Extropia’s Curious Science: The ‘Absorber’.
“When those bars slam home, that’s when you know it’s for real. Old life gone...and nothing left but all the time in the world to think about it”.
So spoke ‘Red’, the character played by Morgan Freeman in the film ‘The Shawshank Redemption’. But it would seem that not every convict spends his time merely thinking about his prior life. According to a 1912 Technology World article, one inmate of Arizona State Penitentiary was given temporary freedom to pursue a world-changing invention.
(Images from viewzone)
The article does not say why this convict, one Roy J. Meyers was sentenced to three and a half years in prison. What is known is that before he was incarcerated, Meyers had applied for a number of patents. While in prison, he came up with the Idea of something called the ‘Absorber’, claiming this invention would draw energy from the atmosphere and convert it into electricity.
The prison authorities evidently took him seriously, because they allowed Meyer to use a workshop that was situated outside the city walls, so he could work on a prototype. After a few weeks he had developed a device that was producing a modest output of eight volts.
Kate Barnard, who was a prison reformer, visited the penitentiary and managed to persuade the state governor, one George Hunt, to grant Meyer a thirty day parole so he could finalise his project. While he was out of prison, Meyer visited the Patent office in Washington. The officials there were understandably skeptical about his claims (patent offices must have had countless ‘free energy’ proposals sent their way) so they told Meyers to come up with a working model. The only details we have for what he duly came up with is a photograph showing a wooden tower, about six feet tall, atop of which sits his ‘Absorber’, which in appearance is a ring of specially coated, magnetised steel plates, connected to a transformer which sits beneath.
Meyers managed to complete his work and still had two days of free time spare. He returned to finish his sentence, and while waiting for his actual day of release, he told Technology World of his plans to build a 200 ft Absorber that would be capable of powering the city of Phoenix.
And that’s where the story ends. Considering that just about every claim of ‘free energy’ turns out to be a con or the ravings of a lunatic, it’s a fair bet that Meyer was one more conman or deluded soul. But he did manage to persuade authorities that he was on to something, and given that he did return to prison suggest he was a man of his word. So, who knows? Maybe somewhere in a Washington Patent office there sits the plans for the greatest invention ever conceived?
References:
Technology World
‘Far Out’ by Mark Pilkington