Alex's MT Combination

[rlortie]

What i am going t odo is study every wheel and write down how they all work just like bessler did next to his 56 wheels...

Alex,

Are you going to write down how they work, or why they won't work. The  latter being the intention of the 54 he did complete. They were intended for the students of his never founded school to study and learn the reasoning of why they did not function as the inventor proposed. 

To my thinking the ones he indicates hold potential for improvement are 9, 10,11, 14, 18, 24, 25, and 27... 15 is questionable as he states "nothing of the prime driver is to be seen here.

I would suggest emphasizing research on these and forget the rest until after you have exhausted all hopes of finding what is missing. Such as his statements of pulling back the curtain and connectivity.

Ralph   

[hansvonlieven]

Maybe this is the missing link Besser did not show in the Machinen Tractates ?

By the way, where did John Collins get the original Maschinen Tractates from ?
Why does he hold the copyrights to it and can sell it ?

Is there no original copyright free version ?
As Bessler is already 300 years dead, all licenses must have be invalid by
until now and it must be in the open source public domain...

G'day Stefan and all,

I have done quite a bit of research into the so-called Maschinen Traktate, a title coined by Collins, as he admits. He does not disclose the original title of the work.

I have contacted various archives in Germany and a number of scholars that specialise in Bessler's era, there does not seem to be a single reference that indicates that Bessler ever published such a work.

My guess is that it is an attempt by someone some time later to figure out how Bessler's wheel might have worked. Some of the drawings appear to use technology that was not available in Bessler's time such as sophisticated gears and rack and pinion arrangements.

I will keep on digging a little more, but at this stage I doubt the document's authenticity.

Hans von Lieven

[fletcher]

That's correct Hans - Bessler never published his woodcut pictures with annotations - John Collins did eventually win approval [& paid some fee ?] from a museum/university in Germany to publish these particular papers, IIRC - he did indeed coin the name Machinen Tractate [MT as it is called] since Bessler had not named it himself [they were in draft loose leaf form] - Collins MT has a copywrite because they are his works & translations found on the wiki [which he makes freely available] - his book MT for sale includes photocopies of the Bessler originals & the original hand drawn German annotations with Collins English translations alongside.

Collins got the woodcut printed designs etc from the estate papers of Bessler - after his death his second wife donated them for posterity - the MT's are a part of a larger collection including an inventory of his possessions [including workshop] after his death, which aslo makes for interesting reading.

[hansvonlieven]

Thanks fletcher,

Ralph has just sent me a PM. Following the threads he gave me I found out that there is a collection of papers donated by Bessler's heirs to the University Library of Kassel, which is where Collins obtained his photocopies.

I will be in touch with the library. Even so, from what I gather, there is no certainty that the drawings and annotations are from Bessler himself.

I guess time will tell.

Thanks for your help.

Hans von Lieven

[fletcher]

No problem Hans - while there is no absolute certainty there is balance of probability - his handwriting style has been analyzed as the same [it's pretty horrible & hard to read, but distinctive] & the old German is of the period, IIRC.

Stefan should be able to read it as well as yourself I have no doubt !