In anticipation of Valentine’s Day, today we’re looking at an invention that goes straight to the heart. On this day in 1974 inventor Stephen Kovacs received a patent for a magnetically driven artificial heart.

The prototype heart had no moving parts and was entirely powered by a rechargeable battery pack. It used magnets arranged opposite one another in two chambers to replicate the human pulse rate. The motion of an actuator also regulated the heart’s natural blood pressure range. It addressed the increasing need for smaller, lighter mechanical heart pumps.

However, Kovacs’ story wasn’t entirely full of love: in 1992 he was fired from a professorship at the University of South Florida when administrators found out that he had faked a diploma claiming that he had received a master’s degree from the University of Alabama. In fact, he had earned a bachelor of science in physics from the school, but had not gone on to a master’s program.