Revolutionary engine

An excerpt from the first chapter of Ran Levy's book 'Propertum Mobila', which was recently published by Sefrit Ma'ariv, tells the story of one of the inventors of the 20th century, Joseph Pfaff, and describes one of the demonstrations of the engine he built for none other than Richard Feynman who survived in a miracle from the explosion

Revolutionary engine

For Joseph Pfaff, the submarine story was hardly the beginning of a much stranger career. Two years after the "sailing" to France, Puff packed up his family and belongings and moved to Los Angeles, California. In the warehouse of his new home he began working on another secret project. In 1968, Don Roser, a local construction contractor, heard about Joseph Pfaff. A mutual friend, also an immigrant from Hungary, brought the two together for dinner at his home. Between bites, Puff told Roser about the submarine he had invented, and even showed him the book he had written.

Roser showed a sincere interest in Puff's inventions, and Hella agreed to share with him the secret of the new development he was working on. He took Roser to his home, and there he demonstrated to him his new invention, based on an unknown scientific principle, an invention that may affect the world of transportation in a way that no other invention has affected since the gasoline engine.

In the warehouse at his house, Puff showed Roser an ordinary car engine, albeit completely rebuilt. A normal gasoline engine, one that is installed in almost every car, sucks fuel from a tank. This fuel is injected into the combustion chamber in the engine, where it mixes with fresh air from outside. A tiny electrical spark detonates the flammable mixture, and all the spent gases created by the combustion leave the engine through the exhaust pipe (exhaust) to make room for a new mixture.

The overhaul done by Puff in the engine changed this picture completely. The fuel injection and gas emission systems of the engine were removed, and in their place the inventor installed an addition that allowed the gases inside to move in a closed circuit - that is, without the entry of fuel and fresh air from the outside, or the emission of a used mixture at the end of combustion.

But the real innovation in the invention was not in the structure of the engine but in a unique mixture of gases which actually replaces gasoline as the fuel inside the engine. The uniqueness of the gas mixture invented by Puff is expressed in two main features. The first is the enormous energy content of the mixture, which turns it into an explosive substance like no other. The energy released during the explosion is enormous, above and beyond anything that a normal gasoline engine is capable of producing.

The second feature is even more revolutionary. At the end of the explosion, the mixture automatically returns to its initial state: meaning, after releasing a high amount of energy for the purpose of driving the engine, the gases return to a state that allows them to release the same amount of energy in the next cycle. There is no need to refuel the engine with new gases: the same gases pass through it in a closed circuit.

The formula for creating the gas mixture was top secret, of course. Puff was ready to tell Roser only general details: it contains different amounts of the gases neon, argon, krypton, xenon and more - gases that all belong to a group of elements known as noble gases. These gases are inside the engine along with tiny amounts of radioactive material in a strong magnetic field and are ignited by a tiny electrical spark.

When Puff described to Roeser the miraculous properties of his engine, the veteran construction contractor immediately realized that God had sent him a gift from heaven. First, the gases all moved inside the engine in a closed circuit - that is, without the emission of polluting substances into the atmosphere. Second, although the fusion of the gas atoms inside the combustion chamber releases enormous energy, the engine itself hardly heats up: a rather pleasant temperature of about sixty degrees Celsius was measured on the metal body. The pressure exerted by the gases on the walls of the engine during the release of energy is very low, unlike the pressure created during the explosion of gasoline vapors in a normal engine. This makes it possible to build the engine from relatively light materials, instead of the hard and heavy metal that is used in building engines.

The fourth advantage is of course the most significant: the fuel is cheap. Puff estimated that the gas mixture would need to be changed only once every five years, and twenty-five cents worth of fuel could propel a car over a hundred thousand miles, or a thousand flight hours of an average airplane. If you divide the initial expense of refueling the engine with the innovative gas over five years, it is clear to everyone that the cost is almost zero.

