Johann Bessler

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.

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.

In 1712, Bessler appeared in the town of Gera in the province of Reuss and exhibited a "self-moving wheel," which was about 2 m (6+1⁄2 feet) in diameter and 10 cm (4 inches) thick.

[4] Bessler then moved to Draschwitz, a village near Leipzig, where in 1713 he constructed an even larger wheel, a little over 2.7 m (9 feet) in diameter and 15 cm (6 inches) in width.

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.

[3] 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.

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.

[4][5] Christian Wolff, who viewed the wheel in 1715, wrote that Bessler freely revealed that the device utilized weights of about 1.8 kg (4 pounds).

[7] 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.

[4] 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.

[4] From the beginning, Bessler's work generated accusations of fraud from various people, including mining engineer Johann Gottfried Borlach, mathematician Christian Wagner, model-maker Andreas Gärtner, Kassel court tutor Jean-Pierre de Crousaz, and others.