranks and/or clutches and used to raise a weight or wind a spring.

Or - at a much lower acoustic vibration rate - the drum may have been using variations in air pressure that occur all the time - basically a large barometer.

The falling weight/over-balanced thing may have just been a visual distraction that amounted to a very small frictional loss and assisted in the show.

[AB Hammer]

greendoor

Interesting idea, but I think that the falling weight would have been the drum stick beat to create the vibration needed. This is one of the ideas I have played around with but still needs much more research.

[bluesgtr44]

Hey Greendoor.....his first two wheels had wooden slats as the covering. Not that this would hinder the vibration idea you put forth. I have thought about that and it would be an interesting approach. Instead of the focus being on the drum it could be on maybe arms that are vibrating at a certain position and alleviating weight on the ascending side. I haven't ever tried anything like this, but some of the stuff I have read seems really interesting. There was a theory on this as far as the pyramids go. They found some brass type "gondola" looking things and at each end were spots that looked like mallets were hitting it. When they messed around with them they found that there was a definite accoustic vibration taking place. The thought was that maybe by doing this, it made sliding the things along logs much easier. Anyway, wish ya luck!


Steve

[Michael]

Similar thoughts, did I have, when posting in community ( my yoda ).
I've read some of your posts greendoor, you seem to have a good head on your shoulders. So what's behind the greendoor (lol)? Can I ask your name?

[RRRRyan]

wow, ... anyone who could create enough low range acoustic energy to lift 70lbs or spin a 12 ft wheel at 60 rpms (even it if weighed 1kg) in the 1700s would have done something on par with what Bessler claims to have done. So then the question would be why hoax when you have something else amazing? Remember, Bessler predates Edison by something like 200 years. Maybe he had a heard (pun intended) of tap dancing oliphants instead of fat lazy horses?

messed around with them they found that there was a definite accoustic vibration taking place

So you're saying that scientists found that hitting hollow brass drums created acoustic vibration? What a discovery!

I'm all for brainstorming... keep the ideas coming. I just don't like missing a chance to make a joke either.

Cheers! I'll even rep you.... cause this one was a hoot. Please fellas keep up the conversation and just laugh with me if you can. :-) If we can't laugh what fun is there? Really, really... there could be something to this. Until it is known nothing is off the table. Even alien technology! I have this idea that......

[greendoor]

Large pipe organs are amazing ... don't underestimate the power in low frequency energy. Especially when resonance is achieved. (Still not a source of power - but can be an effective transmission of power).

Bessler could have coupled a water wheel to bellows to a large tuned pipe and transmitted power through the air to the reciever wheel. Wooden slats could recieve acoustic power as effectively as a membranophone (drum). With a noisy near-unity falling-weight gravity-wheel diversion going on inside, who would suspect a thing?

Acoustic levitation is definately possible in mainstream physics - but generally involves standing waves in a closed space. I've read about the famous Tibetan stone levitation with sound. Maybe Edward Leedskalnin (Coral Castle) was using acoustic resonance to levitate stones ... Stan Deyo talks about gravity being due to Spin - and maybe we can induce a different spin in certain substances with a specific vibration ... very John Keely.

I'm not married to this acoustic idea - just throwing it out as a possibility. I'm really hoping Bessler wasn't a fraud, and that there is something basic we've just missed in our thinking about gravity.

Physics is very compartmentalised thinking - but ultimately, you can never remove acoustics/vibration and electronics/charge from any mechanical equation.

Of the four fundamental forces - gravity is the weakest ...

[Michael]

It's an interesting idea Greendoor but I don't think the wheel could power a load. There are stories of wheels been made to suddenly start to mysteriously spin ( not by Bessler ) and maybe these used resonance. Transmitting power by sound vibration has been known about for a long long time.

[greendoor]

You just contradicted yourself. You agree that acoustic resonance can transmit power, but you don't agree that power could power a load?

Try playing a bass guitar through an amp in a ordinary house. Run through all the notes, and it's fairly likely that you will find a note that excites something in that house - maybe a window pane, or some panel or something that just happens to share the same resonant frequency. Fine tune that note to the exact frequency, and you will quickly find that you have a dangerous weapon. You could literally damage something if you continued with this experiement - the power of resonance is amazing if you get it tuned right.

