No Perpetual Motion; He Dies.
The Washington Post (1877-1954) - Washington, D.C.
Date: Dec 2, 1908
Start Page: 6
Pages: 1
Text Word Count: 376
From the New York Press. Disappointed because he had failed to solve the problem of perpetual motion. Rupert Potschacher, of 149 Avenue A, committed suicide by inhaling illuminating gas. For several years he had worked on a wheel which he figured would turn forever. He thought he had perfected his invention several days ago and felt that at last fortune was within his grasp.
Dec 2,1908
Moderator: scott
re: Dec 2,1908
September 11, 2008
It takes a tough nut to crack one.
I am, in every sense of the word [nut].
Axel
It takes a tough nut to crack one.
I am, in every sense of the word [nut].
Axel
re: Dec 2,1908
Makes me wonder how many have died on the quest...
re: Dec 2,1908
Allot of people where stopped in those days, then Prohibition was use more to stop the farmers from selling alcohol for fuel, which was very common to the oil people could sell gas. Allot of crap has happened and the more you look the more you see. But today we have the internet and the oil people are more concerned with Hydrogen instead of a PM wheel. So today we might be relatively safe.
Oh by the way if axel has got it, he is not he only one. (Big Grin)
Oh by the way if axel has got it, he is not he only one. (Big Grin)
"Our education can be the limitation to our imagination, and our dreams"
So With out a dream, there is no vision.
Old and future wheel videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/ABthehammer/videos
Alan
So With out a dream, there is no vision.
Old and future wheel videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/ABthehammer/videos
Alan
re: Dec 2,1908
The one a believer and this one a con
Patents; Inventor Loses Ruling On 'Perpetual Motion'
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By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: July 29, 1989
LEAD: Joseph W. Newman, the inventor who contends that he has developed a machine that produces more energy than it consumes, lost what may be his last bid to get a patent.
Joseph W. Newman, the inventor who contends that he has developed a machine that produces more energy than it consumes, lost what may be his last bid to get a patent.
Almost 10 years ago the Patent and Trademark Office rejected the invention as a ''perpetual motion machine'' that violates the fundamental laws of physics. But he persisted, arguing his case in repeated courtroom confrontations.
This month, however, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the appeals court specializing in patent law, rejected Mr. Newman's pleas. His only recourse now is the Supreme Court, and Mr. Newman said this week that he planned to appeal.
The appeals court noted that Mr. Newman had convinced many people that his invention worked. At one point, a court-appointed special master concluded there was ''overwhelming evidence'' that the machine produced more energy than it consumed, and the Patent Office was ordered to re-examine the issue.
But a subsequent test conducted by the National Bureau of Standards concluded that the machine did not work.
Patents; Inventor Loses Ruling On 'Perpetual Motion'
REPRINTS
SAVE
SHARE
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: July 29, 1989
LEAD: Joseph W. Newman, the inventor who contends that he has developed a machine that produces more energy than it consumes, lost what may be his last bid to get a patent.
Joseph W. Newman, the inventor who contends that he has developed a machine that produces more energy than it consumes, lost what may be his last bid to get a patent.
Almost 10 years ago the Patent and Trademark Office rejected the invention as a ''perpetual motion machine'' that violates the fundamental laws of physics. But he persisted, arguing his case in repeated courtroom confrontations.
This month, however, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the appeals court specializing in patent law, rejected Mr. Newman's pleas. His only recourse now is the Supreme Court, and Mr. Newman said this week that he planned to appeal.
The appeals court noted that Mr. Newman had convinced many people that his invention worked. At one point, a court-appointed special master concluded there was ''overwhelming evidence'' that the machine produced more energy than it consumed, and the Patent Office was ordered to re-examine the issue.
But a subsequent test conducted by the National Bureau of Standards concluded that the machine did not work.
re: Dec 2,1908
Could this be just "another example" of how PM secrets continue to be guarded tightly while the owner seeks his furtune and in the end, the secret dies again without the world ever benfiting from it?
Like Bessler, Asa Jackson, Pop Keenie (Doc's Wheel) and a few others that may reach the same faith....
