The concrete arguments that Bessler was a fraud

[Robinhood46]

1, it wasn't permitted to be otherwise.
2, the committee were too stupid to understand how he was cheating, or, Bessler paid them to lie.
3, the wheel didn't actually go round, it was just an illusion.
4, Bessler didn't like having a head, so it was a cunning plan so that someone would cut it off for him.
Are we lacking objectivity?
With arguments like these, is it not obvious he was a fraud?
What is it that we can't quite grasp, to allow us to see the apparently obvious fact that he was a fraud?

[eccentrically1]

Actually it was permitted to believe he was genuine.
The committee was divided on the question of how he did it. They tried to think of everything, Wagner seemed to come the closest. Least likely was Borlach’s image of someone in an adjacent room pulling a rope, but, it could have been someone in another building doing something else.
Very unlikely it wasn’t going around.

[johannesbender]

yeah the illusion argument has no chance in hell , there were actual lifting driving turning done with eyewitnesses present to inspect and report on rpm .

[daxwc]

Further, the good Inventor, Herr Orffyreus, in the presence of all,
caused the Wheel to be lifted from the framework in which it had
hitherto resided. He (page 128) allowed everyone to examine
the framework from top to bottom – especially the middle
section, where some had claimed that suspicious markings were
carved into the board most distant from the spectators’ vantagepoint.
He also permitted examination of the iron trunnions on
the axle which rested in the bearings during normal running, and
the result of all these examinations was that not the slightest
sign of any chicanery was to be seen – and that includes the
absence of any holes in either bearings or cladding – in short,
everything was found to be in perfect and, indeed, blameless
order. As yet further proof of the “innate nature� of the motive
principle, the good Orffyreus, unasked, after removing the
Wheel from its original framework, placed it in another one some
distance from the original, and there, with the new bearings
OPEN AT THE TOP, he caused the device to revolve, just as
before, in either direction, at will, as often as the impressive (and
impressed!) gathering requested. In every respect the Wheel’s
behaviour (page 129) in this new location was as before; it very
soon acquired the same powerful, even and rapid rotation as it
had had previously, driven, as it were, by the same impetus
deriving from its “innate natural power� – a momentum it
preserved until forcibly halted, so that, all in all, again not the
slightest sign of anything suspicious was to be detected. Finally
it should be mentioned that right at the outset, before operations
got underway, all rooms in the building, above, below, and to
the sides of the room where the Wheel was situated, were
closely examined by all present; even the heavy beams were
examined and found not to be hollow, so that altogether not a
single trace of any hidden device (such as pulleys and ropes)
241
was found. We, the undersigned, have no (page 130) hesitation
in stating, upon the respectful, seemly and obedient request of
the honourable inventor, that everything we have here attested
is in exact accordance with the Truth, and in appending our
signatures hereto we have entertained no reservations
whatsoever.
Signed, Merseburg, 31st October 1715 DT

[Senax]

I have never doubted that Bessler's claim was true and that Steorn's claim
was "true" for that matter.

Problem is Steorn, couldn't prove it. Bessler could.

It is a misunderstanding of the nature of inertial mass that is holding things
up, inter alia.

@Johannes - You have just given us a truly magnificent animation program
of the BuzzWheel. Do you believe the Bessler Wheel was genuine?

[Robinhood46]

