harkins (05/11/83)
Relay-Version:version B 3/9/83; site harpo.UUCP Message-ID:<2065@cires.UUCP> Date:Wed, 11-May-83 09:45:48 EDT norskog is right; edison was big on dc, while tesla figured out how (and why) to make electrons do their thing with ac; Westinghouse wound up buying up all the tesla patents early on and tesla died practically broke, and, ironically, pretty much forgotten in comparison with edison. ernie harkins
jj (05/12/83)
I haven't noticed anyone discussing the contributions of Steinmetz in these ramblings on AC vs DC. I seem to remember that Steinmetz was the person who had most of his inventions bought out by Westinghouse (or at least one of the persons). I also seem to remember that he was the one who finally explained how to build an AC motor with acceptable performance, after describing some of the loss mechanisms that take place only with AC. How about it? Has anyone else even heard of Steinmetz??
mmt (05/18/83)
In England, Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti had a big battle with Edison as to whether AC or DC should be used for public power distribution. Edison wanted DC. Ferranti built an AC power station and demonstrated its feasibility. On this basis was built the Ferranti company which was one of the larger and more forward looking English electronics firms until recently. (The UK Government recently bought out the Ferranti family ownership and installed a "conservative" manager in place of the innovation-inclined family management).