mjbeadle2011

DC & AC Power: The Electric Motor

Nikola Tesla developed the electric motor in 1888. Tesla was born a Serb and emigrated to the United States at the age of twenty eight. According to Foner, “Tesla’s motor ran using a system of alternating current that overcame many of the challenges of using electricity for commercial and industrial purposes.” Tesla came to New York where he worked with Thomas Edison on Edison’s direct current “DC” electric system. Tesla quit soon after to start his own electric company but failed to do so. He soon was digging ditches until he found investors while to found his idea of alternating current “AC”  idea with electricity. Direct current is a steady stream of electricity and could only power about a mile to two miles away from the power station. Edison Was the inventor to the DC and wanted to keep that system. Alternating current invented by Tesla, takes the power and a very high voltage and sends it a great distance without losing much of the voltage but still able to lessen the voltage it each house. The AC method expanded power from the two mile outside of a power station to several hundred miles outside of one. The electric motor used the AC method of power transfer to work. The electric motor that Tesla creates is the blue print to all the technology we have now. It lead to the fridge, air compressor, electric drill, iron, and many other electrical machines. The AC method brought much cheaper power to a much larger population then had ever had power before leading to the creation of many jobs and a higher standard of living within the United States.

Sources:

http://www.teslasociety.com/hall_of_fame.htm

http://www.eti.kit.edu/english/1390.php

http://www.history.com/topics/inventions/nikola-tesla

http://www.edisontechcenter.org/electricmotors.html

mjbeadle2011

The Electric Chair.

The electric chair was created by Harold P. Brown in 1881.  Although the idea for the electric chair came from Dr. Alfred Southwick. In 1881 Southwick witnessed a drunk man touch an electric generator. The man died so quickly, that Southwick thought death by electricity would be far more humane then the current hanging. At the time, hanging was the form of capital punishment and was messy. Brown was hired by Thomas Edison to create the electric chair to show how powerful electricity is. For Thomas Edison was trying to champion his  “DC” power distribution system over the rival “AC” method. So to show that the “AC” method of power distribution could not be safe, the electric chair was born and it was testing on live animals in front of the press. The hope was to dissuade people away from the “AC” method. Brown prior to creating the electric chair work for a electric company. Dr. Southwick worked to get executions by electricity legal in New York and worked on the city’s Electrical Death Commission for a couple of years to push the issue. On August 6, 1890 William Kemmler was the first, sentenced to the electric chair. The chair was set to 700 volts and after seventeen seconds William Kemmler was burnt but still alive. On the second attempt, the chair was set to 1,030 volts and after two minutes, Kemmler was gone. William Kemmler was  a convicted murderer. The electric chair made executions much faster, for prior to the chair, hanging could take as long as thirty minutes for the person to die. The electric chair was one step in making executions more humane for what they are doing. Executions have evolved from the sward, to the ax, to hanging, to the electric chair, to the firing squad, and currently to the three part drugs. Who knows maybe one day there wont be the need for executions.

Sources:

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-execution-by-electric-chair

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_P._Southwick

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_P._Brown

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_chair

mjbeadle2011

Electric Light: The Light Bulb

Thomas Edison is known for creating the light bulb. Although Edison did not create the first light bulb, he created the first incandescent light bulb. Prior to creating the incandescent bulb, previous light bulbs would only last a matter of minutes before burning out. They were also very expensive to produce. The first patent for the light bulb was in 1841 and though the time when Edison sent in for his patent to create a better light bulb, the first patent light bulb had not been created. The challenge was to find a material that would not burn out within minutes. It took a few years and a countless amount of materials until Edison found the right one. The material was a carbon filament which produced light by heating the piece of carbon in turn produced the light. In 1879 Edison crated the incandescent light bulb after more than 3000 test. Edison soon turn his laboratory and then his town into light throughout the night. People came by the train loads to see the lights. Edison soon created the Edison Electric Company in New York. His first commercial job was installing his new lighting system into the steam ship the “Columbia.” The light bulb replace the previous way of lighting house which was by gas lamps and or candles. The light bulb was also far safer then the gas lamps which had an open flame. The light bulb transformed night to day and brought a cheap and effective form of light to the people for the first time in history.

Sources:

http://www.bulbs.com/learning/history.aspx

http://www.livescience.com/43424-who-invented-the-light-bulb.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison#Electric_power_distribution

mjbeadle2011

The Phonograph

The phonograph was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison. The phonograph records sound and can replay it. Edison had worked with the telegraph to record the dots and the lines. In the summer of 1877, while working on a way to improve on the telegraph and the telephone Edison discovered that it was possible to record sound. He did this by putting a needle on the telephone so that when someone was speaking though the telephone causing it to vibrate, the needle would record on a piece of paper what was said and that should be able to be read back. Edison and his team created a machine that would record the sounds. They ended up using tin foil over a cylinder and with the needles would put sound groves into the foil that could be played back. After the recording, they could reset the needle to the beginning of the recording and play it back. Edison successfully tested the device in 1877 with a song. The first ever recorded sound was “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” After the successive Edison had scores of people coming to see and hear for themselves that the phonograph was real. The phonograph was the first ever recording device and the first device to reproduce sound. Alexander Grand Bell the inventor of the telephone was upset that he did not think of the phonograph since he thought it was such a simple idea. The phonograph led to the recording disk, the cassettes, vhs tapes, cd’s, dvd’s and many other things. The phonograph was the main recording device until the compact disk in the 1970-80’s

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonograph

http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/edison/aa_edison_phonograph_3.html

mjbeadle2011

The Telephone

The telephone was invented in 1876. Alexander Graham Bell is given credit for the invention, although there is a bit of controversy whether the idea was his or Elisha Gray’s. During the time of the invention of the telephone, other inventors were looking for ways to send multiple telegraph messages over one telegraph line. Bell too, was also working on the muti-telegraph line whit his helper Thomas Watson. They were having problems with the reeds on one end of the telegraph lines and bell asked Watson to “pluck” the reed and Watson complied. The reed made a vibrating sound that Bell heard in the other room. From that, Bell discovered that electrical currents could duplicate sound waves such as the human voice and send them along the telegraph line and in a since make a speaking telegraph. Bell obtained a patent in 1876 for “apparatus for transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically.”  In 1876 Bell made the first voice communication to Watson in a test when Bell asked Watson to come to him and help. By 1886, some 150,000 people owned telephones created by Bell’s Telephone Company. This event is important because for the first time in history you can instantly communicate vocally with people from vast distances. The telephone would soon reach across the country and then the world. The telephone today is for most people the most important piece of technology they carry with them. Although technology has improved vastly, the concept is the same with the idea of communicating between people over long distances.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Graham_Bell,

http://www.history.com/topics/inventions/alexander-graham-bell,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention_of_the_telephone,