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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jovan Strickland.

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Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and How the

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Speaker 1: tech are You.

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Speaker 2: So it is Friday.

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Speaker 1: It's time for a classic episode, which means we dive

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Speaker 1: into the tech Stuff archive and pull out an episode

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Speaker 1: from our past to listen to. This one, originally published

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Speaker 1: on June thirty, twenty seventeen, is called The History of

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Speaker 1: Electricity Part two. Let's have a listen. Today, we're going

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Speaker 1: to continue our series about the history of electricity. We're

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Speaker 1: going to conclude it today, although we're concluding it right

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Speaker 1: when electric power grids were starting to become a real thing.

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Speaker 1: But since that point, a lot of the changes are

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Speaker 1: more in electricity generation and less in electricity transmission. And

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Speaker 1: I really wanted to get to the point where we

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Speaker 1: talked about transmitting electricity.

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Speaker 2: Maybe in a future episode.

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Speaker 1: I will continue this and revisit the topic and give

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Speaker 1: more context from the early power grids up to modern day,

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Speaker 1: and also talk about some of the other various projects

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Speaker 1: that haven't really materialized, stuff like Tesla's suggestion of broadcasting

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Speaker 1: power over the air, as opposed to over transmission lines

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Speaker 1: and what would that take and would it be a

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Speaker 1: good idea, But.

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Speaker 2: That's for another episode.

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Speaker 1: In our last episode, we explored how scientists, philosophers, inventors,

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Speaker 1: and crazy people began to suss out the basics of electricity,

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Speaker 1: largely through a lot of experimentation and a few happy accidents. Now,

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Speaker 1: this story is one of those that really reinforces the

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Speaker 1: fact that discoveries are rarely attributable to a single person.

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Speaker 2: We like those stories.

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Speaker 1: We like to say this one person was responsible for X,

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Speaker 1: and this other person and was responsible for why. But

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Speaker 1: the truth is way more complicated than that. Usually people

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Speaker 1: are building upon the work of others that came before them,

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Speaker 1: and they might be refining things and innovating in that space.

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Speaker 1: But if it weren't for those who were earlier working

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Speaker 1: on the same sort of stuff, you might not have

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Speaker 1: ever seen those innovations happen. So, you know, we talk

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Speaker 1: about stuff like Edison invented the light bulb, or Alexander

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Speaker 1: Graham Bell invented the telephone, but we really would have

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Speaker 1: to acknowledge some of the other people whose work made

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Speaker 1: all of that possible. First of all, Edison didn't invent

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Speaker 1: the light bulb, but he did improve it greatly. But

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Speaker 1: we would need to talk about all that stuff. And

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Speaker 1: this is not to take away from those inventors and

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Speaker 1: engineers who really did make incredible contributions to technology and

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Speaker 1: to our way of life. They are remarkable human beings

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Speaker 1: and so I don't want to take anything away from them.

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Speaker 2: But at the same time, I don't.

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Speaker 1: Want to ignore those who also made other contributions that

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Speaker 1: made all of this possible. It's a disservice to them

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Speaker 1: to gloss over it. So it would be also very

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Speaker 1: difficult to make an hour long podcast if in fact

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Speaker 1: most inventions were due to a single person's moment of ingenuity, Right,

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Speaker 1: if the story were as simple as Thomas s and

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Speaker 1: invented the light bulb. I don't know that I can

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Speaker 1: make an hour out of that. Probably about forty minutes,

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Speaker 1: but I don't know if I could stretch it to

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Speaker 1: a full hour. Now. By the end of the last episode,

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Speaker 1: I talked about an early alternating current generator and how

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Speaker 1: by using what was called a split ring commutator, early

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Speaker 1: inventors could change that alternating current that was being created

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Speaker 1: in the generator into direct current. Just so you remember

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Speaker 1: alternating current, the direction of current revers it is multiple

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Speaker 1: times per second. There're cycles, and we describe them in frequencies. So,

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Speaker 1: for example, here in the United States, we have a

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Speaker 1: sixty hertz frequency for our electricity for our alternating current.

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Speaker 1: That means sixty times per second that direction of current changes.

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Speaker 1: So if you're looking at a wire stretching from left

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Speaker 1: to right, that means that current would be flowing left

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Speaker 1: to right and then right to left, and it would

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Speaker 1: keep changing sixty times every second, whereas in Europe it

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Speaker 1: would be fifty times. They're on a fifty system and

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Speaker 1: not a sixty hert system. More on that and a

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Speaker 1: little bit. Direct current, however, goes in a single direction.

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Speaker 1: It does not change. So it goes from left to

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Speaker 1: right or right to left, but it doesn't change throughout

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Speaker 1: the It doesn't have cycles. It just continues until you

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Speaker 1: shut the power off, in which case the current ceases

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Speaker 1: to flow. Now, I want to continue the timeline we

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Speaker 1: talked about in that last episode, talk more about how

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Speaker 1: electricity moved out of the laboratory and into the real world.

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Speaker 2: But in order to do that, I.

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Speaker 1: Also have to backtrack just a bit from the end

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Speaker 1: of the last episode where I was talking about generators,

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Speaker 1: because there are some people who were working in electricity

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Speaker 1: that I didn't really mention too much in the last episode,

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Speaker 1: and I kind of need to in order to understand

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Speaker 1: more about building upon those ideas.

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Speaker 2: So one of those.

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Speaker 1: People was Humphrey Davy. I mentioned him briefly in the

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Speaker 1: last episode. He was one of the first people to

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Speaker 1: make a practical use of electricity outside of direct experimentation.

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Speaker 1: So remember in the early eighteenth century, well not early

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Speaker 1: the late eighteenth century, early nineteenth century, you had inventors

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Speaker 1: and engineers who were experimenting with electricity, but they didn't

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Speaker 1: really have any practical use for it. Humphrey Davy was

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Speaker 1: the first person to create something that could be practically

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Speaker 1: used with electricity. He created the first arc lamp and

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Speaker 1: the first incandescent lamp way back in the first decade

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Speaker 1: of the eighteen hundreds. The Davy lamp became a famous invention. Now,

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Speaker 1: neither of those were meant for commercial use or manufacturing.

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Speaker 1: They weren't made to light people's homes. It was more

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Speaker 1: of a use case to prove that electricity could have

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Speaker 1: some practical application beyond just understanding a fundamental element of

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Speaker 1: the universe or fundamental element of life on Earth at least,

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Speaker 1: so it would be many more decades before anyone could

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Speaker 1: make a commercially viable light bulb or lamp, but Davy's

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Speaker 1: works showed that it was in fact possible. Also in

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Speaker 1: that last episode, I mentioned Ampier, whose last name is

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Speaker 1: used as a unit of measurement within the electrical engineering world. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: I mentioned that Ampier was studying the nature of electricity

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Speaker 1: and magnets, but he was building on the work of others.

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Speaker 1: One of those others was Hans Christian Rsted, who was

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Speaker 1: a Danish philosopher and scientist and discovered something that I

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Speaker 1: mentioned in the previous episode, which was electromagnetism. Airstead heard

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Speaker 1: of Alessandro Volta's experiments with batteries, so Volta made the

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Speaker 1: voltaic pile, the predecessor to the modern battery, and Airstead

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Speaker 1: had heard about it, and by eighteen oh one Airstead

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Speaker 1: started doing his own experiments, making his own batteries, and

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Speaker 1: Airstid proposed that there might be a way of measuring

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Speaker 1: the amount of current passing through a wire by putting

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Speaker 1: the wire into water and allowing the electricity to separate

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Speaker 1: the molecular bonds of hydrogen and oxygen, in otherwise, to

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Speaker 1: create electrolysis. And that if you measured the amount of

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Speaker 1: gas given off by the water, then you could use

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Speaker 1: that to infer how much current was passing through the wire.

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Speaker 1: It was kind of an indirect way of establishing how

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Speaker 1: much current was passing through the wire at any given moment. Now,

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Speaker 1: in eighteen twenty one, Airstead performed an experiment in which

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Speaker 1: he passed an electric current through a wire and then

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Speaker 1: brought the wire near a magnetized compass needle, and this

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Speaker 1: caused the compass needle to swing out of alignment. It

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Speaker 1: was no longer lined up with the Earth's magnetic poles.

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Speaker 1: And you know this will happen when you bring a

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Speaker 1: magnet close to a compass. The Earth's magnetic field is powerful,

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Speaker 1: but if you bring a small, less powerful magnet in

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Speaker 1: close proximity to the compass needle, you will overpower the

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Speaker 1: Earth's magnetic field. The compass needle will move toward the magnet,

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Speaker 1: because again the strength of a magnetic field is somewhat

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Speaker 1: dependent upon its distance to a magnetic material. Well, he said,

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Speaker 1: this shows that an electric current passing through a wire

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Speaker 1: creates its own magnetic field. It's obviously affecting these compass needles.

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Speaker 1: So he continue to experiment to better understand the nature

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Speaker 1: of electricity and magnetism, and he came to realize that

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Speaker 1: an electric current creates a circular magnetic field around it.

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Speaker 1: So if you're looking at a straight copper wire and

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Speaker 1: you turn it so that you're looking at it from

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Speaker 1: the end on, so you're looking down the length of

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Speaker 1: an electric copper wire, and you're able to run current

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Speaker 1: through that copper wire, and if you were able to

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Speaker 1: visualize the magnetic field, you would see the magnetic field

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Speaker 1: appear as a circle, and the copper wire would essentially

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Speaker 1: be the center of the circle, or at least circulure.

