Jimmy Beckman - Planning and Improving Earth Technology

Authors Note1

The story begins with "Jimmy Beckman - Prologue"
This is segment 15.2

Updated 4/14/20083


Planning and Improving Earth Technology4

A few days later, Jimmy and his parents sat down again, to talk about their plans for the future.5

Jimmy's mother began, "We really should think about patenting these things. If someone gets hold of information on any of them, they could claim the idea was theirs, take out a patent, and establish a monopoly!"6

Jimmy and his father agreed but, his father pointed out, "To take out a patent, you must release information about the item and how it works. That information is available to the public so anyone could learn about these things. That would tell the whole world about what we want to keep secret!"7

Jimmy suggested, "Maybe we could take out patents only as we get ready to release these things to the public."8

His Mother replied, "Yes, that is probably best, but we will have to be very careful to keep the rest of the information well hidden."9

The three of them agreed that this would probably be the best approach. Next, came the question of under whose name the patents should be obtained. It was agreed that the technology was too complicated for them to be able to convince a court that a boy with no formal education could have invented them.10

On the other hand, Jimmy's father had signed an agreement when he was employed, that any patents he obtained, during his period of employment, belonged to his employer. It would appear that the best solution would be for his father to resign from his job, and after a reasonable time had passed, apply for the patents in his name. His father was certainly qualified to work independently, as a consultant, but it would take time to build up a private business. While this was being done, how would the family be supported?11

Among the possibilities were:12

Mother could take a job. Before becoming a full time homemaker, she had been an elementary school teacher. However, a teacher's salary is not really enough to support a family of four.13

The family savings could be used. This would last for about two years. That should be long enough to get a business going. There was, however, some reluctance to gamble with the family savings.14

Have Jimmy take out a patent on a minor invention, and license it to manufacturers for a modest fee. The alien devices were too radical for this. However, a detuned version of one of them might work. For example, a battery that would power portable equipment more efficiently than current batteries. It would not be capable of powering home appliances, industrial equipment or vehicles, so would not be a threat to the oil or natural gas industries. The license must not be exclusive, no one company can be allowed to control the manufacture of the item.15

If it could be done, the last alternative would be the best solution!16

Next, how could Jimmy invent such a thing. The implanted information he has now permits him to build such a device but does not include the details necessary to design it or to explain why it works.17

Will Alto be willing to give him these details? "Well," said Jimmy, "I guess I had better ask Alto."18

Since this topic really required a face-to-face discussion, Jimmy formed in his mind, the thought, "Alto, I need to discuss something with you. It is quite important. Can you bring me to your planet?" 19

It took about a week but then, Jimmy found himself back in space and soon was seated with Alto and his father. Jimmy explained the problem of how to permit his father to start his own business, and the idea of Jimmy inventing a simple battery improvement. He pointed out his concerns regarding his lack of knowledge of the details necessary to explain how and why the device works. He suggested the two alternatives he and his parents had thought of. Alto could provide him the specialized knowledge necessary to explain this specific device, or implant enough detailed knowledge to make him an expert in this technology area, able to work out the design for himself.20

Alto and his father looked at each other and Jimmy sensed that they were holding a conversation that he could not hear. Finally, Alto turned back to Jimmy and asked, "which of these two alternatives would you prefer?"21

Jimmy's answer was immediate, "I'd like to understand the details, and to work out the design for myself."22

Alto smiled, in approval, "Right! We will implant all the knowledge necessary to design super batteries. Just a reminder, you must be careful how much you expose of your knowledge."23

To save another trip, Alto made arrangements and the information was implanted while Jimmy was there. The information was tagged so he could also copy it into his father's mind."24

Farewells were said and Jimmy was on his way home.25

That evening Jimmy and his father sat down together in the shop and Jimmy copied his new battery expertise to his father. 26

During the next several evenings, they sat together and discussed the design of the new battery.27

Jimmy went out to the local hobby shop, and bought the best chemistry set he could find. He worked with it for a few nights and when he knew everything it had to teach, he visited the local chemical supply house, and bought the additional items he needed to develop the new battery.28

Jimmy carefully logged and dated all his steps in developing the new battery. He took his time and stretched the development effort to a period of two months.29

Then, he contacted a patent attorney, known to his father. He brought a sample of the battery to the lawyer, filled out the necessary forms and paid the lawyer his fee.30

Then he waited. It took four months and Jimmy received a form that gave him the right to mark, "patent pending" on any batteries manufactured using his design.31

Next, Jimmy instructed the patent attorney to find him a customer for his battery design.32

Before long, Jimmy had offers from three well known battery manufacturers. They each wanted to buy the patent outright. Jimmy declined all these offers. Next, they offered to pay him for an exclusive license, saying that only that company could use the new design. He declined these offers as well.33

Then there was a period when he did not hear from any of the manufacturers so he just waited. In the meanwhile, the patent attorney offered the battery to a number of other battery manufacturers.34

Then, first one then another company made offers for a non-exclusive license. He left the details up to his lawyer but reserved the right of final approval. The lawyer negotiated with the various companies and when their offer went above the minimum price, established by Jimmy and his father, signed license agreements with them. Each agreement involved a substantial advance payment, plus a royalty on each battery sold.35

At the end of another six months, Jimmy and his family had a steady and growing income, however, not yet quite equal to what his father had been earning in his job.36