Roser was captivated by the charms of the engine, although the secret of its operation was beyond his understanding. He envisioned the huge profits he would make when Puff's invention pushed out all the other engines on the market, none of which even came close to performing. Within three days he decided to support Puff. The two founded a company called "Enviromatics", and began working on perfecting the invention and marketing it. The division of labor between them was quite clear - Puff worked on the engine itself and Roser was responsible for the business part. Roser planned to market the idea to one of the big companies - Lockheed Martin, Rockwell, or the United States Army.

In October 1968, Puff and Roser left for the desert in California, accompanied by a number of engineers from the United States Army that Roser had invited to test the new invention. Puff planned a very impressive display, something that would make the big companies interested in his special gas mixture.

He chose the place carefully - a deserted area, isolated and far from any settlement. The engine is connected to a cannon that is about one and a half meters long and eight centimeters in diameter. The cannon itself was anchored to a reinforced concrete surface, and a heavy metal block was used as a shell.

Puff shooed the spectators away, started the engine, then drove away as well. The engine rattled and rattled, making the usual roar of a car engine and then—

"...'Suddenly we heard a loud explosion,' Roser said, 'it started as a deep growl, like a muffled bass sound.'"
(The Dream Machine, David Anschlie, San Jose Mercury News, 1989)

Something caused the improvised shell to jam in the barrel of the cannon while firing. The tremendous force of the explosion almost completely crushed the cannon, and the rear of the cannon opened "like the petals of a flower," as Roser described it. If Puff was trying to make an impression among the audience, he undoubtedly succeeded. It was obvious that an enormous amount of energy was needed to cause an explosion of such magnitude, and the energy seemed to be derived entirely from his engine.

Roser, the man with the business sense, pushed for another, more relaxed demonstration in front of potential investors, so that they could test the engine for themselves and allay their concerns. A month after the event in the desert, Puff and Roser parked their engine in an empty parking lot in Los Angeles.

A large number of curious people gathered in the parking lot to witness the demonstration. In the audience was also a lawyer who represented the TRW company - one of the world's transportation giants. In the lawyer's pocket was a fat contract in the amount of over three million dollars. Roser knew that only a particularly successful demonstration would make the lawyer pull that contract out of his pocket.

But without realizing it, Puff and Roser were in deep trouble. Their luck happened and one of the greatest physicists of the XNUMXth century was also in the crowd.

Richard Feynman

Professor Richard Feynman was known to the American public mainly because in the XNUMXs he developed the first atomic bomb with Robert Oppenheimer and a group of other talented scientists at the Los Alamos, New Mexico laboratories. Also his winning the Nobel Prize (with two other researchers) thanks to significant breakthroughs in quantum theory helped him penetrate the public consciousness. He was a genius in every sense of the word, the kind that only a few appear in every generation - but without a doubt it was his personality that made him a favorite of the audience and the media.

Feynman did not fit the accepted stereotype of the physical scientist. He was not closed, shy or reclusive, but wild and direct, averse to false formality and with a particularly captivating personality. Already in Los Alamos, Feynman would break into locked cabinets containing secret material and leave scathing notes there to embarrass the facility's security managers. He testified himself that he was endowed with enormous curiosity about everything - from pure science to drumming and playing the banjo. Feynman was also not afraid to tell the truth to those who he considered a deceiver and an eyewitness.

In November 1966, some excited students arrived at Professor Feynman's house with an article from the local paper about Puff's engine. Feynman heard from them about the wonderful properties of the engine, but was not impressed. He did not hide from the students his opinion that there is no source of energy that can satisfy these demands, except perhaps for nuclear energy.