So which argument is sold enough to allow us (collectively) to conclude that he was a fraud?
Would it not be more correct to say that;
PM is thought to be impossible.
Bessler is thought to be a fraud.
How can one say PM is impossible and Bessler is a fraud given the information we have to work with?
Anyone who says "i believe PM to be impossible" can objectively discuss the history of Bessler and a few others. When we know we believe something to be one way or the other, we can accept that someone else can believe the opposite. When we stop believing something and we start knowing it, we can no longer accept that others believe the opposite.
I'm all for believing that bessler was a fraud. I can fully respect this belief.
I'm all for believing that PM is impossible, there are plenty enough arguments to show that it is a very likely theory.
To be able to stop believing something and start knowing it, we need conclusive proof. We need to be rid of any doubt, no matter how small.
What concusive proof do we have that PM is impossible?
We got fed up of trying to find it so we decided it was.
Why couldn't we continue with the acceptance that we cannot know the answer?
Had we accepted that we believe PM to be impossible, but do not know it, would Bessler's wheel, being accepted as an eventuality, not recieved a totally different attitude?
Is the real problem in the History of Bessler his attitude or is it the scientific community's?
Had the approach been, BREAKING NEWS a german man may have finally answered the up until now unanswerable question of PM.
Instead of. Another crazy person who thinks he can prove the know it alls to be completely wrong.
Has the defending of beliefs not been the major obstacle for many big breackthoughs in our history.
Is the defending of beliefs not still playing a major role in many scientific debates?
Can it be justified to reject an argument that has value, for one and only one reason "it contradicts our present belief"?
Bessler couldn't give us the answer to the question for one and only one reason.
The question had already been answered.
The answer was that gravity cannot make a wheel turn.
The question was answered by people who don't even know what gravity is.
The biggest fraud in the history of bessler was the scientific community.
You need an incredible amount of illusion to convince yourself that a belief can become a fact, just because you want it to.

[eccentrically1]

The only 'proof' we have that PM is impossible is we have never observed it.
We have to observe something for it to become a possiblity.
So, we can't know for sure PM is possible until we observe it.
If B's wheels were illusions, then we'd have to change our thinking from how to mechanically duplicate these wheel demonstrations to how would a magician perform this illusion?

[ovyyus]

The concrete arguments that Bessler was a fraud

There is no concrete argument that Bessler was a fraud.
There is no concrete argument that Bessler wasn't a fraud.
No one knows what was inside Bessler's wheel.

[Robinhood46]

4, Bessler didn't like having a head, so it was a cunning plan so that someone would cut it off for him.

What about that one?

[eccentrically1]

Since his head wasn’t cut off, wouldn’t it be an argument he wasn’t a fraud?

[ovyyus]

Since his head wasn’t cut off, wouldn’t it be an argument he wasn’t a fraud?

No one could chop off Bessler's head without first knowing what was inside his wheel. Did Bessler hide his secret like his life depended on it? :P

[Robinhood46]

Since his head wasn’t cut off, wouldn’t it be an argument he wasn’t a fraud?

I disagree, his head not being cut off is not an argument in favor of him not being a fraud. This argument would only be of value had they seen inside the wheel and acknowledged that no cutting off of heads was needed.
A simple money back guarantee, 14 day free trial no questions asked or satisfied or remboursed policy wouldn't have enough weight to convince the people who already new it was impossible.
Bessler couldn't put his money where his mouth was because he didn't have any. A head he did have, and a pretty smart one too. By offering the thing to be cut off, should he be a fraud, he was giving an addition assurance to any potential buyer of the low risk involved in making the purchase.
I wouldn't be surprised if the reason this proposition from Bessler didn't work has nothing to do with Bessler actually hoping someone would cut his head off, because he didn't like having one.
I think it is all about social standing and credibility.
Just imagine how stupid everyone would have known you were to go to all the trouble of raising the money and establishing the fine details and being sure that you have no risk of losing your money if there is fraud.
You would have been the laughing stock of the whole community.
Bessler may have been confident enough to gamble his head, which he was rather attached to and had no wish for it to be cut off, in my opinion. But Bessler's head was of no importance to any potential buyer, what they risked losing was social standing and credibility. Nobody was confident enough to risk that because the know it alls had already established that this was the only outcome for anyone going into the transaction.
This is just my theory as to why Bessler offering his head as an additional insurance didn't help much at the time. Obviously i have no way of convincing myself that it is a fact that this is the reason.
So i can fully understand that it could also be that Bessler wished his head to be cut off and it was just a very cunning plan.
What i do find curious, is that if the lack of proof doesn't allow us to establish he isn't a fraud, where the hell does the conviction that he was a fraud come from? And why aren't most people able to discuss this event in history with objectivity.

