Landgraf Karl von Hessen-Kassel

[ovyyus]

From this one can conclude that he did not understand the principle on which the machine was based and as a key witness is not of much value.

Another possible conclusion is that Karl did understand the principle, but the wheel was not purely gravity powered and was limited by some physical process, as Leibniz suspected. Karl would probably not want to pay a large sum of money to own a working loophole in the definition of PM with limited power.

[Fletcher]

If Karl did not buy the wheel only because it was not useful for his own purposes, then two conclusions can be drawn from it:

1. He did not have the vision of what significances is a machine that can do work without (visible) supply of energy.

2. If he did not have this foresight, then one must assume that he was not very intelligent, in contrast to Leibnitz, who immediately recognized the great benefit, even if it was not supposed to be a perpetuum mobile.

From this one can conclude that he did not understand the principle on which the machine was based and as a key witness is not of much value.

Speculating is fine, as far as it goes. We all are tempted to do it because there is a vacuum waiting to be filled without a working Bessler wheel to examine in front of us and to then compare to the various statements. If so we would then say 'ah, I see', and, 'I see what he meant by this and that comment'.

However, some of the statements are pretty straight forward. So one other conclusion is that the wheel is straight forward, and thus completely understandable, once you see the configuration and see it in action.

Bessler said it was simple, Karl said it was simple, so much so that he was surprised no one else had thought of it. So we may debate what 'simple' means. It could be just as it sounds and mean very straight forward, enough so that Karl was surprised it hadn't been invented before (or after). And because of this he perhaps felt somewhat less and less inclined to pay the full asking price. Especially if upon studying the mechanics he decided it didn't have great power, or more importantly didn't have particularly good scalability prospects to raise its potential industrial worth (he would have to understand it to arrive at this conclusion). If I were in his shoes I might feel somewhat deflated after finally seeing the internal construction and finally realizing how it worked. So simple that I wondered why no on else had invented it and so simple that a carpenters apprentice could study it and then build it. Not exactly inspiring thoughts for someone considering buying it outright and leveraging his investment to make future profits from this knowledge. Especially if Steam Power was in its infancy.

I will leave you with a further simple thought. Bessler said his wheels worked on imbalance. That they had excess impetus, preponderance etc etc. I am sure that Karl could quickly and accurately understand that a mechanical wheel accelerating (if he saw it in operation and I would guess he would have) must have been gaining momentum up to a terminal speed. And he could have determined what the cause of that imbalance was (gravity induced or gravity assisted for example). In either case the wheel CoM 'lingered' down and to one side beneath the axle to cause the accumulating momentum.

IMO, our challenge is to also find a 'lingering' CoM configuration, whether that be gravity only or gravity assisted sustained rotation. And if that were to be I might then fully appreciate Karl's statements and reluctance to buy Bessler's wheel in the context of his time.

[Art]

From 'Mining in World History' By Martin Lynch :-

"Around 1660 Robert Boyle wrote the pioneering work in which he described and demonstrated the existance and power of atmospheric pressure . Then it was the turn of the Frenchman Denis Papin and his pressure cooker . ....He conceived the idea of using the head of steam thus created to drive a piston ....
Thomas Savery...Noting that the usual methods of water removal from mine shafts - the driving of adits and the use of the endless bucket and chain - were often ineffective , in 1697 ...built his first steam powered vacuum pump ....It was installed in only a few places, however , and was found to be inefficient, unreliable and dangerous. The Savery engine failed because it was poorly designed ."


"Thomas Newcomen ...realised that using steam to physically push water upwards was the wrong idea .....the new machine he created was a vacuum pump, the working principle of which was that the condensation of the steam created a vacuum that in turn sucked the water up the pipe. It was instantantly recognizable by its huge crossbeam , which continually see-sawed between the condensation chamber and the pipe up which the water was being drawn. It was also recognisable by the fact that it worked . The first known installation of a full sized Newcomen engine , into a Staffordshire coal mine, dates from 1712 . "


Note Carefully , First known commercially operating machine in a mine 1712 .

