Flippin' Flywheels

[MrVibrating]

,,,so, basically, what this could be alluding to is how to move a mass in and out, using more or less energy?

IOW breaking symmetry of the ice-skater effect? The bucket comes out, performing work on the way, resulting in the stampers being lifted back in, and falling back out?

Rhetorical questions, of course, but by my standards at least, this seems a fairly compelling hypothesis.. or the makings of one, if i can piece it together.

Further scrutiny in comparing the relative angles and loads between these three images seems prudent.. maybe helping clarify some consistent underlying principle.

[MrVibrating]

I took a brief look at how the net angular inertia of a penduwheel varies throughout a cycle here, as an example of what i'm on about - obviously, we get a similarly lumpy transmission by using a square spindle or pulley.

So what benefit this lumpiness - what is being made lumpy, and why might that be useful?

We have a pulsing MoI, and also a small pulsing GPE load - both the pendulums and square wheel on the water screw share these same two mechanical attributes - which ostensibly seems their only purpose.

So there must be something interesting or useful about pulsing the momentum or a small PE load. Or maybe both. But that's what the drawn mechanisms do..

The wheel is decelerated when the rope rides over the flat sides of the square spindle around the water screw, and likewise so is the climb rate of the water inside, against which it has its own counter-inertia.. so one can easily imagine the water sloshing forwards and upwards a little each time the rope rides off a corner of the spindle and onto a flat side of it..

And the punduwheels are doing something similar - as they're raised towards vertical, increasing their GPE, the cranking angle approaches minimal eficiency and then reverses, changing the direction of swing, to which those long slender pendulums would have significant inertial resistance.

This pulsing and 'sloshing' of momentum and GPE seems to represent discrete input and output phases - stampers or pendulums rise and fall, inertia of the pendulums and water accelerates then decelerates in turn.. so these are discrete input and output integrals.. maybe there's some kind of opportunity for asymmetry between them here?

[MrVibrating]

So in the text accompanying the Meresburg illustration featuring the stampers and 70 lb box of bricks, Bessler tells us that each stamper is raised and dropped twice per cycle.

We can also see from the illustration that the pendulums complete one full swing each revolution.

Therefore the four stampers are each raised and dropped once in turn while the pendulums swing inwards and upwards, their GPE increasing, and then once each again with the pendulums swinging back outwards and downwards, releasing their GPE.

So if the illustration also doubles up as a diagram of a gain principle, does the gain arise in the stamper interactions, or the pendulums' backswing compared to the forward swing..?

In the former case, each stamper lift and drop is a discrete OU interaction. In the latter, only each full swing of the pendulums - and thus each full revolution of the wheel - is OU.

In other words, either the pendulums modulate the stamper operation in such a way as to cause an energy asymmetry, or else the stampers modulate the pendulums's efficiency.

So this is a fairly limited set of permutations to sort thru...

If the pendulums' GPE is rising, then the stampers are being lifted 'uphill' with the axle, and if the pendulums are instead swinging back down again, then the stamper lifting work is all 'downhill'.

But we still don't have any prospective means of collecting the energy when the stampers fall back down..

Likewise, we still don't know which way is 'up' WRT gravity - again, note that if the box of bricks is being raised, then at the same time, the stampers are being pushed downwards before falling back up. Either that, or else they're falling downwards, torquing the axle, before somehow being raised again by means unshown.. either way, something raises them back up again.

Perhaps its invisibility is also a clue - perhaps it's not a physical mechanism that picks up the stampers again, but a passive force..? In that case, every individual stamper interaction might represent an independent OU exchange.

But then that would in turn mean that either we have two passive forces which change direction, up vs down, 8 times per cycle, in order for the stampers to fall down and then back 'up' again entirely passively, or else there's only one main force direction, upwards, and the axle only ever pushes the stampers back down, whereafter they promptly fall back up again.

