George J. Klein: The Great Inventor

May 2005

“Did you know my Dad used to smoke ?

“Why didn’t you ever invent anything ?

“Are you kidding ?”

1) Study Biographies of Great People

2) Work with Others to make the World Better

3) Develop your Imagination

How to become a Great Inventor

“ possibly, the most productive inventor in Canada in the 20th century … “

Canadian Encyclopedia

Hundreds, probably thousands of scientific inventions and technical designs

“his story makes you proud to be Canadian …”

He worked with others to make the World Better

To understand how and why

… study his life and the lives and events around it

A privilege to study a whole life

… and a family history

And a thrill to see links between events - 100 years apart

Growing up amid the watchmakers & artistic silversmiths

Hamilton

Not a great student. But good in the workshop.

Even got along with Mr. Parkin. Sir.

Mud. Noise. Old Industrial Buildings. A challenge and fun.

Always inventing the tools to help others make the “World Better”.

NRC across Canada today.

Stating the Problem … helps you to “Imagine” the solution

“sometimes the sliding resistance of the skis is so great that it is impossible to reach flying speed … other times, skis adhere to such an extent that the (propeller) thrust is not sufficient to start (the plane) sliding.”

George J. Klein

Aeronautical Report AR-2:

The Snow Characteristics of Aircraft Skis ( 1947)

Helping the Army launch “the Devil’s Brigade”

“… differing from Klein’s design only in the details to facilitate mass production.”

They “Imagined” the impossible

ZEEP Project

“Doing the impossible”

Summer 1930 – Klein meets George Laurence

March 1940 - Laurence begins sub critical project

September 1944 – Klein identified for project

December 1944 - Klein deemed “pure enough”

Summer 1945 - Alamogordo, Hiroshima

September 1945 – ZEEP goes critical

katakartanaq: aniugaviniq:pukak:

iasuqaq:qiqumaaq:apijaq:apigiannagaut:kavisilaq:

kinirtaq: mannguq: masak: matsaaq:

natiruvaaq: qannialaaq:

Working with teams from many government agencies, many countries, many companies, universities, and institutions

To invent the scientific language for snow. And the tools to speak it.

The Klein Chair

“A Splendid Invention”

“the infirmities affecting so many of my limbs while I am still so young (mean that) … I cannot even earn a few cents for the comforts that would make life more enjoyable for myself as well as my wife and child … for I have only one arm and not a good one at that, the bones of the elbow having been shattered … because of this, everything must be at my hand”

“a quadriplegic victim of Poliomyelitis (whose) Residual movement (was) confined to his head and neck”. For the most part, the man could rotate his head in both a horizontal and vertical plane, but even these movements on his left-hand side were restricted. His difficulties were magnified by the fact that the “disease (had) also affected the chest musculature to the extent that he (had to) move his head continuously to breathe…”

STEM: The idea that launched 100 inventions.

“It was the success of STEM that made it possible to establish

Spar as a separate company and that gave us the credibility

to sell NASA on the Canadarm project”…

 

“the American companies lost the battle … (they could no longer)

portray Canada as technologically primitive …

STEM … had been sold all over the world…”

 

John D. MacNaughton,

Former President of Spar Aerospace Ltd

The Old Man and The Arm.

“Almost without exception, where the hand of the skilled mechanical designer was needed in DME (the NRC Division of Mechanical Engineering), George Klein’s influence was felt”

Ian R.G. Lowe Former Director of DME and

President of the Canadian Society of Mechanical Engineers

Edison’s 1093 Patents were clustered as families of inventions

389 for electric light and power

195 for the phonograph

150 for the telegraph

141 for storage batteries

34 for the telephone

Original apparatus and novel sub-components for research facilities including innovations such as the “Original design of vanes in the bends of the (NRC wind) tunnel” that also had “practical, industrial applications” in the design of “water, steam, and air ducts and passages.” Also designed unique subsystems to give Canada’s first national marine dynamics test basin the capacity to test model floats and hulls for aircraft as well as vessels and marine structures. Numerous aircraft ski designs that improved stability and reduced air resistance including a streamlined ski for high performance aircraft, which “reduced drag by 80 per cent and halved the pitching moment”. Specialized equipment for the study of aircraft ski interaction with snow as well as ski designs “(that had a) … resistance (of)… less than half, and the tendency to “freeze in” … less than a third, of former values” and the successful ski design for the de Havilland Beaver. Novel automatic sighting equipment for coastal defence artillery, many guns and firing equipment designs, improved versions of the “Wadkin type” of range and bearing radio receivers, mechanical gearing systems for anti-aircraft Radar, a photo flash bomb that could be set to go off at a prescribed height, the successful timing device for the proximity fuse, anti-submarine warfare equipment, Weasel all-terrain vehicle track design and components, an automatically inflated life jacket, and an acoustic mine sweeping technique. Complete engineering design on Canada’s first nuclear reactor and the first to be built outside of US (ZEEP); a model for other small research reactors, it required novel, materials, components, safety devices, monitoring equipment, control systems, and unique installation techniques that contributed to nuclear engineering. The International System of Snow A variety of novel devices and equipment for measuring the characteristics of snow as well as the basis of standards and methods for the first International System for the Classification of Snow. First practical electric-powered wheelchair for people with limited upper mobility along with innovations in terms of performance, cost, and reliability that helped establish performance testing standards and the rehabilitation engineering profession. Also a novel and effective blood vessel suturing device that allowed Canadian doctors to save lives and conduct early transplant surgeries. Most efficient design of small-scale windmills for power generation for individuals as well as related test equipment. Also designed research equipment to assist studies of soil drifting by agriculture researchers and for research on anemometers to measure wind speed and direction in meteorological work. Also invented mounts and a configuration for three-camera aerial survey equipment that reduced the air resistance by 80 per cent and improved aircraft stability for aerial survey work.Several contributions to a radio beacon that was a forerunner of the Crash Position Indicator including a STEM antenna, which was later developed for use in Alouette I and other satellite projects, all US manned spacecraft in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, and military and civilian applications. Provided design input as NRC’s chief consultant on gearing systems for the Canadarm project The “Induced Angle Calculator” instrument to apply Klein’s aeronautical engineering techniques, a heavy dog sled for the RCMP, an automated model milling machine, an improved air compressor, industrial plant dust collection system, and many gear designs for other research and industrial equipment.

If you “work things out for yourself and do your best”, are kind and generous, and try to help others …

you can achieve greatness.

C=EI2

Creativity in science, engineering, and invention

Energy and excitement Intellect, talent, skill Imagination

How to be a Great InventorStudy Biographies of Great People

To learn how they got Excited and developed Emotional Strength

Work with Others to make the World BetterTo learn their needs, share Intellect, scientific skills, technical talent

Develop your Imagination Also draw, write, study history, art, literature to Imagine more clearly

C=EI2

See the world’s Great problems

as “Exciting” opportunities to “Work

with Others” toward clearly “Imagined”

Great Inventions

George J. Klein:

Our Great Inventor

He did all those things …

“…makes you proud to be a Canadian”

George J. Klein:

The Great Inventor

Thank you.- Questions ?