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Speaker 1: It wouldn't be necessarily a perfect circle, but it would

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Speaker 1: be a circular field around the core, which would be

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Speaker 1: the wire itself. Also, although this was not understood by

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Speaker 1: Erstad at the time, if you ran an alternating current

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Speaker 1: through that wire, you would see the direction of that

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Speaker 1: magnetic field reverse. So when the current flows in one direction,

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Speaker 1: you would see it flowing in a clockwise direction, and

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Speaker 1: if you reverse the current, you would see it flow

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Speaker 1: in a counterclockwise direction.

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Speaker 2: This would become really important.

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Speaker 1: Later on when we talk about alternating currents and transformers.

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Speaker 1: Transformers being the type of of gadget that you use

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Speaker 1: to step up or step down electric voltage, not robots

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Speaker 1: that are more than meets the eye. It's a different

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Speaker 1: type of transformer. We're going to take a quick break

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Speaker 1: from this episode about the history of electricity and thank

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Speaker 1: our sponsors. So Airston makes this observation about copper wire

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Speaker 1: with a current flowing through it becoming a magnetic force

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Speaker 1: for emitting a magnetic force, and Ampere made a similar

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Speaker 1: discovery with electric wires attracting one another whenever electricity would

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Speaker 1: flow through them. So this was the earliest observations of

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Speaker 1: electromagnetism that are recorded. In eighteen twenty four, William Sturgeon

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Speaker 1: experimented with electromagnetism by wrapping a bare wire of copper

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Speaker 1: around an iron core. You got like a just an

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Speaker 1: iron nail, and you've got some bare copper wire and

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Speaker 1: you bend the copper wire so it coils around this

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Speaker 1: iron core. Several times. He found that if he passed

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Speaker 1: a current through the wire, it would turn the whole

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Speaker 1: thing into a magnet briefly, but then the effect would disappear.

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Speaker 1: So why was the effect disappearing, Well, the current was

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Speaker 1: moving from the copper wire into the iron core of

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Speaker 1: the structure. It wasn't maintaining a current through entirely. It

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Speaker 1: was shorting out essentially. And William Sturgeon also couldn't do

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Speaker 1: a multi layer wrap of the wire because the copper

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Speaker 1: wire is conductive. If it made contact with itself, then

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Speaker 1: current is flowing in the most efficient pathway. It's not

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Speaker 1: going down the length of the copper wire necessarily, it

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Speaker 1: could pass through as coils touched each other.

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Speaker 2: So.

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Speaker 1: He wasn't able to make a very strong magnetic effect

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Speaker 1: this way. You increase the magnetic effect by making more coils.

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Speaker 1: So if you're able to coil a conductive wire more

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Speaker 1: times around a core like in this case, an iron core,

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Speaker 1: you create a more powerful magnetic field as you passed

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Speaker 1: a current through that conductor. In eighteen twenty seven, a

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Speaker 1: man named Joseph Henry found a solution to this problem.

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Speaker 1: He wrapped his copper wires in silk, which insulated them,

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Speaker 1: so now he could have the copper wires laying against

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Speaker 1: an iron core and laying against itself without the current

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Speaker 1: bleeding through because the wires were insulated, and that allowed

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Speaker 1: him to wrap the wires around the iron core several

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Speaker 1: more times than Sturgeon was able to, and that meant

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Speaker 1: the charge could not disappear into the iron and the

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Speaker 1: electromagnetic effect would remain as long as a current was passing.

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Speaker 2: Through the wire.

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Speaker 1: So this discovering electromagnetism would become incredibly important for future

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Speaker 1: applications of electricity. Meanwhile, Michael Faraday had been working with

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Speaker 1: moving copper near a stationary magnet, which would induce current

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Speaker 1: to flow through the copper.

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Speaker 2: This is the basis of generators.

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Speaker 1: Whether you are moving a conductor through the magnetic fields

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Speaker 1: of some stationary magnets, or you're moving the magnets around

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Speaker 1: a conductor so that the magnetic field is fluctuating around

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Speaker 1: the conductor. Whenever you introduce a conductor through a fluctuating

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Speaker 1: magnetic field, you're going to induce current to flow through

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Speaker 1: that metal conductor, or really I should just say conductor doesn't.

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Speaker 1: That's the important part, not whether or not it's metal.

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Speaker 1: Also important is that it has to be that fluctuating

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Speaker 1: magnetic field, otherwise you will induce current to flow, but

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Speaker 1: as soon as the magnetic field stops to fluctuate, current

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Speaker 1: will no longer flow. So you would typically do this

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Speaker 1: by putting two permanent magnets end to end with the

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Speaker 1: north pole facing the south pole of another one, and

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Speaker 1: in between them. You would have your conductor on a

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Speaker 1: rotatable system. So imagine that you've got a square of

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Speaker 1: copper wire. You formed it to be an empty square,

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Speaker 1: and it's rotatable between these two permanent magnets. As you

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Speaker 1: rotate the square, it passes through the magnetic fields. This

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Speaker 1: is similar to having magnetic flux introduced to the copper

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Speaker 1: wire that induces current to flow, and that's where you

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Speaker 1: get alternating current generators. So he also discovered something interesting.

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Speaker 1: Henry's work involved moving current through a wire, which would

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Speaker 1: create a magnetic field. Faraday's work involved moving a current

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Speaker 1: a copper wire through a magnetic field in order to

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Speaker 1: generate a current. So with Henry's work, they discovered that

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Speaker 1: the magnetic field generated by one electromagnet could induce current

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Speaker 1: to flow in a second electromagnet that wasn't hooked up

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Speaker 1: to the first circuit. This became the basis for an

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Speaker 1: important innovation, that being the AC transformer. I mentioned earlier

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Speaker 1: that steps up or steps down voltage. Now remember voltage

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Speaker 1: is akin to pressure. If you were looking at a

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Speaker 1: water based system, voltage would be the water pressure. It's

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Speaker 1: the push behind a current. And while this early work

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Speaker 1: created the foundation for the transformer, it would take half

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Speaker 1: a century for someone to build a practical, commercially reliable transformer.

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Speaker 1: That person was William Stanley, and we'll talk more about

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Speaker 1: him in just a little bit, But first we have

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Speaker 1: to talk about another invention that relied on electricity and

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Speaker 1: was very important for the adoption of electricity, and that

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Speaker 1: is the telegraph. The telegraph was a means of communication

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Speaker 1: that took advantage of electromagnetism. So once people figured out

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Speaker 1: the nature between electricity and magnetism, they started coming up

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Speaker 1: with some practical applications of this. The telegraph was one

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Speaker 1: of those early ones, and it was incredible. It transformed communication,

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Speaker 1: particularly here in the United States, all over the world

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Speaker 1: as well. So lots of people were exploring the scientific

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Speaker 1: and practical applications of electricity and magnetism, but two groups

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Speaker 1: were specifically looking at it in terms of communication systems.

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Speaker 1: So over in jolly Old England, you had Sir William

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Speaker 1: Cook and Sir Charles Wheatstone who were exploring this possibility.

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Speaker 1: And here in the United States you had Samuel Morse,

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Speaker 1: Alfred Vail, and Leonard Gale working on this. Now, both

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Speaker 1: sets of researchers realized that using electricity to manipulate magnetized

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Speaker 1: pieces of metal could allow for a communication system. The

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Speaker 1: Cook and Wheatstone system was an experiment that began in

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Speaker 1: the eighteen thirties. With magnetic needles. There were positions so

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Speaker 1: they could point at various letters and numbers. So imagine

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Speaker 1: that you've got a needle on a that can rotate horizontally.

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Speaker 1: It's on a horizontal plane, it can rotate around and

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Speaker 1: around on a balance, and you've got letters that are

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Speaker 1: arranged around the needle. And by running an electric current

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Speaker 1: through a circuit, you can create a magnetic field that

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Speaker 1: attracts the needle, so it looks like it's pointing at

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Speaker 1: a specific letter. It's actually pointing in the direction of

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Speaker 1: whatever the magnetic field is, but it looks like it's

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Speaker 1: pointing specifically at the letter. So using several of these needles,

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Speaker 1: I think they had five set up in a panel

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Speaker 1: with a bunch of letters and numbers. They could communicate.

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Speaker 1: You could just choose which circuit you're activating to magnetize

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Speaker 1: a specific point around those needles. The needles would start

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Speaker 1: to point in those directions and you could spell out

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Speaker 1: various messages. These ended up being used in the British

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Speaker 1: railroad signaling service. Now over in the United States, Morse,

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Speaker 1: Veil and Gale began work on a single circuit telegraph system,

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Speaker 1: and it involved a sending station where you had an

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Speaker 1: operating key, and this would complete an electric circuit whenever

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Speaker 1: you pressed it. So an operator key it looks like

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Speaker 1: a little almost looks like a stapler. When you press

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Speaker 1: it down, it would create a closed circuit and allow

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Speaker 1: a signal to pass through to the other end. When

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Speaker 1: you would lift it back up or remove pressure from it,

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Speaker 1: it would break that circuit and electric current would cease

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Speaker 1: to flow. So you had a battery that was providing power.

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Speaker 1: Every time you would push down it would complete this

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Speaker 1: circuit and a signal would be sent to the receiving station.