However if the upper left wall bracket does represent a bearing, and thus an axis of rotation, then downwards as shown here is also 'outwards', in the direction of CF, and thus gravity alternates between inwards and outwards each full revolution about that main axis.

So that might offer two passive force flips per cycle, but not eight.

Unless the net system was spinning thru 16 full revs for each cycle of the inner mech, which seems asking a bit much..

So the most consistent interpretation seems to be that the stampers fall outwards under CF or else a combination of CF and gravity, torquing the wheel and pendulums in the process, before falling back inwards, against CF but under positive gravitation, after having rotated upside-down.

But on the face of it, these types of schemes usually lose GPE when a radial translation occurs without inducing torque - ie. sliding a mass across the face of a spinning wheel radially is as likely to squander OB potential, as raise it; the stampers would have to be rotated upside down against an unreciprocated negative OB torque, and likewise, when they rotate back around and downwards, they'll have wasted some potential OB torque by sliding inwards linearly first.

All these potential implications seem conflicting.. if each stamper's raised and dropped twice per cycle, one cycle of the inner mechanism corresponds to one cycle of the whole wheel system, then the stampers are only upside-down once per cycle, and hence the force pulling them back inwards cannot be gravity for half of that cycle.

What if there was a spring in the stamping box, and the stampers are pushed down before bouncing back up?

It just doesn't make any sense..

Damn picture's doing my nut in..

[MrVibrating]

Wow maybe found something here - that upper left wall bracket seems to suggest an axis of rotation, right?

But what if it doesn't - not that i've any better alternative explanations, but just what if my standing one is incorrect?

A consistent interpretation from the above examination is that the stampers must fall upwards, therefore upwards would be outwards, in the direction of CF.

Which means the main system axis would have to be at the bottom of the page..

So, if we ignore for now that this would contradict the apparent meaning of the upper left wall bracket, are there any other consistencies with this particular hypothesis?

Yes! The hole for the rope to pass through the frame / stand numbered '4'! Why does the rope need to wind over two pulleys, and why does the pulley have to be vertically aligned to the stand '4'?

Think about it, that lower pulley could sit either side of the stand '4', with no effect on the mechanical efficiency. Such a forced arrangement - a sledgehammer to a walnut of an engineering issue - would be beneath a man of Bessler's fastidiousness, unless there was some other overriding reason for such a convergence..

..a forced convergence... such as by radial lines converging on an axis! The lower pulley '7' cannot be placed either side of the stand '4' if it is right at the center of rotation!

So this gives us some potential consistency between the stampers and the exacting lower pulley positioning requirement and consequent lower cut-out in the support-post '4'...

..but then it also turns the pendulums upside-down! Which for now, doesn't seem to make much sense.

Still, 3 steps forward, 2 steps back, maybe..

[MrVibrating]

There's a very similar, and presumably directly related, anomaly with the stampers on the waterscrew image.

If anyone has a high-res version of this image, pay close attention to the two levers commuting the axle to the stampers:

- at first impressions, we expect that we're seeing two straight beams, pivoted in their centers and overlayed in an 'X' configuration, like scissors, raising and dropping each of the two stampers in turn.

- but looking closer, we see it's actually a pair of overlayed 'V' shapes - the upper beam on either side is one lever, and behind this, the lower beam on either side is the other lever.


So what does this mean? Well, the front lever works as expected - the wheel turns clockwise, the waterscrew counter-clockwise, and the cams on the axle engage that frontmost lever twice per cycle, raising and dropping its stamper.

But the rear lever is upside down! It cannot perform the same function as the front lever!!

The only way it could operate, as drawn, is if the wheel direction - and gravity - are reversed.


To further confuse things, Bessler has drawn the front lever connecting to the rear stamper, and vice versa.

So, the rear stamper, operated by the front lever, must be raised upwards, and falls downwards.

But the front stamper, operated by the rear lever, has to be 'raised' downwards, before falling upwards.

