Overview

Abstract

In 1953, I spent the summer as an intern at the Hanford Engineering Works that had been established to produce nuclear bombs. My assignment was to solve a continuing problem. Not only was a solution found; it inadvertently led to another discovery that’s displayed by the timeline in Fig. 1.1. I was following a curriculum to enable the production of electricity from energy released by nuclear fission. Later in the development of a cladding for nuclear fuel, in 1963, I discovered a new form of pure pyrolytic carbon that not only enabled the production of electricity but, surprisingly, was also compatible with human blood and could function intravascularly as a heart valve replacement. Within a decade, in 1963, my focus on nuclear electricity faded, and a new four-decade-long multifaceted endeavor commenced that led to the design and production of a pure carbon heart valve replacement that could preserve the normality of aortic blood flow.