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Speaker 1: The original station had an apparatus that would make marks

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Speaker 1: on paper, and so Morse ended up developing the famous

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Speaker 1: Morse code Morse code is a way of encoding letters

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Speaker 1: in a series of dots and dashes. You represent this

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Speaker 1: on an operator key by the length of time you

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Speaker 1: spend pressing the key downward. So for a dot you

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Speaker 1: do a quick press, it's just a quick jolt of

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Speaker 1: electricity through the circuit. For a dash, the press is

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Speaker 1: a little bit longer so that it comes across. And

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Speaker 1: on the other end, you had a system that would

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Speaker 1: essentially make marks on paper, so you could see dots

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Speaker 1: or dashes. Morse was very clever in this way. He

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Speaker 1: also made sure that the most commonly used letters had

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Speaker 1: the list of encodings, so a very common letter might

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Speaker 1: have a single dot or a single dash. More rare

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Speaker 1: letters like a que might have more complicated encoding because

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Speaker 1: you don't have to use it as frequently, so you

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Speaker 1: save all the very simple encoding for your most common letters. Now,

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Speaker 1: they noticed something really interesting, which is that as operators

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Speaker 1: began to get used to this system, they were able

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Speaker 1: to start understanding messages without having to read the dots

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Speaker 1: and dashes, because they would just hear what was coming out.

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Speaker 1: They would hear the receiving station tapping out either the

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Speaker 1: dots or dashes to market on the paper, and once

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Speaker 1: they started getting used to this and understanding what those

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Speaker 1: taps were meaning, like the long taps versus the short taps,

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Speaker 1: it became clear that you didn't need to have.

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Speaker 2: The paper at all.

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Speaker 1: You could have a receiving station that would beep either

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Speaker 1: short or longer beaps to let you know whether it

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Speaker 1: was a dot or a dash, and operators were able

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Speaker 1: to just pick it up up by hearing it because

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Speaker 1: they became so used to it. And so future telegraph

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Speaker 1: stations would get rid of the paper and just become

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Speaker 1: the beeping receiver, so that an operator would transcribe whatever

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Speaker 1: the message was and then deliver it to whomever was

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Speaker 1: supposed to get it. In eighteen forty three, Morse and

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Speaker 1: Vail were able to secure funding for a telegraph system

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Speaker 1: that was between Washington, d c. And Baltimore, Maryland. That's

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Speaker 1: not terribly far in the grand scheme of things, but

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Speaker 1: it was a big deal at the time. The first

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Speaker 1: message sent on the new system went out on May

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Speaker 1: twenty fourth, eighteen forty four. It was sent from Samuel

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Speaker 1: Morse to Vail, and it read what hath God wrought?

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Speaker 1: It's a little bit of drama in the first message,

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Speaker 1: just like social media today. Really, Over the following decades,

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Speaker 1: telegraph systems began to connect more cities together, even as

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Speaker 1: inventors were trying to find other practical applications of electricity.

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Speaker 1: So other people would make improvements to the telegraph and

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Speaker 1: make it more user friendly and more useful. Some of

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Speaker 1: those people included Ezra Cornell, who created a means to

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Speaker 1: insulate telegraph wires and make them more efficient. Cornell would

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Speaker 1: go on to co found a college it's called Cornell.

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Speaker 1: And Thomas Edison, famous inventor and irascible gentleman, also made

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Speaker 1: some improvements to the telegraph, including creating a system called

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Speaker 1: the quadruplex, which, as the name might suggest, would allow

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Speaker 1: up to four messages to transmit over the same wire simultaneously,

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Speaker 1: two going in one direction and two coming from the

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Speaker 1: other direction. Now, one of Stanley's inspirations was another inventor

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Speaker 1: named Charles Brush. Brush, in turn had been inspired by

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Speaker 1: Humphrey Davy. So we see that there's a chain forming here.

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Speaker 1: So Davy was the one who created that early ArcLight. Well,

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Speaker 1: Brush thought the arc lights were super cool, and as

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Speaker 1: a teenager he started to really tinker with stuff. He

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Speaker 1: would start to neglect his chores in the family farm

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Speaker 1: just so he could work on various projects in a workshop,

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Speaker 1: and he built his first static electricity machine when he

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Speaker 1: was just twelve years old. In high school, he built

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Speaker 1: an arc light of his very own, so by high

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Speaker 1: school age he was building stuff that Humphrey Davy had

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Speaker 1: pioneered a few decades earlier. In college, he pursued a

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Speaker 1: degree in mining engineering at the University of Michigan because

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Speaker 1: there was no such thing as an electrical engineering degree

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Speaker 1: at that time. And after working in the iron ore

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Speaker 1: industry for a while, he began a big project to

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Speaker 1: build a dynamo. Now, a dynamo is a direct current generator.

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Speaker 1: It's like what I described at the end of the

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Speaker 1: last episode. It's essentially an alternating current generator that has

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Speaker 1: a commutator to convert alternating current to direct current. Brush

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Speaker 1: also convinced the city of Cleveland to allow him to

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Speaker 1: fit out Cleveland's public square, which at that time was

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Speaker 1: called Monumental Park, with electrical arc lights, and up to

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Speaker 1: that point, the lights in the square had been gas lamps.

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Speaker 1: So on April twenty ninth, eighteen seventy nine, the city

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Speaker 1: switched on the new arc lights. The public reaction was

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Speaker 1: mostly positive. There were only a few people who were

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Speaker 1: saying stuff like it's not as bry as the sun,

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Speaker 1: which tells us that some people were impossible to please

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Speaker 1: even before they had Twitter to post public messages about it. Now,

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Speaker 1: Brush's work advanced our understanding of the electromotive force, which

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Speaker 1: is the force that causes electrons to push in a

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Speaker 1: direction within a conductor, generating a current, and it was

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Speaker 1: that understanding that William Stanley started to build upon. Stanley

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Speaker 1: wanted to work with alternating current, which at that time

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Speaker 1: was mostly seen as interesting but not practical. Everyone was

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Speaker 1: thinking direct current was probably the way to go, and

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Speaker 1: Stanley wasn't entirely convinced.

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Speaker 2: He thought alternating current might have its uses. In fact,

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Speaker 2: at the.

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Speaker 1: Time wrote that the general thought on alternating current from

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Speaker 1: his contemporaries was that it was a despised and rejected

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Speaker 1: line of work. But Stanley was convinced there was something

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Speaker 1: more to it.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: Obviously, when we start looking at ways to distribute electricity,

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Speaker 1: it became clear that alternating current, at least initially was

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Speaker 1: superior to direct current, and in eighteen eighty four Stanley

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Speaker 1: began to work with George Westinghouse's company called Westinghouse. Westinghouse

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Speaker 1: himself heard of Stanley's contributions and promoted him to chief

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Speaker 1: engineer of the Westinghouse Pittsburgh facility, and Stanley then learned

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Speaker 1: of Lucian Gaillard and John Gibbs, who had built an

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Speaker 1: alternating current transformer. The problem was that the transformer they

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Speaker 1: had built wasn't really commercially viable, so Stanley wanted to

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Speaker 1: take that same idea and design a transformer that would

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Speaker 1: have real world applications. Now, what is a transformer and

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Speaker 1: how does it actually work to change voltage? We'll look

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Speaker 1: at that in just a minute, but first let's take

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Speaker 1: a quick break to thank our sponsor. All Right, so,

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Speaker 1: what the heck is a transformer. I've talked about it.

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Speaker 1: I've said it steps up and steps down voltage, but

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Speaker 1: I haven't really explained it well. It all relies upon

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Speaker 1: that electromotive force and fundamental electromagnetic forces. You remember that

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Speaker 1: when you move a conductor through a magnetic field, the

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Speaker 1: field induces electric current to flow through the conductor. But

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Speaker 1: to do this, you have to keep moving the conductor

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Speaker 1: through the field unless you move the field instead of

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Speaker 1: the conductor, and you keep the conductor in place.

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Speaker 2: Now, one of the.

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Speaker 1: Ways you could do that is you could create an

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Speaker 1: electromagnet using alternating current, and that would give you the

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Speaker 1: same effect of moving a magnetic field around a conductor.

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Speaker 1: Because remember I mentioned earlier, when the inventors were looking

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Speaker 1: at how electric current generates a magnetic field, they thought

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Speaker 1: of it as as current travels down a wire, a

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Speaker 1: magnetic field is generated as a circle around that wire,

437
00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:19,520
Speaker 1: with the wire being the core or hub of that circle.

438
00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:24,359
Speaker 1: If you think of it that way, well, if electricity reverses,

439
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:28,640
Speaker 1: then the magnetic field changes direction. That creates magnetic flux

440
00:26:29,320 --> 00:26:33,200
Speaker 1: because it's the same thing as moving a conductor through

441
00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:36,639
Speaker 1: a stationary magnetic field back and forth. Like if you

442
00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:40,080
Speaker 1: took a piece of metal conductive metal and you waved

443
00:26:40,119 --> 00:26:43,480
Speaker 1: it through a magnetic field repeatedly, you could induce electricity

444
00:26:43,560 --> 00:26:47,480
Speaker 1: to flow through the conductor. So the same thing is

445
00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:50,919
Speaker 1: true if you have this alternating current electro magnet. And

446
00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:57,000
Speaker 1: remember that alternating current switches voltages on either end of

447
00:26:57,040 --> 00:26:59,760
Speaker 1: the conductor several times a second, so that's what's making

448
00:26:59,840 --> 00:27:02,560
Speaker 1: the electricity flow in different directions. One direction at one

449
00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:04,680
Speaker 1: point the other direction at the other point. If you're

450
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 1: looking at your traditional alternating current generator, it's when the

451
00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:15,080
Speaker 1: conductor breaks that perpendicular plane or really no, I'm sorry,

452
00:27:15,119 --> 00:27:19,200
Speaker 1: the parallel plane to the magnetic field and starts to move,

453
00:27:19,840 --> 00:27:22,520
Speaker 1: so that the side that was going up with a

454
00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:26,920
Speaker 1: relation to a magnetic field is now moving down. That's

455
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:33,120
Speaker 1: what ends up creating this alternating current. So every time

456
00:27:33,160 --> 00:27:36,560
Speaker 1: you change that current direction, the magnetic field also changes.

