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Wallace Minto: Fringe Scientist & Inventor Extraordinaire

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Gone But Not Forgotten
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Dr. Wallace C. Minto was a legitimate American physicist but he spent much of his scientific career investigating "fringe" physics - inventing aura meters and building various radionic and psychotronic devices. He is most famous for his "radio to talk to fish" which received considerable press coverage at one time.

Minto informed a scientist friend of mine 30 or 35 years ago that he and his father had built the world's first atomic reactor in their backyard in 1938, after they'd returned from a rock-hunting expedition out West with a car trunk full of uranium ore.

They used an empty in-ground concrete swimming pool, walling, flooring and roofing the pool with hundreds of lead automobile batteries.

According to the story the Mintos created a dozen or more trans-Uranian elements unknown to orthodox nuclear physics for the ensuing 10 or 15 years.

Hey, gang, I just re-tell 'em as I receive them here.
 
Dr. Wallace C. Minto was a legitimate American physicist but he spent much of his scientific career investigating "fringe" physics - inventing aura meters and building various radionic and psychotronic devices. He is most famous for his "radio to talk to fish" which received considerable press coverage at one time. ...

It appears it's "Wallace L. Minto". He was an extraordinary specimen of the childhood science nerd who parlayed his interests into a lifelong vocation. See, for example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_L._Minto
http://bobgrove.org/html/forgotten_genius.html

His Wikipedia entry reads like a hybrid of Forrest Gump and Tom Swift. I heartily recommend you read it, even if only for chuckles ...
 
Minto is often cited among the free energy cadre - especially for his 1970's-era wheel device that moves based on temperature changes in fluids within its chambers. This device is known by several names. Here are some links to old articles and webpages dedicated to Minto's wheel.

http://web.archive.org/web/20001010030933/http://users.mildura.net.au/users/egel/tempw.htm
http://www.keelynet.com/minto/minto2.htm
http://amasci.com/freenrg/minto.html
https://www.motherearthnews.com/nature-and-environment/solar-wheel-zmaz76jaztak
 
There's nothing particularly fringe-y about using solar or geothermal power to drive a wheel. If these things can be made to run efficiently and cheaply then there is a market for them; if not, not.
 
Minto's wheel work represents only one among many diverse projects and lines of research he undertook during his life. Some were quite "mainstream."
 
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