Cornelius Drebbel

[nicbordeaux]

"The iron trunnion rotate in open camps, so that by external power supply can exclude a fraud."

Well, at least we know that all them iron trunnions was rotating (yes, rotating) in cavities in the wheel. Why them trunnions should have been shaped like straight bananas is the point of interest. Probably there were two sorts of weights. One lot rotating withing chambers, the second lot telescoping along some wire.

[triplock]

Good read. Quite liked the quirky translation.

Glad to see that there was enough depth to the wheels witnessed to allow for the over lapping of swinging pendulums, which is good.

Chris

[daxwc]

Information on Cornelius Drebbel, remember there was a claim he also showed the King a wheel also, not only a clock as normally published. I think Bessler studied Drebbel as he lived in Holland, Prague, and England all places where Bessler went to universities to study or travel. Bessler himself states he studied all PM claims. We know for sure Bessler was aware of Drebbel as his name comes up in DT, not by Bessler but in a letter of support for Bessler.

He’s a man of good spirit, subtle and full of great inventions. He says that at the age of eight he started discovering perpetual motion, which has since then been perfected, and that it was playing with a jack and a straw, creating a small fountain, that laid foundation for all his invention, which, as far as I could find from Abraham Kufller’s tale his son-in law, was purely trying to find out a way to raise water by one or two inches, or any material that one wants to use to create the so called motion. As when it is raised, it will raise higher because of its fall and falling again it is straining more and give more movement to the instrument that it wants to move, which does not require a lot of strength as it is a huge clock, with a two cogwheels movement, the biggest of which is subdivided into 32 cogs and the smallest I don’t remember. On top of the two wheels there is a huge pendulum, which was almost like this:
[Fol. 407 v.] There were other small elements I cannot remember; the small wheel was making the hand of the watch turn. I saw a small piece of wood, on top of which there was a small copper instrument of the following shape, supported by the “miton�. The forward end was hitting, as if it was an anvil, a piece of copper which was hammered in this wood, while the other end was lowered by a copper counterweight attached to it and was entering a hole, drilled on purpose in this wood and was piercing it from one end to the other. I also saw a small piece of wood, with a small glass pipe inside, pushed in, in the following shape and size: (diagram).
When he wanted to make a model of perpetual motion to show to the king, he wanted to have a glass bottle made, the same size and according to the model that will come after and of this shape. It is 2 feet long as a whole and 4 fingers wide; the bottleneck is 4 fingers long.




[Fol. 408] He requested glass pipes the length of one ell but they had to be slim, and said that with this he would make his instrument and that the material he was using for the motion was quicksilver as it did not consume as would water and other types of liquor that might dry out. The painted model that he had made to show to the king was only a huge clock resting on a huge base, bearing two figures on each side: a satire holding a horn from where a small fountain was pouring into a huge shell at its feet and on the other side a fountain was pouring out of the feet of a young child and gushing into a similar shell and flew back in the base. Those two fountains must have been in quicksilver and only pushing nothing thicker as the iron of a needle. I don’t know if it is but to use the wind or the air to set up this primary raising and thereby power the movement (unclear sentence in French!):
[Fol. 408 V.] Kuffler told me that sir Drebbel had made one of his perpetual motions for the Prince of Wales. And there was another fine thing. You had to install this instrument against a wall where a hole was drilled, a wall facing the sun. Then insert a small wooden instrument, as the one used to knead bread, in the hole and lay it in such a position that the sun can reach it at least once a month. There is a huge pendulum attached at the end of this instrument and said that when the sun reaches this instrument it adjusts the hand to its real midday, such as if the hands were showing 3 o’clock, they would turn back by themselves to midday. These wooden instrument looked as follows and could be adjusted in the middle:
That’s what I have learnt from Kuffler as far as perpetual motion is concerned.

Quote:
When the Emperor Rodolf died and the archduke Mathias was elected in his place, several philosophers and mathematicians asked to see the invention of this globe from Drebbel and convinced the Emperor to allow them to break it, reassuring him that they would easily make a similar one afterwards. Having obtained this permission, they gathered for this matter but none of them dared breaking this item, which they thought miraculous. Nevertheless, eager to see the invention they had it broken by one of the king’s jokers. But while breaking it he broke several small glass pipes that were inside this (sic) globe, so that they did not learn anything from it and were incapable of piecing it back together. The emperor begged the King of England to send him back to repair this (sic) globe and sent a coach to pick him up but Drebbel never agreed to go back.

tks