In anticipation of what the outside income would soon be, Jimmy's father turned in his resignation to his employer, and began to work full time as a consultant, and with the alien devices.37

Jimmy, continued to get high grades in school, and advanced toward graduation, at the top of his class. By successfully completing qualifying examinations for many of his courses, he would be able to complete high school well ahead of schedule 38

Jimmy and his father decided that they should advance the earth's technology, first, by concentrating on improvement of the battery. They analyzed the super battery and identified the development steps by which its technology could be improved gradually.39

Jimmy's father prepared an article for the IEEE Proceedings, a prestigious electrical engineering magazine, distributed world wide. In his article, he revealed some of the new technology for the design of more efficient batteries. 40

At the same time, they patented the key ideas that could result from this technology. These patents would be kept in reserve in case it should be necessary to prevent anyone from trying to establish a monopoly in this industry.41

The magazine article was met with considerable interest by electrical engineers and chemists world wide. Many of them began to experiment with the new ideas and over the next few years there were more discoveries and the state of the art of battery design improved. 42

One of the ways that it improved was in regard to batteries for electric cars; they were now made lighter and could hold a greater charge. As a result, on a single battery charge, electric cars could soon travel as far as cars using a tank of gasoline. Many more people bought electric cars. This relieved some of the world dependence on gasoline. This meant fewer gasoline refineries would be needed to supply automobiles, but increased the amount of energy available to charge all these additional batteries. The need for oil and coal was still just as great in order to power electricity generation.43

Jimmy brought back from the alien planet more detailed knowledge about how to improve the efficiency with which electricity was transferred from the generating plants, across the country to the cities that used it. High tension lines were gradually replaced with laser beams of light.44

Finally, following another trip to the alien planet, they began improving solar conversion. They did not, immediately, introduce the radical design of the solar converter. Instead they introduced some of the basics that made it possible. At first, a new material was introduced for converting sunlight into electricity. This material was less efficient than that used in the solar converters, that Jimmy built upon return from the alien planet, but much better than what earth manufacturers were presently using. More importantly, it had the potential to be improved, so that eventually it would be as efficient as the alien converters.45

In the form in which the new material was introduced, it was not very efficient, but in the months that followed, earth scientists invented methods of improving the efficiency of the devices that used it. In time, it was possible to use these techniques to supply electricity commercially. Fewer electric generation plants using oil and coal based products were now being built. Instead, more plants, using solar energy conversion, were built. 46

Every so often Jimmy and his father would publish an article, introducing another step in the technology and scientists world-wide would expand on this. Their inventions took the ideas from the inefficient, impractical form in which it was introduced to the stage were it was possible to use them to supply the world with an increasing supply of electricity. The demand for oil for these purposes constantly decreased as the electricity generating industry converted to solar conversion. 47

Despite the decrease in demand for oil and natural gas for powering machinery, heating, powering automobiles, and generating electricity, the demand for oil as a chemical for use in producing other products remained strong. However, these natural resources were now in no danger of being used up soon. Over a period of years, the earth's scientists, with the covert assistance of Jimmy and his father, developed highly efficient solar converters. 48

Then, plans were made for building power plants, capable of generating enough power to operate the world's manufacturing machinery, and also supplying the power for the world's heating and air conditioning needs. In time, the world's dependence on fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas was almost totally eliminated.49

Elimination of the use of fossil fuels helped tremendously in cleaning up the world's air and water, As a direct result, the health of the world's population improved dramatically. 50

Now that people were in better health, they began to live longer and the world population expansion rate began to rise. Concern began to mount about how to feed an increasing world population, and how to provide housing for them. There was plenty of land in the world but much of it was presently unusable for various reasons. The deserts and jungles could provide plenty of room for expansion of the living area but the deserts lacked water and eliminating the jungles, it was feared, would unbalance the world, ecologically. The problem was that too little was known about ecology and the weather was completely uncontrollable.51

Jimmy sent a message to Alto asking whether his civilization could control these things. Alto replied that on his planet the ecology and the weather was carefully controlled. As a result, there were very few parts of the planet where people could not live comfortably.52

A great deal was known about agriculture by the aliens. Soil replenishment in the areas in which crops were grown kept the land from becoming barren, in spite of high crop yields. Agricultural engineers selected what to plant, when, and where. Fertilizers were a special field of study, as was crop selection.53

National boundaries necessitated cooperation between countries, where controlling the weather was concerned, but people recognized this and worked together, to everyone's benefit. Since much was known about how to control the weather, people had less reason to worry about its ecological effects.54

Jimmy returned to school on the alien planet and had much information about these things implanted. On his return to earth, he copied the information into his mother's mind. She began to write books on these subjects, being careful to introduce radical ideas carefully and gradually. At first, her ideas on agriculture were ridiculed, but after the techniques were tried, by the more venturesome individualists, and the results were what had been promised, people began to listen.55

Controlling the weather was more of a problem, since its effects crossed national boundaries. She could only write about it. No country was willing to risk weather experiments for fear of what it might do to neighboring countries, and how they might react. Meetings of scientists from various countries, advanced the world's education on this topic. Elaborate computer models were experimented with but for many years this is far as the ideas went. Earth was just not ready to control its weather, yet.56

The problem of making more land livable remained. The problem of how to improve the climate, where it prevented growing food, also remained. 57

All of this took place over a long period of years. During this time, Jimmy and his family involved themselves in a variety of other projects.58