Happy Birthday Nikola Tesla!
Justin227
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hartzofspace
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sinsboldly
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My brother moved to outside Colorado Springs just to be near where his hero dwelt. My brother and I shared housekeeping duties. He was sent to dust the house and my job was to scrub the kitchen floor and both of us were to do the dinner dishes. Brother was always working in the workshop in the basement on a Tesla coil for the science fair. I remember touching it and having my hair rise, or hold onto an incandescent light bulb and it would roil the light in side, or a florescent tube would light in your hands.
I kept noticing Brother didn't dust anymore, but I was scrubbing that kitchen floor four times a week. I finally suggested to Brother that the Tesla coil, positioned directly under the kitchen floor was drawing all the dust onto the linoleum of the kitchen floor. Brother turned it off for a couple of days and the dust went back into the living room and bedrooms and I only scrubbed twice a week. That was enough for him, he turned it on and never turned it off after that.
Happy Birthday, Nicola Tesla!
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Alis volat propriis
State Motto of Oregon
Tesla got f***ed over by Edison. Edison was no inventor; he just stole from Tesla.
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"If Evolution is outlawed, only outlaws will evolve" - Jello Biafra
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Edison did invent stuff, but he had no theoretical talent. Edison was a cut and try empirical type of inventor. Since he hardly slept at all, he had plenty of time for trying this and trying that until sometimes something worked. Which is how Edison got the tungsten filament for his glow lamp.
Edison accidentally discovered the diode in 1883 (see Edison Effect) but he had no real theoretical grasp so he did not know what he accidentally discovered. As a result radio that could carry voices had to wait another thirty years.
Tesla, on the other hand, was both theoretical and practical. Tesla was an excellent mathematical physicist (although he did have some mistaken ideas). Tesla believed radio wavers were longitudinal, rather than transverse, for example. He did not accept Hertz interpretation of Maxwell's Equations.
ruveyn
Edison did invent stuff, but he had no theoretical talent. Edison was a cut and try empirical type of inventor. Since he hardly slept at all, he had plenty of time for trying this and trying that until sometimes something worked. Which is how Edison got the tungsten filament for his glow lamp.
Edison accidentally discovered the diode in 1883 (see Edison Effect) but he had no real theoretical grasp so he did not know what he accidentally discovered. As a result radio that could carry voices had to wait another thirty years.
Tesla, on the other hand, was both theoretical and practical. Tesla was an excellent mathematical physicist (although he did have some mistaken ideas). Tesla believed radio wavers were longitudinal, rather than transverse, for example. He did not accept Hertz interpretation of Maxwell's Equations.
ruveyn
The lightbulb was NOT invented by edison - Tesla came up with the original bulb himself; he just had a different socket for it, of which was criticized by edison heavily.
Also, Tesla brought AC current to the table, and without AC, we'd be covered in gigantic DC wires. Edison tried to strangle AC current by every means possible until he stole it.
_________________
"If Evolution is outlawed, only outlaws will evolve" - Jello Biafra
Check out my blog at:
http://thelatte.posterous.com/
The lightbulb was NOT invented by edison - Tesla came up with the original bulb himself; he just had a different socket for it, of which was criticized by edison heavily.
Also, Tesla brought AC current to the table, and without AC, we'd be covered in gigantic DC wires. Edison tried to strangle AC current by every means possible until he stole it.
Electrical resistance was known well before Edison. The issue was the filiment and what it should be made of. That is where Edison hit the jackpot. He cut and he tried and he did this and he did that and he finally hit upon tungsten.
Edison's real genius was business. Having a glow lamp that would last more than a few days, he had to design a package in which to wrap it. He did. He sold entire power generating systems. What good is a glow lamp without a source of power (other than wet cells)? When he got the contract to light up the lower part of Manhattan, he supplied the generating stations and the power lines and link-ups to buildings. That is what made him a rich man. He knew what made various technologies commercially viable. Tesla, on the other hand, was a much more brilliant inventor but a terrible, bad, rotten businessman which is why he lost two fortunes and came out behind in the race for $$$$. The fact that he invented radio before Marconi did him little good. He died in in poverty. Tesla was also a monomaniac he refused to admit his theory of longitudinal electromagnetic waves was in error. Based on his (wrong) theory he believed he could transmit powr usefully without wires. The only practical wireless transmission is beamed electromagnetic waves and they are transverse, not longitudinal.