IMO, the only way for the world to benefit and to insure the owner "keeps" living" would be for the discovered solution to be given freely to the entire world to use as open source.
Greed is the reason we do not know the secrets to the past invented gravity wheels and to some that do exist today.
Preston
Like Bessler, Asa Jackson, Pop Keenie (Doc's Wheel) and a few others that may reach the same faith....
IMO, the only way for the world to benefit and to insure the owner "keeps" living" would be for the discovered solution to be given freely to the entire world to use as open source.
Greed is the reason we do not know the secrets to the past invented gravity wheels and to some that do exist today.
Preston
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primemignonite
- Devotee
- Posts: 1000
- Joined: Sun May 22, 2005 8:19 am
re: Dec 2,1908
As Preston so aptly advises us "Greed is the reason we do not know the secrets to the past invented gravity wheels . . ." that and vindictiveness, which combination is WHY we now struggle-so, attempting to re-discover what Bessler found, and then lost to us in a lifetime fit of spite.
I've given this more than just a little thought, and have concluded that Bessler made a tragic, fatal error for himself as well as us in not divulging his wheel's inner workings before he died.
Had he done so, the blazing truth would have been on the record forever and all time, and he would have had ALL of the negative labels tacked to him removed, enjoying fame and equivalence (in a way) to Newton even, and, the Industrial Revolution might well have gone very, very differently, with that credited to him with grateful thanks.
But . . . he did no such thing, instead, writing in riddles and parables - teasing about this and that, diddling and fiddling with all us future searchers after his Tantalus Vase*, which he stupidly hid too well so as to NEVER be found, or so it would seem.
Honestly, what a MESS he made and left!
Yes, one DOES wonder "how many", and, how many more yet-to-be.
Maybe Dircks was right.
I think I shall take a word-to-the-wise and benefit well thereby.
It's been fun, and a rich lesson too, though a slightly bitter one.
James
*English Wikipedia tells us as follows under "Tantalus": The name "Tantalus" is the origin of the English word "tantalize". The idea being that when a person tantalizes someone else, that person is making them like Tantalus: there is something desirable that is always just out of that person's reach
I've given this more than just a little thought, and have concluded that Bessler made a tragic, fatal error for himself as well as us in not divulging his wheel's inner workings before he died.
Had he done so, the blazing truth would have been on the record forever and all time, and he would have had ALL of the negative labels tacked to him removed, enjoying fame and equivalence (in a way) to Newton even, and, the Industrial Revolution might well have gone very, very differently, with that credited to him with grateful thanks.
But . . . he did no such thing, instead, writing in riddles and parables - teasing about this and that, diddling and fiddling with all us future searchers after his Tantalus Vase*, which he stupidly hid too well so as to NEVER be found, or so it would seem.
Honestly, what a MESS he made and left!
Yes, one DOES wonder "how many", and, how many more yet-to-be.
Maybe Dircks was right.
I think I shall take a word-to-the-wise and benefit well thereby.
It's been fun, and a rich lesson too, though a slightly bitter one.
James
*English Wikipedia tells us as follows under "Tantalus": The name "Tantalus" is the origin of the English word "tantalize". The idea being that when a person tantalizes someone else, that person is making them like Tantalus: there is something desirable that is always just out of that person's reach
Cynic-In-Chief, BesslerWheel (Ret.); Perpetualist First-Class; Iconoclast. "The Iconoclast, like the other mills of God, grinds slowly, but it grinds exceedingly small." - Brann
Nicely said primemignonite. The funny thing is that you still have a very big number of people adhering to this philosophy. Talking in riddles, "revealing" their "secret" in small steps or even just straight out defrauding people. Luckily the internet has changed a lot and there's also a big camp that is sick and tired of playing games and wants to go straight to the point. I like to believe that Bessler didn't know the implications his wheel would bring to the future. The wheel back then was probably just a "gadget" that proved perpetual motion existed, just like some mathematician proving an old known problem. Besides personal satisfaction there's not more to it. But on the other hand he might have perfectly understood the implications and hence guarded his wheel until he died.
re: Dec 2,1908
TS
As most of humanity suffers under tyrants, misled by the devil and his cohorts who've recently been thrown down here, nothing short of Yahshua, King of Kings, will remove these oppressors and bring everlasting peace.
