Western Union Lineman – Andrew G

05 October 1889

Editor of North American Review,

Electrocution is a very real threat in the new world of electricity.  AC power has higher voltages and therefore can cause a greater risk of shock or death.   This risk is very real, but can be avoided if caution is used around power lines and other AC devices.  John Feek’s death is very tragic, we will do our best to avoid any more incidents such as this.  One might wonder, “Why would I want something that could kill a man inside my house?”.  The electricity inside households and businesses is not as powerful as outside power lines, it is still dangerous but the power is stepped down.  With this added risk comes many benefits of a better system.  AC systems eliminate the need for multiple “Central Stations” by transmitting electricity much further then possible with any DC system.  The need for DC to take up a building for their Central Station every mile or so is extremely inefficient, while an AC power plant could be housed outside the city and bring electricity in over wires.  There are a large number of Edison employees that have been looking into AC systems and thinking of using a similar system to improve.

Sincerely,

George Westinghouse

16b Edison and Kemmler – Andrew Graham

Edison’s belief in capital punishment was partially based on himself and his company.  The electrical system chosen for the electric chair was Westinghouse’s AC system.  Edison wanted for Kemmler to be killed by the electric chair, because of what it make people think of Westinghouse’s AC system.   The hope was that if Kemmler was killed then people would not want AC in their homes because of how dangerous it was.  This was the main reason that Edison was for capital punishment, only to discredit Westinghouse and make his DC system seem better to the public.  Westinghouse hired his own lawyer to try and stop Edison from killing a man with electricity only for his own gain.

Edison, Brown and Electrocution – Andrew G.

Harold Brown and his campaign against Westinghouse’s AC system were ridiculous.  The campaign was based more on revenge then real concern.  There might have been real safety concerns with the AC system, but the way he presented them to the public was wrong.  Shocking animals to show that they would die when exposed to AC current but not when exposed to DC current is bad practice.  The tests were done in a way that they were more of a spectacle then a scientific procedure.  If these tests had been done in a way that the animal was already going to be put down, and if the setting was not public, I believe the experiments would be more credible.

The testimonies of people getting shocked in basements by AC are the users fault I believe.  When the systems are being installed precautions need to be taken so that shockes do not occur. If these precautions are not taken the person installing the system is at fault.

Tesla and the AC motor – Andrew G.

Tesla’s alternating current (AC) motor was better then any of the alternatives at the time of it’s creation.  The motor that Tesla created did not have to use commutator brushes to change AC to DC.  Instead he used two different AC currents that would peak at opposing times from each other.  While one set of magnets would be resting the other set would pull the motor round. This allowed there to be a constant driving force inside the motor.  Another benefit of having no commutator was that no current was passed through the driving rod of the motor, this helped to reduce the risk of shock.

Westinghouse was able to see that the patents Tesla was registering were imperative to his AC industry.  There were others at the time working with AC motors but the patents they had put in were not as broad as Tesla’s.   Once Westinghouse had the patents he hired Tesla to start creating these motors.

Tesla was a hard man to work with because of how he acted towards others.  He would tell Westinghouse’s workers that they had everything set up wrong and that all they knew about electricity was incorrect.  Tesla’s belief that the frequency inside the AC system should be set to 60 cycles instead of the 133 cycles that Westinghouse’s engineers had set up caused more controversy between Tesla and the engineers.  Westinghouse’s workers also disliked how fast Tesla rose to fame and seemed to know everything.

Micron Tour – Andrew G

Getting to tour the Micron facility was a very interesting experience.  For the first part of the tour we learned what exactly it was that micron made.  They make mostly DRAM and Flash based memory, along with designing some image sensors. On site they have a FAB, or fabrication area for these products, and a design area for making newer and better products.  Most everything electronic has some form of these chips in them.

The conditions used to make these chips is very extreme.  While the chips are being created they never leave a clean box called a FOUP.  These boxes store 25 wafers and are transported around the FAB by machines that run on a rail system on the ceiling.  The wafers are created by “growing” different chemical reactions on them.  I think that is amazing that a computer part is created by growing different reactions on top of something.  Different tracks are created by “dry etching very small tracks onto the wafers using different chemicals.  All of these reactions are being created in an insanely small area, thousands of times smaller then a human hair.  Because of the size that the reactions happen at everything is manufactured in a clean room, and a clean box as well. The clean environment stops any dust from getting onto the wafers and messing up the process.

Many different job types are used in this process of creating these wafers.  There are a large number of engineers working on keeping all the machines running. Engineers are also used to make the designs for how to create new and better wafers. Because of the large involvement in chemistry, chemists are employed to make sure all the reactions are working correctly.

I think working at micron would be interesting, but I would need to know more about how the process works.  If an internship was available for micron I would take it if they would teach me everything I would need to know.  They have a co-op available and I might consider applying this summer. To prepare for a job like this would require more classes and learning more about engineering.

How Transformers Work – Andrew G.

