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Bill Hallahan Inner circle New Hampshire 3226 Posts |
JoeJoe wrote:
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He is also credited with inventing the radio, although for roughly 40 years Guglielmo Marconi was credited with it ... the Supreme Court ended up ruling that Tesla's original patent predated Marconi's. The band Tesla has an album "The Great Radio Controversy" where they story is told on the album sleeve. Hertz, in 1888, really invented radio. Hertz sent a signal across a room, and detected the signal at the other end. Tesla, demonstrated radio was feasible for greater distances in 1894. Tesla, also created the first electric motor. Marconi made the first really practical radio system, and he made a transatlantic communication using that system. These men, who were all very intelligent, paled in comparison to James Clerk Maxwell, who preceded them all. Maxwell's equations, which combined results from two other geniuses, Gauss, and Ampere, defined how electricity behaves, and he predicted, and described, electromagnetic radiation, including light, in 1864. Those theories are what are used by radio engineers today. Maxwell realized radio would be created someday, he just didn't have the technology for it. Maxwell also did work in statistics, which was used to describe molecules in gases, and created the first color photograph. He is in the ranks of men like Isaac Newton, and Albert Einstein. Charles Steinmetz and Oliver Heaviside, were two other significant theoreticians of alternating current. Edison and Tesla are hard to compare. Edison created so many inventions, the phonograph, the movie projector, the light bulb. However, Edison merely made these ideas practical, the basic ideas were already known, Edison refined them. Edison did refine the alternating current systems of the day to make the practical for the real world. Tesla found many practical and creative uses of alternating current, including the polyphase systems that are used by power system engineers today. William Stanley, however, made the first practical power transformers that used alternating current, not Tesla, and that is important too. There were many others, Stanley, (first practical transformers), Gibbs (more alternating current theory), Edison and Fleming (vacuum tubes), Shockley (transistors), and on and on. It's difficult to say which of these men made a greater contribution to our world today, all their ideas were important. Tesla was the least known for some time, and he didn't get the recognition he deserved. He was brilliant, and very creative. The Boston Museum of Science has some impressive demonstrations using Tesla Coils, although the largest sparks they make there are made with a huge Van de Graaff generator, which makes static electricity. That Van de Graaff generator does use an electric motor, and so Tesla gets some credit there too.
Humans make life so interesting. Do you know that in a universe so full of wonders, they have managed to create boredom. Quite astonishing.
- The character of ‘Death’ in the movie "Hogswatch" |
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ringmaster Inner circle Memphis, Down in Dixie 1974 Posts |
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On 2008-05-31 12:06, JoeJoe wrote: Edison invented radio. It was an extenion of his grasshopper induction telegraph, later used in Thayer's whispering Budda and Dr. Q's turbin. He patented it the year Marconi was born. The patent application shows a ship to shore unit. He then lost interest and completely forgot about it, as did everybody else. Popular Mechanix Magazine found the patents while researching Edison inventions. Tesla later patented his spark gap wireless, but also never developed it. He was suppose to be developing a worldwide wireless network in Denver, but he chose to spend the money on his wireless energy experiments instead. His machine in Colorado was capable of transmitting to any place on earth, but he didn't develop it, the investors found out and cut off his funds. He did not have the theoretical understanding of why his energy transmitted could not work. Tesla complained bitterly when Marconi developed his wireless which infringed on some of his undeveloped patents. For some reason Edison's patent never came to light.
One of the last living 10-in-one performers. I wanted to be in show business the worst way, and that was it.
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Bill Hallahan Inner circle New Hampshire 3226 Posts |
Edison's grasshopper induction telegraph used induction between a railroad car, and wires alongside the track. If that is radio, then Hertz's device, which preceded that by years, is radio.
Also, Edison's device was not reliable, and he sold it to another company. And, one could even say Hertz was not first. There is also a claim that an American Dentist, Mahlon Loomis made a meter connected to one kite move, due to another kite, in 1866. Both Tesla's, and Marconi's, radio systems were tuned systems. This made them far advanced beyond previous systems. That's why Tesla is considered first. Early systems that didn't tune a frequency range had severe range limitations. Marconi demonstrated the first practical system for long distance communication. There is no record of Tesla communicating over really long distances. Even before his transatlantic communication in 1902, Marconi communicated over the English channel. Note, Tesla's system had some severe limitations due to the frequency range he used for his experiments. The frequency range he used was too low to be efficient for normal sized antennas. Even Marconi's systems used frequencies lower than is considered ideal today. Higher frequencies work better for really long distances because of properties of the earth's ionosphere, although much higher frequencies won't reflect off of the ionosphere at all. These much higher frequencies are used for FM radio, and television, today. None of the theory related to frequency ranges was known in Tesla's time, and virtually everyone considered frequencies much higher than they used at the time to be totally useless for communication.
Humans make life so interesting. Do you know that in a universe so full of wonders, they have managed to create boredom. Quite astonishing.
- The character of ‘Death’ in the movie "Hogswatch" |
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NJJ Inner circle 6437 Posts |
Edison killed an elephant.
Jerk. |
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ed rhodes Inner circle Rhode Island 2889 Posts |
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On 2008-05-31 12:04, stoneunhinged wrote: Maybe you could go on Amazon.com and see if they have any books with "Tesla" in the title. To see an interesting ficitonal take on Tesla, you could look up Spider Robinson's "Callahan" series. Tesla shows up in a few of the later ones as well as his spin off book "Lady Slings the Booze" which deals with Callahan's wife who runs the greatest brothel in the world in NYC. "Callahan's Key" has Tesla as a main supporting character, but he shows up in a few of the others.
