Bessler's Death

[Hotzenplotz]

I've found the answer. Orffyreus did NOT die by falling from the windmill. This story is an invention of JC, born from a combination of mistakes in translation and interpretation of Orffyreus' last letter from April 25th, 1745.

Orffyreus in this letter complains about his bad health. He has been suffering intestinal problems that almost killed him. According with 18th century medical thinking he sees this disease caused by a lot of worries, especially daily trouble with his work building the windmill. The trouble, causing severe disease, almost killed him.
But there is another factor attributing to his bad health state: "ein durch etl. harte Fälle zu Fürstenb. causirter Accidens noch hinzu kommen", says the original letter. For the english reader this might sound like an accident by falling, but the word "Accidens" does not exist in German. It is a latin medical phrase that has to be translated "symptoma" (see Zedler's encyclopaedia). It is difficult to understand what Bessler exactly means, I think it's something like: I was sick near death from all the troubles, and also suffered some wounds from several mishits (harte Fälle = plural!). He cured himself by his own remedies and wants the person he writes to, Baron Schrader, to help him to avoid further trouble, because this sickening troubles otherwise would be going to kill him.

JC in his book page 158f. gives a translation of this letter and adds his own interpretation: Orffyreus’ problems were insurmountable. Worry over the windmill; his lack of success with a steam engine; illness and mounting debt - these factors combined with an accident at work and the malicious insinuations about him, spoken loudly within his presence seem to haveled to his death,| think it very likely that his death was not altogether involuntary. He may not have jumped, but | suspect he did not care if he lived or died, and with winter approaching, conditions for himself and his family must have been intolerable. Perhaps he was working on the top of the windmill, and a particularly strong gust of icy wind threatened to dislodge him, and on this last occasion, it was easier to just let go.

But as we saw, there was no accident, and what is more: Orffyreus in a letter written at the end of april cannot describe his own death in november. But this is exactly what is going on in JCs account, overwhelmed by strong emotions 'bout his heroes' tragical fate. The "Accidens ... durch harte Fälle" is NOT an accident by hard falling, or jumping, or being blown away. And whatever is to be understood exactly by this dark phrase: It took place half a year earlier because Orffyreus died Nov 30th 1745, or, as the burial register says, Nov. 29th.

I pass over the tremendously wondreous Collins' interpretation, that Orffyreus was pained by a "lack of success with a steam engine"(!!!) - why on earth should the owner of a PM waste his last days on earth with a steam engine ?!? - just to add the observation, that most of the information on the internet, even from German specialists on Bessler or from pages from Karlshafen and Fürstenberg, trickles down from JCs nonetheless eminent book. I adore the amazing job he did in finding hitherto unknown sources, but this example shows that it is necessary for others to reread them. This is, why from time to time I ask where this or that comes from.

[John Collins]

And yet the decision to offer the windmill for sale was accompanied by an article in which Bessler’s death was ascribed to a fall from said windmill. I have endeavoured to find a copy of the article but unfortunately I don’t appear to have it. I will try to check Fürstenberg archives to see if I can find the missing article.

I would also point out that I had the German I had translated by google which I posted above was done on the day I posted it and even that suggests that Bessler fell off the windmill and succumbed to his injuries. Not my words.

I resent your suggestion that I invented the story - I absolutely did NOT.

JC

[Hotzenplotz]

The decision to sell the windmill was around the year 2010. Your book has been published in 1997. If there was an article in 2010 about the fall from the windmill, the author drew this information from your book, or from somebody who read your book, or from somebody who read something written by somebody who had read your book. This is what I am talking about: The circulation of a "fact" born in your book round the world and back to you.

Don't get me wrong. Everybody doing research might unwillingly create a false fact by misinterpretation of a difficult to understand 300 year old sentence in a foreign language. But this case shows that it is not good if there is monopol in exploring the facts.

Here some more facts:

- No author and no source is known to tell the story of the fall from the windmill before 1997.

- Any author after 1997 must be considered to be influenced by your account, whether he read your book itself or not. Of course the information e.g. on besslerrad.de is influenced by your research. Don't be too humble ;-) There is no Bessler-research without using your book...

- Your book in 1997 gives the story in context of discussing a letter that does not contain the story. The book does not mention any other source, while the letter provokes misinterpretetation by mentioning "accident" and "falling" - but that word have nothing to do with Bessler's death except that they are used in his last letter.

- That you or your translator made mistakes when interpreting the letter is proven by the fact that you consider Bessler to have problems with buildung a steam engine. The letter does not mention a steam engine but a "Feuer-Spritze". Using google translation, you will be told that a "Feuerspritze" is a steam engine. But this is not true. Use google picture search, and you will see, what a "Feuerspritze" really is. It's definitely something very different from a steam engine...

