Johann Bessler

Johann Bessler (Orffyreus)

Johann Ernst Elias Bessler (alias Orffyreus, 1680 – November 30, 1745) was a German entrepreneur who demonstrated a series of devices that he claimed exhibited perpetual motion.

Life and career

Bessler was born in the town of Zittau in Saxony, Germany, in 1680. He studied theology and medicine before marrying a wealthy woman and apprenticing himself to expert clockmaker Jakob Manh.^[1] Bessler adopted the pseudonym "Orffyreus" by writing the letters of the alphabet in a circle and selecting the letters diametrically opposite to those of his surname (what would modernly be called a ROT13 cypher), thus obtaining Orffyre, which he then Latinized into Orffyreus.^[2] That was the name by which he was generally known thereafter.

Orffyreus's wheels

In 1712, he appeared in the town of Gera in the province of Reuss and exhibited a "self-moving wheel," which was about 6½ ft (2 m) in diameter and 4 inches (10 cm) thick. Once in motion it was capable of lifting several pounds.^[2]

Orffyreus Wheel diagram. (Merseburg, Germany)

Orffyreus Wheel diagram. (Kassel, Germany)

Leaving Gera, Bessler moved to Draschwitz, near Leipzig, where in 1713 he constructed an even larger wheel, a little over nine feet (2¾ 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).^[2] Bessler constructed a still larger wheel in Merseburg before moving to the small independent state of Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel), where Prince Karl, the reigning Landgrave and an enthusiastic patron of mechanical inventors, appointed him as a commercial councillor (Kommerzialrat) for the town of Kassel and provided him with rooms in Weissenstein Castle.^[1] It was there that in 1717 he constructed his largest wheel so far, 12 feet (3.7 m) in diameter and 14 inches (36 cm) thick.^[2]

Bessler demonstrated the operation of his wheel before various audiences, always taking care that the mechanism within the wheel should remain hidden from view, purportedly to prevent others from stealing his invention. The wheel was examined externally by several scientists, including Prof. Willem 's Gravesande, of Leiden University, who reported that he could not detect any fraud regarding its operation. On November 12, 1717, the wheel was locked in a room in the castle with the doors and windows sealed to prevent any interference. This was witnessed 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 January 4, 1718, whereupon it was opened and the wheel was found to be revolving at twenty-six revolutions per minute.^[2]

Whilst various institutions, including the Royal Society, were debating whether to raise funds to purchase "Orffyreus's Wheel" (for which he demanded twenty thousand pounds), 's Gravesande examined the axle of the wheel, concluding that he could see no way in which power could be transmitted to it from the outside. Bessler then smashed the wheel, accusing 's Gravesande of trying to discover the secret of the wheel without paying for it, and declaring that the curiosity of the professor had provoked him.^[2]

Later life

Bessler and his machine then 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. 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.^[2]

Mechanism of Orffyreus's Wheel

Bessler's devices were all hollow wheels, with canvas covering the internal mechanism, that turned on a horizontal axis supported by vertical wooden beams on either side of the wheel.^[1][2] Philosopher Christian Wolff, who viewed the wheel in 1715, wrote that Bessler freely revealed that the device utilized weights of about 4 pounds. Architect Joseph Emanuel Fischer von Erlach, who viewed the wheel in 1721, reported: "At every turn of the wheel can be heard the sound of about eight weights, which fall gently on the side toward which the wheel turns."^[3] In a letter to Sir Isaac Newton, 's Gravesande reported that, when pushed, the wheel took two or three revolutions to reach a maximum speed of about 25 revolutions per minute.^[4] The wheels at Merseburg and Kassel were attached to three-bobbed pendula, one on either side, which presumably acted as regulators, limiting the maximum speed of revolution.^[2]

Bessler never revealed the mechanism that kept his wheel in motion and, according to surviving sources, the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel was the only person whom he ever allowed to examine the inside of the wheel.^[2] In 1719 Bessler published a pamphlet in German and Latin, entitled The Triumphant Orffyrean Perpetual Motion, which gives a very vague account of his principles.^[5] He indicated that the wheel depended upon weights placed so that they can "never attain equilibrium." This would suggest that it was a variety of "overbalanced wheel," a hypothetical gravity-powered device which is now recognized by physicists as impossible (see perpetual motion).

