Near Proof Bessler's Wheels were not a fraud.

[WaltzCee]

< > and do the engineering calculations in order to understand the near impossibility of Bessler faking his wheels.

The painful matter of fact is, the method to fake a wheel could be as obscured from human understanding as making the genuine article. The engineering calculations done for any attempt at a genuine wheel put it being closer to impossible than to near impossible.

Maybe Santa will bring the wheel this Christmas. A crackpot friend of mine is practically giddy. If he pays me to start issuing press releases I'll put one here. It would be a job and I couldn't assure anyone he built a wheel that worked, only that he claimed to have built one. I wouldn't get out on that limb.


Walt

[DrWhat]

If anyone can make a fake Bessler wheel that runs say for 2 months and turns in either direction using 18th century parts (or similar), then that would be a coup in itself. Even if it had little power (say using a clockwork type mechanism...etc).

Maybe we should set up a challenge to do just that. And maybe by trying to fake it we stumble upon the answer!

[AB Hammer]

Damian

It is sounding like a very large self winding clock design if we go that way.

[jim_mich]

I think a challenge would be a good idea.

Any fake wheel needs to be able to remain motionless until given a light push start in either direction, then it must accelerate up to a speed of at least 26 RPM very quickly. It must be able to lift at least 100 pounds at a rate of about 0.9 feet per second, which amounts to a little over 100 Watts of output power. The bearings must be open for inspection to assure that no energy is being transmitted into the wheel through the bearings. No modern technology may be used such as electric motors or electronics.

It must pass a duration test similar to this:

Examination at Kassel
(November 10, 1717 - January 4, 1718)

The examination at Castle Weissenstein in Kassel was the final and most rigorous official test of the wheel.

To refute allegations that the machine was driven by a hidden external means, Prince Karl ordered the wheel transferred to a large hall in the middle of the castle. The room, having been designed for defense, had stone walls four feet thick and one small entry door, making it easy to seal and guard during the test. To counter accusations that a man or an animal drove the machine from inside, the test period was set for a fortnight in duration.

First the wheel and bearings were closely inspected by the eminently respectable panel of investigators assembled by the Prince. The examinations were conducted for two days. The wheel and framework were pushed to different parts of the room, the wheel was stopped and started, and the entire apparatus was meticulously inspected for any sign of fraud. None was found.

On November 12, the machine was put into motion and the door was locked and officially sealed with wax. Two military guards were posted outside the entrance. On November 26, the investigators verified that the seals were undisturbed and entered the room to find the wheel spinning at 26 revolutions per second. They stopped the wheel, inspected it, and restarted it. The room was again locked, sealed, and guarded. On January 4th, 1718, 54 days after the start of the test, the examiners suddenly requested access to the room. The seals showed no signs of tampering. Upon entering the room, the group found the wheel continuing as before in its uninterrupted motion. Nothing suspicious was found.

[RIPPERTON]

Jim see if you can use the same mathematical chutzpah that you used to figure out how the wheel DIDNT work, to figure out how it DID work.

We know the weight of the weights
the number of weights
the radius they worked at.
We should be able to figure out at what radius the returning weights were at when they came back up.
Assuming the weights swung on levers accross the radius, out to the perimeter and back again to near the center.
We could also figure out if the wheel was self limiting in its speed by analyzing the rpm difference between loaded and unloaded.
And most importantly calculate to what extent centrifugal force played on the movement of the weights.
Even at 40 rpm a 100lb weight coming down through the 5 6 and 7 o'clock positions would have weighed more than 100lbs.

Apart from that I think the guy with the biggest beard should be the one who discovers the wheel

[murilo]

There are two important ways of thinking about Herrn Bessler stuffs:
- one can expend the best of talent to guess about wich has being his line of mind, resources and flash insight. This means, re-discover, to find, just like one look for a lost object.
- the other one, that is my own line of thinking, I try to invent again a kind of wheel that may be or not similar to Bessler's. Of sure, I keep open eyes to any tip he could send. Generally I don't trust him!
Right in this moment, I deal with a very good principle, chronically and clearly unbalanceable. Question are some mechanism details, still heating in the ''woven''. ;s
Cheers.
Muliro

[jim_mich]

Ripperton,

A 100Lb weight always weighs 100Lbs on this sphere we call Earth, so it never weighs more than 100Lb.