-" it was recognizable by the fact that it worked "

Bessler was demonstrating around 1712 the raising of a 75 Lb bucket laboriously with ropes and pulleys.

As for Karl's choice of technology for getting his fountain display on the road ? - What choice ? :)

[John Collins]

Thanks for digging that up Art. I did explain it all that at length in my book, but you have explained it succinctly and clearly with your extract from ‘Mining in World History’ .

JC

[ovaron]

As for Karl's choice of technology for getting his fountain display on the road ? - What choice ? :)

That a steam engine was better for his purposes, is out of the question. But that does not explain why he supported Bessler financially for so many years and gave him a house in Karlshafen instead of buying the machine from him.
Either he did not realize the importance of a self-running wheel, or he was so intelligent that he immediately saw that this wheel had no future. IMO that is unlikely, because otherwise he would not have s'Gravesande and others have asked to take a closer look at the wheel.
Maybe he just liked Bessler and hoped that there would still be one who buys the wheel from him?

[John Collins]

Three things Art. At the time Bessler agreed to let Karl see inside the wheel Karl swore on oath that he would allow Bessler to stay at the castle and he would keep the secret until Bessler had sold the machine. I don’t think either of them though he’d still be there years later.

Secondly, Karl had already sent his engineer over to England to try to obtain information about Newcomen’s wheel and had returned with details of the power of the pump. Newcomen kept the exact details of how his machine worked a closely guarded secret. He sold a number of the machines in Europe and England, but the building was carried out by trusted members of his family.

Lastly, Fischer von Erlach, who came to examine the Kassel wheel had been working in London with Professor sGravesand, trying to improve the performance of Captain Savery’s pump, and was very familiar with its potential although he latterly acknowledged that the Newcomen engine was the most powerful. BUT they all recognised that none of the options open to them were strong enough to supply Karl’s cascade, and in the end he designed and had built several large reservoirs at the top of the hill to supply the cascade and that system is still used today.

So I think he considered that Bessler’s wheel might have had some potential but quickly realised it would not do.

JC

[Fletcher]

As for Karl's choice of technology for getting his fountain display on the road ? - What choice ? :)

That a steam engine was better for his purposes, is out of the question. But that does not explain why he supported Bessler financially for so many years and gave him a house in Karlshafen instead of buying the machine from him.
Either he did not realize the importance of a self-running wheel, or he was so intelligent that he immediately saw that this wheel had no future. IMO that is unlikely, because otherwise he would not have s'Gravesande and others have asked to take a closer look at the wheel.
Maybe he just liked Bessler and hoped that there would still be one who buys the wheel from him?

Hey ovaron .. just put yourself in Karl's shoes. You offer 4000 Thalers and to be his sponsor etc. But it has to be a genuine PMM. B says its simple and a 'true PMM'. I'm sure that I would understand completely why it worked before I would pay a cent. I wouldn't just take a quick look and then decide to be someone's benefactor.

So the question is was it a simple gravity only wheel that Karl saw and understood or was it an assisted version with some environmental force in play like Drebbel and Cox's clocks etc. And would Karl accept that as true PM and then still sponsor Bessler. His rep would be important to him.

What's the balance of probabilities (not counting the scientific probability) for Karl's continued support and patronage ?

[unstable]

To derive the energy from the environment (estimated at about 300 watts) that the wheel used, there would not even be now the necessary technology (always if feasible). Even less 300 years ago. I would not stare too much on this point. It's a great loophole for not being able to explain the wheel but I find this very unlikely. What, within a certain area, it is possible to derive from the environment is really very little in proportion to what we are talking about.
Think about it.

