Posted by grim (206.162.192.40) on April 27, 2003 at 17:32:49:
In Reply to: Re: Flywheel posted by MrTim on April 27, 2003 at 16:58:23:
: I will agree with you that Bessler's wheel was (extremely) well-balanced. And that it exhibited the CHARACTERISTICS of a fly-wheel.
: However,
: There are two eyewitness descriptions, that state, from the initial push, it took the wheel 2 or 3 turns to reach it's maximum speed.
: Let's say, for convenience, that the wheel had to make one-eighth (1/8th) of a turn to allow the internal mechanism(s) to overcome the inertial state of the wheel.
: Now then, from a 1/8th turn to 26 rpm in 2 to 3 revolutions is pretty impressive, wouldn't you say? I see nothing in the accounts that they turned the wheel by hand with anywhere near enough force to give it a starting speed of 26 (or even 20) rpm.
: They always gave it a gentle push to get it going. And from that point on, it increased in speed all by itself. It only needed enough of a turn to overcome it's at-rest state.
: And if it could do that (and apparently IT DID), it's certainly not going to be slowing down much (if at all.) And also note that the witnesses timed it, and they found it spinning at the same rate as when they locked it up.
: ACTED like a flywheel, yes. Was a flywheel, no.
:
The bearing type used to mount the wheel would not seem to be the type to lend a low-friction environment for a flywheel alone to spin for X-number of days.