I'm talking about sub-audio (below 20Hz) with a lot of power put into it (a water wheel). If you have ever experienced a pipe organ, you know that they have amazing bass power. If you want to create a weapon, a large concrete chamber tuned to say 7Hz, excited with a small diaphragm and solenoid timed with a feedback circuit would certainly be hazardous to your health. It would kill friend and foe alike, by shaking their internal organs to a pulp. Without being audible.

A swinging pendulum would probably be excited by these pressure waves if tuned right.

I hope this isn't what Bessler was all about. But if he was a fraud, it is a possible mechanism that he certainly had the technology to use.

[Fletcher]

Though its an interesting possibility greendoor I am not sure it would have been what Bessler tamed - even sub audible ranges with enough power to excite something across or in the next room would have been felt internally by the observers I would think - I believe the earth itself has a resonant frequency of somewhere between 4 - 8 hertz IINM which we obviously don't 'feel' in everyday life so there is always the possibility that this could be tapped as the mysterious energy source, but to harness thru transmission enough energy to do useful work at the wheel & remain undetected would seem a bit of a reach ?!

But then again in the woodcuts of his later wheels he shows the support pillars extending from floor to ceiling so perhaps the room itself could be a large resonant device ? - I always wondered if he ever had an outside demonstration anywhere that might go towards countering that argument ?

[rlortie]

My reading and research has lead me to believe that Bessler's first wheel or wheels were enclosed with veneer not slats.

The word "Veneer" by coincidence is German for "camouflage". Violins, acustic guitars, and all stringed instruments are made of veneer. Stradivarius's violins are a fine example of this. The art of veneering was very popular at the time, used in the making of baroque style organs and furniture.

I am a proud owner of an antique Spanish classical guitar that originally used cat gut strings. It is made of spruce veneer and will put many of modern day Gibson's, Martins, and other brand names to shame with its resonating tone, and ability to transmit harmonics of the major struck note.

I only post this in reference to this thread, I am not biased as to it being that which turned Bessler's wheels.


Ralph

[Michael]

No contradiction Greendoor, you have to put it into perspective. I meant I very much doubt Bessler's wheel ( since that's what we're talking about ) could get the power required to pull the loads it did from that source. Fletchers first sentences also echo some of my thoughts.

[ovyyus]

I don't think Bessler would have employed the transmission of low frequency sound to his wheel. I find it hard to imagine how or why Bessler would intentionally perpetrate such a fraud. Even if there was no transmission (therefore no fraud) I still can't imagine a naturally occurring sound source capable of delivering any real power.

If Bessler did somehow harness an unknown (to him) but free ambient energy source, would he label such a solution "true PM" according to the accepted 18th definition of the term, ie: no detectable energy input. My guess is that he could do so in good conscience.

[greendoor]

I don't no why anybody ever perpetrates fraud - it's my personal belief that nobody ever gets away with it. But fraud happens every day - at the highest positions of office.

I want to believe Bessler was honest. But I find that religion has a way of being exploited by those wishing to be very dishonest (not thinking of any particular American President ...). So who knows, really?

There is so much we don't understand about gravity - I really hope he honestly found a loophole in physics.

His use of veneer is perfectly understandable - and the wheel could easily function as an resonant tuned acoustic chamber regardless of how it was constructed.

[JohnnyD]

Many years ago, the American police trialed an anti-riot control weapon utilizing low frequency sound to resonate the bowel and, well, the result was that you had to change your underwear.

Unfortunately, everybody suffered as the sound wasn't directional.....

JohnnyD.

[Mak#1]

@Ralph; This quote was from wagners critique of Besslers wheels, "Almost no clatter and rattle was to be heard with the Draschwitz wheel; the wheel was made up of 8 spokes and was completely empty near the circumference, as one could see through the various cracks in the casing made of thin splinters, but there was not the slightest trace of a rising and falling weight to be heard or seen." I could be wrong but this would sugest to me that there was no veneer.