As noted previously, he's also twisted the transmission rope in opposite directions between left and right depictions, but while preserving the gearwise synch. This suggests something alternating, but one can only guess what, at this stage..

Main point for posting was simply this correlation between this and the other two images featuring upwards-falling stampers..

Bessler was repeatedly 'hiding in plain sight' these upwards-falling stampers, for some odd reason..

[Art]

Actually this feature was discussed a number of years back and IIRC it was just noticed that it was an "impossibly "drawn feature which wasn't right .

I think you are definitely correct , if those levers are v shaped they then make sense , (more like a boomerang shape actually , - interestingly some boomerangs were found in Egypt in a Pharoes tomb , so Bessler may have known what a boomerang does , - it comes back ! : ))

However the connection to the stampers is indistinct to the stage where it is drawn wrong ! eg the top lever has been overdrawn by the support post of the stamper which would mean it wouldn't be connected to either stamper if you accept that at face value .

I think the lower lever must engage the far stamper which then tallies with the end of the lever about to slip off the cog "lower c" and allow the stamper to drop .

Correspondingly the upper lever if engaged with the near side stamper is about to pushed downward by the cog "upper c" because of the clockwise rotation , and raise the stamper .

Also the word that Bessler used for what we have translated as "Crossbar" is I believe "Kreuze" which can be translated as simply just "Cross" . I think this could be relevant in this drawing .

Either way Mr V , very nicely spotted ! : )

[MrVibrating]

Yes, which lever interacts with which stamper does seem a little ambiguous... but whichever way around, this seems a minor detail compared to this consistent implication of upwards-falling stampers.

My expectations of a "crossbar" is that it would be a major part of a mechanism, but you're right, in that, if the asymmetric interactions at the heart of the exploit are those of the stampers, then adding a second set of cams would double the number of OU interactions per cycle.

And the boomerang link hadn't occurred to me either - or that they'd been found in ancient Egyptian tombs. Now that you mention it, this may be worth keeping in mind - Bessler may have read popular German egyptologists, furthering the interest in heiroglyphics sparked by the rabbi and applied in so many of his illustrations, so may have been aware of this.

For now though, we have the outline of some other kind of interaction, besides the demonstrations ostensibly being depicted in these images. Whatever its nature, it is principally concerned with angular to linear conversions, and relies on some kind of passive reversal of forces. Clearly, the most obvious suggestion is that there's some way to get a radially-moving mass to move in and out, cyclically...

In other words, it's hinting at an asymmetry between the amount of output work performed by an outbound mass, versus the amount of input work required to bring it back in..

[MrVibrating]

My original plan of attack, a few years back, was that in a vertical wheel, CF is always outwards and somewhat constant, while gravity oscilates between inwards and outwards.

Assigning a blanket value of 1 N to all forces, once per cycle the net force is zero, and 180° later it is double.

So that looks, superficially, like a free AC power supply.

Every attempt i've made to tap into it though has met with frustration... if this IS an accessible gradient, then i obviously haven't been scrutinizing it persistently enough..

[MrVibrating]

Yet another anomaly with the stampers shown in the Mersburg engravings is that the right-most two seem to have been raised too high..?

I say this, because the holes in the stampers, in which the cams seat, seems too high to have been simply lifted there by the cams - it's as if they've been flung upwards, rather than just gently raised. Surely they should've dropped already?

Perhaps Bessler just wants to keep their lift sequence clear - and also give a clear view of the holes?

As noted however, if the box of bricks is being raised, then the stampers are being dropped - and, it would seem, from a height greater than the cams could've raised them.

Further suggestion that we should perhaps be asking how the stampers were raised.

The tantalising implication is that there's some way a mass can be drawn inwards passively, harvesting a free angular acceleration from this passive radial translation..

Getting a mass to fall outwards or downwards is obviously trivial using gravity or inertia. Getting one to fall inwards or upwards is more challenging.