The 100Lbs is the load that the wheel lifts, not the weights inside. See http://www.besslerwheel.com/wiki/index. ... eel_Output

The weights inside the 3rd (Merseburg) were about 4 pound cylinders of lead. The 4th (Kassel) wheel was very near the same diameter and probably had similar sized weights.

The way to figure out how Bessler did it is to look at all the clues that Bessler left us. See http://www.besslerwheel.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=46144 or in the Wiki under clues.

A 70 pound load on an 8 inch diameter axle (4 inch radius) only needs about 8-1/2 pounds of weight out at about 5-1/2 foot radius inside the wheel. But because weights are not always at 3 o'clock the weight needs to be about 1.57 times bigger or about 13-1/2 pounds total, such as maybe four 4Lb weights.

Since the weights cannot move instantly from the axle out to 5-1/2 foot you will need more than just 4 weights. I figure that it would take about 16 weights each weighing about 4 or 5 pounds to produce the same results as Bessler's wheel.

But then you still need to figure out some way to make the weights move and gain energy so that they can be lifted up so that they can fall and turn the wheel.

[RIPPERTON]

A 100Lb weight always weighs 100Lbs

Cant agree with that Jim. If its swinging through 5 6 7 o'clock at 40 rpm and 5.5' radius its going to require more force to lift it directly upwards than if it were standing still.

[jim_mich]

The force required to move an object it not the same as the object's weight. As I stated, on Earth a 100Lb object always weighs 100Lbs. If on the moon it will weigh less. If on Jupiter it will weigh more. But here on Earth it will weigh 100Lbs. If you drop the weight from any height it will crash to the ground with more than 100Lbs of FORCE but it will still WEIGH just 100Lbs.

If its swinging through 5 6 7 o'clock at 40 rpm and 5.5' radius its going to require more force to lift it directly upwards than if it were standing still.

This statement makes little sense. What is it that is swinging?

[rlortie]

Cant agree with that Jim. If its swinging through 5 6 7 o'clock at 40 rpm and 5.5' radius its going to require more force to lift it directly upwards than if it were standing still.

I agree with Jim, first of swinging implies to something moving in a radial path from a pivot point. Unless a rope or slider connection at mass or pivot is used there is no way one can lift it straight up.

It does not take more force than if standing still as you have already overcome static inertia and turned it into dynamic.

A quick recap on inertia: I have underlined my point.

Inertia, the property of matter that causes it to resist any change of its motion in either direction or speed. This property is accurately described by the first law of motion of the English scientist Sir Isaac Newton: An object at rest tends to remain at rest, and an object in motion tends to continue in motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an outside force. For example, passengers in an accelerating automobile feel the force of the seat against their backs overcoming their inertia so as to increase their velocity. As the car decelerates, the passengers tend to continue in motion and lurch forward. If the car turns a corner, then a package on the car seat will slide across the seat as the inertia of the package causes it to continue moving in a straight line.
Any body spinning on its axis, such as a flywheel, exhibits rotational inertia, a resistance to change of its rotational speed. To change the rate of rotation of an object by a certain amount, a relatively large force is required for an object with a large rotational inertia, and a relatively small force is required for an object with a small rotational inertia. Flywheels, which are attached to the crankshaft in automobile engines, have a large rotational inertia. The engine delivers power in surges; the large rotational inertia of the flywheel absorbs these surges and keeps the engine delivering power smoothly.
An object's inertia is determined by its mass. Newton's second law states that a force acting on an object is equal to the mass of the object multiplied by the acceleration the object undergoes. Thus, if a force causes an object to accelerate at a certain rate, then a stronger force must be applied to make a more massive object accelerate at the same rate; the more massive object has a larger amount of inertia that must be overcome. For example, if a bowling ball and a baseball are accelerated so that they end up rolling at the same speed, then a larger force must have been applied to the bowling ball, since it has more inertia.

"Inertia," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 97 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1996 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.