Lineman’s Electrocution- Ben M

To whom it may concern,

For those at the New York Sun here are some facts I found to be true about Alternating currents. As Westinghouse told a freind of mine “in the year of 1888 64 people in New York were killed by streetcar accidents, 55 by omnibuses or wagons, 23 by illuminating gas and only 5 by electric current”(qtd. in Jonnes 202). so yes, Electricity can kill people, but it isn’t doing it at a rate compared to other daily used machines like cars or wagons. Another fact about AC currents is that it can electrify larger areas then DC if they used one power station each. As Edison said “With the increase of electric lighting ( which to-day is used only to a very limited extent as compared with its inevetiable future use) (Edison 629). So if we want to continue using electric lighting country wide with AC it becomes possible to power people farther than a square mile from the power-station unlike DC currents. It does this with high voltage so it can travel greater distances than is stepped down by transformers to a lower voltage so it can enter your house or business. Edison doesn’t think that high voltage is safe and would rather get rid of AC all together. The truth is more of Edison’s power-stations have caught fire and burnt down or experienced more problems than Westinghouse did with his power-stations. Getting rid of high voltage will only make it impossible to provide electricity to rural areas unless they have enough money to put a small power-station at every house.

From a concerned citizen

Edison Electrocution Nov 19th- Ben

I believe that Edison’s view on death by electrocution unethical. I think that Edison was only pushing for the electric chair as the new capital punishment to make Westinghouse and AC electricity look bad. I think the electric chair is a good idea compared to the normal hanging of criminals at the time, but i don’t believe that’s why Edison was pushing for the electric chair at all. He wanted people to think of being electrocuted as being Westing-housed, ruining Westinghouse’s name and business most likely. The Fact that Edison cared more about ruining Westinghouse instead of making a device that isn’t cruel or unusual.

Brown and Electrocution- Ben M

I thought that Harold Brown’s PR campaign brought up a good point about safety but the demonstration he and Edison used to Prove AC was unsafe was unethical. The use of animals such as dogs or even horses to prove that a lower voltage of AC can kill quicker compared to a higher voltage of DC is just wrong. Brown was trying to bring up a good point on safety issues but went the wrong way to show people how lethal it was. I believe this was bad for Edison’s business because people responded badly to the animal cruelty. Edison should of never let Brown do his testing in his lab for the fact the it looks bad on edison because it seamed Edison didn’t care about safety as much as he did about proving AC is bad. From an engineering point there are other ways to find how deadly voltages can be. Instead of killing one animal after another for testing purposes they should of studied how electricity effects the body. For example see how current or resistance of the body effects animals hearts or brain. Also instead of electrocuting dogs test on animals that are not as important to humans like frogs or chickens or even pigs.

Tesla and AC motors- Ben M

Even though Tesla didn’t want to give a lecture Mr Thomas Martin convinced him to show up and discuss his patents on May 15 in Columbia College in front of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. In his lecture his main topic was his AC induction motor. What he explained to the people was that it was run off of polyphase AC current. The reason for this is that the regular Ac current entering the motor wouldn’t turn it but if two AC currents were used together but out of step with each other it would work. The reason for this is because AC current fluctuates so if you put two together but out of sync as one current dissipates the other becomes stronger making a strong enough magnetic force to rotate the motor. A short wile after Tesla’s  lecture Westinghouse decided to buy his patents. He did this because the patents covered ever aspect of the AC motor and if WEstinghouse wanted to use them he couldn’t afford to have any other companies owning their rights. Tesla had a hard time working with the Westinghouse engineers because in order for his motors to work with their power stations many things needed to change. The reason for this is because Tesla’s motors ran off a frequency of 60 cycles where all the power stations gave off 133 cycles. The Engineers didn’t like the fact that everything the knew and had working needed to change because some hot shot that came from nowhere said it had to.

Micron- Ben m

Our trip to Micron helped me realize how much work goes into making memory. At their plant they had many different machines costing over a billion dollars. A good amount of engineering went into their space setup, their different machines and the facility itself. I’m not to sure about internships there but i know it took all different types of engineers to design it all. what i found most interesting was how the whole process was done by chemicals and ran by machines. The people working there just made sure the machines were in working order. If i was to work there i would have to prepare myself for a better work mentality. During the slide show there were motioning how they set goals for the workers to meet and i know if i was there i would have to put myself under pressure to work better and meet thouse goals.