We all make mistakes. But good men admit to do so.

[John Collins]

I have admitted several times to publishing translation errors both here and elsewhere, so I dismiss your sarcastic comment.

I don’t recall ever suggesting that Bessler had a problem building a steam engine, why would he? Are you sure you understood my words, I also dismiss that comment.

The article about Bessler’s death which appeared at the time of the windmill sale, was dug up for the occasion and was written many years before and unlikely to have come from me.

Although I dislike your patronising manner towards me, I accept that it is possible that the account of Bessler’s death may be incorrect, and I was mistaken, but I did none of the translation for my research, it was all done for me by an extremely clever man, fluent in German and I fully endorsed his work. I confess I’m at a loss to know from where the story of Bessler’s fall originated because there is nothing about it in my translator’s work. But I did not make it up.

JC

[Hotzenplotz]

I feel sorry for my bad english, that gives you the impression that I was patronizing you. But this impression is wrong. This is not a thread about JC but a thread about Bessler's death. If the discussion comes to the point, that the answer to the question raised might be a mistake by JC, and if I show the facts that leed me to this opinion, it still remains a thread about Bessler's death.

But as you want us to give this discussion a bit personal spice, here we go:

I don’t recall ever suggesting that Bessler had a problem building a steam engine, why would he? Are you sure you understood my words, I also dismiss that comment.

Yes, I am sure I understand your words: https://tinyurl.com/y3exvyy3

[John Collins]

You got me HP! But I didn’t mean it the way it reads. I meant his lack of success in competing with the steam engine was a concern. My bad!

Your English is excellent, is it your first language?

JC

[Senax]

a "Feuerspritze" looks as though it's a fire engine. 🚒

[Hotzenplotz]

You're a sportsman, JC, and as I said before I am full of admiration for the efforts you and your helpers had in tracing documents and in researching before unknown aspects of Bessler's life. And this I say being a native German speaker with a lot of experience in tracing historical documents, and possibilities due to the internet that didn't exist in the 1990s. And if I point to what I think to be a mistake it is not to disrespect you, but to give you maybe a little pleasure by showing a new piece of puzzle. So, enough candy ;-)

If you look at your translation of Besslers letter one page before the place I led you to in your book, you will find this sentence: And this because steam engines have not been made! This is your helpers translation of an Orffyrean sentence in the original letter, and to this your mentioning of the steam engine has been referring to. Orffyreus tells Schrader about his discredit because of problems building a steam engine. But in the original letter, this steam engine is a "Feuer-Spritze" and a "Feuer-Spritze" is an extiguisher, not a steam engine. ("Feuer-Maschine" would have been a steam engine).

This is why I was joking about Orffyreus building a steam engine, but as you can see, your translator, although usually doing good work, made a mistake that found its way into your presentation, and if I compare the original letter and what can be read about it in your book, I am pretty sure the "mortal accident" was born in a quite similar way. As you know there's hardly any document about Bessler's death, and the expressions of the last letter are luring towards a possible misinterpretation. But who knew this well-hidden gem before you did? Take it as a compliment, that I think it must have been you who unwillingly created this story and enjoy the unexpected influence of your book shown by the range of its distribution.

This is my opinion and maybe it's wrong, but it's not to displease anybody. If anybody will find a source for the deadly fall of Orffyreus, I will enjoy to change my mind, cause dying by gravity would of course be a much more suitable end for the inventor of the PM than dying by poverty.

[John Collins]

HP, I have reread your explanation for the misunderstanding of the phrase “ein durch etl. harte Fälle zu Fürstenb. causirter Accidens noch hinzu kommen�, and I have to reject it. I took your advice and checked the Zedler lexicon and found the word “symptoma�, but it was the first of several definitions some of which could apply to Bessler’s death by falling. According to Chemnitz-Beolingus dictionary, “harte Fälle “ refers to death. “Accident� was also a philosophical term which still means accident. I also checked the references given in the Zedler Lexicon and they all confirm that the word, “accidens� is related to accident. This passage confirms my original narrative about Bessler’s death.

You will doubtless continue to look for confirmation of Bessler’s death in historical documents, but if you fail, ....well a negative doesn’t prove anything. It’s like saying a perpetual motion machine is impossible otherwise someone would have invented one.

Thank you for the interesting thread, and your English is 100 per cent better than my German!

JC

[Oystein]

The most intetresting part must be the whereabouts of the confiscated machine. Did Friedric end up with it..?

