Did You Know...
...that several people are credited with the invention of the flush toilet? Most people have heard of Thomas Crapper (1837-1910), the sanitary engineer who invented the valve-and-siphon arrangement that made the modern toilet possible. Another claimant to "the throne" was British inventor Alexander Cumming who patented a toilet in 1775. Then there's a nameless Minoan (a native of ancient Crete) who lived 4,000 years ago who supposedly was ahead of his time and created the first flush toilet!
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 4750798 | Prism light guide luminaire The luminaire for a prism light guide system consists of a longitudinal hollow structure made of transparent dielectric material. The structure has inner and outer surfaces which are in octature, and at least a portion of one outer surface that has a ligh... | 06/14/1988 |
| 4700262 | Continuous electrostatic conveyor for small particles The electrostatic conveyor consists of a duct having an inlet and an outlet, and apparatus for generating travelling, curvilinear, AC fields along the length of the duct. Charged particles, of conductive or non-conductive materials, under electrostatic fo... | 10/13/1987 |
| 4673132 | Spraying apparatus Spraying apparatus comprising a shroud in the form of a tube flared at one end and made of electrical insulating material, said shroud adapted for connection to an air supply such that in operation a high velocity air stream issues from the flared end of ... | 06/16/1987 |
| 4666089 | Multi-liquid electrostatic spraying apparatus An atomized cloud of droplets having an electric charge is generated wherein different discrete parts of the cloud are formed from different liquids. The discrete part of the cloud which has an active ingredient, such as a chemical insecticide or herbicid... | 05/19/1987 |
| 4662728 | Light guide apparatus The light guide apparatus will guide a beam whose rays have a predetermined phase space distribution with a maximum deviation angle θmax in a first plane perpendicular to the beam axis. The guiding apparatus includes an optical system position... | 05/05/1987 |
| 4627069 | Joule melter for the processing of radioactive wastes The joule melter has an outer cylindrical electrode which forms the outer wall of the melt containment, an inner cylindrical electrode which protrudes upward in the containment and forms the outlet for the melt, thus, also determining the depth of the mel... | 12/02/1986 |
| 4622559 | Paraboloid reflector antenna feed having a flange with tapered corrugations The antenna feed includes a waveguide radiator with a conductive flange positioned about the waveguide near its radiating end. The flange includes one or more corrugations which each have tapered walls and which is truncated at its root and crest by a fla... | 11/11/1986 |
| 4615579 | Prism light guide luminaire The luminaire for a prism light guide system consists of a longitudinal hollow structure made of transparent dielectric material. The structure has inner and outer surfaces which are in octature, and at least a portion of one outer surface that has a ligh... | 10/07/1986 |
| 4608534 | Eddy current probe for detecting localized defects in cylindrical components Eddy current probes which are used to internally or externally inspect cylindrical components for localized defects have a main coil arrangement that induces and senses eddy current in the components. In accordance with the present invention, the probe fu... | 08/26/1986 |
| 4586784 | Modal-insensitive biconical taper couplers The modal-insensitive coupler consists of a number N of optical multimode fiber lengths, each fiber length having a core of initial predetermined cross-sectional area. The fiber lengths are fused together in a coupling section such that the cores of the f... | 05/06/1986 |
| 4585011 | Conjugate eye movement detector for sleep analysis The eye movement detector detects events occurring during the electro-oculogram (EOG) signal in which components of the signal having a predetermined rise time, are coincident with components of the same signal having a predetermined amplitude.... | 04/29/1986 |
| 4565318 | Multi-liquid electrostatic method An atomized cloud of droplets having an electric charge is generated wherein different discrete parts of the cloud are formed from different liquids. The discrete part of the cloud which has an active ingredient, such as a chemical insecticide or herbicid... | 01/21/1986 |
| 4550736 | Movement artifact detector for sleep analysis The movement detector monitors the electroencephalogram (EEG) signal in order to detect components having a real-time frequency greater than 30 Hz and an amplitude greater than 18 μV; a real-time frequency greater than 30 Hz and an amplitude between &#b1... | 11/05/1985 |
| 4543509 | Off-axis electron gun The purpose of the off-axis electron gun is to generate a beam of electrons and to deflect the beam onto the axis of a device which utilizes the beam. The off-axis electron gun includes an arcuate wire electron emitting source subtending an azimuthal angl... | 09/24/1985 |
| 4541280 | Efficient laser generation of surface acoustic waves The surface acoustic waves are generated by laser beam that is focussed onto a surface to irradiate it in an arcuate pattern as a partial annulus or as a still or moving fringe pattern. The arcuate pattern may be formed by a transmitting or a reflecting a... | 09/17/1985 |
| 4542449 | Lighting panel with opposed 45° corrugations The lighting panel has a first face for receiving light from a source and a second face. The panel includes a first and a second sheet of transparent dielectric material. Each sheet has a smooth surface on one side and is corrugated on the other side. The... | 09/17/1985 |
| 4537503 | Multiple measuring control volume laser doppler anemometer The multiple measuring control volume laser Doppler anemometer includes a laser for providing an optical beam. The beam is transformed by an optical arrangement to produce a number V of measuring control volumes wherein each control volume has two focusse... | 08/27/1985 |
| 4528498 | Frequency compensating current circuit for a current comparator capacitance bridge A method and apparatus for rendering a high-voltage current-comparator capacitance bridge insensitive to frequency fluctuations when used for measuring inductance. A compensating current, proportional to twice the change in the current through the referen... | 07/09/1985 |
| 4516129 | Waveguide with dielectric coated flange antenna feed The antenna feed includes a waveguide radiator with a conductive flange positioned about the waveguide near its radiating end. A dielectric element is positioned about the waveguide between the flange and the radiating end and establishes the dielectric s... | 05/07/1985 |