Memory- Ben Marsh

Delay line memory was the first type of memory for digital computers. It used electrical pulses that traveled through a median such as mercury or quartz and is timed so that by the time the pulses travel through the memory and back the computer would be ready to use the information to do its calculations. Today we use DRAM which also stores memory but in a greater amount and transmits data faster. The way it works is by storing electrical charges in small capacitors and transistors . The charges work like binary and when the computer is ready for the information the electrical charges are sent back to the computer the same as the went in. After visiting Miron a memory manufacturing plant I realized that the DRAM is created by a series of chemical processes. The process they use is all run by computers and machines in a clean room. it was cool to see all the equipment they used at the plant.

How Transformers work- Ben M

The transformer was the one invention that made AC currents better than DC currents and why we have AC today. The transformer makes it possible to allow electricity to travel great distances were DC wouldn’t work passed a square mile. What the transformer does is it steps up or steps down the voltage. That means it can turn 10 volts into 100 or 1000 volts but keeps it at the same amount of power 10 volts produces. We use transformers to step up voltages at power plants so we can send to electricity far distances. then we use them in neighborhoods of businesses to step down the voltage to make it safe to use.

The way the transformer works is by having a primary wire (what the electricity travels through) that gets coiled around an Iron core. Then there is a second wire that also gets coiled around the iron core. There is a magnetic field produced from the first wire coil that is transfered through the iron core to the second coiled wire. The number of coils in the second wire determines how much voltage it produces. Thats how a transformer works.

Tesla Master of Lightening-Ben M

When Tesla was born he had a choice to be in the army or to be a priest. neither of these two things interested Tesla but he practiced to be a priest anyway. in his teenage years he became real ill and in what seemed to be his last few days told his dad maybe he he studied engineering maybe he would get better. he dad agreed and suddenly Tesla recovered from his illness. Tesla went to a fine engineering school and went on to work as a telegraph operator. eventually he made it to America at age 28 looking for work and a chance to meet Thomas Edison.

Tesla was able to find Edison and worked with him for a short period of time. Tesla worked 19 hour days and could see what he was trying to do in his head, a very useful gift. Tesla quit Edison’s job for a lack of payment Edison promised and went to work manual labor for a year. Eventually Tesla ended up working with westinghouse and lighting the worlds fair. with this one act he was able to prove AC power was better than DC power.

Tesla’s working habit was allot similar to Edison’s. they both stayed up all night working away. because of this it made personal relationships hard to keep. tesla even stopped looking for females at the age of 45. the main difference between the two are that tesla could picture what he was going to build and it worked. Where Edison to a more scientific approach and took notes on what he did and had alot of trial and error.

Electric Nation- Ben M

After viewing the movie Electric Nation on monday, I felt like I learned in a more depth of how America was electrified. It went on talking about Samuel Insull and the TVA and didn’t just stick to Edison which i enjoyed. It did seam to present its information in a kinda repudiative way but i still thought the movie was was enjoyable and informative.

I believe the move addressed the question of how america was electrified and how it got people interested in new electric technologies. It all started out with edison creating a electric system in NY. it took edison a wile to produce his system because he needed to find a location for his power station and find a cheep and safe way to provide power to the people’s home. Samuel Insull and a similar dream in which he wanted to provide electricity for even more people like farmers who didn’t live in the cities. he was able to make his dream happen by selling stock of his company to the users of the electricity. this worked great in till the stock market crashed and all the stock was worthless.

After the stock market crash president rosevelt agreed with Insull’s vision and wanted to provide cheep electricity to farm owners. he did this by creating the TVA Tennessee Valley Association. The TVA used power from damns to elctrify the Tennessee are and created more damns to do the same thing. the only thing about this was Wilkie sued Roosevelt saying he was taking jobs away from the power companies. Wilkie won and bought all the companies from Roosevelt.

Edison the man- Ben m

I found the movie to be interesting and enjoyable to watch unlike the earlier film we watched. The movie portrayed edison as a very determined person always trying to complete one thing or another. like at the beginning when he wanted to speak to the bank mangier so he showed up every day till he saw him. It also showed him as a loving husband and father as well as an honest hard working man. The movie differed from the book in the fact that he didn’t enjoy being seen by the press which from the book we learned is not the case. Also in the book it displayed edison in a way that he didn’t care for his first wife much like he did in the movie. when it came to inventions the book and the movie shared the facts that he was always encouraging his coworkers and working nonstop. but when he worked on the light bulb he decided to take a guess and use string and carbon after he finished taking a logical approach.