Posted by John Collins (194.164.38.113) on February 24, 2003 at 23:55:53:
In Reply to: Yet, another translation ? posted by Øystein Rustad on February 24, 2003 at 16:03:15:
:I believe that this comes from "Perpetuum Mobile" this second volume written in 1870, published in London and written by Henry Dircks, C.E., LL.D. An excellent source of information about the search for PM.
John C.
I put all in fresh order, and began work in all possible haste, doing everything in the manner of those I had already made and destroyed, with only a few changes in the dimensions of the so-named turning-wheel. For as a grindstone may be called a wheel, so may the principal part of my machine be named. The outward part of this wheel is drawn over or covered with waxed linen in the form of a drum. This cylindrical basis was 12 Rhenish feet in diamter, the thickness from 15 to 18 inches, the middle axle 6 feet long and 8 inches in thickness. It is supported in its movement on two pointed steel balance-pegs, each 1 inch thick; and the wheel is vertically suspended. The movement is modified by two pendulums, as shown in the engraving at the end of this book. The inward structure of the wheel is of a nature according to the laws of mechanical perpetual motion, so arranged that by disposed weights once in rotation they gain force from their own swinging, and must continue their movement as long as their structure does not lose its position and arrangement. Unlike all other automata, such as clocks or springs or other hanging weights which require winding up or whose duration depends on the chain which attaches them, on the contrary, these weights are the essential parts and constitute perpetuum mobile itself; as from them is retreived the unviersal movement which they must exercise so long as they remain out of the center of gravity; and when they come to be placed together, and so arranged one against another that they can never obtain equilibrium, or the punctum quietus which they unceasingly seek in their wonderous speedy flight, one or other of them must apply its weight vertically to the axis, which in its turn will also move