| 4511845 | Salinometer The salinometer is based on a direct determination of the conductivity ratio Rt =(Cx/Cs)t of sample water to standard seawater in a two channel, dual-cell, continuous-flow system. Each of the channels includes a conductivity cell wit... | 04/16/1985 |
| 4509102 | Voltage controlled current switch with short circuit protection The battery current switch includes an opto-isolated switch which is controlled to open when the battery voltage falls below a predetermined voltage and/or when the battery load current goes above a predetermined current level.... | 04/02/1985 |
| 4490618 | Optical system for analyzing the surface of a fibrous web The apparatus for analyzing the surface of a fibrous web, such as a paper or a textile, includes a prism structure in which one surface is placed in contact with the fibrous web under a predetermined pressure. A collimated beam of light is directed into t... | 12/25/1984 |
| 4490651 | Laser triggered high voltage rail gap switch The laser-triggered high voltage rail gap switch includes two parallel electrodes in a high pressure environment of SF6 and Ar. A pulsed UV laser directs a coherent beam parallel to the electrodes to initiate multichannel breakdown in the gap b... | 12/25/1984 |
| 4484106 | UV Radiation triggered rail-gap switch The UV radiation triggered rail-gap switch applies a high voltage from a low impedance source to a low impedance load. The switch includes first and second parallel elongated electrodes spaced to form a uniform gap along their length. The first electrode ... | 11/20/1984 |
| 4482946 | Hybrid inverter The hybrid inverter consists of thyristor switches with their related commutation circuit, paralleled by transistor switches. When the current magnitude is below a predetermined level, it is conducted by the transistor switches and when above the predeter... | 11/13/1984 |
| 4480168 | Laser-surface coupler The laser-surface coupler is used to uniformly irradiate a well defined surface area with a laser beam. The coupler includes a lower masking section and an upper section to form a cavity. The masking section has inner surfaces which are highly reflective ... | 10/30/1984 |
| 4477772 | Frequency compensator for a current-comparator capacitance bridge A method and apparatus for rendering a high-voltage current-comparator capacitance bridge insensitive to frequency fluctuations when used for measuring inductance. A compensating current, proportional to twice the change in the current through the referen... | 10/16/1984 |
| 4475789 | Optical fiber power tap At a fiberoptic tap used for monitoring purposes, one fiber, having a certain mode volume is spliced to a second fiber having a relatively lower mode volume. Consequently, in passing from the first fiber to a second fiber, some light is radiated away from... | 10/09/1984 |
| 4474427 | Optical fiber reflective filter The optical reflective filter is made from a photosensitive optical fiber having a cladding and a core including germanium. Refractive index perturbations are light induced in the fiber in the region of the guided light. The perturbations can be made to h... | 10/02/1984 |
| 4467935 | Random coil ultrasonic seal The seal consists of a hollow stud member which is welded to the enclosure to be secured and a cap member which holds the enclosure cover in place when secured to the stud. The cap member has a body section and a pin element extending from it. The pin ele... | 08/28/1984 |
| 4462001 | Baseband linearizer for wideband, high power, nonlinear amplifiers The baseband linearizer attenuates the amplitude of the in-phase and quadrature phase components of the baseband signal as a function of the transfer characteristic of the high power amplifier and under the control of a baseband signal power level detecto... | 07/24/1984 |
| 4432071 | Apparatus for fast access to a series of stored images The apparatus includes a frequency selective memory having a storage material for storing frequency holes in at least two spatial dimensions and a frequency dimension. Interference patterns are stored in the memory such that each complete interference pat... | 02/14/1984 |
| 4414654 | Thinned array transducer for sonar The thinned arrayed transducer for a sonar system includes an array of sonar elements mounted in rows (layers) and columns (staves) on a structure, preferably cylindrical, to form a checkerboard pattern wherein the spacing between adjacent elements in the... | 11/08/1983 |
| 4414621 | Interactive visual communications system An interactive visual communications system consists of a number of similar terminals linked together by narrow band communications links. Each terminal consists of visual display apparatus having a display and a display generator, an input interactive de... | 11/08/1983 |
| 4405977 | Commutation circuits for thyristor inverters The commutation circuit for commutating a conducting thyristor includes an inductance, a capacitance and a commutation thyristor all connected in series with the conducting thyristor and the dc source, the commutation thyristor initiates the commutation w... | 09/20/1983 |
| 4397301 | Method of controlling a solar system collector loop In a solar system collector loop, having a solar collector with an absorber plate, a heat storage unit and a pump for circulating a fluid between the collector and the storage unit, the stagnation temperature TQ of the collector absorber plate,... | 08/09/1983 |
| 4393869 | Electronically controlled respirator The breathing cycle of a patient is controlled to achieve proper ventilation and at the same time minimize the work of distension of the lungs. Oxygen enriched air is delivered to the patient during the inspiration period such that the pressure waveform i... | 07/19/1983 |
| 4389572 | Two magnet asymmetric doubly achromatic beam deflection system The beam deflection system includes two dipole magnets for deflecting a charged particle beam in a deflection plane. The first magnet bends the beam in a path having a radius .rho.1 and a deflection angle θ1 greater than 180°. The ... | 06/21/1983 |
| 4388829 | Evaporation type barometer A barometer of the evaporation or hypsometer type comprising an enclosed cylindrical bulb partially filled with a working fluid, a first temperature measuring device positioned in the bulb for measuring the temperature of the working fluid therein, a rela... | 06/21/1983 |
| 4384357 | Self-synchronization circuit for a FFSK or MSK demodulator The self-synchronization circuit splits the incoming signal into two circuit paths where the signals are frequency shifted by a frequency signal equal to the carrier frequency so as to provide an in-phase signal in one circuit path and a quadrature signal... | 05/17/1983 |
