Posted by John Collins (194.164.38.151) on April 28, 2003 at 00:05:49:
In Reply to: Flywheel posted by David on April 27, 2003 at 12:21:45:
David you said in this post "...It was shown on Bessler's wheel, and quoted, that it turned easily from side to side when pushed by hand (which incidently to me shows it was not an overbalancing act since the wheel did not take off when this was done, but that's another matter.)"
I think that, from the various descriptions we know that the Kassel wheel (two-way wheel) could work in either direction and that given a small push it always stopped almost immediately but when given a "tolerable" push, it began to accelerate. It is clear that a small push was a short push and a tolerable push was a longer push. That is why the wheel did not begin to turn when it was as you say "turned easily from side to side when pushed by hand". The push was too short in duration or length to start the spin.
The length of the push is therefore critical and suggests that the push had to be sufficient for some piece of internal mechanism to take up a position which would overbalance the wheel.
John C.