-
coylo
re: Dec 2,1908
Hey Gearhead, could you post the link/reference to the first obituary.From the New York Press.
Disappointed because he had failed to solve the problem of perpetual motion. Rupert Potschacher, of 149 Avenue A, committed suicide by inhaling illuminating gas. For several years he had worked on a wheel which he figured would turn forever. He thought he had perfected his invention several days ago and felt that at last fortune was within his grasp.
Hopefully it's not a metaphor for things to come.
Are there any happy stories/endings in this field?
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primemignonite
- Devotee
- Posts: 1000
- Joined: Sun May 22, 2005 8:19 am
re: Dec 2,1908
Coylo, you asked "Are there any happy stories/endings in this field?", which question provided me with cause for a real chuckle.
My short answer to it would be: as far as I am aware, it would appear as though there were none!
As mostly revealed to us by John Collins, Bessler's was a very dark and sad ending, most of this being due, I believe, to his general intransigeance and, at the end, insistence upon dragging his quasi-divine secret into the grave with him. In these ways I guess one might say he was successful, but certainly not at all "happy", the main goal of a wheel sale, eluding him to the last.
As for the others, Dircks fairly well covers their sagas, they being generally not happy, as he allows.
Now, the Gary Magnetic Motor's end story is yet to be written, happy or not. It is a really peculiar one in that the main witness to the action was a seemingly non-interested party (one Edgar Mayhew Bacon), he being a poet and writer of early North-Eastern legend and lore (such as The Headless Horseman), and not science.
He, Gary, ran a Boston boarding house filled with artistical/technical types plus a railroad conductor, two wood engravers and servants to attend to his little family's needs. Gary's vocation was listed as "electrician", and judging by the number of patents be was responsible for, relating to the railroad, my guess is that he worked for one. We'll see about this one, and much, much more, no doubt.
Then there was the Willis brothers' supposedly fraudulent PM of 1856, the chimera being featured in a huge front page spread on the hallowed pages of no less than Scientific American!
This one, most unusually would seem to have had a happy outcome, Coylo.
Sure, the three principals of the SA groused and fumed plenty at the Willis boys for their supposed little fraud, done at a few cents per view at 565 Broadway (upstairs), but, something happed after the pickup of takers post the article's appearance: A SALE, P.T. Barnum's American Museum being the buyer!
We don't know how much they got, but it must have been a good sum, for they were soon off to San Francisco via First Class passage down to and through the Isthmus, and then on up to the Golden City by the Bay, by mail steamer, the S.S. John L. Stephens.
All was not smooth sailing, however, as the ship's passengers were viciously attacked on the west side of the Isthmus by "natives", and as a result, many were killed and "much baggage destroyed".
Before I discovered the sale of the boy's PM to Barnum's museum, I assumed it possible that the PM itself might well have been savaged in the bloody melee,that is if they had been carrying it onto more fertile ground there, for exploitation, but happily no, and the Willis's did alight safe and sound ready to do something, perhaps gold prospecting?
Somehow, someway, they appeared later, once again in New York selling yet more clever devices to the Museum and who knows where else. These later ventures were also caught the ever-roving eye of the Scientific American staff, and dutifully reported to us very latterly.
Now, we do know what happened to the Willis PM!
As I recall, it was in the mid-Sixties that the Barnum American Museum burned to the ground and within it the machine itself, it having been acquired a decade before!
So, what this means to us now, is that NO SEARCH for it is required, only a re-building, according to the highly detailed illustration, compliments the SA.
Much later, in the Nineteen Seventies, the SA had to forthrightness to honor the Willis Motion with the fine compliment to the effect that it was "the most beautifull 'perpetual motion' ever made", or words very close to that sentiment.
No, Coylo, not every story of searchers after the elusive PM were dark and tragic, just most of them, or so it would seem.
James
My short answer to it would be: as far as I am aware, it would appear as though there were none!
