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Rockets and People
greater than quartz crystals. I began to look for literature. I stumbled onto a booklet
that had just been published, Seignette Electricity. 36 I tried feverishly to take it all
in—there was a lot of physics there that I did not fully understand (after all, I still
had only a comprehensive education—in everything else I was self-taught), but I
understood the main principle. Potassium sodium tartrate was going to cause a
revolution in ignition technology.This was the beginning of the end for the age of
the magneto and the European firms’ monopolies.Within a week I had devised the
entire system, and on my day off I had drawn it in India ink on Whatman paper and
on tracing paper, and had also written up a description in the prescribed format of
“the invention of the century.”That was the factory inventors’ council assessment.
A month later, I received a certificate of application and six months later an
inventor’s certificate. Next came a copy of an expert’s positive findings, which
contained the following:
In contrast with all the existing electrical ignition systems of the fuel-air
mixture in the cylinders of internal combustion engines, the proposed
method is based on generating an electric spark in a cylinder’s spark plug
using a direct piezoelectric effect rather than a magneto, storage battery, or
dynamo . ...Numerous experiments have shown that potassium sodium
tartrate crystals provide the greatest piezoelectric effect.This effect, which is
enormous compared with all piezoelectric crystals, is used in the proposed
method for the electrical ignition of the fuel-air mixture in an internal
combustion engine.
The proposed method has the following advantages over existing ones.
Specifically, it is simple. Consequently, because of the absence of rotating
magnets, windings, collectors, and other elements, there is a great degree of
operational reliability, which in turn simplifies the electrical circuit. Its light
weight and compactness due to the absence of the bulky magnet system or
storage battery are exceedingly valuable for aircraft engines.The instruments’
simplicity and low manufacturing cost make the proposed method more
economically advantageous. (Expert V. M. Malyshka, Editor A.A. Denisov).
There were other positive reviews, but this was sufficient for me to begin my
search for the miracle-working potassium sodium tartrate crystals, which until then I
had never laid hands on. I was only familiar with their properties through literature.
a rush job tore me away from my absorption with the new principles of ignition.This
one entailed wiring the bomb release system and installing radio systems
in the airplanes.They transferred me to a general special equipment and weaponry
36. The discipline of Seignette electricity is more commonly known as ferroelectricity, a term that became
widespread after World War II.
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