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War Of The Currents
The war of the currents was a series of events surrounding the introduction of competing electric power transmission systems in the late 1880s and early 1890s. It grew out of two lighting systems developed in the late 1870s and early 1880s; arc lamp street lighting running on high-voltage alternating current (AC), and large-scale low-voltage direct current (DC) indoor incandescent lighting being marketed by Thomas Edison's company. In 1886, the Edison system was faced with new competition: an alternating current system initially introduced by George Westinghouse's company that used transformers to step down from a high voltage so AC could be used for indoor lighting. Using high voltage allowed an AC system to transmit power over longer distances from more efficient large central generating stations. As the use of AC spread rapidly with other companies deploying their own systems, the Edison Electric Light Company claimed in early 1888 that high voltages used in an alternating curr ...
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Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, which include the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and early versions of the electric light bulb, have had a widespread impact on the modern industrialized world. He was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of organized science and teamwork to the process of invention, working with many researchers and employees. He established the first industrial research laboratory. Edison was raised in the American Midwest. Early in his career he worked as a telegraph operator, which inspired some of his earliest inventions. In 1876, he established his first laboratory facility in Menlo Park, New Jersey, where many of his early inventions were developed. He later established a botanical laboratory in Fort Myers, Florida, in co ...
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Hebrew University Of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened in April 1925. It is the second-oldest Israeli university, having been founded 30 years before the establishment of the State of Israel but six years after the older Technion university. The HUJI has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest library for Jewish studies—the National Library of Israel—is located on its Edmond J. Safra campus in the Givat Ram neighbourhood of Jerusalem. The university has five affiliated teaching hospitals (including the Hadassah Medical Center), seven faculties, more than 100 research centers, and 315 academic departments. , one-third of all the doctoral candidates in Israel were studying at the HUJI. Among its first ...
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John Dixon Gibbs
John Dixon Gibbs (1834–1912) was a British engineer and financier who, together with Lucien Gaulard, is often credited as the co-inventor of the AC step-down transformer. The transformer was first demonstrated in 1883 at London's Royal Aquarium. At the time the term "transformer" had not yet been invented, so instead it was referred to as a "secondary generator". Although he is usually credited equally with Gaulard, Gibb's role in the invention appears to have been more that of a financial backer and businessman. Although the underlying physics of the transformer, mainly Faraday's law of induction, had been known since the 1830s, transformers became viable only after the introduction of Gaulard and Gibbs's transformer design in 1883. The breakthrough was to build an iron transformer core which could act as a magnetic circuit. At the time, their invention was seen as overcomplicated since it contained a movable armature. It caught the attention of Sir Coutts Lindsay, who used it ...
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Pavel Yablochkov
Pavel Nikolayevich Yablochkov (also transliterated as Jablochkoff; russian: Павел Николаевич Яблочков) ( – ) was a Russian electrical engineer, businessman and the inventor of the Yablochkov candle (a type of electric carbon arc lamp) and the transformer. Biography Yablochkov graduated in 1866 as a military engineer from Nikolayev Engineering Institute, now Military engineering-technical university (Russian Военный инженерно-технический университет), and in 1869 from Technical Galvanic School in Saint Petersburg. After serving in the army, Yablochkov settled in Moscow in 1873, where he was appointed Head of Telegraph Office at the Moscow-Kursk railroad. He opened up a workshop for his experiments in electrical engineering, which laid down the foundations for his future inventions in the field of electric lighting, electric machines, galvanic cells and accumulators. Yablochkov’s major invention was the first m ...
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Induction Coil
An induction coil or "spark coil" (archaically known as an inductorium or Ruhmkorff coil after Heinrich Rühmkorff) is a type of electrical transformer used to produce high-voltage pulses from a low-voltage direct current (DC) supply. p.98 To create the flux changes necessary to induce voltage in the secondary coil, the direct current in the primary coil is repeatedly interrupted by a vibrating mechanical contact called an interrupter. Invented in 1836 by Nicholas Callan, with additional research by Charles Grafton Page and others, the induction coil was the first type of transformer. It was widely used in x-ray machines, spark-gap radio transmitters, arc lighting and quack medical electrotherapy devices from the 1880s to the 1920s. Today its only common use is as the ignition coils in internal combustion engines and in physics education to demonstrate induction. Construction and function An induction coil consists of two coils of insulated wire wound around a common i ...
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Society Of Telegraph Engineers
The Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) was a British professional organisation of electronics, electrical, manufacturing, and Information Technology professionals, especially electrical engineers. It began in 1871 as the Society of Telegraph Engineers. In 2006, it changed its name to the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). Notable past presidents have included Lord Kelvin (1889), Sir Joseph Swan (1898) and Sebastian de Ferranti (1910–11). Notable chairmen include John M. M. Munro (1910–11). History The IEE was founded in 1871 as the Society of Telegraph Engineers, changed its name in 1880 to the Society of Telegraph Engineers and Electricians and changed to the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1888. It was Incorporated by a Royal Charter in 1921. In 1988 the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) merged with the Institution of Electronic and Radio Engineers (IERE), originally the British Institution of Radio Engineers (Brit IRE) founded i ...
