Energy Conservation
On Wikipedia you can read in popular scientific terms why a perpetual motion machine doesn't work. You will also find the definitions for a P.M. machine of the first, second and third kind. To put it bluntly, Bessler's wheel did not belong to any of these categories.
The definition of a closed system is: “If bodies in a system can only interact with each other and no external force occurs, it is called a closed system.”
In addition, reference is made to the law of conservation of energy in classical mechanics. It states that the total energy of a system cannot be changed by processes that take place exclusively within the system under consideration. According to this statement, it is impossible to create or destroy energy in a closed system.
Bessler's invention was not a closed system. According to today's definition, it was therefore not a perpetual motion machine. This rotating something did not remove any heat from its surroundings, but even gave off (some) frictional heat. The energy that put it into motion was supplied to it from the outside by gravity. It might more accurately have been called a “gravity converter.”
Bessler had apparently found a way to arrange the effective masses in his unidirectional rotating wheel and to move them during rotation in such a way that a state of equilibrium never occurred. He must have believed very strongly in this possibility, otherwise he would not have carried out tireless research for ten years. He deserves admiration for his perseverance alone. This is all the more so since all the authorities firmly claimed (then as now) that it was impossible. Recognizing such claims as unproven and therefore ignoring them suggests an alert mind. If there hadn't been people throughout history who disrespectfully questioned current teachings, the sun might still be revolving around the earth.
The reasons that school physics currently offers to prove the impossibility of a wheel driven by gravity are just pseudo-scientific expressions of an opinion based on the “everyone knows” principle. There is no law that shows such a drive as unrealistic. There is certainly no law of nature that excludes gravity as a source of energy. This would be clearly refuted by the tidal power plants. High and low tide, which are caused by lunar gravity, are successfully used to generate electricity.
To date, all attempts to create a wheel driven exclusively by gravity have failed (Bessler presumably excepted), but that alone is no proof that such a drive is not possible. The claim that Bessler's wheel could not have worked because the principle of conservation of energy would have been violated is clearly absurd. When gravitational forces are used in a wheel, the masses involved interact with the earth. Neither Mayer nor Helmholtz ever explained that the earth and the bodies on it were a closed system and therefore no energy could be lost there. There may be confusion about this among professionals and laypeople alike. We are aware of our dependence on the sun's energy supplies. A certain proportion of the heat absorbed during the day is radiated back into space, preferably at night. The Earth is therefore part of an energy balance of cosmic dimensions.
And this applies equally to every use of gravity, because it is not locally limited, but permeates the entire universe. Although its force decreases as the square of the distance, a body on Earth is always exposed to the attractive forces of other (celestial) bodies because of the unlimited range of gravity. Since everyone can observe the effect of lunar gravity on the tides with their own eyes, after a moment's thought it becomes clear to them that gravity cannot be part of a closed system that is set up as an experimental setup on a laboratory bench, for example. A body does not fall down because it has “always been that way,” but because (according to Newton’s law of gravity), the mass of the earth and the mass of the body attract each other.
Nevertheless, some have difficulty acknowledging this fact in the context of a hypothetical gravitational drive. It is possible that ignorance about the nature of gravity is the reason why many people apparently cannot think along with this natural phenomenon and continue to stubbornly insist on the conservation of energy. If one wanted to apply the principle of conservation of energy to gravity, one would have to declare the entire universe to be a closed system because of its unlimited range. Bessler's wheel would then have no problem finding its place in it. Since energy cannot be obtained from “nothing”, the conclusion is that the energy converted by ebb and flow changes the conditions in our solar system in the long term. And we actually know that the distance between the Moon and Earth increases by almost 4 cm every year. If there is a connection here (which has not yet been proven), the tidal power plants are likely to have only an extremely small influence. What is more important are the forces and their effects worldwide caused by the receding and resurfacing seawater.
The nature of gravity is unknown. Some assume that it is a wave, but there is no idea what medium it is or what the wavelength is. Einstein came up with the theory that gravity is caused by a curvature of space-time. Neither is very convincing.
