Technikatörténeti szemle 18. (1990-1991)

TANULMÁNYOK - Trudeau, Terence: The Work and Life of John Csonka

TERENCE TRUDEAU* THE WORK AND LIFE OF JOHN CSONKA Preface I had been working for many years tuning race-car engines and carburetors before I ever found out how the atomizing carburetor was invented, and by whom. Then, one day in 1973, a Hungarian born mechanical engineer, Albert B. Csonka viseted me at the State University College in Buffalo, N. Y. He inquired if it was possible to conduct performance tests in my laboratory using a new kind of carburetor, called the "Micro-Carburetor", invented by him and his brother, John J. Csonka. Studying the drawings, it soon became clear to me that the MicroCarburetor was a very promising design. I encouraged the two brothers to build a test model of the device. So it happened that during a period of years, extending from 1974 through 1977, I found myself performing a series of experiments on two different Micro-Carburetor models. As expected, both demonstrated excellent fuel-saving characteristics, as weh as a significant reduction of harmful exhaust emissions. It was during the course of my conversations with Albert B. Csonka, that I found out about his father, John Csonka, who was the first to conceive the idea of feeding liquid fuel into internal combustion engines in an atomized state, instead of trying to evaporate the fuel by heating it, as had been the practice until then. In fact, it was John Csonka, together with his friend Donát Bánki, who invented, built and patented the world's first atomizing carburetor. As this story gradually unfolded before me, I came to realize that I was not the only person who had never heard it before. In vain did I search encyclopedias and books on the history of technology. Most of them had the story wrong. Indeed, in spite of ample and authoritative documentation available to the student of history, the true origins of the carburetor are virtually unknown today! This is surely a most peculiar state of affairs. After ah, the carburetor exerted a profound, immediate and direct effect on our lives. Without it, "putting America on Wheels" would have remained an unrealizable dream, and for better or for worse, the United Stated today would be a very different country indeed. How then did it come about, that the history of this invention was forgotten over the span of only a few •State University College at Buffalo, N. Y.