The mysterious device was said to radioactive rays into electricity - and run big motors.
Recently I spent an evening with a scientist close to atomic energy developments, and to be perfectly frank I guided the conversation to the subject of changing radioactive ways directly into useable electrical energy. I was told it has not been done. That atomic scientists have tried every thing they can think of to accomplish this neat little trick, but so far have failed. Many an atomic researcher has believed such an arrangement possible, but the right combination has not been found.
I mentioned that I had heard of a young man named Albert Hubbard who in 1919 was credited with having accomplished something approaching this.
My atomic scientist acquaintance was immediately interested.
The conversation changed from me asking all the questions to him asking most of them.
What will become of it? Who knows! Ever since mankind invented the wheel he has been searching for a means to keep his wheel turning - indefinitely and at small costs "perpetual motion machines are seldom invented these days".
Perpetual motion seemingly has become the impossible.
A few men have- or think they have seen the way to untapped power sources.
Alfred Hubbard seems to be on of these, around him and his device as around other such men and devices a mystery has been spun.
I choose to call the Hubbard device a transformer because it appears to transform and turn one sort of energy into another. The apparatus is now more than 35 years old .
Alfred M. Hubbard is still alive. He is a man in his late 50's.He does not live in this country.
He continues to be secretive about his efforts, but it is known that he is still interested in atomic energy materials. There are many rumors afloat. Alfred M. Hubbard was a Seattle Washington boy.
He was only sixteen when he began work on his device and only nineteen when he perfected it to a demonstrable machine.
Hubbard's announcement of his transformer set Seattle a buzzing. On Wednesday December 17 1919 the Post Intelligencer carried a first page spread entitled
Father smith said" I unhesitatingly say that Hubbards Invention is destined to take the place of existing power generators and that within a few years it will have advanced the whole theory and practice of electricity beyond the dreams of present day scientists.
But it hasn't! Why hasn't it? Atomic energy recently has become the power of electricity, but it is used to heat water, to make stream, which turns a turbine, which turns a most conventional generator.
This is a long way from converting atomic energy or radioactive energy directly into electricity as the Hubbard Device was reported to do.
There are rumours that there are several other devices similar to Hubbards.
Rumour says that devices reached a most interesting point of development and the "Authorities " stepped in and stopped the experiments and in some cases confiscated the apparatus.
This under the guise of improper and dangerous use of atomic energy ". Dangerous to whom?
Electricity as we know is generally is derived from two accepted means
By cutting the lines of magnetic force set up in coils of wire carrying an electric current to produce strong magnetic fields.
By reactive chemical means which requires chemicals to be burned reacted upon and destroyed and thus frequently replaced as in wet and dry batteries.
Recently another device has been developed which will manufacturer electricity directly from sunlight (I think the author means Solar Cells web master) As yet this device has a small output and is no threat to present generators.
He did agree however the inventor had stumbled upon something new. The word stumbled which seems to disregard Hubbards three years of work. Professor Smith declined to reveal anything regarding the construction of the device.
He did say its energy output was a steady and that it produced an alternating current. It's frequency or charge was not mentioned. It's voltage and amp limits were not given.
Photographs published in the Intelligence indicated that the apparatus or at lest one of them operated a light bulb of about 900 watts capacity. The picture shows this lamp brightly aglow.
The lamp was atop a small device of which could have been held in two hands. In this case the cycle would be relatively unimportant but the voltage would be have to be within rather close limits. The amperage required could be slight.
Father smith said I hardly think this apparatus will operate indefinitely though I could not place a maximum length of operation at this time.
He said he believed the apparatus constructed " would continue to function for an unheard of period and he was of the opinion it could be easily rejuvenated after a long use.
Professor Smith also said he did not think that there was any limit to the size such a device might be built nor a limit to its output capacities.
One of the interesting experiments made with the Hubbard transformer was the propelling of a 18 feet boat around the Portage Bay near Seattle.
A 35 horse power electric motor was hooked up to a Hubbard transformer measuring Maybe 12- 14 inches in diameter and 14 inches in length. It furnished enough energy to drive the boat and a pilot at a good clip around the bay.
The demonstration lasted several hours and created a sensation. The test required enough current for a long enough time to rule out any sort of battery, being housed in the device. Even a battery of such strength and durability would certainly be something new.
From this test we may make some surmises. The cycle was probably 50 or 60 cycles per second.
There are 25 cycle motors but they are a few and probably the boats motor was not rewound to take either higher or lower frequency commercial electricity in US is 60 cycles.
The voltage could be 440 or 220 volts probably 220 volts. It seems unlikely a 35 horsepower motor would have as a low voltage of 110 volts.
It is possible of course or it could have been rewind for a higher voltage 600 volts or 1000 volts.
Ampere or quality of current would have to be considerably less at higher voltage input greater at a lower voltage input.
-If the horsepower was to be maintained anywhere near that recorded. Thus we cab suppose the Hubbard Transformer was no baby.
Soon after the demonstration Hubbard's name-dropped from the Seattle paper and he went to work for the Radium Chemical Company of Pittsburgh -now of New York.
But on Monday February 27 1928 Hubbard and his transformer again made Seattle's Post Intelligencer headline. This time in connection with the Fuel less motor designed and built by Lester J. Hendershot then of Selfridge Field Detriot.