Allegations of fraud

Most of the people who met him, including supporters such as 's Gravesande, reported that Bessler was eccentric, ill-tempered, and perhaps even insane.^[2] From the beginning, Bessler's worked generated accusations of fraud from various people, including Jean-Pierre de Crousaz, the court tutor of Hesse-Kassel, as well as geologist Johann Gottfried Borlach, mathematician Christian Wagner, model-maker Andreas Gärtner, and others.^[1] Gärtner went on to gain employ as model-master for the Polish royal court and in that capacity he built several devices that reproduced some of the successes of Bessler's public demonstrations, including the locked-room test, but which Gärtner acknowledged as mere trickery.^[1]

In November 1727, Bessler's maid, Anne Rosine Mauersbergerin, ran away from Bessler's household and testified under oath that she had turned the machines manually from an adjoining room, alternating in that job with Bessler's wife, his brother Gottfried, and Bessler himself.^[6] It was around the time of Mauersbergerin's confession that Bessler destroyed his wheel, left Hesse-Kassel, and drifted into obscurity.

's Gravesande refused to accept the maid's testimony, writing that he paid "little attention to what a servant can say about machines".^[7] By then, 's Gravesande was embroiled in a bitter academic dispute with members of Isaac Newton's circle about the possibility of gravity-powered perpetual motion,^[1] which 's Gravesande persistently defended based partly on his belief that Bessler, though "mad", was not a fraud.^[1][2]

The consensus view of modern scientists is that Bessler was perpetrating a deliberate hoax, though just how his wheel was powered is unclear.^[8] According to the writers of Chambers's Encyclopaedia, Orffyreus's wheel, "but for its strange effect on 's Gravesande, would have been forgotten long ago".^[9] If the maid's confession were true, the testimonies by Prince Karl, 's Gravesande, and others about the conditions in which the wheel was tested and exhibited must be flawed.^[2]

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} Simon Schaffer (1995). "The show that never ends: perpetual motion in the early eighteenth century". British Journal for the History of Science 28 (2): 157–189. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4027676. 
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m} Rupert T. Gould, "Orffyreus's Wheel," in Oddities: A Book of Unexplained Facts, revised ed., (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1944), pp. 89-116. Reprinted by Kessinger Pub Co., 2003, ISBN 978-0766136205.
3. ^ Letter from J. E. Fischer to John Theophilus Desaguliers, 1721. Quoted by R.T. Gould, Oddities, p. 96.
4. ^ Letter by W. 's Gravesande to I. Newton, August 1721, quoted by R.T. Gould, Oddities, p. 95.
5. ^ J. E. E. Bessler ("Orffyreus"), Das Triumphirende Perpetuum mobile Orffyreanum, (Kassel, 1719).
6. ^ Friedrich Bülau, "Bessler-Orffyré", in Geheime Geschichten und räthselhafte Menschen, vol. XI, (Leipzig: F. A. Brodhaus, 1859), p. 260.
7. ^ Letter by W. 's Gravesande to J. P. de Crousaz, 1729, quoted by S. Schaffer, "The Show that never ends: perpetual motion in the early eighteenth century," p. 188
8. ^ C. A. Crommelin (1960). "La roue d'Orffyreus". Janus 48: 47–52. 
9. ^ "Perpetual Motion", Chambers's encyclopædia: a dictionary of universal knowledge, vol. 7, (London: W. and R. Chambers, 1868), pp. 412-415.

External links

• List of works and e-texts at de.wikisource
• www.besslerwheel.com site dedicated to Johann's wheel with details, anecdotes etc.
• www.besslerwheel.com/wiki/index.php?title=Portal:Documents documents mentioning Bessler.

Persondata
Name	Bessler, Johann
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1680
Place of birth
Date of death	November 30, 1745
Place of death