The Cordova daily times., 1920-01-12
MONDAY, JANUARY 12, 1920
THE HUBBARD INVENTION

ocV Vo1dI WeehS dSO dIuOuuCoul0uI was made that a 19-year-old boy had invented, in Seattle, something that would revolutionize the use of cleo tricity, in that his machine drew it's energy from the air. That it is being taken seriously in Seattle is shown by the following from the Seattle Post Intelligencer:
 ''The Hubbard invention, is so great an indictment to speculation and sci entific castle-building that it creates it's own doubts and suspicious. The circumstance of it's development, by boy in his teens, with no precocious scientific knowledge, throws a glamor of the unorthodox about the whole af- fair, gives it tinge of romance, and recalls very vividly the breathless hopes of the past that have vanished The world has been startled, joyed and disappointed all too many times by the first announcements of inven- tions the perfected development of which would revolutionize the condi- tions of existence for it to be anything but beneficently skeptical The safe and correct attitude is one of doubt.
 Nevertheless, here is the young fellow and his device, visibly doing what he claims for it, while men far more skilled in electrical science and general physics than he are puzzled Hubbard thinks he has a free energy machine; Father Smith thinks not, but asserts that the device is probably as practically wonderful as if it were If it is not device for utilizing the va grant energies, there is the theory of the conservation of energy that needs some bolstering, or there is need for the assumption of radio activity in a new guise. Hubbards device gives eff energy continuously and without any appreciable diminution; the nor nal loss is not present, there is no thermal waste. These statements are of course, subject to the conclusion of more severe tests than have as yet been made of the apparatus; they are so far only apparently true. "A
 Tt is only some twenty years ago since M. and Mime. Curie discovered radium, and while every year since the discovery has added to our knowl- edge of radio activity, as yet we know really nothing about it. The subject is capable of indefinite expansion, and it is within the bounds of legitimate guesswork to hazard the opinion that Hubbard may have hit upon some new manifestation of this activity.
 '"The consequences of the Hubbard discovery, if it's supposed character is sustained by further scientific investi- agtion, are almost incalculable. It is certain to create severe economic dis turbance, as all revolutions do, mak ing necessary the scrapping of enor nous values in present-day power ma chimes, wiping out industries that have every evidence of permanency and forcing industry to the adoption of new methods, with innovations in- numerable.
 The enormity of this mass of pos sibility is so imposing as to inevitably produce conservatism. As the Hub- bard device stands, it is awe-inspir ing, fascinating, but not convincing. The conclusions that must be- drawn from it's apparent qualities are stag gering, even intimidating, but the ob- server instinctively withholds assent. It may be the wonder of the age; it has every outward appearance of be- ing this-but then, again, it may be only a scientific curiosity, an odd and unknown application of some known principle of limited value. Time and test will tell.