Looked up a few sights but keep getting the same information. Usuallly no he couldn’t have figured it out but we don’t know how he cheated.
Any thoughts?
Didn’t Cecil already deal with this guy? If not, feel free to check out any Skeptical Inquirer from the last 20 years; they all seem to contain the debunking of perpetual motion and the like.
Are Johann Bessler and Jean Ernest Elie Bessler the same person?
EB has some info that seems to be referring to the same guy.
I know of a guy that has a closed system, consisting of an electric motor and a large capacitor and a small motor to prime the system. Once the system is primed, the motor charges the cap, which then powers the motor. Porducing Electricity. They say it can’t happen, but 5 houses are powered by this apperatice.
JimFox–
If that is so, why hasn’t this person stepped forward to collect his due fame and wealth? If he can prove it by powering 5 houses as you say, he shouldn’t have much trouble. All he would need to do is to put it in a sealed box, and attach an appliance to it. Why hasn’t he?
Also, I just looked at the refs to the book written by John Collins about Johann Bessler’s wheel. He claimed to know how the wheel worked in 1997, but he has yet to successfully construct a working model…
Ya know, I think I am really beginning to see that “alchemy” effect used in explaining the continued belief in cold fusion.
Undead Dude-
While I do surely share your skepticism in this area, I would also suggest that…just because he hasn’t patented it yet doesn’t mean that it has no merit.
I would urge you to pause, and consider the VERY well documented travails of one Preston Tucker, who in addition to having one of the coolest sounding names of the 20th Century, invented GOBS of amazing automotive thingamabobs, only to be crushed like a bug by the Big 3.
Food for thought, Dude…food for thought.
Typer
Sorry, but Preston Tucker isn’t exactly a great example. His cars, despite their technical advances, ran poorly and were prone to breakdowns. The marketplace crushed him, not Detroit.
And I bet you believe the gas companies suppressed the 100 mpg engine, too.
Remember, they laughed at Edison and they laughed at Fulton. They also laughed at Eustace Drainpipe for his invention of dry water (just add hot coffee). Boy, did they laugh at him!
RealityChuck has a good point. Just because they laugh at someone doesn’t mean that they’re an unsung genius. Maybe it means that their idea is not worth pursuing.
Most of the people I know who believe that “the government” or “the big 3” or someone is suppressing some kind of 100 mpg engine or perpetual motion machine or something don’t actually understand any of the engineering behind an internal combustion engine (or whatever). I’m thinking specifically of my brother-in-law here, typertrphy, not you, so don’t take offense.
Explaining all of the engineering behind it isn’t worth the effort; he won’t listen anyway (after all, I was taught engineering by the Establishment; of course I believe all that stuff about the Second Law of Thermodynamics). Very frustrating!
The Cat In The Hat
I wouldn’t be suprised if Johann Bessler’s wheel is quite a marvelous novelty. I’d be pretty impressed if I saw a big wheel that could run for weeks unsupported, while having energy drained by small jobs.
However, I have no doubt that if we let the wheel run indefinitely that it would eventually stop.
I don’t mean to nitpick, but if its a “closed” system, where does the small motor get its electricity from? Also, are you sure that this isn’t a generator that is running off gasoline and that the small motor is used to get it started?
First you’ve got a small motor which is somehow “primed” to charge a capacitor which in turn supplies power to a large motor. Where does the line going to the 5 houses plug into this system?
Sounds like your friend might be stealing electricity and has devised a rather disingenuous way of concealing it.
There are people here who actually believe perpetual motion possible? Say it ain’t so.
All other considerations aside, how could this gadget produce anything like a clean 60Hz feed under the load variations you’d see in five houses? All their electronics would fry!
Sorry, but he’s reaching too far. Even if I believed in perpetual motion, I wouldn’t believe in this.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
I will give you more info about the generator. It does work. He also makes a pendulum thing, that turns on and off spark plugs on a fuel injection motor when accelerating and cuts gas use in about 1/2 and the engine runs real cool. This I have seen and it works real well.
No it doesn’t, because it can’t. What you have described would throw away huge amounts of gasoline (when it didn’t stall the engine altogether) and would also, for all practical purposes, render the car undrivable on anything but a straight, level track.
Sorry, but you’re being scammed, big time.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
For those of your interested (and I make no assertions about the site), you might want to check out:
Nickrz:
There’s only one, but he never stops…
Chaim Mattis Keller
ckeller@schicktech.com
“Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.
The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks.”
– Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective
John,
It works. You can buy one. It doesn’t turn of the spark plugs but turns of the injectors, sorry about that. When you accelerate it powers all injectors, when you cruise, it powers 1/2 of them, when you idle, even less. Believe me, I was a skeptic too.
If it’s a real product, how about a link to a site that sells it? Even better, how 'bout giving us the patent number?
OK, I’ll make a site for the pendulum product, just don’t tell the moderator, try www.cyberthings.com/pendulum but give me a day. Why no patent? They are a waste of money. You have to enforce it on your own. This is now public domain. Cadillac had a similar device at one time or another, so I’ve heard. They might have a patent.
The pendulum thing isn’t too important here, given that it isn’t a perpetual motion machine. The supposed generator is the thing I want to here about. I esp want to hear why we would be hearing about a breakthough of this magnitude in a forum like this. Even if the device was impractical for energy production-- even if it just produced a milliwatt more than it used, it would be front page news and it would be on the cover of every science magazine in the world.