Near Proof Bessler's Wheels were not a fraud.

[jim_mich]

The Merseburg wheel (Bessler's 3rd wheel) as documented by Bessler's enemy, a mathematician named Christian Wagner, and published in 1716, is described as being 6 Leipzig ells in diameter, 1/2 ell thick with a 1/4 ell diameter axle and lifting 70 to 80 pounds to a height of 10 to 12 ells. An ell was about 22.3 inches so the wheel would be about 11.15 feet in diameter and about 11.15 inches thick with a 5.575 inch diameter axle. The lift height would be about 18.6 feet to 22.3 feet. Wagner states a speed of 50 RPM but other witnesses say 40 RPM. Wagner may have confused the speed with Bessler's previous wheel that turned at 50 RPM. Wagner complains that the test was not long enough being that the wheel only ran for about a 1/2 hour maximum.

Using these dimensions and statistics I will calculate the size and drop distance of a weight inside the wheel, assuming the wheel was powered by a dropping weight.

I'm going to use a speed of 40 RPM. Anyone can come back later and recalculate using Wagner's 50 RPM speed. I'm going to use the 70 pounds of lift that Wagner used in his document, which is the smaller of the 70 to 80 pounds.

At 40 RPM the wheel would have rotated 1200 times during the 1/2 hour of rotation.

The torque required to lift 70 pounds using a rope wrapped around a 5.575 inch axle is 195.125 inch pounds. (70 × 5.575 / 2 = 195.125)

The distance that a weight can drop inside the wheel would be the wheel radius less the rim thickness less the axle radius less the height of the weight less a little bit for clearance. This puts the maximum drop distance at maybe 4 foot (11.15_ft / 2 × 12_inches - 2_rim - 3_axle - 12_weight - 1.9_clearance = 48 inches) or so.

During each rotation the weight inside the wheel could only drop about 48 inches / 1200 rotations or about 0.04 inches and it must produce a torque of about 195.125 inch pounds in order to lift the weight outside the window.

Dropping 0.04 inches each rotation would be equal to wrapping a rope around an axle about 0.0127 inches in diameter. (0.04 / Pi)

In order to produce a lifting torque of 195.125 inch pounds the weight inside the wheel would need to be more than 30650 pounds (195.125 / (0.0127 / 2)), or more than 15 tons.

There is no way 15 tons of weight could fit inside the wheel.

If the wheel was powered by a spring it would need to be able to produce a torque of 195.125 inch pounds while rotating 1200 revolutions. It would require an artificial horizon; that is it would need to have a pendulum type weight hanging down inside the wheel to counter the torque created by the spring.

Whatever powered the wheel, it also needed some type of fancy transmission that engages in one direction or the other depending on which way the wheel was rotated.

People that claim Bessler was a fraud need to examine the historical documents and do the engineering calculations in order to understand the near impossibility of Bessler faking his wheels.

[Ben]

Jim,
Your skill and understanding of math is extraordinary. How does the amount of each weight affect the amount of power the wheel has? It seems to me a wheel with eight 100 lb weights would have more power than a wheel of the same size with 4 lb weights.
Ben

[jim_mich]

I don't think there is any way to use an artificial horizon in conjunction with springs and have a wheel that can turn either direction. The reason is that the tension of the spring must be counter-acted in some manner all the time. When not connected to the wheel it must be connected to a second artificial horizon just to maintain tension of the spring. The tension will lift both pendulum type weights up in opposite directions. Then when the wheel is given its initial push start some type of transmission must disconnect one artificial horizon and connect the spring to the wheel instead. Then when the wheel is stopped the reverse must happen. How would the transmission know that the wheel has stopped?

Bessler built the two direction wheel as a proof that springs don't power the wheel. And calculations prove that a dropping weight could not power the wheel.

Previously I've shown why ambient temperature differences would be very unlikely to power Bessler's wheel. Gravity cannot power the wheel unless gravity changes its conservative nature. (Sorry to all those that keep trying to use gravity. I'm not trying to burst your bubbles. I'm just facing facts as I know them.)