We can turn the whole mechanism upside-down, such that 'inwards' becomes 'downwards', and so allowing gravity to pull the mass in, linearly. But then we've lost angular GPE to that linear excursion - any inertial acceleration we get from the ice-skater effect will have been paid for by the preceding lift.

Additionally, the net PE of an inwards-falling mass under gravity is attenuated by CF, pulling it back out in the opposite direction. Because of this, any radially-sliding mass can't travel very far, as the closer it gets to the edge, the higher the CF relative to gravity. As such, any such action would be confined to the inner radii.

So this CF vs G scheme that seems fairly straightforward in principle, quickly gets messy in practice. Trying to apply gravity as a free centripetal force seems to come up against inertial and gravitational symmetries.

And yet, in the two Mersburg engravings, he individually recreates the 'error' of depicting the rope being wound in the 'wrong' direction, directly implying that the stampers are applying torque, an energy input rather than an output.. and then in the Kassel / waterscrew engraving, the occlusion error between the stamper levers and their support post seems equally deliberate, and again implies that the stampers take turns to 'fall' both upwards then downwards, again implying that they could be inputs, rather than just outputs.


So the commonality is this implication of a linearly-moving mass sliding in and out, applying positive torque on the way out.. and presumably, with more, or else none, being applied when the mass 'falls', under its own impetus, back in.

In short, the exploit is more concerned with gaining positive torque from an outbound mass (such torques are ususally negative), than the positive torque normally associated with an inbound mass, which may or may not still be harnessed - we don't know for now how the stampers are re-lifted, other than OU demands that they must do so passively, or else at a reduced cost.

So maybe this is just confirmation bias but the concept i was last working on seems to fit well with this approach; an asymmetry due to the positive torque that might be produced by an outwards-bound mass.

Getting the mass back in again, against this now-higher RPM and thus CF, is not simply 'an engineering issue' - we cannot even measure the efficiency of only half an interaction, so unless there's some way of getting the mass back in for free or on the cheap, any successful torque reversal on the way out is a chocolate teapot. Sure, we might end up with more angular momentum and RKE than if we hadn't harvested that CF PE on the way out, but unless we can get it back in again without it clawing back our prospective 'gain', there's no meaningful symmetry break.

I have absolutely no clue what might cause a mass to passively fall inwards, besides gravity, which then implies having to re-lift an OB load, having robbed Peter to pay Paul. I wouldn't be posting such inane suggestions, at this stage, but for the fact that the mechanical problems posed by these 'errors' seem to deliberately converge on this consistent resolution; an outbound mass can generate positive, besides just negative, torque, and that despite the consequent net acceleration, can nonetheless be reset passively - basically, alternately falling upwards or inwards, and then outwards / downwards.

So please don't ask me how or why, i'm struggling with exactly the same questions, i do not know the answers. It's a puzzle set by Bessler, and its solution, presumably, is the keys to the safe..

[MrVibrating]

..what's really bugging me right now is why the pulley (17) must be situated directly under the axle, necessitating the cut-out hole in the main support post.

It's entirely redundant, or else OCD.

But if there's deliberate anomalies elsewhere in the image, maybe this is another.

As noted, such an arrangement might be forced by converging radial lines - ie. at the center of rotation. So the beams (4) would be radial spokes, and downwards = inwards.

But another requirement might regard induced counter-forces.

Why is there a lower pulley at all? Why not just wind the rope off the axle and straight out the window to the upper pulley? The lower pulley does allow additional clearance between the machine and the outer wall and window - but is this sufficient reason for its inclusion? Why not just have the wheel closer to the wall? The only thing in its way is ostensibly the plan depiction of the same wheel, so that couldn't have been the reason..