457
00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:40,480
Speaker 1: If you were to introduce a second conductive material within

458
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:45,320
Speaker 1: range of that alternating magnetic field, that would induce a

459
00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:49,840
Speaker 1: similar alternating current in the secondary conductor. So let's say

460
00:27:49,840 --> 00:27:53,280
Speaker 1: you've got an electromagnet and it consists of an iron core,

461
00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:56,680
Speaker 1: and around this iron core you've wrapped insulated copper wire

462
00:27:57,080 --> 00:28:00,000
Speaker 1: twenty times. So let's say you've got an iron nail

463
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 1: and you've got some copper wire of a fairly small gauge,

464
00:28:05,359 --> 00:28:10,480
Speaker 1: and you do twenty coils around this iron nail. This

465
00:28:10,520 --> 00:28:12,600
Speaker 1: is your electromagnet. If you were to hook this up

466
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:16,040
Speaker 1: to a battery, it would create a direct current through

467
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:21,760
Speaker 1: the wire and you would have an electromagnet. But that's

468
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:24,159
Speaker 1: just a simple electromagnet. Let's say that you hooked it

469
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:27,119
Speaker 1: up to an alternating current. Now the current is moving

470
00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:29,679
Speaker 1: down from the top of the nail to the bottom

471
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:30,840
Speaker 1: of the nail, and then from the bottom of the

472
00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:33,439
Speaker 1: nail to the top of the nail more over and

473
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:36,840
Speaker 1: over and over again, several times a second. That creates

474
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:41,440
Speaker 1: a fluctuating magnetic field. Now, let's say you get a

475
00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:45,720
Speaker 1: second nail with a second length of copper wire wrapped

476
00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:48,240
Speaker 1: around it. This one is not attached to a battery

477
00:28:48,320 --> 00:28:52,120
Speaker 1: or a power system. You bring that one close to

478
00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:55,680
Speaker 1: the first one, which will be your primary electromagnet. You

479
00:28:55,720 --> 00:28:59,040
Speaker 1: bring this secondary electromagnet close to it. Once it's within

480
00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:02,240
Speaker 1: that fluctuating man metic field, it's going to induce current

481
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:06,680
Speaker 1: to flow through the second electromagnet. Even though it's not

482
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:09,360
Speaker 1: hooked up to a power source, it will start to

483
00:29:09,360 --> 00:29:15,719
Speaker 1: have electric current induced in it. This is the basis

484
00:29:15,880 --> 00:29:18,920
Speaker 1: for the transformer, But by itself, it's not that useful

485
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:22,320
Speaker 1: because you're not changing the voltage at all. You're just

486
00:29:22,880 --> 00:29:26,560
Speaker 1: inducing electric current to flow through a secondary coil.

487
00:29:27,440 --> 00:29:28,960
Speaker 2: But if your second.

488
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:32,240
Speaker 1: Electromagnet has a different number of coils from the first one,

489
00:29:32,800 --> 00:29:35,880
Speaker 1: as in you've wrapped the copper wire more times or

490
00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:39,600
Speaker 1: fewer times than the one you have on your primary electromagnet,

491
00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:43,760
Speaker 1: the second electromagnet will have a different voltage than the first.

492
00:29:44,600 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 2: So again, let's say you've got that.

493
00:29:46,360 --> 00:29:50,600
Speaker 1: Iron nail and you've wrapped copper coil around it twenty times,

494
00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:54,640
Speaker 1: and your secondary one, your iron nail, you've only wrapped

495
00:29:54,680 --> 00:29:58,560
Speaker 1: it ten times around. Well, this will step the voltage

496
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:02,680
Speaker 1: down by half. The voltage in your new your secondary

497
00:30:02,720 --> 00:30:05,320
Speaker 1: electromagnet will be half of what it is in the

498
00:30:05,360 --> 00:30:09,840
Speaker 1: primary one. But if you primary one has twenty coils

499
00:30:10,040 --> 00:30:14,600
Speaker 1: and your secondary one has forty coils, this will step

500
00:30:14,720 --> 00:30:18,640
Speaker 1: up the voltage by twice the original amount. So whatever

501
00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:21,000
Speaker 1: the voltage was in your original circuit, it will be

502
00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:23,800
Speaker 1: twice as powerful in your secondary one because you have

503
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:27,200
Speaker 1: twice the number of coils. The number of coils in

504
00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:32,720
Speaker 1: your secondary circuit is going to determine whether the voltage

505
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:36,920
Speaker 1: is stepped up or step down. Now, Stanley build a

506
00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:41,680
Speaker 1: prototype transformer for high voltage transmission and demonstrated it on

507
00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:43,680
Speaker 1: March twentieth, eighteen eighty six.

508
00:30:44,280 --> 00:30:45,280
Speaker 2: He then got.

509
00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:49,080
Speaker 1: Wrapped up in some serious drama in the electrical utility industry,

510
00:30:49,080 --> 00:30:51,160
Speaker 1: which I'll talk about a bit later. But holy cal

511
00:30:51,200 --> 00:30:54,320
Speaker 1: If you think Hollywood and politics are all about backstabbing

512
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:57,240
Speaker 1: and scandal, wait till we get to the Shenanigans during

513
00:30:57,280 --> 00:31:03,120
Speaker 1: the current wars, because people got messed up. There were

514
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:11,600
Speaker 1: all sorts of backstage dealings and just shady practices, people

515
00:31:11,680 --> 00:31:14,200
Speaker 1: not getting paid, people getting forced out of the business.

516
00:31:14,840 --> 00:31:18,560
Speaker 1: It was really cutthroat in the late nineteenth in early

517
00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:19,600
Speaker 1: twentieth centuries.

518
00:31:20,520 --> 00:31:23,720
Speaker 2: Now remember sense voltage.

519
00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:26,560
Speaker 1: Is the force or pressure that pushes electric current through

520
00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:29,600
Speaker 1: when you use a transformer. Can come in mighty handy

521
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:32,080
Speaker 1: if you want to distribute power across the system, because,

522
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:36,040
Speaker 1: as it turns out, to transmit power efficiently, you need

523
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:39,520
Speaker 1: to have high voltage. You've got to have a lot

524
00:31:39,560 --> 00:31:44,320
Speaker 1: of pressure to transmit power over significant distances.

525
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:45,760
Speaker 2: If you don't have high.

526
00:31:45,560 --> 00:31:48,720
Speaker 1: Pressure, you can only transmit power a short distance before

527
00:31:48,720 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 1: the efficiency drops to nothing. So you've got to have

528
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:53,440
Speaker 1: a lot of force. Now this again, if you think

529
00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:55,800
Speaker 1: of it in terms of a water system, this makes sense.

530
00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:59,480
Speaker 1: If you have very low water pressure, that's going to

531
00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 1: be hard to get a shower on the top floor

532
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:06,120
Speaker 1: of a hotel, for example. To have much of anything happen.

533
00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:10,560
Speaker 1: If you have very very high water pressure, it may

534
00:32:10,640 --> 00:32:12,600
Speaker 1: be that on the first floor, you might feel like

535
00:32:12,680 --> 00:32:14,560
Speaker 1: the shower is going to push you through the back wall.

536
00:32:16,080 --> 00:32:18,600
Speaker 1: So you need that high voltage because you need that

537
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:23,840
Speaker 1: high pressure to transmit electricity great distances. That's really what

538
00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:29,400
Speaker 1: Stanley was looking at. So using transformers, you can step

539
00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:33,000
Speaker 1: up or step down the voltage as needed for distribution purposes.

540
00:32:33,280 --> 00:32:36,760
Speaker 1: So at the power generation site, you might generate power

541
00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:39,440
Speaker 1: at a specific voltage and then you want to transmit

542
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:43,600
Speaker 1: it fifty miles away, so you use a transformer to

543
00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:47,360
Speaker 1: step up that voltage to make it a high voltage

544
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:51,320
Speaker 1: signal so that it will transmit efficiently across the power

545
00:32:51,320 --> 00:32:57,440
Speaker 1: lines you've strung between your generation point and your destination.

546
00:32:58,360 --> 00:33:01,400
Speaker 1: Once it reaches the destination, you go through a second

547
00:33:01,440 --> 00:33:04,760
Speaker 1: type of transformer to step the voltage back down so

548
00:33:04,840 --> 00:33:07,040
Speaker 1: it's appropriate for whatever you want to use it for.