[ovaron]

Hi Fletscher,
what you write makes sense. Fact is, Karl has seen the interior and very likely also understood it, otherwise he would not have supported Bessler so many years.
The performance of the machine has not convinced him (for his purposes), but has recognized their potential benefits and wanted to protect Bessler from the attacks of his "enemies" (Gärtner, Wagner, Borlach).
All this attests Karl with his attestation. Everything else is speculation that does not bring us further.

For me, the matter was actually already done, but someone has brought up this thread and let me doubt a little bit again. But that's now gone ;)

[eccentrically1]

To derive the energy from the environment (estimated at about 300 watts) that the wheel used, there would not even be now the necessary technology (always if feasible). Even less 300 years ago. I would not stare too much on this point. It's a great loophole for not being able to explain the wheel but I find this very unlikely. What, within a certain area, it is possible to derive from the environment is really very little in proportion to what we are talking about.
Think about it.

Here is the range of estimates of the power of each wheel:

http://www.besslerwheel.com/wiki/index. ... eel_Output

The most generous estimate per Jim's work for the Kassel wheel is 137.8 Watts.
Using the water screw performance, the estimate drops considerably, ~ 100 watts.

300 watts is more than twice the most generous estimate Jim gave.

There is another thread somewhere that the power is extensively scrutinized, just for this reason. Much of the controversy centers around Wolff's observation :

At the moment it can lift a weight of sixty pounds, but to achieve this the pulley had to be reduced more than four times, making the lifting quite slow.

If the Kassel output was only 25 watts, you can revisit the environmental possibilities.

The argument that the wheels' dynamic motion contributed to its power applies to any feasible energy transformation.

Think about it.

[daxwc]

"As far as the much-denied practical applications of the device
are concerned, they revealed themselves firstly, through the
lifting of the chest full of stones, secondly through that of the
solid wooden beams, (page 34) but thirdly, and particularly,
through the fairly large Archimedes Screw – and our hopes on
this score were wonderfully exceeded. Indeed, we cannot doubt
that if the device, after suitable negotiations as to better siting
than in a small room in my castle, and with better ancillary
support and fewer associated problems than have prevailed
here, can be constructed on a larger scale, thus producing more
power, then the result will be (especially if several such
machines can be combined in tandem) a resource of great value
in such fields as horology, milling, hydraulics and mining."- Karl in DT

[unstable]

Thanks for the clarification, but there is an unclear detail: if the cause of the power provided by the wheel was derived from a source of environmental energy, then no gain should be attributed to the force of gravity and other conservative forces at stake. Obtaining even 100 watts (continuous) from an environmental differential, within the inner area of the wheel is impossible even now, unless using an equivalent stirling system with high temperature differences. This would lead to an exhaustible heat source (a fuel). Sorry but sometimes I have the impression that here we are making fun of. If what you say would be really feasible, someone would have done it for quite some time. The theorists here present should confirm this. Probably we are dealing with a case of magic :))

[eccentrically1]

No gain should be attributed to conservative forces. They cancel each other - or themselves - out, even in a dynamic rotating environment. That is a clear detail, at least to me and a few others.

100 watts doesn't need to be obtained if we accept the lower estimates.

Just because it seems impossible doesn't make it so. He could have used a combination of mechanisms to achieve the power.

I'm not making fun, just looking under all the stones.

I don't think anyone here has tried it. It would appear to be magic especially in 1700.

[daxwc]

"It more than fulfils the requirements of an almost countless number of
learned prescriptions as to what any credible device laying claim
to Perpetual Motion status must perform. (page 30) Indeed, this
long-sought and much-desired machine, or so-called Perpetual
Motion. (T.N. - pure artificiale quoad durantem materiam is
added after P.M. – this Latin phrase is then described a few
lines later, marked *) is a revolving wheel, which is able to run,
by means of its own innate momentum, *…" DT 195 Karl


Since Karl was the only person to have allegedly looked inside besides Bessler, maybe his words if translated right provide a clue in DT.

[unstable]

Eccentrcally1, it is curious (singular) that you deny a possibility, indeed quite improbable, and yet accept another one even more improbable.