[johannesbender]

i dont know how to put forward an argument in bessler's favour of not having been a fraud , without any proof.

yesterday i wrote a longer response to this , but the interweb stole it when i submitting it.

personally i have thrown my hands up in the air and cursed my own efforts many times , being frustrated and ask myself if he was a fraud , how would he have done it.

with so many people suspicious of the wheel , i think people would inspect and observe everything they suspect during the demonstrations as far as bessler would allow.

the thing about magic performances is it requires the audience to be willing to be just audience and not interfere with the showman and whats happening , and the showman or magician would only instruct and allow certain things to be done such that he may stay in controll of the illusion.

if it was nothing but an allusion , it would require more people being in on it than just bessler , and therefore the sworn silence of a whole group of people untill eternity.

not to mention if it were just a money grab ,why not prevent the fraud drama by stating upfront its just a trick and a show or riddle , it would be so much simpler making money by letting people pay to view the "show" .

i doubt the prince would have been just a willfully fooled onlooker, and go to such lengths to protect bessler and his invention .

the best proof we have , if we were to look at credibility would be the prince and the words he wrote regarding the situation.

wagner does have some credibility in the form of what was known about mechanics at that time , but he also does not know what was inside wheel , he had a design for what he believed was going on.

i have never seen anyone building wagners design and putting it up to the tests, he states it would have passed the same tests bessler could , if we build his monstrosity we can see just how much credibility wagners word held.

i have stated before ,if fraud was the only possible answer, then someone needs to build a fake bessler wheel that did what besslers did , with what was available during his time .

i suspect building such a fake wheel to proof fraud would be nearly equally hard as going down the other path.

my believe is simple , i believe science sits behind the vail.

[johannesbender]

copy cat post courtesy of the interwebs

[Robinhood46]

I agree that "science sits behind the vail".
I got fed up of internet stealing my posts a long time ago. I put it down to my crappy internet connexion. I now copy and paste long posts in wordpad, just incase.

I think there is enough proof to put forward an argument in favour of Bessler not being a fraud. There are many points that can be accepted as factual.
The only fact to my knowledge that would be in favour of him being a fraud, is the fact that it had already been decided that it must be.
When you consider the how it "may" have been dones, without any proof, you need to ask yourself how the hell can you accept a possibility without any proof. As you say, and others too, reproduce the wheel that was able to do what it did. I would love to have a source of energy, even very small for over fifty days even if i do need to reset something every now and then. To my knowledge, nobody has ever replicated a wheel that even comes near performing as did Bessler's.
Accusing PM seekers of being over imaginative and stupid for trying to do the impossible is a total lack of objectivity.
We cannot prove he was not a fraud, we can put forward an argument. We can also try our hardest to find the proof, and many people are trying to do this.
It cannot be proven that he was a fraud, the only arguments to give weight to this theory are arguments that are not even related directly to Bessler's tale. Imagination of how he could be a fraud without proof that they have any value are of absolutely no value whatsoever when making a conclusion. For a question of such importance, how come the need to prove he was a fraud has been neglected?
Him being a fraud means we are intelligent and him not being a fraud means we are stupid. We don't need to prove we are intelligent because we are intelligent enough to know that already. So unless it can be proven that we are not intelligent we can continue knowing that we are.
Objectivity is a thing which is only usefull for answering questions. Once a question has been answered there is no point in giving it more thought. Because we already knew it was impossible and still know it, any arguments in favour of the contrary can be simply discarded without any inner conflict. Most people can sleep well at night knowing damn well he was a fraud.
They do not need any proof because they know for a fact that PM is impossible. The fact that there is not and never has been any proof that PM is impossible is of no importance whatsoever.
We have moved on from objectively asking the question, because we already know the answer. We guessed right, because it was a good theory and nobody was able to do it.
Because we were too stupid to find the answer we were very keen to accept it is impossible. Nobody wants to be stupid, but we must accept that this is a possibilty.
If Bessler was right we are wrong.
If we are right Bessler was wrong.
When we can accept that being wrong is an eventuality, we have no choice but to accept that Bessler may well have not been a fraud.
If we are unable to accept the eventuality that we may be wrong, we are unable to even imagine that he is anything other than a fraud.
Imagination is needed for both sides of the argument. Imagination is not something that allows to conclude that a theory is actually a fact.
The biggest obstacle in many fields is not our inability to understand things better, it is our inability to question our present understanding.