As mostly revealed to us by John Collins, Bessler's was a very dark and sad ending, most of this being due, I believe, to his general intransigeance and, at the end, insistence upon dragging his quasi-divine secret into the grave with him. In these ways I guess one might say he was successful, but certainly not at all "happy", the main goal of a wheel sale, eluding him to the last.
As for the others, Dircks fairly well covers their sagas, they being generally not happy, as he allows.
Now, the Gary Magnetic Motor's end story is yet to be written, happy or not. It is a really peculiar one in that the main witness to the action was a seemingly non-interested party (one Edgar Mayhew Bacon), he being a poet and writer of early North-Eastern legend and lore (such as The Headless Horseman), and not science.
He, Gary, ran a Boston boarding house filled with artistical/technical types plus a railroad conductor, two wood engravers and servants to attend to his little family's needs. Gary's vocation was listed as "electrician", and judging by the number of patents be was responsible for, relating to the railroad, my guess is that he worked for one. We'll see about this one, and much, much more, no doubt.
Then there was the Willis brothers' supposedly fraudulent PM of 1856, the chimera being featured in a huge front page spread on the hallowed pages of no less than Scientific American!
This one, most unusually would seem to have had a happy outcome, Coylo.
Sure, the three principals of the SA groused and fumed plenty at the Willis boys for their supposed little fraud, done at a few cents per view at 565 Broadway (upstairs), but, something happed after the pickup of takers post the article's appearance: A SALE, P.T. Barnum's American Museum being the buyer!
We don't know how much they got, but it must have been a good sum, for they were soon off to San Francisco via First Class passage down to and through the Isthmus, and then on up to the Golden City by the Bay, by mail steamer, the S.S. John L. Stephens.
All was not smooth sailing, however, as the ship's passengers were viciously attacked on the west side of the Isthmus by "natives", and as a result, many were killed and "much baggage destroyed".
Before I discovered the sale of the boy's PM to Barnum's museum, I assumed it possible that the PM itself might well have been savaged in the bloody melee,that is if they had been carrying it onto more fertile ground there, for exploitation, but happily no, and the Willis's did alight safe and sound ready to do something, perhaps gold prospecting?
Somehow, someway, they appeared later, once again in New York selling yet more clever devices to the Museum and who knows where else. These later ventures were also caught the ever-roving eye of the Scientific American staff, and dutifully reported to us very latterly.
Now, we do know what happened to the Willis PM!
As I recall, it was in the mid-Sixties that the Barnum American Museum burned to the ground and within it the machine itself, it having been acquired a decade before!
So, what this means to us now, is that NO SEARCH for it is required, only a re-building, according to the highly detailed illustration, compliments the SA.
Much later, in the Nineteen Seventies, the SA had to forthrightness to honor the Willis Motion with the fine compliment to the effect that it was "the most beautifull 'perpetual motion' ever made", or words very close to that sentiment.
No, Coylo, not every story of searchers after the elusive PM were dark and tragic, just most of them, or so it would seem.
James
Cynic-In-Chief, BesslerWheel (Ret.); Perpetualist First-Class; Iconoclast. "The Iconoclast, like the other mills of God, grinds slowly, but it grinds exceedingly small." - Brann
re: Dec 2,1908
Thanks for another nice post James.
Scientific American article :
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/ ... D162893107
Graham
Scientific American article :
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/ ... D162893107
Graham
re: Dec 2,1908
Thanks graham
The link is very interesting. I have a fascination with early inventions as well, and that link is full of them.
The link is very interesting. I have a fascination with early inventions as well, and that link is full of them.
"Our education can be the limitation to our imagination, and our dreams"
So With out a dream, there is no vision.
Old and future wheel videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/ABthehammer/videos
Alan
So With out a dream, there is no vision.
Old and future wheel videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/ABthehammer/videos
Alan
-
primemignonite
- Devotee
- Posts: 1000
- Joined: Sun May 22, 2005 8:19 am
re: Dec 2,1908
Graham wrote: "Thanks for another nice post James."
My pleasure, Graham! Glad you liked it.
I tried to put a bit of positive spin onto an otherwise sort of disappointing area of human pursuit.