In an interview with R.B. Berman at this time Hubbard revealed for the first time that his transformer was powered with radioactive substances.
Hubbard admitted he had used the idea of power from the air to protect his real idea for patent and that this machine created electrical energy directly from rays of force or particles emitted from radioactive materials.
He did not name the materials. They remain a secret today. According to Hubbard's statement in the newspaper he sold a 50% interest in his device to the Radium Chemical Company and went to Pittsburgh to continue developing the device for them.
Hubbard related that the company had demanded more and more equity in the machine until finally he retained only a 25% interest. Evidently pressure was bought upon him to sign over an additional 5%.
This Hubbard refused to do and in 1922 he severed connection with Radium Chemical Company and returned to Seattle.
At the present time Hubbard is not inclined to discuss his employment period with the Radium Chemical Company nor will he discuss this device or his experiences with it.
My first letter to the radium chemical company was not answered. A second letter a few months later brought a reply from Mr. Grange Taylor vice president of the concern.
He stated that none of the employees presently with the company and also with it in the early 1920's could remember anything about the device or about Hubbard himself. Mr. Taylor letter said "there is no information available on the device you mention.
A poor description of the device may be better than none at all.
Around a hollow centred probably a non-magnetic tube insulated copper wire is wrapped. The size of the wire and the number of turns are not known {This information would be necessary for even a beginning attempt to reproduce the device}
This winding could correspond to the primary of a transformer.
In the hollow of this tube are a series of small diameter preferably magnetic iron rods. The radioactive materials are packed snugly about these rods to form a compact mass.
These bars do not touch one another. If they are magnetic their poles might be all alike or they may be alternated.
Circulating the central tube and its appendages are eight coils of wire wound upon what appears to be eight cores of magnetic upon iron. These eight coils stand parallel to the central tube. Their outer windings appear to be connected in series and probably form something corresponding to the secondary of the transformer.
As there seems to be more windings on this secondary than the primary one would suspect following ordinary electrical practice. That the transformer was a step up variety rather than a step down.
That is the secondary voltage would be higher than its primary voltage and consequently its amperage would be less.
Four leads out wires are showing. How they are connected together- if they are remains a secret.
Around the outside of the windings appears to be a wrapping of some dense material, probably meant to shield or turn aside the rays from the radio active materials within. Such a shield would be necessary so to protect those working with the apparatus.
All of this is set between the roll ends that make the device look like a giant spool.
There are no moving parts. The machine operates silently. The radioactive materials probably would have to be replaced from time to time.
Whether the coils have to be excited once before the device will operate I don't know. It may be they have to excite each time the machine is started to establish the directional flow of the current.
If Father Smith made any records of his findings in connection with Hubbard's transformer they are not available at present.
Recent inquiry at the college disclosed that Professor Smith has passed away and the college library contains no notes covering this matter.
As far as can be determined no US patents ever were issued to Hubbard's covering the device.
The Radium Chemical Company list of patents is long but no title in their list appears to cover such an apparatus as Hubbards.
Either the device was not developed to a point where a patent could be obtained or because of seeming fiction which developed between the company and Hubbard it was impossible for either to obtain a patent.
It was possible that patents exist in other countries.
Reprinted from Fate Magazine July 1956 pp 36-42
Some Additional Related information Now we will take a look at the Moray Device. It is a simple amplifier driven by an RF signal and containing the Moray Valve.
Actually this is a transformer coupled class-A amplifier in which the power consuming load is coupled to the place circuit through an impedance matched transformer.
The Moray Valve itself which from his notes we know used a compression allay including radium chloride. I am going to describe the Moray device as a high frequency LC resonant circuit in multiple stages utilizing a novel (radium doped) detector and novel oscillator tubes also containing radioactive material.
Lets compare the Moray circuit to the McElrath circuit, which is a cold cathode, vacuum tube amplifier driven by an RF signal to produce usable power. These tubes of McElrach's used radium on the emitter. In moray's early device, he used an antenna and a ground. RF signals are impressed upon the LCR tank circuit to yield high frequency osillations and the circuit was tuned to resonance for maximum current in the tank.
Energy from radiated particlesis contributed to the circuit by absorption in the detector which also has a high multiplication factor due to the cascade of electrons produced within the germanium of the detector. The circuit dumps this excess energy into a second stage oscillator to go through the same process and so on through multiple stages.
Later design inprovements eliminated the antenna and ground connections but required an input emf to initiate the oscillations in the First stage. The Moray device utilizes many principles characterized by conventional nuclear batteries of the class 1, 2,3 and class 5 types. By comparison. we see that the principle for operation of the Hubbard Coil is the same as the
Moray device employs only utilizing a different technique, namely, both use an oscillating primary LC tank circuit at its self resonant frequency with radioacivc decay energy contributed by particle absorption within the primary circuit and electrical energy is removed from the LC tank by means of an impedance matched transformer.
In conclusion. we now see a plausible explanation for two so called FREE ENERGY devices. This approach yields an explanation for their claimed performance within the context of contemporary science without invoking such borderland concepts as the aether or zero point energy.
Proper application of this technology could be of tremendous value to all humanity
