Orffyreus's perpetual motion wheel. Designed by the German inventor Johann Ernst Elias Bessler (1680-1745), this wheel is reputed to have run continuously from November 1717 to May 1718 in a sealed chamber at the castle of the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel at Weissenstein. The secret of the wheel died with its inventor. From "Orffyreus Triumphans Perpetuum Mobile ..." by Johann Bessler (Weissenstein, 1719). Engraving.
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Orffyreus's perpetual motion wheel. Designed by the German inventor Johann Ernst Elias Bessler (1680-1745), this wheel is reputed to have run continuously from November 1717 to May 1718 in a sealed chamber at the castle of the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel at Weissenstein. The secret of the wheel died with its inventor. From "Orffyreus Triumphans Perpetuum Mobile ..." by Johann Bessler (Weissenstein, 1719). Engraving.

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