549
00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:14,640
Speaker 1: So when you see transformers on utility poles around cities

550
00:33:14,680 --> 00:33:18,360
Speaker 1: and on houses, there are usually small transformers attached to

551
00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:21,200
Speaker 1: those as well. The purpose of that is so that

552
00:33:21,360 --> 00:33:24,040
Speaker 1: it can either step up the voltage so it can

553
00:33:24,080 --> 00:33:26,479
Speaker 1: transmit it, or step down the voltage so it can

554
00:33:26,520 --> 00:33:29,920
Speaker 1: deliver that electricity to home. These are also the things

555
00:33:29,960 --> 00:33:32,400
Speaker 1: that when they get overloaded, they explode in a ton

556
00:33:32,440 --> 00:33:36,400
Speaker 1: of sparks, they get shorted out, they get too much

557
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:38,959
Speaker 1: electricity pushed through at one time. This can happen if

558
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:41,640
Speaker 1: you have like a really serious electrical storm. And if

559
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:45,080
Speaker 1: you've ever heard a transformer go off, it is unforgettable.

560
00:33:45,120 --> 00:33:48,520
Speaker 1: It sounds like a shotgun and sparks fly everywhere. The

561
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:51,200
Speaker 1: first time I ever saw one do that, I was

562
00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:54,160
Speaker 1: a kid in the backseat of my parents' cars. We

563
00:33:54,160 --> 00:33:56,680
Speaker 1: were driving through downtown Atlanta, and I grew up in

564
00:33:56,760 --> 00:34:02,000
Speaker 1: rural Georgia, so I'm from backwoods country up in Georgia

565
00:34:02,360 --> 00:34:06,640
Speaker 1: and wasn't used to seeing explosions go off right outside

566
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:08,280
Speaker 1: the car window in a city.

567
00:34:08,440 --> 00:34:09,560
Speaker 2: It gave me a.

568
00:34:09,560 --> 00:34:15,160
Speaker 1: Very specific and as it turns out, not entirely accurate

569
00:34:15,320 --> 00:34:18,520
Speaker 1: view of what city life must be like. It was

570
00:34:18,600 --> 00:34:23,080
Speaker 1: a special circumstance. Now we're at the dawn of the

571
00:34:23,160 --> 00:34:27,520
Speaker 1: electrical age. So you had Brush's arc lighting system that

572
00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:32,160
Speaker 1: showed electricity did have practical uses outside the laboratory. You

573
00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:35,320
Speaker 1: had worked with DC and AC generators. That was progressing,

574
00:34:35,440 --> 00:34:37,000
Speaker 1: and now it's time to talk about some of the

575
00:34:37,000 --> 00:34:40,680
Speaker 1: big names I haven't really talked about extensively yet, namely

576
00:34:41,160 --> 00:34:43,040
Speaker 1: Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla.

577
00:34:43,520 --> 00:34:45,279
Speaker 2: So, first of all, a lot of people.

578
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:47,279
Speaker 1: When they talk about Tesla seem to think that he

579
00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 1: invented alternating current.

580
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:50,719
Speaker 2: He did not.

581
00:34:51,760 --> 00:34:54,800
Speaker 1: There were inventors who were working with alternating current before

582
00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:59,360
Speaker 1: Tesla was even born. They didn't really know what it

583
00:34:59,360 --> 00:35:03,200
Speaker 1: would be good four. But alternating current existed before Tesla

584
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:07,920
Speaker 1: came along, and transformers existed before Tesla came along. He

585
00:35:07,960 --> 00:35:11,640
Speaker 1: didn't even invent the alternating current transformer. He did, however,

586
00:35:12,040 --> 00:35:16,280
Speaker 1: make significant improvements to transformer technology so that it became

587
00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 1: a much more commercially viable tech, and he made some

588
00:35:20,640 --> 00:35:22,320
Speaker 1: great strides in that field.

589
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:24,440
Speaker 2: So I don't want to take anything away from Tesla.

590
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:27,520
Speaker 1: I don't want to say that he didn't make any

591
00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:30,840
Speaker 1: significant contributions or that he was just wack a doodle crazy.

592
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:33,120
Speaker 1: That's not That's not what I'm saying at all. First

593
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:35,319
Speaker 1: of all, we don't know if he was crazy. He

594
00:35:35,360 --> 00:35:39,960
Speaker 1: was certainly eccentric. And second of all, he made very

595
00:35:40,080 --> 00:35:45,160
Speaker 1: significant contributions to our understanding of and use of electricity.

596
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:49,600
Speaker 1: But again, if we ignore the contributions of other people

597
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:51,040
Speaker 1: were doing them a disservice.

598
00:35:51,040 --> 00:35:52,359
Speaker 2: So that's why I'm bringing this up.

599
00:35:52,600 --> 00:35:56,120
Speaker 1: I should also mention Tesla, as eccentric as he got

600
00:35:56,760 --> 00:36:00,480
Speaker 1: and as grandiose as his ego was, he only did

601
00:36:00,520 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 1: not deserve the mistreatment.

602
00:36:03,320 --> 00:36:05,399
Speaker 2: He was subjected to toward the end of his life.

603
00:36:05,480 --> 00:36:09,320
Speaker 1: He was not prepared for the drama that would unfold

604
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:13,960
Speaker 1: as he got older. Thomas Edison, meanwhile, tends to be

605
00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:17,080
Speaker 1: portrayed as one of two things. It depends on whether

606
00:36:17,160 --> 00:36:21,920
Speaker 1: you're pro Edison or anti Edison. There are two versions

607
00:36:21,960 --> 00:36:26,879
Speaker 1: of Edison that tend to be presented to people. He's

608
00:36:26,920 --> 00:36:30,360
Speaker 1: either a brilliant inventor and he's a guy who just

609
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:37,360
Speaker 1: held more patents than anyone else and was incredibly ingenious,

610
00:36:37,680 --> 00:36:45,880
Speaker 1: or he was a manipulative, vindictive businessman who was mostly disliked, standoffish,

611
00:36:46,239 --> 00:36:48,719
Speaker 1: Only a few people really took to him, and he

612
00:36:48,760 --> 00:36:50,880
Speaker 1: would take credit for things that he had very little

613
00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:54,400
Speaker 1: to know involvement in. In other words, he would have

614
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:56,840
Speaker 1: engineers working for him that would invent stuff, and he

615
00:36:56,880 --> 00:37:00,480
Speaker 1: would just append his name to the patents. Thus his

616
00:37:00,560 --> 00:37:02,560
Speaker 1: name was attached to more patents than anyone else but

617
00:37:02,600 --> 00:37:04,920
Speaker 1: if you were to look into it, you might say, well,

618
00:37:05,040 --> 00:37:07,520
Speaker 1: Edison didn't really have much to do with this invention. Now,

619
00:37:07,560 --> 00:37:12,359
Speaker 1: the truth is between those two extremes. So you've got

620
00:37:12,400 --> 00:37:16,200
Speaker 1: the pro Edison people saying he was a brilliant man

621
00:37:16,280 --> 00:37:20,600
Speaker 1: and businessman, invented a ton of stuff that we I

622
00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:24,080
Speaker 1: think that's the very foundation of electronics today. And then

623
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:25,960
Speaker 1: you have the other people saying, no, he was kind

624
00:37:25,960 --> 00:37:34,080
Speaker 1: of a manipulative businessman who really took advantage of other people.

625
00:37:34,880 --> 00:37:38,040
Speaker 1: And the truth is not either of those extremes. He

626
00:37:38,160 --> 00:37:42,759
Speaker 1: was a person like any other person, with faults and

627
00:37:42,880 --> 00:37:46,680
Speaker 1: with virtues. So I will try my best not to

628
00:37:47,239 --> 00:37:52,000
Speaker 1: paint him too far in either direction. But like Brush,

629
00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 1: Edison was born in Ohio, Ohio Moosts two of the

630
00:37:56,600 --> 00:38:01,560
Speaker 1: most prolific engineers who worked in the field of electricity,

631
00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:04,320
Speaker 1: and as a child he was intelligent, but he was

632
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:09,319
Speaker 1: easily distracted. He also had difficulty hearing, initially because of

633
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:11,879
Speaker 1: a bout with scarlet fever. He also had a few

634
00:38:11,880 --> 00:38:16,120
Speaker 1: incidents that probably depleted his hearing further, including getting cuffed

635
00:38:16,120 --> 00:38:18,680
Speaker 1: on the side of the head by an engineer once

636
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:22,240
Speaker 1: upon a time in the mid eighteen hundreds, Edison found

637
00:38:22,280 --> 00:38:24,799
Speaker 1: work as a telegraph operator, and he was still a

638
00:38:24,800 --> 00:38:27,719
Speaker 1: teenager at the time. He did so because he rescued

639
00:38:28,880 --> 00:38:32,120
Speaker 1: the son of a telegraph engineer from being run down

640
00:38:32,160 --> 00:38:34,640
Speaker 1: by a train, and as a reward, he was given

641
00:38:34,680 --> 00:38:39,040
Speaker 1: a position as a telegraph operator. He continued tinkering with

642
00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:43,600
Speaker 1: gadgets as he was growing older, and in eighteen sixty

643
00:38:43,680 --> 00:38:48,760
Speaker 1: nine he invented stuff like the universal stock printer, which

644
00:38:48,800 --> 00:38:51,480
Speaker 1: made him a ton of money like forty thousand dollars,

645
00:38:51,520 --> 00:38:55,440
Speaker 1: which in the late nineteenth century was an enormous sum

646
00:38:55,520 --> 00:38:58,839
Speaker 1: and allowed him to set up business for himself. By

647
00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:01,239
Speaker 1: the eighteen seventies and eighteen eighties, he had found much

648
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:05,399
Speaker 1: success working with giant companies like Western Union, and he

649
00:39:05,680 --> 00:39:09,120
Speaker 1: operated a laboratory and employed other machinists and inventors to

650
00:39:09,160 --> 00:39:12,080
Speaker 1: work with him. First they had a lab in Newark,

651
00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:15,040
Speaker 1: New Jersey, and then later in Menlo Park, New Jersey.

