I only used the term in an absent-minded paraphrasing kind of way - it's tangential to the issue i'm questioning, which is simply that Gartner and crew were able to inspect the machine to their satisfaction behind Bessler's back.jim_mich wrote:Concerning the "Wrong end of the stick" ... when you ponder Bessler's words, why don't you go back and translate the original to see what Bessler actually said???
John Collin's AP, part one, chapter 38...Original German AP, part one, chapter XXXVIII...Bessler wrote:Let's for the moment assume that Gartner had genuinely got hold of the wrong end of the stick. Well, his ...Word for word translation of AP, part one, chapter 38/XXXVIII...Gesetzt, daß Gärtner sich gefaßt Ein falsh [falsch] Concept, wohlan so ...There is no mention of a "wrong end of the stick". That seems to be some sort of phrase injected by John Collin's translator.Suppose, that Gärtner himself composed a false Concept, well_then so ...
Just to be clear, I'm not knocking JC's translations. For the most part they are rather good. But sometimes they contain errors that makes me say "Huh?"
Then you guys ruminate on them, without understanding or knowing the original wording.
Precisely what we'd all like to do, if we had a time machine.
The point is that Gartner's subsequent allegations, as portrayed in Borlach's print, are not merely speculative.
It was precisely because Gartner et al had made their debunking public that Bessler was forced to address it in AP. He simply couldn't just ignore it, if he wished to continue.
Gartner had twisted his arm behind his back, forcing him to corroborate his claim to have freely inspected the machine without hindrance. And thus, in so doing he seems to tacitly admit Gartner's findings.
Transliteration accuracy is quite beside the point.. Sure, Bessler may be retorting that Gartner has pulled the accusations out of his heiny, but he cannot deny - he fully admits - that Gartner did have unhindered access to the machine upon which to base his assessment.
So we're left with the question of why Gartner would deliberately wrongfoot his reporting of what he found?
Why not just plagiarize, improving upon and belittling Bessler's design, if it was real? Why, upon validating a working mechanism, would he go on to claim it was driven manually via a hollowed-out post...? And never try to capitalize on the true IP?
This question is left staring back at us. It's either this, or; why Gartner was unable to validate a simple working mechanism? Logically, the most likely answer is that he saw no working mechanism, just a hollowed-out post concealing a transmission to the axle. As he duly reported.