ToyPage Note

[Fletcher]

I'm not sure what the 'smudge' is to the right of the inked out block dax !

It could be a cuff or something, but why did he leave that in ?

MT30 is the other MT with a hand ready to pull a lever !

( N.B. Correct-Handle Construction - a handle moves down and up again )

There the hand and fingers are drawn differently.

[MrVibrating]

A definitive interpretation of Toys page is probably impossible, and we can only attach degrees of weight to the various possibilities.

Part of the reason for this, i think, is that Bessler mentions that he "learned to read" heiroglyphs (either from the Jesuit or Rabbi, i forget which), and the authoritive view at that time was influenced by writers such as Johannes Goropius Becanus and Athanasius Kircher, proceeding under the assumption that the glyphs were entirely symbolic, rather than phonetic.

So what Bessler really learned was how to express concepts pictographically.

These caveats notwithstanding, i remain fully confident that rediscovery of the mechanical solution is inevitable - there's only so many variables and permutations to be explored - and that once we have it, the riddle of the toys page will also become more clear.

Until then, i'm sure we'll all continue to interpret it in different ways, depending on whatever one's current pet theory is... and as such, i'd just like to highlight some suggestions that i currently feel have sufficient weight for further consideration:


- The scissorjacks symbolise the force they manifest; inertia. It's placing "heaviness" in terms of resistance to accelerations, squarely in the frame.

- the hammer toys represent two pairs of masses alternating between inner and outer positions.

- the lower pair are manifesting angular inertia by the act of alternating their positions.

- the upper pair are conspicuously not subject to the same circumstances as the lower pair - perhaps they instead respond to gravity? Or perhaps the way they're differently attired represents competing or opposing influences. One obvious question this begs is, how do you alternate masses between inner and outer positions without incurring angular acceleration or deceleration - are they somehow 'above' that, or simply indifferent to it? Are they figures of authority or control over the lowly plebs generating the inertial torques?

- assuming as suggested that the lower hammer toy represents masses swapping inner-outer positions being subject to inertial accelerations, when the toy moves one way a positive torque is induced, and when it moves the other way, a negative torque is produced.

As such, the way they're depicted with a directional bias leaning towards the inertia represented by the jacks, suggests that one torque is applied to the axle, and the other, opposite torque is sunk elsewhere (into linear inertia perhaps?)

- In the same way, the upper (gravitating?) hammer toy has the alternate bias, towards the axle (item 'B')


- whatever the meanings of A + B, their context must be related to the paired alternating radial translation depicted by the hammer toys, and their respective inertial or gravitational actions, as such, they either represent alternate properties of the axle, or else the axle and rim - ie. they must represent the framework or structure within which the positive and negative torques are controlled.


All complete speculation and confirmation bias of course. I've no idea what the holy hand grenade of Antioch signifies, but a cuff / hand seems like a consistent interpretation - Bessler was always at pains to describe the mechanism as preserving and perpetuating a motion given to it (as by turning the axle), which, in turn, caused the rotation..

[daxwc]

I think it probably didn’t print well so he cut it out to fix it. Maybe he didn’t cut it all out because it was less work? The hand grip is different than the other with the palm facing us and the fingers wrapped around the shaft. So you are looking at lines that are the back of the finger and it is the right distance away.
If it gave away too much information he would have taken it all out.

[wheelrite]

I dont think the tippe-toppe is there because it has any hidden clues or direct relevance to his wheel mechanism. There was no understanding of its behaviour then(the top), I feel its been put there as an 'example' of raising a weight mysteriously.

Elements of JB's signature in graph 2 ? http://www.wobsta.de/uni/tippetop/plots.shtml.en (Tippe top physics).

Regarding the hammer men, the left figure has the hammer 90 deg's to the body, the right figures have a lot more or less angle, surely this means the toys 'stroke' would different in each direction? or would it work at all?
Significant?

The storks bill/lazy tongs drawn in mt136 has a solid pointed top/arrow head, that doesn't seem right for any use?

'Reading' across the toys page left to right,
The arrow on the tip of the storksbill indicates the lifting of a weight upward, this is acheived by the handle ends alternately of D and E pushing down on the links and extending the bill, the letter C inbetween the two horizontal bars may indicate the axel centre and that the parallelograms are 'around' the axel?, (if not then one above and one below, pair of hammers on a pair of toys, connected), the ladder toy on the right indicates only that the paralellograms are connected by cords, flexible staps or similar(hence the fact they actually touch both hammer toys), the weight is being lifted in an outer concentric ring whereas the two hammer toys are in a second inner concentric mech or ring, as drawn in quite a few of Besslers drgs.
The top is drawn in after to highlight inner/outer mechs? it has concentric ring embellishment, it has an inner and outer component, they rotate at different speeds and drag or push each other round, or to contradict myself maybe its none of that and shows an egg shaped orbit....
The springs? well they have to be in there somewere, maybe on the storks bills 'sprung to compress' ?

