The complete article that was to have been placed at this site I have accidentally destroyed.
I think the main points that I remember are reproduced below.
If some one can give me additional information in construction of the same please send to my email address below and I will add to this web site for the enlightenment of others.
It seems that the Japanese knew of them before world war two and were using them in their telephones during the war.
Electrets today are used in modern tape recorders for microphones and to a limited extent in flat wall loudspeakers that were popular some time ago.
Many materials can obtain a surface electrostatic charge and when then come in contact with another material the charge is either changed or neutrallized.
If I can remember sugar crystals are one but don't quote me on that maybe someone more knowledgable than myself can send me a complete list.
One material is called lucite and a electret can be made in the following manner.
You will first need a high voltage source.
Taking high voltage from a Wimshurst machine or a Van de Graaf machine
may also prove suitable.
Next you will need to cut a sheet of lucite 6 inches by 6 inches about a quarter of inch thick, if I can remember correctly.
You will also need two thin sheets of aluminium cut to 6"x6" also
Two house hold bricks and a good heat source such as a barbecue bicket.
Arrange all components as per diagram below
Light the bricket and then turn on the High Voltage Supply. and keep it going until The lucite is in a molten state and until the brickete is completed finished burning
Turn off High Voltage source and then carefully remove the two metal plates with the lucite and completely wrap it in metal foil and store for two weeks in a suitable storage area.
After this time if the process has worked you should have an electret that will give a high voltage discharge,
Connect a piece of joined insulated wire to each plate and then by disconnecting from the two metal plates a spark will be given off
After a suitable time period (seconds) you will be able to repeat this step again and again.
To help you keep the electret working when you have finshed experimenting with it ,keep it wrapped in foil as before.
An interesting observation and by no means confirmed is the following observation made by a visitor who was
able to see to the Swiss ML machine working (see article from main index)
Claimed that the disks were made of persplex or could be lucite type material .
That one disk disk described as the earth plate had metal sectors mounted on both sides of the disk [ something not alway mentioned on articles describing the invention]
I am suggesting that one of the actual disk described as the earth is a set of 50-60 electrets mounted on a single disk and some how are discharged in sequence and are allowed to recharge before coming into the next discharge point. when the disk is spun at suggested speeds of 50 to 60 revolutions a second.
see the diagram below
I am not sure if the entire disk could be broken into sectors and a high voltage source applied to these sections in a manner suggested in the construction of said electret above.
I am not however suggesting that is the complete answer to the working of the Swiss ml, but I believe it could have played a part in its operation however, if the above electret design could have be constructed successfully in a manner described before above.
In the beginning of my web page on the Swiss ml I have described an experiment called the Linden experiment where P.B. is said to have performed in front of witnesses and also said to have suggested if we knew the answer to this experiment we would know how his device worked.
If the Lucite had been prepared in the way suggested above it could also be able to give a electrical discharge as mentioned before and the use of different metals used could be meant to mislead or mis direct the observer.
What appearred to be a simple piece of lucite would be just that until the two metal plates were added to giving the impression of creating something new at time of presentation when in fact the device was already made before hand and the plates removed.
This however does not explain how many kilowatts of power was produced and there must have been some other action taking place maybe something akin from the Floyd Sweet Device may be able to explain it. (see article on my main web page) The use of the P/magnetic field could have been used as some type of magnetic rectifier (A type of device is also mentioned on my main web page.
A modern loadspeaker works by having an electrical signal driven in a coil wrapped around a magnetic center and this causes the paper cone to reproduce the original audio input signal.
However if the speaker is connected as a microphone the reverse is true and a small electrical signal is produced maybe,could this is also true of the coil in the horseshe magnet in the Linden experiment and acts also as generator of limited electrical energy that could be used to control timing or other related functions.
Like to hear what others think
Geoff