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. 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." 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. 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.
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. 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. He indicated that the wheel depended upon weights placed so that they can "never attain equilibrium." This suggests that it was a kind of "overbalanced wheel," a hypothetical gravity-powered device which is now recognized by physicists as impossible (see perpetual motion).
Read more about this topic: Johann Bessler
Famous quotes containing the words mechanism of, mechanism and/or wheel:
“The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extrahuman architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish. At first glance, the rhythm may be confused with gaiety, but when you look more closely at the mechanism of social life and the painful slavery of both men and machines, you see that it is nothing but a kind of typical, empty anguish that makes even crime and gangs forgivable means of escape.”
—Federico García Lorca (1898–1936)
“The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extrahuman architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish. At first glance, the rhythm may be confused with gaiety, but when you look more closely at the mechanism of social life and the painful slavery of both men and machines, you see that it is nothing but a kind of typical, empty anguish that makes even crime and gangs forgivable means of escape.”
—Federico García Lorca (1898–1936)
“The word “revolution” itself has become not only a dead relic of Leftism, but a key to the deadendedness of male politics: the “revolution” of a wheel which returns in the end to the same place; the “revolving door” of a politics which has “liberated” women only to use them, and only within the limits of male tolerance.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)