Look carefully (magnify a little) the top 'rail' only on each hammer toy is serrated or notched, have not seen this in any real toy in my research, the letter C is too big and touches the horizontal rails, in fact it seems it may be retouched or something at the top of the C were it fits in a notch. Would an impact cause the anvil to fly up and move across a notch? would the next impact bounce it back a notch? Is that why the anvils are shown mounted differently on the top rails? The letter C between the rails is allmost like a spring, or end on view of a part cylinder?
Moving on :) if you turn the drg. 90 degrees right (is that what the 'twisted' men signify?) I note the hammer toys would work as parallelograms in this plane too, maybe better if they were 'squarer' and the men just handles. And the jacobs ladder toy looks like a 'scale' or 'count' , relating to drawings nos. maybe? so is it 5 and 50? or turning the drawing 180 degress 50 and 95? I dunno...

in the toys page can image E is 'up and down', C and D is 'left and right' , A in 'in and out' or 'toward and away', the top is 'round and round', so what is B?
The top could signify something spinning inside something rotating(the wheel).
The axle detail in the 'still you do not understand' image is overly complex, just artistic license or another pointer to something spinning inside something rotating? (the inner axel part looks concentric but not 'connected' kinda floating?). And the 3 small white 'strips' close to the axel? what do they infer? leverage around the axle? work or action close to the axel? any of these clues to the prime mover?
Back to the toys, are there two hammer toys because there has to be to illustrate both of the storks bill link lengths?, or because of the 'pairs' principal?, or to demonstrate handedness?, or maybe to show above and below axel points at 6 and 12 o'clock?, or were two needed to show the difference in the men? or their hammer (weight) shapes?
The page seems unnecessarily 'crammed' in the vertical, some of his drawings went off the edge so its not an available margin issue, but it does lend to highlight the connection points on the ladder toy/hammer levers (they touch, surely a no no when theres room for separation) and less so highlight the lever length comparison. This cramming would be a good pointer retrospectively to prove prior knowledge. PS
the anvil in C is drawn behind the horizontal stick, in D it is in front or straddling the stick.

the spacing between horizontal parts of the parallelogram toys is much greater than any of the real toys i've seen at the museum page, they have just enough space to operate and have legs on the figures, increasing the vertical length would make the legs look way too long and seems to have been avoided. This extra length WOULD be necessary if you were trying to match the storks bill segment lengths, OR if you wanted the handles to line up with the ladder toy hinge point and midway point, OR if you wanted to 'make room' for the detail on the base of the anvils. There seems no good 'obvious' reason for the way they are depicted so maybe there is a less obvious reason required to explain it (a clue).
Only one real toy I have seen from the period has any handle detail at all and that is 'sword' type design, I think indicating push or thrust inward (not pull) as a visual clue to the young on its operation maybe, or just a play on the sword thrust angle.
Back to anvils, again only one real period toy I have seen has any base anvil detail and that is just a cylinder anvil top to bottom, Besslers top illustration has a base like a group of cylinder weights placed together? and the lower one is more obscure, maybe the bottom of a 6 pointed star? they don't look like 'cauldron' type legs as the centre point is lower and would unbalance it.
The top of the storks bill ends in an solid arrow, indicating? lift?, in reality if there were not a joint in the arrow head itself this toy would not move at all......
so there you have it, to get from Falling on the right (A/B) to Lifting on the left (E) you have to connect or go through the parallelogram(s) (C/D) utilizing the hammers or weights, but where are the springs? ...sigh.
Finally, the ladder toy is shown twice, more significantly in two different planes. Does this indicate anything? maybe a turning or transforming of forces?( like the spinning top) or is it that its operation in one plane (flap falling to the side) will change cog/ob, and operation in the other (flap falling toward/away) will not?
And the actual drawing detail of the ladder is weird, almost not showing the solid 'flap' pieces but rather the connecting strips that make up the toy(its hinges if you like), odd. Even the pivot points are shown like little balls or bobbles (weights?) and are not in the centre of the toy but alternating on each side, and only 'bobbles' shown on one side of the A view, shouldn't it be both sides? they almost look like weights on short levers.

http://www.besslerwheel.com/forum/viewt ... ght=#38827

http://www.besslerwheel.com/forum/viewt ... ght=#38784

from my 'history'
regards
Jon

[AB Hammer]

I hit your green wheelrite. When I see an older member I hit their green who has had green.

Here is something I haven't heard anyone here talk about as a way to read the toy page

The idea came from a bible I own that was done in hieroglyphics so I started to look at the toy page as if they where hieroglyphics and have come up with some very interesting designs.