One of AC currents biggest advantages over DC current was its ability to be transmitted over long distances.  For electricity to move over very long distances the voltage needs to be “stepped up” , or raised, so that there is minimal power loss.  Transformers are used to change the voltage for AC current.  They can “step” the voltage either up or down through a process called self-induction. The voltage needs to be stepped back down before it is used for domestic use or offices.

Michal Faraday created the first self-induction transformer using an iron ring and wire.  A piece of wire was wrapped around one side of the iron ring, on the other side of the ring there was another wire wrapped around the ring.  When a current is sent through one of the wires it creates a magnetic field. This field is transfered through the iron ring to the second wire which turns the magnetic field back into a current.  If there is a difference in the number of times the wires are wrapped around the iron, this will cause a change in voltage.

Tesla Master of Lightning, Andrew G.

The Documentary “Tesla Master of Lightning” was about the life that Tesla lived and the things he accomplished.  It was very interesting learning about Tesla because he is not heard of as much as I would expect him to be.  With all the different things he invented he never became that successful.  In a way I think he was like Faraday, he would create something then just leave it up to other people for how they should use it.  Tesla’s way of inventing was also very different from most everyone else I have ever read about.  He would receive visions of what it was he wanted to create.  He knew that he wanted to build a generator out of Niagra Falls, and got the idea for creating the ac motor from looking at the sunset.  He did have problems during life.  He seems to be one of the unluckiest people ever.  He consistently gets cheated out of money from inventions that were his.  Even worse, some of his inventions went on to give other people Nobel Peace Prizes.  He did have some of the same bad traits as Edison, some of his ideas he would be very stubborn with to the point of working on nothing else.  I do think that tesla is a much more interesting person then Edison. Tesla deserves to get much more recognition for what he build and invented.

Electric Nation – Andrew G.

The film, Electric Nation, was a very interesting and informative documentary.  It told a lot of information about how the United States got it’s electrical power system.  In the movie it does a good job of showing how much of an impact electricity had on Americans and still does today .  Towards the end of the movie when Edison dies there is an idea that they should turn off all the electricity for a minute to honor Edison. By this point in time Americans were so dependent on electricity that this request was not able to be met.  One of the biggest parts in Edison’s career was when he took on the job of lighting up the area around Pearl Street.  This was his chance to prove himself and his system to the world.  Edison did succeed and his business became very profitable.  One of the people who rose to the top of the his company was Samuel Insull.  He originally was Edisons personal secretary that later became a man that tried to bring cheap electricity to everyone.  He was able to start doing this by creating a new generator that could create energy in a more efficient way. Insull also had the idea of linking different places together to form a grid, this would also allow some of the smaller farmlands to get electricity.  Everything was going great until the stock market crash.  Insull also sold some stock in his company to his customers so they were not happy when all thier money disappeared.  Roosevelt took a separate approach to getting electricity to everyone, he had the government do it.  The TVA (Tennessee Vally Authority) was created in order to get cheap reliable energy to everyone in the Tennessee Valley.  Some people such as Robert Wilkie were against this because their own electric company’s supplied some of those areas and could not compete with the government.  It was later settled by the government buying up all the properties that Wilkie owned.  Having the government run the electricity worked out in a good way because it was then cheap electricity for everyone.

Edison The Man. Andrew G.

Edison was a new kind of inventor in the way that he worked and communicated with others.  He is seen as a person that many people trust and will put faith into.  He knows that he wants to be an inventor and is determined to do so.  When offered a job to work fixing a stock ticker he turns it down because he only wants to invent.  I think that his determination is the same in the movie and in the book.  I’m not as sure if he was as friendly and open to the people he knew. The people he new and worked with were both his friends and employees.  I do believe that he was very accustomed to them and made sure that they were taken care of.  This helped him to be an amazing employer and a good friend. I think he knew how to control the media better then he did in the movie.  His wife and family played a bigger part of his life in the movie then it does in Empires of Light.  

His invention style in the movie was all last minute and just happened to come along.  This is not the way he normally worked.  Everything he did was thought out for a long time and he had ideas.  When he was trying to figure out the light bulb in the movie it seemed like something he would do in real life, unlike the phonograph.  I think this was an attempt to make him look better and it worked out well. I would have enjoyed to know the Edison from the movie.

Edison and Ohm’s Law – Andrew G.

Previous attempts to make a light bulb used a low resistance filament.  This didn’t work as well as planned because very large amounts of current were required to run these bulbs.  Edison had a separate idea from everyone else.  He decided to try and use a very high resistance filament but with just a little bit of current.  This idea agrees with Ohm’s law, which states that Voltage= Current X Resistance.  The Voltage output is the same with a low resistance and high current.  The lower current allowed him to use thinner copper wire.  This helped out with the total cost of Edison’s lighting system, not only was he able to use less copper wire but the amount of current was less as well.  The next problem for him to get rid of was if one light went out all the lights would go out.  To fix this problem he used parallel circuits instead of just series. This also allowed people in houses to turn on just one light instead of having to turn on all the lights in the house.