The force generated by gravity can be observed indirectly. We know that this affects everything that has mass. Before Newton, Galileo had already established in 1609 through theoretical considerations that all bodies (in a vacuum) fall at the same speed. Similar to electricity, we know what it does, but we don't know anything about its actual nature. When buildings are blown up, gravity is used specifically to carry out the essential work of destruction. So why not make it usable for productive purposes?
In the case of a conventional hydroelectric power station, which also generates its electricity through gravity, the difference is that the water has previously been brought to a higher level through evaporation, from which it can then flow downwards. That's why physicists have no mental problem with this, although it is by no means as simple as it seems at first glance. Although energy in the form of solar heat is responsible for evaporation, the connection to gravity is not entirely easy to establish. The latter is undoubtedly involved, but is simply excluded from the energy balance of this process. According to prevailing opinion, hydro-power is just another form of solar energy. The question occasionally arises as to where this energy has gone when the water returns to its place of origin. The heat that can be generated by falling water is by no means always the same. While a water wheel or a turbine can convert a relatively large amount of energy, it remains unclear how this will behave when water falls freely. In the dead area of a waterfall, increased molecular movement only creates a small amount of heat that corresponds to its potential energy before the fall. Because this can be easily proven by measuring the water temperatures above and below the waterfall, some textbooks simply claim that the rest is the sound energy released. Acousticians can only shake their heads at this. They know how little power is needed, for example, to generate deafening noise with piezoelectric oscillator.
Since the Bessler wheel was constantly driven by weights, the crucial question arises here, analogous to water, how did the weights keep coming up when no other forces apart from gravity acted on the wheel? Most of the tinkerers who had looked hopefully at this question eventually came to the disillusioned conclusion that it seemed impossible to solve. At this point at the latest, it dawned on them that, since Bessler, people had been searching for an answer for 300 years without any results. So it had to be more difficult than initially thought.
As we know, even before Bessler, humanity had been unsuccessfully dealing with this matter for a long time. Through experiments on the wheel, it was repeatedly found that the lever principle was unrelenting and seemed to steadfastly resist all efforts of eternal movement. Each increase in force gained from the lever was associated with a proportional reduction in travel. A weight placed at the edge of the wheel could lift another near the center, but never to the required height. Ultimately it didn't matter which paths the weights moved on. It always boiled down to the fact that they could never be raised to the same level from which they started because of losses due to friction and air resistance. In this imaginary drive system, however, the latter is the prerequisite for permanent movement, although no usable work would yet be carried out.
If such a drive is to be implemented simply by having a weight repeatedly raise another equally large weight in the wheel to its original height using the lever principle, failure is inevitable. Nevertheless, hobby inventors cannot be deterred from continually searching for a new solution on this basis. The designs found in historical literature are numerous. Even if some of them still seem convincing at first glance, none of them worked.
Nevertheless, the author is convinced that Bessler's invention worked. Even though it has often been the case in history that ideas that question established physical ideas were initially described as completely absurd, totally crazy or, in individual cases, blasphemous, in the end the truth always prevailed. Even Martin Luther, whom many people still follow today when it comes to questions of faith, was wrong when he prematurely dismissed the idea of a heliocentric world as gross nonsense. He defamed Copernicus with the words: “This fool wants to distort the entire art of astronomy.” Final judgments that later turn out to be wrong do no credit to the person who makes them. On the other hand, wisdom and greatness are shown through agreement with the thesis common among physicists: “What cannot be refuted is fact!” Since all efforts have so far failed to seriously scientifically disprove the functionality of Bessler's wheel, one can logically assume, even without knowledge of all other facts, that its unlimited rotation was not a hoax.
Anyone who is interested in Bessler's invention and is not impressed by the arguments of the know-it-alls should therefore be expressly encouraged to develop new ideas and, in particular, to experiment themselves. The latter very quickly leads to the realization that, contrary to initial assumptions, there are countless ways in which masses can be dynamically shifted in a wheel. It is therefore not at all unreasonable to imagine that someone could experiment for ten years without ever repeating themselves. If Bessler actually solved this self-imposed puzzle, then he doesn't deserve to be portrayed as a fraud in the history books. So maybe one day we'll be able to re-establish this thing and thereby rehabilitate his reputation. Even though he is described as a person with character flaws and other shortcomings, he should be given posthumous justice on this point.