652
00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:20,759
Speaker 1: In eighteen eighty two, Edison opened the Pearl Street Generating

653
00:39:20,800 --> 00:39:25,359
Speaker 1: Station in Lower Manhattan. It provided one hundred and ten

654
00:39:25,440 --> 00:39:29,239
Speaker 1: volts of electrical power to just fifty nine customers, so

655
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:33,400
Speaker 1: at this time it was the first central power station

656
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:36,200
Speaker 1: in the United States, and as a central power station.

657
00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:40,000
Speaker 1: It could only deliver power to areas that were close

658
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:43,480
Speaker 1: to the generation station. This was using direct current, and

659
00:39:43,520 --> 00:39:46,480
Speaker 1: it wasn't high voltage direct current, so it couldn't go

660
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:50,120
Speaker 1: very far before the efficiency dropped to nothing. It also

661
00:39:50,280 --> 00:39:53,359
Speaker 1: meant that it limited the number of customers that you

662
00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:56,640
Speaker 1: could have. Not many people had any use for electricity.

663
00:39:56,760 --> 00:40:01,800
Speaker 1: Only a few places had outfitted their buildings with electric lighting,

664
00:40:01,880 --> 00:40:04,520
Speaker 1: for example, so you might find a hotel like a

665
00:40:04,560 --> 00:40:08,239
Speaker 1: Posh Hotel might have upgraded to electric lights. Some of

666
00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:13,839
Speaker 1: the mansions like Westinghouse's mansion, had electric lights, but most

667
00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:18,080
Speaker 1: people did not have any need for electricity yet. However,

668
00:40:18,120 --> 00:40:22,200
Speaker 1: it was an early generating station in the US. It

669
00:40:22,239 --> 00:40:25,200
Speaker 1: didn't exactly usher in a whirlwind of electric systems though,

670
00:40:25,200 --> 00:40:29,360
Speaker 1: and the reason for that again goes to that transmission efficiency.

671
00:40:29,520 --> 00:40:33,680
Speaker 1: You needed that high voltage in order to send electricity

672
00:40:34,040 --> 00:40:36,400
Speaker 1: a great distance. If you wanted to use direct current

673
00:40:36,920 --> 00:40:40,600
Speaker 1: and you weren't able to generate a high voltage direct current,

674
00:40:41,320 --> 00:40:44,000
Speaker 1: then what you would do is build a lot of

675
00:40:44,080 --> 00:40:47,400
Speaker 1: power stations close to where you needed them. That's not

676
00:40:47,560 --> 00:40:50,799
Speaker 1: very practical, especially as areas get larger, and if you

677
00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:54,120
Speaker 1: want to deliver electricity to people who are not in

678
00:40:54,160 --> 00:40:58,759
Speaker 1: an urban setting, it becomes extremely problematic. It would be

679
00:40:58,760 --> 00:41:01,560
Speaker 1: better if you could use high voltage, because then you

680
00:41:01,600 --> 00:41:04,319
Speaker 1: could send it out from a central station to much

681
00:41:04,360 --> 00:41:08,960
Speaker 1: further distances. But at the time there wasn't a practical

682
00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:13,680
Speaker 1: way of doing high voltage direct current, so alternating current

683
00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:20,040
Speaker 1: had a different approach. Remember, direct current does not work

684
00:41:20,360 --> 00:41:24,000
Speaker 1: with transformers. You have to have that magnetic flux. You

685
00:41:24,040 --> 00:41:27,600
Speaker 1: have to have that alternating magnetic field, so direct current

686
00:41:27,640 --> 00:41:30,560
Speaker 1: only generates a steady magnetic field. That's why you can't

687
00:41:30,560 --> 00:41:33,080
Speaker 1: do a transformer using direct current. You have to have

688
00:41:33,160 --> 00:41:39,040
Speaker 1: alternating current for transformers to work. So if I wanted

689
00:41:39,080 --> 00:41:42,160
Speaker 1: to transmit power a far distance, I would probably want

690
00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:46,160
Speaker 1: to use an alternating current power generator. Use transformers to

691
00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:48,960
Speaker 1: do what I had mentioned earlier, step up that voltage

692
00:41:48,960 --> 00:41:52,400
Speaker 1: for transmission, send it hundreds of miles to wherever I

693
00:41:52,480 --> 00:41:55,680
Speaker 1: need to use other transformers to step down the voltage

694
00:41:56,040 --> 00:41:59,319
Speaker 1: and then deliver it to my customers. Otherwise I would

695
00:41:59,320 --> 00:42:01,960
Speaker 1: need to build de power stations near all the places

696
00:42:01,960 --> 00:42:06,880
Speaker 1: that required electricity. Now, given time and resources, Edison and

697
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:10,920
Speaker 1: some of his fellow direct current advocates probably would have

698
00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:15,160
Speaker 1: designed a very compelling high voltage direct current system. And

699
00:42:15,520 --> 00:42:18,040
Speaker 1: the neat thing is, if you have a high voltage

700
00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:21,279
Speaker 1: direct current system, it can actually be more efficient than

701
00:42:21,360 --> 00:42:25,080
Speaker 1: alternating current, but at the time they didn't really have

702
00:42:25,400 --> 00:42:28,520
Speaker 1: a way of doing that, and alternating current had it

703
00:42:28,560 --> 00:42:31,040
Speaker 1: in the form of the transformers. So alternating current had

704
00:42:31,040 --> 00:42:34,160
Speaker 1: the initial advantage, which meant that people were more likely

705
00:42:34,200 --> 00:42:37,880
Speaker 1: to adopt it. So we just had to figure out

706
00:42:37,920 --> 00:42:41,520
Speaker 1: the kinks and converting high voltage alternating current to direct

707
00:42:41,520 --> 00:42:44,200
Speaker 1: current in order to really make high voltage direct current

708
00:42:44,320 --> 00:42:49,040
Speaker 1: a more viable alternative. That initially started to happen in

709
00:42:49,040 --> 00:42:51,719
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties. Of course, by the nineteen thirties the

710
00:42:51,760 --> 00:42:55,120
Speaker 1: electric power grids were already becoming standardized, so it was

711
00:42:55,600 --> 00:42:57,920
Speaker 1: it was like you were trying to fight against inertia

712
00:42:57,920 --> 00:43:02,080
Speaker 1: and momentum. You couldn't really change things because there had

713
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:06,480
Speaker 1: been so much investment in the alternating current system that

714
00:43:06,600 --> 00:43:09,280
Speaker 1: high voltage direct current didn't have much of a chance

715
00:43:10,120 --> 00:43:13,680
Speaker 1: in that time. But in the nineteen thirties they used

716
00:43:13,760 --> 00:43:17,359
Speaker 1: something called mercury arc valves in order to do this

717
00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:21,960
Speaker 1: conversion of high voltage AC to high voltage DC and

718
00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:29,000
Speaker 1: then back again from DC to AC. So one place

719
00:43:29,040 --> 00:43:33,120
Speaker 1: you would want to do this because it just makes

720
00:43:33,160 --> 00:43:36,160
Speaker 1: more sense from an efficiency standpoint, is for.

721
00:43:36,400 --> 00:43:38,719
Speaker 2: Very long underwater cables.

722
00:43:41,040 --> 00:43:44,920
Speaker 1: Alternating current on an underwater cable has some other issues

723
00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:46,959
Speaker 1: with capacitance and some other things that are a little

724
00:43:46,960 --> 00:43:49,920
Speaker 1: too technical to get into here, but it's not as

725
00:43:49,920 --> 00:43:54,120
Speaker 1: efficient as high voltage direct current. So while it wasn't

726
00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:59,360
Speaker 1: terribly practical to switch from AC systems to DC systems,

727
00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:02,040
Speaker 1: once we were to come up with this high voltage

728
00:44:02,120 --> 00:44:06,960
Speaker 1: DC strategy, it did make sense for these very very

729
00:44:07,000 --> 00:44:11,560
Speaker 1: long cables that would connect something like an offshore island

730
00:44:11,960 --> 00:44:14,600
Speaker 1: to the mainland, so that you could send power out

731
00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:16,600
Speaker 1: to the island without having to build a power station

732
00:44:16,880 --> 00:44:20,319
Speaker 1: on the island itself, then it made more sense to

733
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:23,560
Speaker 1: use high voltage DC current, but way back in the

734
00:44:23,640 --> 00:44:28,959
Speaker 1: day it did not exist. Today, we can also use

735
00:44:29,120 --> 00:44:33,240
Speaker 1: DC to connect two different alternating current power grids together,

736
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:38,239
Speaker 1: which is non trivial because you remember I said alternating

737
00:44:38,280 --> 00:44:42,520
Speaker 1: current involves current moving back and forth across a circuit

738
00:44:43,120 --> 00:44:46,000
Speaker 1: many times per second. In the United States, it's sixty

739
00:44:46,040 --> 00:44:48,840
Speaker 1: times per second. It's sixty hertz. The reason that we

740
00:44:49,040 --> 00:44:52,600
Speaker 1: chose sixty herts in the first place. That's because of Westinghouse.

741
00:44:52,840 --> 00:44:55,919
Speaker 1: Westinghouse was the company that was really pushing alternating current.

