Johann Bessler - Life and Career

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. 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. That was the name by which he was generally known thereafter.

Read more about this topic:  Johann Bessler

Famous quotes containing the words life and/or career:

    It is not in the world of ideas that life is lived. Life is lived for better or worse in life, and to a man in life, his life can be no more absurd than it can be the opposite of absurd, whatever that opposite may be.
    Archibald MacLeish (1892–1982)

    My ambition in life: to become successful enough to resume my career as a neurasthenic.
    Mason Cooley (b. 1927)