"...and if you're too afraid of goin' astray, you won't go anywhere." - Granny Weatherwax
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Al Angello Eternal Order Collegeville, Pa. USA 11045 Posts |
Wow Bill
Tesla, Maxwell, Hertz, Gauss, Vande Graaff, Marconi, and Ampere are very familiar names (terms) streight out of the text books. I knew that Tesla, Marconi, Maxwell, and Vande Graaff were real men, but Hertz, Gauss, and Ampere I thought were just terms. Are you an EE Bill? If you throw Faraday into the mix you have the makings for a good engineering exam.
Al Angello The Comic Juggler/Magician
http://www.juggleral.com http://home.comcast.net/~juggleral/ "Footprints on your ceiling are almost gone" |
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Magnus Eisengrim Inner circle Sulla placed heads on 1053 Posts |
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On 2008-06-02 11:21, Al Angello wrote: AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH! Carl Freidrich Gauss is probably the greatest mathematician of modern times. Repeat after me: Number Theory: Gauss! Probability and Statistics: Gauss! Analysis: Gauss! Differential Geometry: Gauss! Astronomy: Gauss! Electrostatics: Gauss! John
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.--Yeats |
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stoneunhinged Inner circle 3067 Posts |
Gauss is the pride of Göttingen.
We've got a statue of him and everything. |
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Magnus Eisengrim Inner circle Sulla placed heads on 1053 Posts |
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On 2008-06-02 13:44, stoneunhinged wrote: I assume the pedestal has 17 sides. John
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.--Yeats |
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stoneunhinged Inner circle 3067 Posts |
It might. I never counted. Something to check out next time I go by there.
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stoneunhinged Inner circle 3067 Posts |
Well, I didn't need to stop by. There's a whole article (in German) in the internet, here:
http://www.math.uni-goettingen.de/skraem......mal.html The pedestal sure looks round in the photos. A much less informing blurb about the same statue (which is not only of Gauss, but also of Wilhelm Weber), here, this time in English: http://www.math.uni-goettingen.de/skraem......mal.html A much more interesting thing for me personally is here: http://www.measurement-valley.de/mv/index.php?id=308 This last project was done by my best friend and his business partner. One night he was an hour late meeting me for our fortnightly beer in our regular place and regular time. Turns out he was on top of the bank building adjusting a laser and the building supervisor locked him out on the roof in freezing rain for a long time before realizing what he had done. The roof he was standing on is the roof you're looking at in the second picture. He probably took the pictures. I'll ask him. An interesting project, nonetheless. |
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MagiClyde Special user Columbus, Ohio 871 Posts |
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And interestingly some of us will live through the time It is equally interesting that we are living through the time that will see the end of analog television broadcasts. It would be interesting to watch a regular tv set on Feb. 17, 2009, the day regular tv died. Do you have your DTV box yet? I remember seeing a show that had a man demonstrating a device to Lincoln that could receive primitive radio signals via spark gap generation. His hope was to develop the technology for the Civil War. There have been equally interesting arguments and patent wars over the invention of AM, FM and television. I know that Edison was in a big fight for his DC power with Westinghouse. Edison even went so far as to help put in the first AC generators in a prison to be used in the electric chair and that there is supposed to be some footage of the elephant being electrocuted as well. All of this in an attempt to scare people away from AC and towards his DC power generators. One question I can't help but ask is: How many of Edison's inventions were really his own? Don't forget that one of his great "inventions" was that of the "invention factory", basically a workshop of eggheads and technicians who worked around the clock to come up with new ideas. A similar idea was created by AT&T and was called "Bell Labs".
Magic! The quicker picker-upper!
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ed rhodes Inner circle Rhode Island 2889 Posts |
I had an argument with a guy once who was steamed that there's a law on the books that radios have to have AM and FM frequencies. He couldn't understand why he had to pay extra for the AM freuencies when all he listened to was FM. He didn't want to listen when I tried to explain that the law had been put into place to protect FM broadcasters because radio manufacturers didn't want to put FM frequencies on their systems when all people listened to (at that time) was AM!
"...and if you're too afraid of goin' astray, you won't go anywhere." - Granny Weatherwax
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ringmaster Inner circle Memphis, Down in Dixie 1974 Posts |
Quote: That's all true, however Edison's 1874 patent is for a wireless ship-to-shore transcever, in other words a radio. It is not an induction device, although it probably arose from induction wireless like the grasshopper, which never found widespread use. Floyde Thayers Dr. Q effects, based on the David Abbott talking tea kettle probably being the last. the Edison 'radio' pattent is a mystery, it was never developed and Edison seemes to have forgoten about it himself.
On 2008-06-01 23:54, Bill Hallahan wrote: Tesla's lack of understanding of frequency (other than 60 Hz) doomed his experiments in broadcasting current electricity. However, if he had tried, he could have set up a Colorado to Paris wireless telegraph using that god- awful big spark gap tower. That's what his investors were paying for. Tesla's big contrabution (and Edison's blind spot) was in alternating current electricity. The jury is still out on the particiel beam weapon. The guy who really got short changed was Stieinmetz .
One of the last living 10-in-one performers. I wanted to be in show business the worst way, and that was it.
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