A general comment : I dont't think that the argument that Bessler could't have dabled with a steam engine, because he had the PM...has any logical weight, as the whole thread is about him dying, falling or not from a Windmill that he designed and built himself.

The most interresting find would be a supposes murder. Or else his death has lesser importance.

Best
OR

[Hotzenplotz]

Some last remarks only for those interested in the question of translation the most important words:

Looking for "Accidens" at Zedlers encyclopedia (which is contemporary to Bessler) tells you: Look for "Sympotomata". The lemma "symtomata, accidens" uses both words as synonyma.
"harte Fälle" could be hard cases or hard fallings, maybe also a hard fate and probably a circumscription for severe disease. If a soldier is dying in a battle, the german word for it is "fallen". To me, "harte Fälle" in this context sounds more like disease or injury.
One must see also the grammar. "durch harte Fälle causirter Accidens", says, that the Accidens had been caused by the "harte Fälle", not vice versa! So not the Accidens caused death, as in JCs interpretation, but several deaths would cause the Accidens, whatever it might be. That doesn't make sense.

What is sure is, there had been a lot of problems that lead to Besslers disease, additional problems were the "harte Fälle", maybe some accidents. But one must also see, that these words are written by Bessler himself half a year before his death. To me it would be plausible, that some accidents by Bessler or by others were part of the problems during building the windmill, but they didn't kill him, at least not immediately. Could he have had an accident, lying injured in bed for several months an than die? Not really, cause he mentions to be recovered. But it's possible that he fell of the mill AND died six months later, being that two incidents independent from each other. But in that case the fall would not have caused death. I am going to check some papers concerning the building of the windmill. Maybe further information can be found.

By the way I discovered some announcements in a 1745 newspaper, afaik not known till now. In february we are told, Bessler is now in Fürstenberg and is going to build a PM there, if his weakness ist not going to prevent this. He also announced to build some "Feuer-Spritzen" of a very special kind, so it is not a usual device we were talking about above. He also is looking for a publisher to publish pictures of his machines, drawn in copper (!) by his own hand.
In may the PM is ready, and although it's just a model, driving two hammers, with a diameter of 10 Zoll, he is willing to sell it for a good price. This public offer was published one month after the "last letter" was written.

[ovyyus]

Very interesting.

I wonder how Bessler was able to build machines while suffering from ill health and dire poverty?

It aseems possible that Bessler's last wheel was preserved after his death, but if his death wasn't sudden and unexpected would he have left it in a functioning or complete state?

[Hotzenplotz]

I wonder how Bessler was able to build machines while suffering from ill health and dire poverty?

I think he did so because of his poverty. Building a windmill is a humble job for an inventor of a PM, who was dealing with the czar for a fortune and for many years tried to find a new sponsor like Carl was. And building a very small PM and offer it for sale in a local newspaper seems to me an act of despair.

To the question "was Bessler murdered?"

Definetly yes! I don't think that somebody gave him a pusk to fly like a bird while staying on the edge of the windmill's roof. At least there is no evidence for this. But he was killed by starvation, allthough NOT being unemployed! The people he worked for are responsible for his death, because he did not get any wage. And I can imagine very well that this had been done to force him to something he didn't like...

There are some questions unanswered concerning his legacy:

Where is the PM he offered to sell in May 1745? Obviously he didn't sell it, cause otherwise he would have had money, which was not the case.

Where are the engravings he offered in May 1745? What we know es MT are NOT engravings but woodcuts, which is something very different

Where is the rest of the woodcuts? The inventory of death counted a number of 219. Strieder in 1795 found only 141.

I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I think these are quite interesting questions... The fact, that both the PM and a lot of pictures are missing since the day of his death has something quite fascinating...

[WaltzCee]

1) No one can disagree that Bessler is dead. As it concerns perpetual motion, the details of
his death are immaterial. A native speaker of Any Given language is going to have a better
handle on the nuances of various words. In my opinion, Mr Collins comes out of this
unscathed.

2) The sequence of events, however, should not have been overlooked.

But as we saw, there was no accident, and what is more: Orffyreus in a letter
written at the end of april cannot describe his own death in november. But this is exactly
what is going on in JCs account, overwhelmed by strong emotions 'bout his heroes'
tragical fate. The "Accidens ... durch harte Fälle" is NOT an accident by hard falling, or
jumping, or being blown away. And whatever is to be understood exactly by this dark
phrase: It took place half a year earlier because Orffyreus died Nov 30th 1745, or, as the
burial register says, Nov. 29th.

