NEW MACHINE IS SAID TO MAGNIFY ELECTRIC POWER

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6802, 4 January 1929, Page 2

NEW MACHINE IS SAID TO MAGNIFY ELECTRIC POWER

BRITISH INVENTION OF “COLD ELECTRICITY” OPENS REVOLUTIONARY PROSPECTS SAINT HELENS, Eng. Experts of the General Electric Metropolitan Vickers and other companies are investigating the merits of what is claimed to be a remarkable discovery by William Harrison, an inventor here, who, after 17 years of research, is reported to havo devised a machine which magnifies electrical power. Thomas Wood, a Saint Helens councillor, who is the provider of the financial backing to enable Mr. Harrison to bring his invention to completion, declared to a newspaper representative that: “The machine,” which has been patented but as yet is unnamed “will revolutionise all methods of power production.” Describing the invention which, he said, betokens a new era for light and power, Mr. Wood said: “The machine through which the current passes is encased in a plain wooden box, six inches each way. So long as we can maintain a vacuum, we can magnify t.iio unit of generated electricity at will. One of the greatest troubles has been to get this vacuum in cylindrical form, so that it would be permanent. This has now been accomplished. “If we said we had gained perpetual motion, we should not be believed,” continued Mr. Wood. “You may call it perpetual power if you like, and yet that is perhaps inaccurate as after a time there would have to be renewals. You can say, however, that it is. 99 per cent, perpetual power. When wc made 'a thorough test an electric lamp in the room denoted that we were working at half an ampere, and when our device was put into operation, six ether lamps were lighted without the pointer moving, and others could have been added. Trams, motors, trains and ships could be run electrically at low cost. All they would require would be to produce a certain amount of power and the amplifier -would do the rest. ‘The main idea of the invention is that while it is giving off power, it is also restoring energy. It will mean that manufacturers will no longer be dependent on large generating stations for their power supplies and that domestic users will bo able to illuminate their dwellings by the aid of small low-tension accumulators.”

Approached for his views on the question of Mr. Harrison’s, invention, on official of the research department of Metropolitan Vickers, Trafford Park, Manchester, said: “The only conceivable way .of.. amplifying electricity is by some method of producing ‘cold'’ electric light. At present something like 80 per cent of energy in electricity is lost in heat. If the loss thus occasioned could be prevented and the whole of the energy devoted to making ‘cold’ light, then startling results would bo achieved.” Effects May Bs Revolutionary.

A member of the research staff of Messrs. Ferrantis, Ltd., Oldham, one of the biggest electrical firms in England, said: “If the claim that is made can be substantiated, even in a small degree then the results w r ill be simply unimaginable and revolutionary.” Experts of the St. Helens Corporation, an electricity undertaking, have been conducting tests and arc reported sanguine as to the value of the discovery. They will bo given the privilege to first utilise the apparatus before the device is marketed. The machine installed in Mr. Wood’s office was connected by flexible wiring to an electric light bulb holder. Wire at the other end of the box led to half a dozen holders in the room. Switching on pow T cr sufficient for ono light, the current passing through the amplifier gave equal light to six lamps, as the original current would for one. “In one of our experiments,” said Mr. Wood, {‘we had a generator attached to a dynamo. Between them was the machine. We started the generator by hand. The current it developed was passed through the amplifier to the dynamo and a proportion of the current was returned to the generator to keep it running. And it kept on going for 26 hours. No other generator without driving power could keep going for 26 seconds.

Capable of “Incredible Development” “Mr. Harrison merely claims to have made an electrical discovery which, in the hands of the industrialist or the electrical engineer, will be capable of incredible development. Electrical power in time may become cheaper and more accessible than water. ’ ’

Air. Harrison studied engineering at Liverpool University, afterward devoting three years to work on his theory in Glasgow. “Returning to St. Helens,” he said, “I fixed up a laboratory in the cellar of our home, where at 3 o’clock in the morning of March 3, 1927, I had the, first visible sign of success. I reported the results to Air. Wood. I am saying nothing until the world accepts it.”