The Johnson Magnetic Motor
In 1942 Howard Johnson had a dream of a motor powered by permanent
magnets. The road Howard Johnson followed was long and ardus with
many detours, but through 30 years of persistent, and expensive,
effort he finally invented a rotary permanent magnet motor and
received a patent: "Permanent Magnet Motor," U.S. Patent
No. 4,151,431, Apr. 24, 1979.
The motor uses Johnson's proprietary magnetic gates which he
patented. See Howard Johnson, "Magnetic Force Generating
Method and Apparatus," U.S. Patent No. 4,877,983, Oct. 31, 1989
and U.S. Patent No. 5,402,021, Mar. 28, 1995.
The magnetic gates employ "exchange forces" in addition to the
normal magnetic forces. For an exposition of exchange forces and
exchange energy, see B. D. Cullity, Introduction to Magnetic
Materials, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1972.
Tom Bearden wrote about Howard Johnson's magnetic motor
here.
Robert A. Nelson has a website
Rex Research
on which he posted a long
article about Howard Johnson's magnetic motor. The article
begins with and article titled "Amazing Magnet-Powered Motor" by
Jorma Hyypia which appeared in the Spring 1980 issue of
Science & Mechanics and concludes with some comments by Tom Bearden.