Although we are all human and prone to mistakes, those we select as authority over us
should be the cream of the crop. If we're following blind leaders, we all are going to end up
in the ditch. I'm groping for a defense of that last point 2) , however I'm coming up empty.

3) People do rely on Mr. Collins' accounting of the facts. For example:

https://lockhaven.edu/~dsimanek/museum/ ... essler.htm

Bessler's demise.

Bessler died in a fall from a windmill he was building. At the time he was destitute and very
much in need of income. The windmill was to be a design seldom seen in Europe, a
windmill with a vertical rotation axis and sails in an "S" shape (as seen from above). More
conventional windmills required the wheel to be rotated to face the wind. The S design did
not, but it was less efficient.

One wonders why Bessler didn't use one of his marvelous gravity wheels, which, according
to contemporary accounts surely had enough power to run a grain grinding mill. It could run
day after day, whether the wind was blowing or not. If he had done that he might have lived
somewhat longer.

Donald E. Simanek, April 2004, revisions 2007, ... 2015.

. . . and

Bessler died in 1745, aged sixty-five, when he fell to his death from a four-and-
a-half-story windmill he was constructing in Fürstenburg.[4]

[4]Rupert T. Gould, "Orffyreus's Wheel," in Oddities: A Book of Unexplained Facts, revised ed.,
(London: Geoffrey Bles, 1944), pp. 89-116. Reprinted by Kessinger Pub Co., 2003, ISBN 978-0-7661-3620-5.

Professor Simanek raises some very interesting points and I think that link is worth a read,
or a reread if you've already read it.

Now the wiki entry is mind-blowing. You will never guess what I found there.

[WaltzCee]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_ ... -Gould_4-3

Mechanism of Orffyreus's WheelEdit

Bessler's devices were all hollow wheels, with canvas covering the internal mechanism, that
turned on a horizontal axis supported by vertical wooden beams on either side of the
wheel.[4][5] Christian Wolff, who viewed the wheel in 1715, wrote that Bessler freely
revealed that the device utilized weights of about 4 pounds. Fischer von Erlach, who viewed
the wheel in 1721, reported: "At every turn of the wheel can be heard the sound of about
eight weights, which fall gently on the side toward which the wheel turns."[6] In a letter to Sir
Isaac Newton, 's Gravesande reported that, when pushed, the wheel took two or three
revolutions to reach a maximum speed of about 25 revolutions per minute.[7] The wheels at
Merseburg and Kassel were attached to three-bobbed pendula, one on either side, which
presumably acted as regulators, limiting the maximum speed of revolution.[4]

Bessler never revealed the mechanism that kept his wheel in motion and, according to
surviving sources, the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel was the only person whom he ever
allowed to examine the inside of the wheel.[4] In 1719 Bessler published a pamphlet in
German and Latin, entitled The Triumphant Orffyrean Perpetual Motion, which gives a very
vague account of his principles.[8] He indicated that the wheel depended upon weights
placed so that they can "never attain equilibrium." This suggests that it was a kind of
"overbalanced wheel,"[4] a hypothetical gravity-powered device which is now recognized by
physicists as impossible (see perpetual motion)


On Friday, April 13th, 2018, Bessler researcher Kenneth W. Behrendt claims he managed
to rediscover the details of the secret mechanics used in Bessler's "self-moving" wheels
after about 50 years of searching for them (see Behrendt, Kenneth W., The Triumphant
ORFFYREAN Perpetual Motion Finally Explained!, chapter 2, pub. Feb. 2019). The
rediscovery required making about 2,000 computer wheel models whose construction was
guided by ever more accurately interpreted clues about the parameter values of the various
parts used inside of the drums of Bessler's wheels. Those clues had all been cleverly
hidden by Bessler in the two frontispiece portraits of himself that were published in his
1719 book, Das Triumphirende Perpetuum Mobile Orffyreanum.... In June of 2019 Behrendt
uploaded a video to youtube of a computer wheel model he made using the correct
parameter values obtained from the portrait clues that shows the internal mechanics of the
3 feet diameter prototype wheel Bessler constructed in Gera, Saxony at the end of 1711.
That self-starting, one directional wheel, like all of his later and larger one directional
wheels, used eight weight carrying "Y" shaped wooden levers each of which was attached
to the drum by a pair of helical coil expansion springs. The swinging motions of the levers
around their steel pivot pins fixed to the drum were precisely controlled by a set of 40
coordinating cords of four different types and lengths and this was what allowed a wheel to
remain imbalanced despite its rotation. The youtube video of that computer wheel mode
l can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nP7KY6_EAM

The parade of hucksters just will not end. He has edited that wiki page trying to get this in there over 50 times