The students insisted and convinced Feynman to join them for the planned demonstration of Puff and Roser in the parking lot. It is likely that they did not require great efforts, since Feynman was six gods of battle from the first moment. He himself described what happened in the demo:

Mr. Puff talked about the principles of the engine's operation, and used vague and complicated sentences about radiation, atoms, different levels of energy, quanta and more over and over again - without any logic...
Puff also said that the major oil companies refused to purchase his engine, because they were afraid that he would push them out of the market. It is therefore clear that there is a conspiracy here designed to silence him. […] In about two days, Puff intends to send the engine to the laboratories of Stanford University, where he will receive official confirmation of his invention.

There were quite a few cables that ran from the engine to where Puff and the crowd were standing, and connected to a gauge station. The devices themselves were connected by a power cable to a socket in the wall, so it was quite clear where the power to the engine was coming from. The engine began to operate in perfect silence and without the noises characteristic of normal car engines - quite similar to the way a normal electric motor works.

Puff pulled the plug from the wall. 'See? The electricity from the outlet is only used to supply energy to the measuring devices.' Well, it was simple - there was probably a battery inside the engine. 'Would you mind if I hold the cable?' I asked. 'definitely not.' Puff replied and gave me the cable.
After a few minutes he asked for it back. 'I'll hold it a little longer,' I said, trying to bide my time – maybe by then the rattling engine would stop running. In a short time Puff became really hysterical, so I gave him the cable back. He immediately plugged it back into the socket.

...a few minutes later there was a loud explosion. Parts of the engine were flying around, and the wrecked engine was leaning on its side. The person next to me shouted 'I've been hit! I was hurt!' And I saw that his whole hand was crushed - you could see the muscles, the tendons, everything. The youngest student in my group took command, and yelled at me to give the man a tourniquet. He began to perform CPR on a man who was lying on the floor... but he had a hole in his chest, and he died of his wounds. Two more wounded survived. We were all really shaking, we were badly shaken."
(Lazer magazine, 1966)

Feynman, one of the most brilliant scientific minds of the twentieth century, miraculously survived. The lawyer who had the fat contract in his pocket was less lucky - he almost lost a leg in the explosion. The negotiations with the investors went down the drain, of course. Roser said that he immediately understood what was happening.

"I had my back to the machine, but I heard the same rolling thunder that was in the test with the cannon in the desert. The guy I was talking to collapsed before my eyes, with a piece of metal stuck in his skull."

Roser and Puff sued Feynman. They claimed that Feynman's irresponsible behavior with the electrical cable caused the measuring instruments to stop working. As a result, Puff lost control of the engine.

Feynman had a completely different explanation. He claimed that Puff may actually have planned a controlled explosion of the engine. An explosion that would have caused little damage to the engine would have been beneficial to Puff, as it would have postponed the need to deliver it to Stanford Labs for testing - but Puff may have misjudged the explosive material, and nearly killed everyone present. In the end, the administration of the university where Feynman was a faculty member decided to reach a financial settlement with the plaintiffs - probably to avoid a lengthy and unnecessary legal discussion. Roeser saw the legal settlement as a crushing victory, since by avoiding a formal trial it was clear that Feynman was unable to prove that it was cheating.

But the tragic event in the parking lot also marked the end of the partnership between Don Roser and Joseph Pfaff. A black cat passed between the two, and Puff accused Roser of being greedy and trying to steal his secret from him.

The two former friends waged a bloody legal battle over the rights to prevent. In the end, the court awarded Roser ownership of half of the engine. But for Roser it was a futile victory, as the engine itself was essentially a perfectly normal car engine. The knowledge of the special mixture of gases, the source of energy, remained with Puff.

All in all, Roser invested about half a million dollars of his own money in Puff's engine. Most of the money went down the drain as part of the legal battles. In return, Don Roser got to see the engine work for about thirty hours, of which thirty-five minutes continuously.

But even after all the hardships and financial losses, Roser continued to believe in Puff. According to him, the technical talent demonstrated by the inventor was truly amazing and at the end of the day, after all the independent tests by the various investigators, as well as by the California Police following the tragic event, no one was able to find a trick or cheat in his engine.

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