Yes, the link you provided to the Cornell site is the one to see. Thanks for doing-so; I intended to, but had not book marked it, and so could not. Note also that it can be enlarged outrageously, and then, printed out BIG on two normal letter sized paper sheets turned 90 degrees (on colored even), then combined, and framed for a really nice presentation.
I did a little work and found AN ORIGINAL page in like-new condition. I felt sort of like John Collins might have, upon coming across some great Bessler treasure or whatnot, but of course at far less expense, and as a much easier task done. Our American stories of PM really are more accessible than the ancient European ones.
My imagined goal is to re-build the Willis motion precisely, according to the fine detail as provided by the excellent cut.
[I am not sure, but I think they traced over photographs taken at scenes of interest, and then engravings were made from them, they serving as a perfect patterns and thereby preserving aspect ratios and proportions to an exquisite degree of accuracy.]
What then, after re-creation of such a grand, lost beauty?
Well, possibly another literary work on PM but uniquely up to this point, one heavy on graphics and portraits of the original principals involved and, all-the-while keeping an upbeat slant to things; this, rather than endless dreary tales of disastrous human failures, suicides and despair all served-up by nasty nit-picking malcontent "debunkers" and carping, prejudiced critics, in-general, don't you think? To heck with them!
Sure, the physicists are still batting one hundred, and us PM proponents a big fat zero, but so what? Surely, a BIG STORY can be wrung out of the whole, colorful deal. Why not?
The Ord-Hume book has always been in-print and still sells. A larger, more upbeat work about PM, it's history, lore and main characters, all treated with positivity and deserved respect for we humans' strivings after 'The Infinite', surely would be well received by a grateful buying public, and perform like-wise or far better even, than the Ord-Hume as to sales.
And . . . there are still the depths of the Gary Magnetic Motor mystery to be plumbed, as well.
Tales of genuine human interest and struggling DO SELL, and the area of striving-after the PM dream has it in spades! Opportunity awaits.
James
My pleasure, Graham! Glad you liked it.
I tried to put a bit of positive spin onto an otherwise sort of disappointing area of human pursuit.
Yes, the link you provided to the Cornell site is the one to see. Thanks for doing-so; I intended to, but had not book marked it, and so could not. Note also that it can be enlarged outrageously, and then, printed out BIG on two normal letter sized paper sheets turned 90 degrees (on colored even), then combined, and framed for a really nice presentation.
I did a little work and found AN ORIGINAL page in like-new condition. I felt sort of like John Collins might have, upon coming across some great Bessler treasure or whatnot, but of course at far less expense, and as a much easier task done. Our American stories of PM really are more accessible than the ancient European ones.
My imagined goal is to re-build the Willis motion precisely, according to the fine detail as provided by the excellent cut.
[I am not sure, but I think they traced over photographs taken at scenes of interest, and then engravings were made from them, they serving as a perfect patterns and thereby preserving aspect ratios and proportions to an exquisite degree of accuracy.]
What then, after re-creation of such a grand, lost beauty?
Well, possibly another literary work on PM but uniquely up to this point, one heavy on graphics and portraits of the original principals involved and, all-the-while keeping an upbeat slant to things; this, rather than endless dreary tales of disastrous human failures, suicides and despair all served-up by nasty nit-picking malcontent "debunkers" and carping, prejudiced critics, in-general, don't you think? To heck with them!
Sure, the physicists are still batting one hundred, and us PM proponents a big fat zero, but so what? Surely, a BIG STORY can be wrung out of the whole, colorful deal. Why not?
The Ord-Hume book has always been in-print and still sells. A larger, more upbeat work about PM, it's history, lore and main characters, all treated with positivity and deserved respect for we humans' strivings after 'The Infinite', surely would be well received by a grateful buying public, and perform like-wise or far better even, than the Ord-Hume as to sales.
And . . . there are still the depths of the Gary Magnetic Motor mystery to be plumbed, as well.
Tales of genuine human interest and struggling DO SELL, and the area of striving-after the PM dream has it in spades! Opportunity awaits.
James
Cynic-In-Chief, BesslerWheel (Ret.); Perpetualist First-Class; Iconoclast. "The Iconoclast, like the other mills of God, grinds slowly, but it grinds exceedingly small." - Brann