So if Bessler's wheels actually worked as the many eye witnesses observed and if all the methods other than true perpetual motion are insufficient to power his wheels, then what is left? The probability increases that Bessler was truthful and that he discovered a method of making a wheel rotate forcefully continually by some means involving only the mechanism inside his wheel.


Ben, if two wheels were exactly alike except that one used 4 pound weights and the other used 100 pound weights then the second wheel would in all probability produce 25 times as much power.

[Ben]

I don't think the springs power the wheel. I think they pull the weight to the outer path by using a lever.
Ben

[bluesgtr44]

Excellent Jim.....I've been pointing out the disproportion for quite some time now. Wagner saw the Draschwitz wheel and his report on the Merseburg was dependant on GB, that's where he clearly got his information on the Merseburg wheel.

How was the load attached to the wheel and how much lead time was there before the load was actually dragging on the system? I think we slightly discussed this before...the load probably was not applied to the wheel from a dead stand still. More information on this would have really been great!

John, it's time for that book! No more putting it off, Amigo....


Steve

[axel]

With all due respect, a 70lb mass three inches to the left of a fulcrum, can be balanced with a 2.91lb mass seventy one inches to the right of the same fulcrum. Both masses are on the same lever.

So, roughly, the 12 foot diameter wheel could hold the seventy pound pull on a 6 inch diameter axle with just about 3 pounds of downward force at its perimeter.

It would take a little bit more force to actually start pulling the seventy pound load through a displacement.

I recall that one of the eyewitnesses complained that a block and tackle was necessary to lift the 70 lbs, so that would mean the wheel produced even less force at the perimeter.

AXEL

[Jonathan]

It is possible to use springs without an artificial ground, and to make bidirectional wheel powered by it, though a spring without artificial ground is less efficient, and the change of direction mechanism would be a pain to design.
For no artificial ground:
You use a spring to power an escapement and balance-wheel, much like in a normal clock. But the balance-wheel must have a large inertia, so the whole clockwork will wrench each time the balance-wheel changes direction. You mount all this to the main wheel via a ratchet, so half the jerks push the wheel, and half just spin the clockwork relative to the wheel. (It doesn't matter where you mount it to the main wheel).
For bidirectional function:
You mount the clockwork with two ratchets and two pawls, and the pawls are connected to some three-point flip-flop. That way, they both start out unengaged, and when the wheel is pushed a little pendulum allows one or the other pawl to engage, after which it stays engaged. The little pendulum could also force both pawls to disengagement when the wheel is stopped. (It is not necessary for the spring to stop unwinding when the pawls are disengaged, but of course one would design the little pendulum to initiate a gear jamb so the machine doesn't make noise when stopped).

[jim_mich]

Axel, you missed the point entirely.

The calculations assume that a weight drops down and down and down slowly unwinding like the weight on a big grandfather clock. This is what Wagner claimed was the driving force behind Bessler's Wheel. There was only a limit amount of space (about 48 inches) inside the wheel for the weight to drop. And the weight would have dropped all during the time (1/2 hour) the wheel was rotating (1200 revolutions). Thus the weight could drop only 0.04 inches each rotation else it would run out of room to drop anymore. The 70 pound weight would need to be lifted one rotation of the axle (17.5143 inches). Thus the leverage needed would be 438 to 1 (17.514 / 0.04) and since it needed to lift 70 pounds at one end of the leverage the other end would need to be about 30650 pounds (437.85 × 70).

The block and tackle was never confirmed. The statement was that, "The lifting required a pulley reduction of more than 4 times." If you reduce something you cut it in half. If you reduce something more than four times you cut it in half more than four times. A 12 foot wheel reduced four times is 12 / 2 / 2 / 2 / 2 = 0.75 foot which is 9 inches which if reduced again would be 4-1/2 inches. So the reduction at the axle was more than 4 but less than 5 times the wheel size. Yes, this is a strange statement. But it agrees with all the other eye witnesses where there was only the two pulleys guiding the lifting rope through the window.