But the pulleys also generate and transfer other forces:

- They pull the axle down towards the floor

- And likewise, the floor towards the ceiling, and vice versa

- The lower pulley would also seem to be the point of application of any counter-torque applied to the net system by the box of bricks being lowered and so torquing the wheel - ie. if the stampers fall and the box rises then the net system experiences an ACW torque, and if the stampers fall and the box rises, the net system is subject to a CW counter-torque

Whatever the reason, such a requirement would only arise mechanically under certain confines, and so this detail must be telling us something about that circumstance. The hole is a solution, a workaround... so what was the problem? The pulley was necessary, and for some reason had to keep the rope perfectly parallel to the stand..

Again, consider that if they both need to converge at the center due to being radially oriented, then their disposition relative to one another remains entirely incidental, and the hole just a practicality

Yet the rest of the image seems to suggest that downwards is outwards, which means that the lower pulley (17) is at the rim.

Note also that it is right next to the padlock (24). These two parts share common functions, in conveying angular forces between the wheel and ground / net system.

Or, maybe he just wanted an excuse to draw another 'window', and got some kind of weird OCD satisfaction in things that pass through other things, or something.

All i know is, if there's a mechanical need for the lower pulley - and especially, the cut-out - then it's one we're left to deduce for ourselves, coz it ain't apparent from the picture.

These mistakes are either pointless little idosyncrasies and red herrings, or else intentional hints...

[jim_mich]

The three things: the stampers, water screw, and rope lift, were simply demonstrations showing that the wheel could do work. They had noting to do with the wheel gaining energy.

The solution to Bessler's wheel does not involve gravity. The solution is totally based upon motion. And it is very simple. And it is totally contained inside the wheel.

Usual disclaimer... such is my opinion.

[ovyyus]

The hole is a solution, a workaround... so what was the problem?

Perhaps the layout of the audience/demonstration room meant the wheel was best positioned with its axle pointing towards the available window. If so, the pulley and slot were simply an easy way to redirect the rope.

[Art]

These drawings exhibet too many silly little things that I think you wouldn't draw the way they have been drawn if all you wanted to do was give the viewer an impression of what the machine looked like .

I'm in no doubt that nearly everything in the drawings mean something specific if we knew how to read them properly . I suspect though that there is a key document or hidden code somewhere or even a way of thinking about the number layout that should yield valuable insight to the working principle . I think Mr V's approach so far is better than anything else I've seen offered up !

Just a few things that seem non sensible to me , if there is no hidden meanings are

* Yes - why is the hole for the rope and pulley in the support , but also why is it not centered ? , it is very precisely off centre.

*Why is the wheel given the number 1 in the face on view but numbered 2 in the edge on view ?

*Why label things multiple times with its designated letter ( eg rope has 16 three times and each of the stampers -right next to each other - labelled 6666 ) and yet I can't even find number 5 ,14 and 21 where ever he hid them !

*Why bother putting a lock on the thing at all ? and reverse the number on the two drawings (mistake) ? Stands out very clearly on the two drawings which Mr V has superimposed ( brilliant by the way : ))

*Why bother putting in posts and crossbrace 12 and 13 and not bother numbering the pendulum support from 13 ? IMO those three items are superfluous unless he needed a certain range of numbers in the drawing for his "code" . Why would you clutter the drawing unless you had a reason ?

These engravings like most of his MT's obviously have meaning wrapped up in most of their features .I don't think though its necessarily going to be apparent unless we can correspond the similarities and differences across his different drawings .

For example the pulley for the weight in the above drawings is outside the little window and seems to be saying obviously (to me anyway : )) - "this is gravitational interaction with the wheel !"
But the outlet for the water in the Weissenstein drawing is also outside the window but seems to be a totally superfluous feature in the drawing whose only purpose seems to say "this is how we get rid of the water when we are tidying up after our experiment !"
It really beats me but I feel it means something .

He sure hasn't made the meanings real obvious in most of his drawings , but I suppose if it was too easy it would have been done ages ago and we wouldn't now be having the chance at cracking it !

[MrVibrating]

The three things: the stampers, water screw, and rope lift, were simply demonstrations showing that the wheel could do work. They had noting to do with the wheel gaining energy.

