Johann Ernst Elias Bessler (ca. 1680 – 30 November 1745), known as Orffyreus or Orffyré, was a German entrepreneur who claimed to have built several perpetual motion machines. Those claims generated considerable interest and controversy among some of the leading natural philosophers of the day, including Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Johann Bernoulli, John Theophilus Desaguliers, and Willem 's Gravesande. The modern scientific consensus is that Bessler perpetrated a deliberate fraud, although the details of this have not been satisfactorily explained.
Life and career
Bessler was born to a peasant family in Upper Lusatia, in the German Electorate of Saxony, circa 1680. He went to school in Zittau, where (according to his own account) he excelled in his studies and became a favorite of Christian Weise, the rector of the local Gymnasium. After he left school he began to travel widely, seeking his fortune. Having saved an alchemist from drowning in a well, he was rewarded with instruction on the fabrication of elixirs. After that Bessler earned his living as a healer and an unlicensed physician. He was also an apprentice watchmaker, until his fortunes improved when he married the wealthy daughter of the physician and mayor of Annaberg, Dr. Christian Schuhmann.
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 cipher), thus obtaining Orffyre, which he then Latinized into Orffyreus. That was the name by which he was generally known thereafter.
Orffyreus's wheels
In 1712, Bessler appeared in the town of Gera in the province of Reuss and exhibited a "self-moving wheel," which was about ft (2 m) in diameter and thick. Once in motion it was capable of lifting several pounds. Bessler then moved to Draschwitz, a village near Leipzig, where in 1713 he constructed an even larger wheel, a little over 9 ft ( m) in diameter and 6 inches (15 cm) in width. That wheel could turn at fifty revolutions a minute and raise a weight of 40 lb (18 kg).
The eminent mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz visited Draschwitz in 1714 and witnessed a demonstration of Bessler's wheel. In a letter to Robert Erskine, physician and advisor to Russian Tsar Peter the Great, Leibniz later wrote that Bessler was "one of my friends" and that he believed Bessler's wheel to be a valuable invention. Bessler also received support from other members of Leibniz's intellectual circle, including mathematician Johann Bernoulli, philosopher Christian Wolff, and architect Joseph Emanuel Fischer von Erlach.
Bessler then constructed a still larger wheel in Merseburg, before moving to the independent state of Hesse-Kassel, 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. It was there that in 1717 he constructed his largest wheel so far, in diameter and thick.
The inventor 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 Willem 's Gravesande, professor of mathematics and astronomy at Leiden University, who reported that he could not detect any fraud regarding its operation. On 12 November 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, whereupon the wheel was found to be revolving. The door was resealed until 4 January 1718. The wheel was then found to be turning at twenty-six revolutions per minute.
Bessler demanded £20,000 (equivalent to 100,000 Reichsthalers) in exchange for revealing the secret of his machines. Peter the Great was interested in purchasing the invention and sought advice on the matter from Gravesande and others. 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, however, 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.