Jonathan, I'll need to think a little bit about what you suggest. Welcome back. As always you force me to think along different lines of thought.

[jim_mich]

Jonathan,

The large balance wheel oscillating back and forth will force the spring and escapement mechanism to oscillate in the opposite direction so as to balance the inertia of both. Then when the ratchet is engaged the wheel will rotate one direction but the clock mechanism will end up rotating the opposite direction. Once the clock mechanism is rotating at some maximum speed it will no longer be able to push against the wheel, thus it cannot cause any more rotation. The load on the wheel will cause it to slow down and the clock mechanism will be spinning around inside the wheel.

In other words, without an artificial horizon, the maximum rotational force of the clock mechanism to drive the wheel will equal the clock mechanism's inertial momentum in the opposite direction. If this were not so then all those inertial thruster ideas would work. Whichever portion (the wheel or the clock) that has the most resistance will end up stationary and the other will end up rotating.

At least that is what I think would happen. I might be wrong.

[Jonathan]

You are right, because a ratchet catches depending on the relative motion. Of course we could come up with some clutch that depends on acceleration, but this fix brings up another problem. The whole reason I posited this complicated oscillator was to prevent the internal reaction wheel from needing to accelerate constantly. But this is exactly what would happen if the right sort of clutch is used. So an artificial ground really is the only plausible way to use a spring.
(You could slow the reaction wheel with air, but the air would need to escape so as to not impart its momentum to the inside of the main wheel, and this would amount to spinning the wheel by shooting jets of air out of it).

[Fletcher]

An artificial horizon looks the most likely scenario to leverage a spring system off, if wanting to 'fool' people into believing a wheel was self sustaining, at least for a short period before it wound itself down & had no residual torque - clockmakers use fussy [sp] gears/differential pulley systems to keep the torque near constant while running, I believe.

If there were a true asymmetric torque in JB's wheels I would expect the wheels to keep on accelerating, at least until the load equalled the torque thrust on one side of the wheel - that load might be a simple as the sum of all the frictions or an external load applied as well which should result in quite different RPM's for each - but - there seems to be evidence that his wheels hardly slowed under load - that could mean the internal mechanism had the ability to dynamically compensate its output when under greater load - OR - that its working range or load limit was relatively small & it was, all said & done, a weak output ?!

[jim_mich]

It seems near impossible for a spring system to drive Bessler's wheel.

There are two problems. The first is the two directions. This would require a very fancy transmission of some sort to be able to engage the torque output from the spring depending on which way the wheel was push started. Then it needs to sense when the wheel is not rotating and disengage the spring. It also needs to lock the spring tension when not being used.

The second problem is the spring needs to be bigger than the wheel if it is going to output full torque during half an hour. Else the transmission needs to be very fancy and be able to sense the load placed on it. The only way that could happen is if it could sense very small changes of velocity. In other words it would need to have a very sensitive governor. Then it would need to have some sort of variable speed transmission in order to conserve spring energy.

All together a spring just seems totally incapable of driving Bessler's wheel.

[david jenkins]

IMHO if it was powered by a spring it would noticeably slow down during the half hour demonstration. From what I understand nothing is written of a change in RPM. My opinion only! I could be wrong.


Dave

[Jonathan]

David, Fletcher was talking about using a fusee to prevent that.

[rlortie]

Hello Jonathan and welcome back, I caught you online election day!

Either you have moved a considerable distance or you are up to your old tricks of burning the midnight oil. :-)

I have my doubts about duplicating Bessler's achievements using a main spring and a fusee. I am inclined to agree with Jim_Mich that a spring drive would be totally incapable of meeting the running time for the sealed tests the wheel is alleged to have maintained in motion.

Fletcher and I have also touched base on the use of a capstan for the brick lifting demonstration.

Ralph