742
00:44:56,160 --> 00:44:58,960
Speaker 1: The company that was really pushing direct current was General Electric.

743
00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:05,799
Speaker 1: Westinghouse said, hey, sixty herts. That frequency works best with

744
00:45:05,960 --> 00:45:09,600
Speaker 1: the lamps that we're producing today. If we do a

745
00:45:09,680 --> 00:45:13,440
Speaker 1: different frequency, the lamps tend to flicker. To get nice,

746
00:45:13,560 --> 00:45:17,600
Speaker 1: steady light, we needed an alternating current of sixty hertz.

747
00:45:18,120 --> 00:45:20,640
Speaker 1: If you went with fifty or twenty five, which were

748
00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:25,160
Speaker 1: other rates that people were considering, the lamps would flicker.

749
00:45:25,680 --> 00:45:26,959
Speaker 2: So sixty herts was.

750
00:45:27,120 --> 00:45:29,480
Speaker 1: Arrived at as the standard here in the United States.

751
00:45:29,560 --> 00:45:32,719
Speaker 1: Over in Europe it was fifty herts, largely because of

752
00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:36,400
Speaker 1: monopolies that were rising up in the electrical utility industry.

753
00:45:37,800 --> 00:45:40,319
Speaker 1: But if you want to connect two alternating current power

754
00:45:40,360 --> 00:45:46,200
Speaker 1: systems together, you need to have two There are two

755
00:45:46,200 --> 00:45:49,960
Speaker 1: frequencies synced up. So if you think of this as

756
00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:54,080
Speaker 1: two different cables, which is drastically oversimplifying things, but think

757
00:45:54,080 --> 00:45:56,319
Speaker 1: of it as two different cables, you would want the

758
00:45:56,400 --> 00:45:59,520
Speaker 1: signals to be moving left to right in perfect synchronization.

759
00:46:00,120 --> 00:46:02,400
Speaker 1: If they were out of phase with one another, you

760
00:46:02,440 --> 00:46:07,080
Speaker 1: couldn't really transmit power but using high voltage DC, you

761
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:10,640
Speaker 1: could convert alternating current from one system into direct current,

762
00:46:11,200 --> 00:46:15,800
Speaker 1: send the electricity via direct current to the secondary power grid,

763
00:46:16,120 --> 00:46:19,040
Speaker 1: where it would then be converted back into alternating current

764
00:46:19,160 --> 00:46:22,359
Speaker 1: in sync with the second power grid. So you can

765
00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:25,000
Speaker 1: have two alternating current power grids that are out of

766
00:46:25,040 --> 00:46:27,680
Speaker 1: sync with each other, link them with a direct current

767
00:46:28,920 --> 00:46:32,360
Speaker 1: connection and allow them to share power. This is important

768
00:46:32,400 --> 00:46:35,799
Speaker 1: when you start having massive power grids that need to

769
00:46:35,800 --> 00:46:38,200
Speaker 1: connect with one another. Otherwise you have a bunch of

770
00:46:38,480 --> 00:46:41,840
Speaker 1: power grids that are acting like independent little island nations

771
00:46:42,560 --> 00:46:49,239
Speaker 1: instead of an interconnected system. So direct current definitely has

772
00:46:49,280 --> 00:46:53,640
Speaker 1: its place even today, even though alternating current one out.

773
00:46:55,680 --> 00:46:57,719
Speaker 1: And I think it's kind of cool that it ultimately

774
00:46:57,800 --> 00:46:59,919
Speaker 1: comes down to the reason we have a sixty hertz

775
00:47:00,680 --> 00:47:03,160
Speaker 1: standard here in the United States is because Westinghouse wanted

776
00:47:03,160 --> 00:47:06,640
Speaker 1: the lamps to be nice and steady. But it took

777
00:47:06,640 --> 00:47:08,359
Speaker 1: a long time for all of that to shake out.

778
00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:11,320
Speaker 1: It's not like we just immediately switched over to alternating current.

779
00:47:11,440 --> 00:47:14,000
Speaker 1: Like people didn't just look at the two different standards

780
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:18,360
Speaker 1: and say alternating current is clearly superior. It was a

781
00:47:18,600 --> 00:47:25,040
Speaker 1: long battle, publicly fought with press releases and press stunts.

782
00:47:25,160 --> 00:47:28,600
Speaker 1: Media stunts were performed by both sides. You probably have

783
00:47:28,680 --> 00:47:30,960
Speaker 1: heard the story of top Seed, the elephant that was

784
00:47:31,000 --> 00:47:34,480
Speaker 1: electrocuted to death with alternating current to show the dangers

785
00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:38,000
Speaker 1: of high voltage. A high voltage alternating current killing an

786
00:47:38,040 --> 00:47:44,279
Speaker 1: elephant was meant to show, hey, this type of electricity

787
00:47:44,520 --> 00:47:47,239
Speaker 1: is dangerous. You could die as a result of it,

788
00:47:48,280 --> 00:47:51,200
Speaker 1: and people did die as they were working on things

789
00:47:51,239 --> 00:47:58,000
Speaker 1: like transformers. So neither side was shying away from publicly

790
00:47:58,080 --> 00:48:02,040
Speaker 1: addressing the bens of their own method, while saying the

791
00:48:02,120 --> 00:48:05,280
Speaker 1: other method, whether it was direct current or alternating current,

792
00:48:05,800 --> 00:48:08,680
Speaker 1: was quite literally the worst thing to ever happen to

793
00:48:08,719 --> 00:48:11,239
Speaker 1: human beings in the history forever, or at least does

794
00:48:11,400 --> 00:48:18,680
Speaker 1: it seemed like during these pres events. Now, some early

795
00:48:18,800 --> 00:48:22,440
Speaker 1: victories gave alternating current a real advantage, and the first

796
00:48:22,440 --> 00:48:26,040
Speaker 1: of those probably was the Chicago World's Fair in eighteen

797
00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:29,759
Speaker 1: ninety three. And this was a really big deal. The

798
00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:32,920
Speaker 1: World's Fair was falling on the same year as the

799
00:48:32,960 --> 00:48:36,600
Speaker 1: four hundredth anniversary of Columbus arriving in the New World,

800
00:48:36,760 --> 00:48:38,839
Speaker 1: which in the United States was seen as a really

801
00:48:38,880 --> 00:48:42,880
Speaker 1: important milestone. I'm not going to dive into the historical

802
00:48:42,960 --> 00:48:46,560
Speaker 1: boondoggle that was the Columbus expeditions. Other than to say,

803
00:48:47,560 --> 00:48:50,400
Speaker 1: there are better heroes to hold up than Christopher Columbus

804
00:48:50,880 --> 00:48:53,560
Speaker 1: not a great hero, as it turns out, unless you

805
00:48:53,840 --> 00:49:00,480
Speaker 1: are completely ignoring the plights of people that Columbus also

806
00:49:00,560 --> 00:49:03,560
Speaker 1: completely ignored. I recommend you do not do that, because

807
00:49:03,600 --> 00:49:06,600
Speaker 1: it's a terrible thing to do. But it was seen

808
00:49:06,640 --> 00:49:08,239
Speaker 1: at the time as a really big deal for the

809
00:49:08,320 --> 00:49:11,960
Speaker 1: United States to celebrate this four hundredth anniversary, and the

810
00:49:12,000 --> 00:49:14,480
Speaker 1: World's Fair was an opportunity for the United States to

811
00:49:14,520 --> 00:49:17,920
Speaker 1: show off the direction of the country, and so for

812
00:49:18,239 --> 00:49:21,839
Speaker 1: much of the expedition or exhibition I should say, rather

813
00:49:21,880 --> 00:49:26,320
Speaker 1: not expedition. Much of the exhibition was dedicated to showing

814
00:49:26,360 --> 00:49:28,400
Speaker 1: off what the future of the United States was going

815
00:49:28,440 --> 00:49:31,160
Speaker 1: to be about, and that included future technologies and the

816
00:49:31,239 --> 00:49:33,680
Speaker 1: use of electricity, which at that point was still pretty

817
00:49:33,760 --> 00:49:36,680
Speaker 1: limited in the US. Only a few places were using it.

818
00:49:37,080 --> 00:49:39,640
Speaker 1: But this was seen as the stuff of the future.

819
00:49:40,360 --> 00:49:42,000
Speaker 1: So the fair was going to be lit up at

820
00:49:42,120 --> 00:49:45,120
Speaker 1: night by electric lamps rather than gas lamps. But how

821
00:49:45,200 --> 00:49:48,399
Speaker 1: would the power be delivered to the fair. We'll tell

822
00:49:48,400 --> 00:49:51,520
Speaker 1: that story in just a second, but first let's take

823
00:49:51,520 --> 00:50:02,040
Speaker 1: another quick break to thank our sponsor. All right, So

824
00:50:02,120 --> 00:50:06,759
Speaker 1: you have Edison working along with General Electric with the

825
00:50:06,800 --> 00:50:10,760
Speaker 1: backing of JP Morgan, and that's one of the different

826
00:50:10,800 --> 00:50:13,840
Speaker 1: parties that are really pushing to be the deliverer of

827
00:50:13,880 --> 00:50:17,840
Speaker 1: electricity to the Chicago World's Fair. Uh, and they're pushing

828
00:50:17,920 --> 00:50:21,960
Speaker 1: direct current. They're all about DC. Then you have Westinghouse,

829
00:50:22,080 --> 00:50:25,720
Speaker 1: George Westinghouse's company, and by extension, you have Nikola Tesla

830
00:50:25,760 --> 00:50:29,080
Speaker 1: who was working with Westinghouse as the other major party,

831
00:50:29,120 --> 00:50:33,880
Speaker 1: and they're pushing alternating current. Now, the General Electric Company

832
00:50:35,120 --> 00:50:39,160
Speaker 1: asked for one point eight million dollars to light the fair.

