Posted by John Collins (194.164.38.218) on February 03, 2003 at 00:21:53:
In Reply to: Spring question for John Collins posted by grim on February 02, 2003 at 15:45:05:
:Hi Grim,
No problem for me to answer questions if I can. As for this particular question, it has troubled me for a long time. I suspect that you are right and it is one spring per weight - but I wonder if the witnesses interpretation of the noise is right.
I know that he says something about the "familiar" sound of a spring being compressed, but what, I have wondered, does that sound like? Could it not have been just the sound of a piece of mechanism being moved against the force of gravity into a position which enabled the weights to be removed. Think about it for a moment - the weights will settle in a "low" position naturally, but when one weight is removed, the mechanism may become unbalanced and, if he had not moved it first, shoot upwards.
It is difficult to speculate about it without knowing the exact design, but removal of one weight at a time, seems to me to require constant readjustment of the interior mechanism to avoid sudden mechanical reactions to that removal, and that sound described as the compression of a spring might have been merely that movement initiated by Bessler to avoid the reaction?
John C.
Hello John
: Thanks for your infinite patience with all the queries sent your way.
: In your opinion, in the eyewitness description that says that after the weights were installed Bessler "pulled down on an iron spring that made a loud noise" when he let it go, are we talking one spring, or possibly a spring per weight set?
: Personal speculation is a spring per weight set but you're the man when it comes to research.
:
: Thanks once again
: grim