Georgia College’s first patent was issued recently, after a science professor developed a new theory in acoustics - displacing one uncontested for more than a hundred years. The patent allows manufacturing to begin on an improved flow-meter to measure fluids in interstate pipelines worth trillions of dollars a day in U.S. commerce.
 
It took 20 years of false starts, outright failure and bureaucratic slowness – as well as 30 students, a 256-inch pipe, 128 microphones, 512 cables and financial support of Georgia College – for Dr. Kenneth McGill to realize his dream.
 
“I’ve come up with something that’s a fundamental discovery in acoustics that hasn’t really changed in over 100 years, and so that’s crazy exciting,” said McGill, chair of chemistry and physics.
 
U.S. Patent #9,441,993 gives Georgia College and McGill ownership rights of his new theory, called the “Conduit Bound Propagation Separation Model.”
 
About half of all interstate commerce travels through pipelines. Industries like petroleum, pharmaceutical, chemical and mining must know precisely when materials begin and stop flowing. Businesses can’t afford to lose a single drop of expensive commodities like gasoline, oil, coal slurry or water.
 
“That’s money going down the pipeline. So they always argue about who started first and how fast it’s flowing,” McGill said. “The measurement of flow is very, very important.”
 
McGill’s patent proved faulty reasoning in John William Strutt’s Theory of Sound. First written in 1877 and familiar to science students everywhere - Strutt’s theory is still used by acoustics engineers today. Best known as Lord Rayleigh, the English physicist considered only air in his equations - not modern materials moving at tremendous speeds.
 
Making a “whole new discovery in science” feels “fantastic,” McGill said. But he expects his work to be “hotly contested.”
 
“When you go against somebody as big as Lord Rayleigh, who’s been around for over a hundred years,” he said, “most people aren’t going to believe it.”
 
Five students currently collect data for McGill. They’ll help write findings in science publications and co-author anything he publishes. Senior chemistry major Arthur Shue of Madison said, it’s “an overwhelming feeling. To create something that has never been before – is pretty surreal.”
 
Junior biology major Kathryn Peterson of Powder Springs said “This will change everything! I am so impressed. I mean, honestly? To think that a professor in our own school has evidence, has been doing this research - and to challenge a scientific theory that’s so old - this is cool.”