Inventions of Light Bulb and Alternating Current

choi

David A Price, They Turned the Lights on. At home, for the first time, one could read in the bed at night without taking a chance on setting the house aflame. On a city sidewalk, streetlights, electric signs and lighted shop windows created urban life as we know it. Wall Street Journal, Feb 23, 2013
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 86270971052546.html
(book review on Ernest Freeberg, The Age of Edison; Electric light and the invention of modern America. Penguin, 2013)

Quote:

"The creation of electric light had its earliest roots not in America, Mr. Freeberg reminds us, but in Britain. There, in 1809, the chemist Humphry Davy demonstrated the predecessor to the incandescent light, the electric arc light, in which electricity crossed a gap between two carbon electrodes and formed an intense shining arc. (The arc welding machine, with its glare, is a distant cousin.) Davy then promptly moved on to other work without developing it further.

"In 1879, after thousands of experiments, he showed visitors to his Menlo Park, NJ, laboratory a working display of around 50 long-lasting incandescent bulbs.

"Edison was soon in a bitter rivalry with George Westinghouse, whose alternating current vied with Edison's direct current for supremacy. * * * Edison ultimately lost the battle of the currents, however, through simple economics: Alternating current could be sent long distances at high voltage, then easily stepped down to the desired level in a transformer before it reached the customer. In contrast, after direct current at low voltage traveled a short distance, it lost energy to the point that it was no longer usable; it thus required numerous local power plants to be built, enough so that no customer would be more than a mile or so from a generator.

My comment:
(a) That is pretty as much as you need to know from this review, and perhaps the book itself.
(b)
(i) Thomas Edison (1847-1931; Edison's major innovation was the first industrial research lab, which was built in Menlo Park, New Jersey. It was built with the funds from the sale of Edison's quadruplex telegraph; Edison reported being of Dutch ancestry) Wiki
(ii) For Menlo Park, New Jersey, see Edison, New Jersey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison,_New_Jersey
(The name was officially changed to Edison Township in 1954 [from Woodbridge Township], in honor of inventor Thomas Edison, who had his main laboratory in the Menlo Park section of the township)
(iii) General Electric
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric
(General Electric was formed [to produce electricity; becoming GE's Energy division today] by the 1892 merger of Edison General Electric Company of Schenectady, New York and Thomson-Houston Electric Company of Lynn, Massachusetts)
* GE headquarters remains at Schenectady, NY.
* Edison General Electric Company was consolidated in 1889 from many electricity-related companies of Edison's.
* Edison means son of Eade.
* Thomas Alva Edison: Birthplace and Early Life. The Thomas Edison Papers, Rutgers University, undated
http://edison.rutgers.edu/milan.htm
("Among the family friends was Captain Alva Bradley, a prominent ship-owner on the Great Lakes from whom Thomas received his middle name")

(c) George Westinghouse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Westinghouse
(1846-1914; in 1989 founded Westinghouse Electric Corporation)

Quoting section 2 Electricity and the "War of Currents":

In "1882, Edison switched on the world's first electrical power distribution system, providing 110 volts direct current (DC) to 59 customers in lower Manhattan, around his Pearl Street laboratory.

"Westinghouse worked to refine the transformer design and build a practical AC power network. In 1886 Westinghouse * * * installed the first multiple-voltage AC power system in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. The network was driven by a hydropower generator that produced 500 volts AC. The voltage was stepped up to 3,000 volts for transmission, and then stepped back down to 100 volts to power electric lights

* Flying a kite, Benjamin Franklin discovered lighting was electricity in 1752 after he wrote a proposal in Pennsylvania Gazette earlier that year.
* In 1821 Michael Faraday made a prototype that produced alternating current--from direct current.
* Preconditions for Edison's Lamp. In Lighting a Revolution. Smithsonian Institution, undated
http://americanhistory.si.edu/lighting/19thcent/prec19.htm
("The most exciting electrical invention at the beginning of the 19th century was the battery. It produced a constant electric current, opening the way for many other discoveries and inventions; it also provided power for the telegraph and telephone industries. In 1800, Alessandro Volta announced his invention of a battery")
* alternating current
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternating_current
(The first alternator to produce alternating current was a dynamo electric generator based on Michael Faraday's principles constructed by the French instrument maker Hippolyte Pixii in 1832; The AC power system used today developed rapidly after 1886, and included contributions by Nikola Tesla (licensed to George Westinghouse) and Carl Wilhelm Siemens)
* Tesla; Life and legacy--war of the currents. PBS, undated.
http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_warcur.html

Quote:

In "1887, Tesla filed for seven U.S. patents in the field of polyphase AC motors and power transmission. These comprised a complete system of generators, transformers, transmission lines, motors and lighting.

George Westinghouse "heard about Tesla's invention and thought it could be the missing link in long-distance power transmission. He came to Tesla's lab and made an offer, purchasing the patents for $60,000, which included $5,000 in cash and 150 shares of stock in the Westinghouse Corporation [obviously after 1889, the year Westinghouse founded the company]. He also agreed to pay royalties of $2.50 per horsepower of electrical capacity sold.