BesslerWheel.com

Thank you. If anyone has, or can point me to, a copy or transcript of the original passage, in context in the actual letter--rather than a translation or paraphrase--, I'd be grateful if they could post it here. I suppose it is in Latin or German. I know of no reason to doubt the translation that's ...

Hi everyone, I've come across this statement many times, to the effect that Prince Karl observed that the mechanism was so simple a carpenter's boy could build it. Is there available, anywhere, the original text of the contemporaneous letter, or whatever it is, written by whomever, in which the stat...

Hi Stewart, Thanks a lot, it's much appreciated. I've just been checking out Gravesande's letter and his further remarks on principles.
Tom

Hi everyone, Could anyone point me to some place that has copies or transcriptions, in the original language, of any comments by Gravesande about the wheel (or any of the wheels), or contemporaneous accounts of Gravesande's comments about the wheels? I've been unable to find this material, despite r...

I posted, in the members' forum, a rough and untested translation of part of Wolff's letter (in Latin) to Leibniz of 17 Dec 1715, in which he records some observations about the wheel. This is the letter quoted at the "Eyewitness Accounts" page (and quoted or alluded to at other places) on...

Hi Fletcher, Thanks. Yes, this is why I was a bit, you know, taken aback by some of the observations in the thread. I guess I didn't read thoroughly enough to see you and people had already taken issue with some of the assertions. I thought the following statement would be pretty odd too (though I g...

A minor footnote, I wonder why the weights were cylindrical (as witness accounts strongly indicate), if it was not some rolling configuration (as witness accounts seem to indicate). Is it just a matter of cylindrical weights being handy from existing industrial practices, e.g. from the clock industr...

Nothing about the examples given suggests that energy--Energy--is not conserved. There's some jumping between the different concepts energy and kinetic energy that's confusing. Greendoor's example isn't startling at all from a traditional physics point of view. And, Jim, I'm afraid I don't agree tha...

Hi Jim, Thanks for clarifying. I think the underlined statement, referring to plain "Energy", is incorrect as stated, but I overlooked the succeeding reference to kinetic energy and I understand the point now.
Tom

41. I came across a tantalizing mention of it in Jacques Barzun's book Dawn to Decadence, a history of Western culture since the Renaissance. (Incidentally, Barzun, a respected historian, referred to it as an unsolved mystery, not any sort of sham--evidently he too rejected the maid's story as impla...

Momentum is a conserved quantity. That means, if we transfer the momentum of a heavy mass to a smaller mass, the smaller mass has to speed up to avoid losing momentum. This is demonstrated in a Newtons Cradle with dissimilar-mass balls. . . . But if E=1/2*MV^2, and the velocity goes up - then very ...

Hi ovyyus and everyone, It's been a long long while. I was dabbling in this again lately. So, first, I guess then there is no evidence that the weights in the machine rolled about in it in any fashion. Rather, what evidence there is suggests the weights just swung or pivoted or something like that. ...

Thanks to everyone for this interesting discussion. Can I just add that, whatever the movement of the weights, I'd think that surely it had to be a relatively compact and contained movement, and relatively low on friction. I guess I'm inclined, like JimMich, to suspect it was weights on a lever, or ...

Hi, yup that's a possibility. I have to say, there are a couple of circumstances why I got to wonder whether the absence of remarks about a rolling noise was due to muffling or padding. For one thing, 4-pound weights rolling along even good padding would make some sound. (Even pool balls rolling on ...

Hi ovyyus, and thanks. I've visited here occasionally.... much of it is way over my head but nonetheless.... What's a bit odd is that several observers described a knocking sound and one of them went so far as to describe a slight "scratching" sound. Yet--at least based on the small sampli...