emphryio

There doesn't seem to be much new going on here. So here goes...

What do you think of Johann Bessler? (Supposedly made multiple perpetual motion wheels from 1712 till his death around 1750.) Based on what I've found on the internet, it sounds like he might have actually not been a fraud. But maybe the sites I found are one-sided. Anybody know anything beyond what a yahoo search can find?

(BTW, I'm asking about Bessler, not science or physics. I don't need to hear anything patronizing based on incorrect assumptions of my engineering knowledge.)

Jeremy Pallant

Well, you can always try the results of a <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Johann+Bessler%22" target="_blank">Google</a> search. Frankly I'd say he managed to perpetrate an elaborate con job.

Bill

<a href="http://www.phact.org/e/dennis4.html" target="_blank">THIS PAGE</a> lists Bessler, along with a large number of historical and contemporary claimants for similar devices (so called "free energy" generators).

<a href="http://www.besslerwheel.com/" target="_blank">THIS SITE</a> seems to be pro-Bessler, stating: It may well be that Bessler was on to something. But if that is true, why has nobody else been able to rediscover his secret after nearly three centuries of trying (with huge advances in science and technology to boot)? After all, <a href="http://www.besslerwheel.com/clues.html" target="_blank">the clues to the wheel design</a> are pretty specific, and leave little room for doubt as to the internal design. So, why has nobody been able to reconstruct one of those wheels to date? (I know that I spent a long time as a teenager trying to work this project out myself, and I gave up at long last when none of my efforts would yield a wheel design that was in any way biased towards the production of energy from a local gravitational field.....)

== Bill

emphryio

Yes, I think I've found everything on the internet about Bessler.

And I agree Bill, that is the question. (If it could have been done why hasn't it been done by now?).

One obvious answer is that everyone thinks that same thought and therefore doesn't try. But actually I think maybe quite a few people have tried.

Another idea: Maybe, just maybe there truly exists morphogenitic fields and we think through them and therefore it is a monumental accomplishment to think any truly original idea. No matter how simple the idea is. (Morphic resonance theory is that as more people think a thought the more "possible" or likely that other similar organisms may also at least be capable of thinking the same. Which isn't to say that they neccessarily will.)
OK, I admit that's pretty silly and unlikely theory. But still its very attractive to me.

Also "real" science has pretty much dismissed the possibility for many centuries. (At least to the best of my knowledge.) Therefore the only people trying probably did so as individuals in secret. Maybe often with no scientific background.

Also in a more general note: I think history shows us that with a few individual exceptions mankind is basically pretty damm stupid. I wouldn't be surprised if we had missed some pretty obvious useful ideas.

These ideas can be torn apart of course. Feel free.

[ March 25, 2002: Message edited by: emphryio ]</p>