Tesla's greatest contribution was AC power generation, motors and transformers. His epynomous coil is still a major item in power systems. Edison was dead wrong in his advocacy of Direct Current for household use. It cannot be stepped up and down easily and D.C. transmission is less efficient than high voltage A.C..
ruveyn
The lightbulb was NOT invented by edison - Tesla came up with the original bulb himself; he just had a different socket for it, of which was criticized by edison heavily.
Also, Tesla brought AC current to the table, and without AC, we'd be covered in gigantic DC wires. Edison tried to strangle AC current by every means possible until he stole it.
Electrical resistance was known well before Edison. The issue was the filiment and what it should be made of. That is where Edison hit the jackpot. He cut and he tried and he did this and he did that and he finally hit upon tungsten.
Edison's real genius was business. Having a glow lamp that would last more than a few days, he had to design a package in which to wrap it. He did. He sold entire power generating systems. What good is a glow lamp without a source of power (other than wet cells)? When he got the contract to light up the lower part of Manhattan, he supplied the generating stations and the power lines and link-ups to buildings. That is what made him a rich man. He knew what made various technologies commercially viable. Tesla, on the other hand, was a much more brilliant inventor but a terrible, bad, rotten businessman which is why he lost two fortunes and came out behind in the race for $$$$. The fact that he invented radio before Marconi did him little good. He died in in poverty. Tesla was also a monomaniac he refused to admit his theory of longitudinal electromagnetic waves was in error. Based on his (wrong) theory he believed he could transmit powr usefully without wires. The only practical wireless transmission is beamed electromagnetic waves and they are transverse, not longitudinal.
Tesla's greatest contribution was AC power generation, motors and transformers. His epynomous coil is still a major item in power systems. Edison was dead wrong in his advocacy of Direct Current for household use. It cannot be stepped up and down easily and D.C. transmission is less efficient than high voltage A.C..
ruveyn
I think I can agree with that - Tesla WAS a crappy businessman, but then again, I'm not keen on businessmen myself.
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"If Evolution is outlawed, only outlaws will evolve" - Jello Biafra
Check out my blog at:
http://thelatte.posterous.com/
Clicky
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* here for the nachos.
HVDC transmission is actually more efficient than HVAC transmission in some cases and many proposed or recently constructed transmission lines are of this design. Quarter wave of 60Hz at ~775 miles introduces the need for impedance matching in long range transmission of HVAC which can be lossier and more expensive than the inversion of HVDC for AC distribution. HVAC also has greater corona losses than HVDC.
It's at distribution that AC shines. DC distribution utilized similar voltage to AC wall voltage without an intermediate voltage, resulting in higher currents, higher I^2*R losses, and variable voltage dip as you go down the line which cannot be cost-effectively compensated. With AC distribution one can use an intermediate voltage for distribution to reduce current and ohmic losses, and simply change taps at the distribution transformer to compensate for the voltage dip.
HVDC transmission is actually more efficient than HVAC transmission in some cases and many proposed or recently constructed transmission lines are of this design. Quarter wave of 60Hz at ~775 miles introduces the need for impedance matching in long range transmission of HVAC which can be lossier and more expensive than the inversion of HVDC for AC distribution. HVAC also has greater corona losses than HVDC.
It's at distribution that AC shines. DC distribution utilized similar voltage to AC wall voltage without an intermediate voltage, resulting in higher currents, higher I^2*R losses, and variable voltage dip as you go down the line which cannot be cost-effectively compensated. With AC distribution one can use an intermediate voltage for distribution to reduce current and ohmic losses, and simply change taps at the distribution transformer to compensate for the voltage dip.
Yeah but! Converting the HVDC back to AC so it can be distributed easily (i.e. using transformers) is a lossy process. Overall AC is the way to go. In addition AC motors do not need brushes and they can be multi-phased. There is a good reason why AC rules and DC does not (except for batteries and such like).
ruveyn
I read an article that shows HVDC is a good thing for very long distance transmission of power, transmission by undersea cable and transmission between regions that use differing frequencies of AC (for example 50 cycle vs 60 cycle). So there are uses for it. At the time Edison and Tesla were fighting it out there did not exist semi-conductor devices that could rectify DC current. Only mechanical breakers were available. So the existence of semi-conductors has opened up uses for DC once more.
Strangely enough, HVDC can be transmitted through the earth in a wireless fashion which is ironic since Tesla was monomaniac about wireless transmission of power. In his time, this pretty well eliminated DC as a possibility.
ruveyn
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