The solution to Bessler's wheel does not involve gravity. The solution is totally based upon motion. And it is very simple. And it is totally contained inside the wheel.

Usual disclaimer... such is my opinion.

For or against, your opinion's always valued.

But why the requirement for vertical orientation if gravity was incidental? Why not free the mechanism from the constraints of gravity entirely and just use powerful springs in a small horizontal rotor?

What i'm suggesting is that each of these external 'elements' have analogues inside the mechanism, and thus that he's using these little errors in the images to convey a revealing relationship between these elements.

So the images' accuracy WRT historical events is merely incidental; a base upon which to leave a trail 'joining the dots' between the key components of his exploit.

So yes, in the Mersburg demonstration, the wheel drove some stampers and raised a 70 lb box of bricks, and the Kassel demo also powered a waterscrew.

But no witnesses mention the pendulums. Neither does Bessler himself when describing the wheels in the main text of his books; he only mentions them when labelling them in these diagrams.

And finally, bringing us to this thread, the way the Mersburg engravings are drawn is showing us an interaction between angular and linear motions - the rope is wound the 'wrong' way, forming an exchange, with an input and one end and an output at the other - stampers go down, box goes up, or vice versa..


Obvioushly, i'm not suggesting his actual internal mechanism used little stampers, pendulums and water screws etc., but simply that it was some kind of angular to linear energy asymmetry.

I still expect that the form of 'excess impetus' was inertial torque, applying CoM to convert MoI into V and thus RKE, rather than some kind of gravitational asymmetry.

As such, i'm expecting that either the stampers or box / bucket represent inbound and outbound moving masses (the ice skater's 'limbs'), inducing positive and negative torques when coming in or out, and that the rest of the mechanism is thus concerned with somehow rectifying or modulating the energy symmetry of that action. By "rest of the mechanism" i mean whatever function is served by the periodicity produced by the pendulums and 'square wheel' around the waterscrew.

This periodic function represents a sequence of interactions in its own right - alternating acceleration and deceleration, rising and falling GPE / KE..

We have the GPE of the pendulums to consider, their angular inertias too, the varying crank angle efficiency, and WRT the waterscrew, the water is driven upwards in bursts, so there's constantly water flowing back down through the screw, inbetween the upwards surges.

So, whatever this periodic function is, it's represented in different ways between the Mersburg and Kassel engravings, and must be a key part of the process.

So there's multiple interactions being implied, in series and parallel; a cloudy soup of differentials rather than a neat menu of cordon bleu integrals.. and thus the possibility of a dish more than the sum of its parts.

[MrVibrating]

The hole is a solution, a workaround... so what was the problem?

Perhaps the layout of the audience/demonstration room meant the wheel was best positioned with its axle pointing towards the available window. If so, the pulley and slot were simply an easy way to redirect the rope.

True, but as noted, it could still be obviated by simply positioning the system closer to the wall and window - the only thing in its way is the plan view of the same wheel.

Equally, he could've positioned the lower pulley either side of the stand - this has no effect whatsoever on the mechanical efficacy of the system.

Instead, the hole has been cut out because the pulley must, for some reason, be positioned directly beneath the axle, keeping the rope perfectly straight relative to the stand.

In short, if the reason for the lower pulley was to allow clearance between the machine and wall, then why? And further, why would we then also need the cut-out? As shown, it seems too extravagant a solution to either issue; he could've just sat the machine closer to the window - a straight line drawn between the top of the axle and top of the upper pulley would only just clip the upper window frame, so why not simply draw the window a little higher, or the machine a little closer? Why not put the plan view in the left pane, and the profile in the right pane - or else, simply place the outer wall and window on the left side?

As shown, it's too forced.. too contrived. It's two diagrams in one, the apparent historical depiction merely a 'carrier signal', which he could 'modulate' to convey a more informative reveal..