Posted by John Collins (194.164.38.70) on January 15, 2003 at 13:48:16:
In Reply to: some (unsorted) thoughts posted by Rainer on January 15, 2003 at 12:26:25:
:Briefly in answer to some of your questions:-
Did some reading ( http://www.evert.de/eft764e.htm Perpetuum Mobile of the 4th kind - http://www.evert.de/eft732e.htm Bessler Problem solved ..
JC speaking -Personally I disagree with George's assumption about pulsed load - all reports accentuate the fact of the wheel's great equanimity of rotation i.e. no variation in speed of rotation.(JC end)
: Other thing ... the speed of the wheels are mentioned several times, as far as I remember the Merseburg wheel with the stampers was supposed to run about 50rev/minute .. slow as some say. Fast I say ... think about it, 4 paddles going through the shaft, ends sticking out evenly, 45 degrees to each other. Each one hits one stamper 2 times/revolution, so 8 hits/revolution overall. With the wheel turning at 50rev/min that ends up with a hit onto the shaft( against the stamps, ok) every 0.15seconds, each stamp gets hit every 0.6seconds. There must have been a hell of a noise, more like a machine gun. Can't find that mentioned anywhere, just that they could here the stamps working *wump wump wump* instead of *ratatatata* ???? WAS THE SHAFT GEARED DOWN IN RELATION TO THE WHEEL ??? Does anyone have some information on this???
JC again - Yes the wheels were extremely noisy and in fact Bessler tried to quieten the early ones with strips of felt. I have never found any desription of the noise so I don't know where your description of the sound originates so I can't comment. With regard to the stampers, I should point out that there is no record of stampers actually being present during all of the examinations. I say this because the examinations of the later wheels were extremely careful and even scratches on the wood were mentioned as having been closely examined. Even if we accept that the stampers were there despite not being mentioned, I find it difficult to believe that people called to examine the wheel with the object of catching Bessler out failed to consider that the drive might have been coming from the stampers - this over a period of some 17 years in total (including the first wheel)- and yet not made the connection (parden the pun).
As for the gearing of the axle relative to the wheel. The Kassel wheel was roughly twelve feet wide and its axle six inches wide, and it turned on two bearings of either a quarter of an inch or three quarters of an inch, depending on which account you read.
John C.
: Rainer