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Galileo Ferraris
Galileo Ferraris (31 October 1847 – 7 February 1897) was an Italian university professor, physicist and electrical engineer, one of the pioneers of AC power system and inventor of the induction motor although he never patented his work. Many newspapers touted that his work on the induction motor and power transmission systems were some of the greatest inventions of all ages. He published an extensive and complete monograph on the experimental results obtained with open-circuit transformers of the type designed by the power engineers Lucien Gaulard and John Dixon Gibbs. Biography Born at Livorno Vercellese (Kingdom of Sardinia), Ferraris gained a master's degree in engineering and became an assistant of technical physics near the Regal Italian Industrial Museum. Ferraris independently researched the rotary magnetic field in 1885. Ferraris experimented with different types of asynchronous electric motors. The research and his studies resulted in the development of an alter ...
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Lucien Gaulard
Lucien Gaulard (16 July 1850 – 26 November 1888) invented devices for the Electricity distribution, transmission of alternating current electrical energy. Biography Gaulard was born in Paris, France in 1850. A power transformer developed by Gaulard of France and John Dixon Gibbs of England was demonstrated in London, and attracted the interest of George Westinghouse, Westinghouse. Gaulard and Gibbs first exhibited a device in London in 1881 and then sold the idea to the American company Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westinghouse. They also exhibited the invention in Turin in 1884, where it was adopted for an electric lighting system. Many of the features of their design were adapted to the particular laws governing electrical distribution in the UK. In 1882, 1884, and 1885 Gaulard and Gibbs applied for patents on their transformer; however, these were overturned due to actions initiated by Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti and others. In 1885, William Stanley (physicist), Will ...
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Sebastian Ziani De Ferranti
Sebastian Pietro Innocenzo Adhemar Ziani de Ferranti (9 April 1864 – 13 January 1930) was a British electrical engineer and inventor. Personal life Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti was born in Liverpool, England. His Italian father, Cesare, was a photographer (son of composer Marco Aurelio Zani de Ferranti) and his mother Juliana de Ferranti (née Scott) was a concert pianist. He was educated at Hampstead School, London; St. Augustine's College, Westgate-on-Sea; and University College London. He married Gertrude Ruth Ince on 24 April 1888 and they had seven children together. Ferranti died on 13 January 1930 in Zurich, Switzerland. He was buried in the same grave as his parents and his daughter Yolanda at Hampstead Cemetery, London. His grandson, Basil de Ferranti, was a Conservative politician who represented Morecambe and Lonsdale in the late fifties and early sixties. His granddaughter Valerie Hunter Gordon invented what is considered the world's first disposable nappy a ...
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Ganz Works
The Ganz Works or Ganz ( or , ''Ganz companies'', formerly ''Ganz and Partner Iron Mill and Machine Factory'') was a group of companies operating between 1845 and 1949 in Budapest, Hungary. It was named after Ábrahám Ganz, the founder and the manager of the company. It is probably best known for the manufacture of tramcars, but was also a pioneer in the application of Three-phase AC railway electrification, three-phase alternating current to electric railways. Ganz also made ships (''Ganz Danubius''), bridge steel structures (''Ganz Acélszerkezet'') and high-voltage equipment (''Ganz Transelektro''). In the early 20th century the company experienced its heyday, it became the third largest industrial enterprise in Kingdom of Hungary after the ''Manfréd Weiss Steel and Metal Works'' and the ''MÁVAG'' company. Since 1989, various parts of ''Ganz'' have been taken over by other companies. History Before 1919, the company built ocean liners, dreadnought type battleships and su ...
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Zénobe Gramme
Zénobe Théophile Gramme (4 April 1826 – 20 January 1901) was a Belgian electrical engineer. He was born at Jehay-Bodegnée on 4 April 1826, the sixth child of Mathieu-Joseph Gramme, and died at Bois-Colombes on 20 January 1901. He invented the Gramme machine, a type of direct current dynamo capable of generating smoother (less AC) and much higher voltages than the dynamos known to that point. Career Gramme was poorly educated and semi-literate throughout his life. His talent was in handicraft and when he left school he became a joiner. After moving to Paris he took a job as a model maker at a company that manufactured electrical equipment and there became interested in technology. Having built an improved dynamo, Gramme, in association with Hippolyte Fontaine, opened a factory to develop the device. The business, called Société des Machines Magnéto-Électriques Gramme, manufactured the Gramme dynamo, Gramme ring, Gramme armature and other devices. In 1873 a Gramme dynam ...
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Guillaume Duchenne
Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne (de Boulogne) (September 17, 1806 in Boulogne-sur-Mer – September 15, 1875 in Paris) was a French neurologist who revived Galvani's research and greatly advanced the science of electrophysiology. The era of modern neurology developed from Duchenne's understanding of neural pathways and his diagnostic innovations including deep tissue biopsy, nerve conduction tests ( NCS), and clinical photography. This extraordinary range of activities (mostly in the Salpêtrière) was achieved against the background of a troubled personal life and a generally indifferent medical and scientific establishment. Neurology did not exist in France before Duchenne and although many medical historians regard Jean-Martin Charcot as the father of the discipline, Charcot owed much to Duchenne, often acknowledging him as "''mon maître en neurologie''" (my master in neurology). The American neurologist Dr. Joseph Collins (1866–1950) wrote that Duchenne found neurolog ...
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