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 the Name bessler), and Orffyreus ("latinized" version). Bessler demonstrated a series of claimed perpetual motion machines.

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Perpetual Motion & History

Template:Wikify-date In 1712, Bessler appeared in the town of Gera (in the province of Reuss) and exhibited a 'self-moving wheel', which was three feet in diameter and four inches thick. When given the slightest push it would start up and quickly work itself up to a regular speed. Incredibly, once in motion it was capable of lifting several pounds. The people of Gera didn't seem to be very 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, this one five feet in diameter and six inches in width. It could turn at 50 revolutions a minute and raise a weight of 40lbs. Bessler constructed a still larger wheel in [[]Mersebur]g before moving to the small independent state of Hesse-Cassel, where the reigning Landgrave (or Count), whose name was Karl, offered him rooms in the ducal castle at Weissenstein. It was here that in 1717 he constructed his largest wheel so far, this one being twelve feet in diameter and fourteen inches 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, inlcuding the Royal Society, were debating whether to raise funds to purchase 'Orffyreus' Wheel' (for which he demanded twenty thousand pounds), a Professor 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, declaring that it was the impertinent curiousity of the Professor that had provoked him.

Here, 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. It is not known whether it was ever tested. Bessler died in 1745, aged sixty-five, and his secret, whatever it was, died with him.

If we accept that energy cannot be created or destroyed, then we must conclude that the wheel was a well-disguised fake. According to one contemporary, Bessler had been a clockmaker at some point, leading to the assumption that some sort of spring mechanism was hidden inside the axle of the wheel. The possibility of a man being concealed inside it is ruled out by the test in which the wheel was left in a sealed room for three months.

Bessler himself published a pamphlet, typically 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'; a wheel with two rims, one inside the other, where wights move between the rims. When on the outside, they cause it to outweigh the weights on the inner rim on the opposite side, so that side descends. As it begins to rise again under its own momentum, some mechanism transfers the weights onto the inner rim, where they are nearer the centre of the circle, thus lighter in effect than those on the descending outer rim, thus they 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 are less weights on the descending rim than on the other side. So the two sides exactly counterbalance each other, causing the wheel to soon stop spinning.

It is likely that Bessler constructed some sort of overbalancing wheel with a spring mechanism hidden inside; once the inner workings were examined, the 'buyers' would soon conclude that Bessler had indeed stumbled upon a remarkably simple way to overcome the problem of perpetual motion. By the time they had really studied it and discovered the spring, Bessler (and his twenty thousand pounds) would be many miles away.

If this is not how he created his 'perpetual' motion machine, the secrets of it were lost with his death.

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 that he intended, from the very beginning of his discovery, to ensure that his fame and the knowledge that he had succeeded in solving the problem of building a self-moving wheel, would not die with him.

With this thought in mind he constructed a variety of codes, each one different to the other, but which would in time, once 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 and he details these in a book, The Orffyreus Code, and also discusses the many others which to date remain undeciphered.

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