Where are the parts of J.B.'s model wheel found after his death?

[rks1878]

A lot of documents were saved and preserved due to their importance. So where's the parts, particularly the axle??????

And who was it that found this model wheel in the first place?

[John Collins]

When Bessler died, falling from the windmill he was building, his widow offered all that he had left to the state. In a document listing the items mention is made of some parts of wheel. It is not possible to tell if they were actual parts or merely spare parts or broken parts and no description survives of them. It is just possible, I suppose, that the parts may be lying in some corner in a museum, gathering dust, rather as the Newton notes were, which have just been rediscovered.

Bessler's landlord at the time (von Mannsburg, a member of the Royal Society) lived in London and had just requested that he remake his wheel for another test. Unfortunately all travel to the continent was advised against, due to an upsurge of the Jacobites and it was never followed up. It is equally possible that he acquired the parts of the wheel at a later date, but I have interviewed a descendent of his and there is nothing to show evidence of such a possibility. Regretfully I have come to the opinion that any parts of the wheel will remain lost to us.

John Collins

[rks1878]

Thank you John for the quick answer.

Also, if anyone wants to be entertained, etc., here is a link to Alden Parks paper about himself and his pendulum wheel driver...

http://www1.iwvisp.com/LA4Park/BesslerWheelPaperHTM.htm

[Trev]

What about Bessler's widow, she was his wife for how many years? did she really not know the secret? And what of his assistant he must have known it?
Also I wonder about Karl, I read that he started the masonic lodges in Germany, the masons love those kind of secrets, would he really not have secretly recorded the principle for the lodge?
I know these are probably all unanswerable questions but you got to ask.

Trev.

[John Collins]

Hi Trev,

You asked

What about Bessler's widow, she was his wife for how many years? did she really not know the secret? And what of his assistant he must have known it?

Also I wonder about Karl, I read that he started the masonic lodges in Germany, the masons love those kind of secrets, would he really not have secretly recorded the principle for the lodge

She was his second wife - his first one having died. JB had more or less ceased work on his wheel, having struggled to find a buyer and was developing other ideas, at the end, a horizontal windmill which led to his death.

His assistant was his brother Gottfried, and after JB left Kassel, he emigrated to England where he seems to have disappeared, since I have been unable to find any mention of him. His first wife was not permitted access to the secret and neither was his brother. Her maid was subjected to an extremely powerful oath which nevertheless was insufficiently terrifying to make her hold her tongue and eventually led to his being arrested on a trumped up charge which was quickly dismissed.

Karl did not start the Masonic lodges in Germany. Unfortunately many princes and Dukes shared the same name of Karl and it gets a bit confusing, but the Karl you refer to is one of our Karl's sons or possibly Karl of Brunswick. Coincidentally the main proponent of Masonic lodges was our old friend Desaguliers, curator of experiments for Sir Isaac Newton.

John Collins

[ken_behrendt]

My own theory is that Bessler's original working prototype wheel was only about 3 or 4 feet in diameter. This prototype was the model for the Gera wheel and was not destroyed by Bessler. I can imagine him burying it and the unburned notes describing its operation that were supposed to appear in Machinen Tractate in hole in the ground near where he was to be buried. In this way, if at some future time his remains were exhumed, the proof would be available that he had, in fact, managed to construct a genuine working PM gravity wheel. Perhaps, he left instructions that a letter in a sealed bottle was to be placed inside his casket upon his death. That letter would contain a map that would lead investigators to the location where the prototype and its operational details were buried.

As far as the "parts" of a wheel found after he died are concerned. These might have been the very beginning components for a new wheel's axle and drum along with some springs and weights. Perhaps he was planning to construct another large wheel at the request of potential financial backers to whom he still hoped he could successfully sell his invention, despite the fact that he was almost 65 years old at the time of this death. Those parts, even if found today, would be virtually useless unless one knew the manner in which they were to be assembled together.

I think that when people say that Bessler took his secret to the grave, they might be speaking the literal truth! Unfortunately, it does not seem possible to exhume his grave, but, if it was, then we might know if and where he buried his prototype. However, with modern equipment it might still be possible to locate these things despite the presence of the car park that now covers his grave and former property.

ken

[Trev]

Hi Trev,

His assistant was his brother Gottfried, and after JB left Kassel, he emigrated to England where he seems to have disappeared, since I have been unable to find any mention of him. His first wife was not permitted access to the secret and neither was his brother. Her maid was subjected to an extremely powerful oath which nevertheless was insufficiently terrifying to make her hold her tongue and eventually led to his being arrested on a trumped up charge which was quickly dismissed.

John Collins

Thanks John, His brother obviously had access to the wheel when JB wasn't around, like when he had banged his head and was ill in bed and Gartner and Co came to see it. Do you think his brother wouldn't have taken a peek? I would.

Trev.

[Fletcher]

Now, that requires a moral judgement to be made on Gottfried's part. We can't know for sure what he would do under those circumstances but considering the times, that action might have been an unforgivable sin. He was probably a Christian like his brother.

Alternatively, perhaps the psychology is more like a grown elephant leg roped to a stake. The elephant can physically break free of its captivity any time it wants but because as a youngster it was trained with a big stake & heavy chain, so it believes there was no way to break the shackles i.e. it didn't enter Gottfried's head to take a peek & break the trust placed in him.

[ken_behrendt]

I'm not convinced that any of Bessler's family members or his maid was allowed to know the "secret" of Bessler's wheels. And, even if one of them had sneaked a peek a the wheel's interior, they would probably not have understood the details of its construction or operation. Bessler might have been a Christian, but when it came to his secret, he trusted no one except Count Karl and only then after the latter paid him 4000 thalers and also vowed not to steal or divulge the secret mechanism of Bessler's invention.

ken

[Trev]

Your probably right guys, and anyway brother Gottfried has been missing for 300 years, so he's not likely to suddenly log onto the forum and enlighten us.

Trev.