Posted by Scott Ellis (216.87.95.64) on February 05, 2003 at 00:00:49:
In Reply to: One more Bessler Offence posted by David on February 04, 2003 at 17:28:50:
Hi David,
You have got a lot of responses here, but I think most of them are obscuring an otherwise straightforward point...
Since the force of friction is proportional to velocity, any mechanism that would otherwise accelerate forever will eventually reach a constant speed, when the force of friction reaches an equilibrium in opposition to the accelerating force.
As George B. Airy points out in his article, under certain conditions, a body moving in a closed circuit might be going faster each time it returned to a certain position. In this case, it would accelerate until the accelerating force was equal to the retardation due to friction, after which time the speed would remain unaltered.
This explanation is also consistent with the reported behavior of the wheel when a external load was applied (in addition to the inherent friction). i.e. the constant RPM of the wheel was reduced.
-Scott
: Something else that doesn't quite sit well with me. If Bessler did what he said, he would have basically reversed the laws of equalibrium, and with each cycle of his wheel there would be a gain in potential, resulting in an increase in velocity. It was stated however his wheel ran at a consistent rpm. If he had an internal mechanism that dumped the excess gain, it would have to have been fairly sophisticated. Let's say his machine did do this. The other problem then arises that if the wheel had just enough energy to maintain its constant rpm-it would not have enough energy to maintain this rpm when a load was put on the machine, such as the raising of weights. Unless another switching type mechanism was also within the wheel, making this all very complicated and very-very sophisticated.
: Comments?