Posted by John Collins (194.164.38.13) on November 24, 2002 at 03:33:54:
In Reply to: must get out more.......... posted by JOHN on November 23, 2002 at 13:32:28:
I'm curious too; where did you get the information "...It is curious to note a report, that the wheel was noted by one very sharp eyed observer(an artist)to not spin its full rotation at the same smooth speed, but allmost imperceptibly slowed or 'backed' momentarily a regular interval around the turn?"
My research found the opposite comment on several occasions. "The wheel was observed to rotate with with great equanimity and eveness." To me that suggests that it did not not slow down and speed up during rotation and it was also remarked that it displayed the same eveness of rotation whether raising or lowering a load of bricks. So who was the artist and where did he say this? If you found it in Frank Edward's book "strangest of all" then I would treat it with suspicion.
John Collins
: Hi there, you say in your post "The only real mystery left now is to find the way J.B. accomplished this with everything moving in the same direction, i.e., weights, supports, axle, etc. nothing stationary or creating an opposed movement or force to flip the weights."
: May I draw your attention to my earlier post in wich I said:
: "It is curious to note a report, that the wheel was noted by one very sharp eyed observer(an artist)to not spin its full rotation at the same smooth speed, but allmost imperceptibly slowed or 'backed' momentarily a regular interval around the turn, I wonder if this suggests a timing machanism(poss related to the pendulum thing?)alternating resistance controlling the synch between the inner grindstone and the outer 'visible' wheel? etc....." ]
: i.e. the central grindstone and lever/weight arrangements around it are 'tripped' or 'raised' by the outer visible wheel constantantly going a little in and out of phase, either by friction(slows it; with the weights spinning and hitting the 'warped boards'(outer wheel) re-phasing it as it were).
: An aside, the calcs for most weight/lever assembly arrangements are quite tricky, as soon as you use orbiting weights on a lever with rotation at intervals within the overall wheels rotation, it gets VERY VERY complicated(or I'm very stoopid), and therefore poss has room for a working mechanism as it is poorly understood or researched in this context.
: I mention again Besslers signature as one of the 'flourishes' has a distinct look of an orbit of some kind, poss one weight when the assembly does its 'flip'.
: I may have a go soon at a 'front elevation' drawing to suppliment my plan view one. I will try and show my ideas were and how the rotations occur(preventing the weight on the rising side from following its normal path as Bessler stated)and a wilder guess at what Bessler was doing when he installed the weights(pressed down or cocked a spring)and why he didnt let any detail be known about the ends of the weights...(Gill Simo's post mentioning the jacobs ladder drawing put me on to this train of thought)...later all gotta wash the dog.............ah real life....