EC Business Ethics – Elton

What Edison showed to the public to demonstrate that alternating current was an example of bad ethics.  The killing of anything to prove a point is bad ethics.  When he did this act it also lowered the reputation of the opposing competition, which is good for business.  Disgracing the name of a product will mean less people will trust it and less people will buy it.  Edison showed bad ethics by doing these demonstrations, but in turn provided a good business scheme to bring down the competition.  I believe this to be true because by my standards it is cruel to kill anything even if it means your going to be that much more successful.

Lineman’s Death – Elton

Dear Editor,

I am informing you today about the situation with the death of the Western Union lineman. The safety of the alternating current system is not at fault.  The lineman was obviously cutting through wires that were right next to a large group of wires with lots of current going through them.  It was a simple mistake on his behalf. This accident should not be taken as far as to not use alternating current in the city and undermine its potential greatness.  The system has brought many benefits that out weigh the danger level of the system.  Things that rely on alternating current will no longer be able to be used if alternating current is taken out of the city.  The system just like direct current would still have wires in the city that would carry dangerous currents through them.  There is always room for improvement such as moving the wires or burying them as well.  To all it may concern alternating current is not at fault here, this was just one side of effect of something great.

sincerely,

George Westinghouse

Edison, Brown, and Electrocution 2 – Elton

Edison wants to show people that alternating current is dangerous and should not be used in the mass public.  He goes into court and says, because of all of his experiments that he has done approximately 1000 volts of a/c would be enough to mummify a man.  Kemmler was the guy who was to be put to death by the new found death penalty.  Cockran was hired by Westinghouse to not defend a killer but to defend his invention which is not ethical or unethical but self fish.  Edison used an assumption that all people have the same resistance and that 1000 a/c volts would be enough to kill, but when Kemmlerwas put to death by the chair it wasn’t enough. The shock only  stiffened his body and slowly cooked him inside. This caused extreme pain and cruelty that showed everyone that witnessed that this was inhumane. Edison didn’t take this into account and was just trying to undermine Westinghouse and become the winner in A/C vs D/C power.  This was totally unethical by any means.

Edison Electrocution- Elton

Electricity was new to the world and people didn’t know the potential danger it had.  Harold Brown decided to show people first hand the results of alternating current, a type of current used for electricity, on animals.  He wanted to prove that the other type of electricity, direct current, was safer and possibly get a law passed that A/C should be limited to 300 volts. Even though his intentions were good the demonstrations were too harsh and inhumane.  Edison became a part of this not only to show the public its dangers but to undermine A/C so his current would be superior.  Edison used A/C current in capital punishment to show people that A/C is deadly.  I think Edison was trying to just benefit from this situation, instead of thinking about the advancements from using A/C while having it under control. Edison and Brown had their concerns about safety but demonstrated it in a way that went against their own moral ways.

They could have just showed the statistics of deaths by D/C vs. A/C. They could have used the formula of Ohm’s law to determine the amount of current that was in the different types of electricity and compared it to the lethal limit of a human.   Simple things like that could have been used instead of showing people devastating showings of things dying.

Tesla and the AC motor – Elton

Tesla made the alternating current motor using a poly phase system. The poly phase system was basically having more than one current going though out the magnets to create opposing fields.  This system also insured that there was always at least one strong current inside the motor to turn the shafts.  When one current died out the motor would switch direction almost instantly and the second strong current would be recharged and powering the motor.  Tesla explained this at the  American Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1888. He took his patents to Westinghouse to overcome the hard ships it takes to get a product known and he saw that Westinghouse was up and coming and could easily do that for him. The only problem was that Westinghouse had other inventors who were trying to steal his ideas and copy them as well.  Tesla did in the end prove all of his accounts of invention and presented them to Westinghouse to get the final patents and overcome the alternating vs direct current battle.

Micron – Elton

Micron was an interesting place with lots of machinery and high technology.  It shows all forms of engineering from the making of the wafers to the making of the building.  Any one in the engineering field could have a potential job by working there.  Internships and jobs range from assistants to the actual chemical process taken place in the factory. They demonstrate why and how a clean is used and how much it takes to get things to be in that condition.  The company is showing the world that innovation and new ideas with the right education can lead to worldwide success.

Memory – Elton

Random access memory and line memory are two totally different concepts.  Random access memory kind of explains itself. It is data that can be stored in a specific location and can be accessed whenever the user wants to in any order.  Software needs to be used on the computer to create the actual memory location to be used for the  data to be stored in. The software translates the user input into machine code that is just a series of 1s and 0s of electric flow through the computer and stores it in the appropriate location.  Line memory is a type of storage that can only be accessed in order so once a new operation is started the previous data has been erased and cannot be recovered. Line memory is just a system of mercury tubes that has a delay from the time the mercury starts flowing  through the medium to when its fully passed through.This delay is created by pulses put through the mercury by the user.  That time is recorded and translated into information readable by the user.  RAM is used in most or all modern day computers.  This allows the user to save and access many different amounts of information without losses like the line memory would.

Transformers

  The transformer started as the idea to bring dangerously high current down to safe and easy to use electricity.  Alternating current was the reason for this, because if electricity was to be sent long distances it had to be alternating.  Direct current cannot be used in a transformer because by the time it gets to the transformer it would be diminished. The transformers used today developed by Faraday are H shaped. The The transformer works by wrapping an insulated wire around a iron rod and wrapping a second wire around that same set.  In the H shaped transformer the first and second wires are wrapped around the middle of the H shape and the two legs just cap the ends of the rods. The second wire is wrapped less around the whole rod and first wire.   This self- inducts the current or absorbs the current if the same current is ran through both wires at the same time, because it gives off a negating effect on the magnetic fields.  The output and result would be safe and low enough current to run individual light bulbs.

Tesla: Master of Lightning – Elton

Tesla came to the US just like Edison to become something great and make something to change the world. . His ac generator system was marvelous and is the type of power used today.  Tesla was only an inventor not a business man and that gave him a big disadvantage to Edison. Edison would invent for the love of it but also to live off of as well. Tesla would invent and could care less if he had money or not as long as he could invent. His mind was set on the future and how it could be and this train of thought was just to advanced and most of his ideas never caught on. HIs personal life was just like Edison’s and a relationship was something he just didn’t have time for.  Tesla the master of lightning was a great inventor and had similar qualities to Edison but was his own man and thought to advanced for his time and era.

Electric Nation – Elton

The question the movie is basically asking is how can we get electricity to anyone.  The system was a big part of Edison’s plan to light up New York because an efficient way of electricity would mean it would be cheaper to every one and every one could have it. Insull knew that if power was to get to everyone a lot of power and more lines were needed.  To raise money he sold parts of the company and in exchange this let people make money giving them more money to spend on electrifying their homes.  He went wrong when he promised all of the people he sold the stock to even when he knew the market was bad and no one could make profit off of the shares.  Roosevelt decided to take over the electricity to system and let the government handle it and give as many people as possible its greatness.  Willkie argued against this because he didn’t want to have a monopoly over the electricity market and have him losing money to give power to everyone including farmers.  This caused many problems in the United States but soon everyone was able to have electricity and afford it as well.