Johann Bessler
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Johann Ernst Elias Bessler (1680 - November 30, 1745) was born in Zittau, Germany. He is also known as Orffyre, a ROT13 encryption of "Bessler", and Orffyreus, a latinized version. Bessler demonstrated a series of claimed perpetual motion machines.
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[edit] Life and career
In 1712 Bessler appeared in the town of Gera in the province of Reuss and exhibited a "self-moving wheel", which was about 6.5 feet (2 m) in diameter and four inches (10 cm) thick. Once in motion it was capable of lifting several pounds. The people of Gera didn't seem impressed by his demonstrations; either they failed to grasp the importance of what he was showing them, or they were put off by Bessler's boastful, irritating and dogmatic nature.
Leaving Gera, Bessler moved to Draschwitz, near Leipzig, where in 1713 he constructed an even larger wheel, a little over nine feet (2.7 m) in diameter and six inches (15 cm) in width. The wheel could turn at fifty revolutions a minute and raise a weight of forty pounds (18 kg). Bessler constructed a still larger wheel in Merseburg before moving to the small independent state of Hesse-Cassel, where Prince Karl, the reigning Landgrave, offered him rooms in the ducal castle at Weissenstein. It was here that in 1717 he constructed his largest wheel so far, twelve feet (3.7 m) in diameter and fourteen inches (35 cm) thick.
The wheel was examined by many learned men over several months who all concluded that there could be no deception. The wheel was locked in a room in the castle on 12 November 1717, with the doors and windows tightly sealed to prevent any interference. This was observed by the Landgrave and various officials. Two weeks later the seals were broken and the room was opened; the wheel was still revolving. The door was resealed until 4 January 1718, whereupon it was opened and the wheel was still revolving at twenty-six revolutions per minute.
Whilst various institutions, including the Royal Society, were debating whether to raise funds to purchase "Orffyreus' Wheel" (for which he demanded twenty thousand pounds), professor William s'Gravesande examined the axle of the wheel, concluding that he could see no way in which the wheel could be a fake. The paranoid Bessler smashed the wheel, believing s'Gravesande was hoping to discover the secret of the wheel without paying for it, and declared that the impertinent curiosity of the professor had provoked him.
Bessler and his machine vanished into obscurity. It is known that he was rebuilding his machine in 1727 and that s'Gravesande had agreed to examine it again, but it is not known whether it was ever tested. In 1727 Bessler's maid, Anne Rosine Mauersbergerin, testified that his machines had been turned manually from an adjoining room. s'Gravesande wrote that he believed Bessler was "mad" but not such an obvious fraud. Bessler died in 1745, aged sixty-five, when he fell to his death from a four-and-a-half-story windmill he was constructing in Fürstenburg. The secret of his perpetual motion machine, whatever it was, died with him.
[edit] Evaluation
If it is accepted that energy cannot be created or destroyed, then it must be concluded that either the wheel was a well-disguised fake or that it used an undisclosed energy source. One contemporary stated that Bessler had been a clockmaker at some point, and suggested that some sort of spring mechanism was hidden inside the axle of the wheel - although this accusation was never proven through a replication of Bessler's demonstrations. The possibility of a man being concealed inside the wheel is ruled out by the test in which the wheel was left running in a sealed room for three months and by the fact that Bessler's early wheels were too thin for such concealment.
Bessler himself published a pamphlet, entitled The Triumphant Orffyrean Perpetual Motion (1719), in which a vague account of his principles is included. He admitted that the wheel depended upon weights, placed so that they can "never obtain equilibrium". It appears that what he is describing is an "overbalancing wheel"; possibly a wheel with two rims, one inside the other, where weights move between the rims? The weights on the outer rim outweigh the weights on the inner rim on the opposite side, so that side descends. As the weights begin to rise again under their own momentum, some mechanism transfers them onto the inner rim, where they are nearer the centre of the circle and thus lighter in effect than those on the descending outer rim. The weights rise to the top of the wheel, where they are again transferred to the outer wheel.
However, the Marquis of Worcester (who originally thought of the idea) overlooked one basic point. The outer rim is of course longer than the inner rim, so there is less weight on the descending rim than on the other side. So the two sides counterbalance each other, causing the wheel to soon stop spinning. The true motive power behind Bessler's demonstrations, and the method, mechanism and energy source which moved the wheel's internal weights, remain unexplained.
[edit] Coded papers
Recently, a series of coded features has been discovered among various papers published by the inventor. Research by Bessler's biographer, John Collins, has revealed that these codes contain clues as to the construction of his wheels. It seems he intended, from the beginning of his career, that his notoriety and efforts to construct a self-moving wheel would not die with him.
Bessler constructed a variety of codes, which would in time, collected together, reveal his secret. The clues to these codes range from very simple to quite complex. Collins claims to have deciphered some of the clues. He details these in a self-published book, Perpetual Motion: An Ancient Mystery Solved?, Permo Publications 1997 ISBN 1-4116-7636-X, and also discusses many others which to date remain undeciphered.