833
00:50:39,440 --> 00:50:42,440
Speaker 1: That was their bill. That's what they said to the organizers.

834
00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:46,200
Speaker 1: They said, we can provide the electricity you need to

835
00:50:46,280 --> 00:50:49,680
Speaker 1: turn this into a sparkling wonderland and it'll only cost

836
00:50:49,719 --> 00:50:53,640
Speaker 1: you a measley one point eight million dollars. The fair

837
00:50:54,080 --> 00:50:55,279
Speaker 1: organizer said.

838
00:50:56,000 --> 00:50:59,440
Speaker 2: No, that's like a lot of money, and we'd rather.

839
00:50:59,560 --> 00:51:01,920
Speaker 1: Not spend one point eight million dollars.

840
00:51:02,239 --> 00:51:04,719
Speaker 2: And so the offer was rejected.

841
00:51:05,719 --> 00:51:10,799
Speaker 1: The two of them, Edison and JP Morgan, went back

842
00:51:10,840 --> 00:51:14,000
Speaker 1: to the drawing board, decided they would make a second offer,

843
00:51:14,120 --> 00:51:16,279
Speaker 1: a lower offer, and said, oh, you know what, we

844
00:51:16,280 --> 00:51:18,439
Speaker 1: could probably do it for five hundred and fifty four

845
00:51:18,520 --> 00:51:21,759
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, so less than half of what we asked

846
00:51:21,760 --> 00:51:24,239
Speaker 1: for before. We as for nearly two million earlier, but

847
00:51:24,600 --> 00:51:26,279
Speaker 1: we think we can get down to five hundred and

848
00:51:26,280 --> 00:51:31,759
Speaker 1: fifty four thousand dollars. However, Westinghouse undercut that offer with

849
00:51:31,840 --> 00:51:34,800
Speaker 1: a proposal to light the fare for the princely sum

850
00:51:34,880 --> 00:51:38,960
Speaker 1: of three hundred and ninety nine thousand dollars, using alternating

851
00:51:38,960 --> 00:51:42,120
Speaker 1: current instead of direct current. And that's what the fare

852
00:51:42,239 --> 00:51:46,040
Speaker 1: organizers wanted to hear. Three hundred ninety nine thousand dollars

853
00:51:46,080 --> 00:51:48,719
Speaker 1: is still significantly less than five hundred and fifty four

854
00:51:48,800 --> 00:51:51,759
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. So the fair organizer said, Westinghouse, you get

855
00:51:51,760 --> 00:51:55,400
Speaker 1: the contract. And it all really came down to a

856
00:51:55,440 --> 00:51:57,439
Speaker 1: price tag when you get down to it. It wasn't

857
00:51:57,480 --> 00:52:01,080
Speaker 1: that they were specifically saying alternating current is superior to

858
00:52:01,160 --> 00:52:03,799
Speaker 1: direct current. That's not what the World's Fair organizers were

859
00:52:03,840 --> 00:52:07,560
Speaker 1: really saying. They were saying, we can afford alternating current,

860
00:52:07,640 --> 00:52:11,560
Speaker 1: and direct current is prohibitively expensive for this project. So

861
00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:15,600
Speaker 1: alternating current got the deal, and because the Chicago World's

862
00:52:15,640 --> 00:52:17,680
Speaker 1: Fair was such a big deal in eighteen ninety three,

863
00:52:18,600 --> 00:52:21,759
Speaker 1: the world's attention was on Chicago at the time. The

864
00:52:21,920 --> 00:52:26,960
Speaker 1: display of the fair lit up at night was incredibly

865
00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:31,240
Speaker 1: impressive and powerful, and it was a great advertising campaign

866
00:52:31,239 --> 00:52:35,439
Speaker 1: for Westinghouse an alternating current, honestly because it was such

867
00:52:35,480 --> 00:52:39,160
Speaker 1: an effective display of what alternating current could do, a

868
00:52:39,200 --> 00:52:43,480
Speaker 1: lot of different cities and companies were interested in pursuing

869
00:52:44,040 --> 00:52:48,400
Speaker 1: getting their various areas wired for electricity using alternating current.

870
00:52:50,120 --> 00:52:53,920
Speaker 1: In eighteen ninety five, Westinghouse won another important battle in

871
00:52:53,960 --> 00:52:57,120
Speaker 1: the US by landing a contract for the Niagara Falls

872
00:52:57,200 --> 00:53:01,200
Speaker 1: Power Station. The generator would be an allnating current system

873
00:53:01,280 --> 00:53:04,360
Speaker 1: instead of direct current. Edison in General Electric had pursued

874
00:53:04,360 --> 00:53:07,160
Speaker 1: this as well, but they failed. And here's where it

875
00:53:07,160 --> 00:53:09,880
Speaker 1: comes in handy to talk about how these generators tend

876
00:53:10,040 --> 00:53:12,720
Speaker 1: to work. And you've got a lot of different ways

877
00:53:12,760 --> 00:53:17,399
Speaker 1: of generating electricity, right like you've got hydro power, you've

878
00:53:17,440 --> 00:53:21,160
Speaker 1: got wind power, you've got coal power, you've got nuclear power.

879
00:53:22,000 --> 00:53:25,800
Speaker 1: Now they all ultimately work on a very similar principle.

880
00:53:25,920 --> 00:53:29,719
Speaker 1: All of those tend to work the same way ultimately

881
00:53:29,840 --> 00:53:32,440
Speaker 1: when you get down to the very basics of what

882
00:53:32,600 --> 00:53:36,520
Speaker 1: is happening, and that is they all involve some sort

883
00:53:36,560 --> 00:53:42,600
Speaker 1: of mechanical system where a conductor is moving through a

884
00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:47,200
Speaker 1: magnetic field so that it's experiencing magnetic flux and generating

885
00:53:47,239 --> 00:53:51,680
Speaker 1: a current or current is induced to flow through the conductor,

886
00:53:51,760 --> 00:53:54,040
Speaker 1: is a better way of putting it. In other words,

887
00:53:54,120 --> 00:53:57,759
Speaker 1: these are all very large systems that are following those

888
00:53:57,800 --> 00:54:02,040
Speaker 1: same basics that were happening at the beginning of the

889
00:54:02,080 --> 00:54:06,160
Speaker 1: nineteenth century when people were just starting to move conductors.

890
00:54:06,160 --> 00:54:09,400
Speaker 1: When Faraday was moving a conductive disc through a magnetic

891
00:54:09,440 --> 00:54:12,160
Speaker 1: field and observing the fact that electric current was flowing

892
00:54:12,200 --> 00:54:15,759
Speaker 1: through the disc. That's what all these systems ultimately do.

893
00:54:15,880 --> 00:54:19,399
Speaker 1: It's just on a much, much, much larger scale. It's

894
00:54:19,440 --> 00:54:24,360
Speaker 1: nothing as modest as the Faraday's approach. Now, with a

895
00:54:24,400 --> 00:54:28,200
Speaker 1: coal or a nuclear power plant, you're using heat to

896
00:54:28,280 --> 00:54:31,960
Speaker 1: convert water into steam. So you've got a boiler essentially,

897
00:54:32,360 --> 00:54:35,799
Speaker 1: and the boilers filled with water, and the heat is

898
00:54:35,840 --> 00:54:39,520
Speaker 1: provided either through nuclear radiation or through a coal furnace,

899
00:54:39,960 --> 00:54:42,840
Speaker 1: so you're burning coal essentially, the heat up water, convert

900
00:54:42,880 --> 00:54:46,880
Speaker 1: the water to steam. The steam then turns a turbine,

901
00:54:47,200 --> 00:54:49,400
Speaker 1: and the turbine is connected to a system that moves

902
00:54:49,440 --> 00:54:53,320
Speaker 1: the combination of magnets and conductors, so that you generate

903
00:54:53,360 --> 00:54:57,560
Speaker 1: the alternating current. Now, with coal plants, the heat is

904
00:54:57,560 --> 00:55:01,120
Speaker 1: coming from that massive furnace and you're burning, so obviously

905
00:55:01,120 --> 00:55:04,560
Speaker 1: there's a downside here. You're emitting a lot of greenhouse gases,

906
00:55:04,640 --> 00:55:06,680
Speaker 1: namely carbon dioxide.

907
00:55:06,920 --> 00:55:09,640
Speaker 2: So it's a very powerful way to.

908
00:55:09,600 --> 00:55:13,719
Speaker 1: Generate electricity, but it's very It creates a lot of

909
00:55:13,760 --> 00:55:17,040
Speaker 1: pollution as a result, which is why when people talk

910
00:55:17,040 --> 00:55:22,560
Speaker 1: about electricity being cleaner than fossil fuels, it really just

911
00:55:22,840 --> 00:55:24,760
Speaker 1: it just means that you have to look a step further,

912
00:55:24,920 --> 00:55:27,440
Speaker 1: where is the electricity coming from. If the electricity is

913
00:55:27,480 --> 00:55:29,680
Speaker 1: coming from a coal power plant, you still have a

914
00:55:29,680 --> 00:55:32,520
Speaker 1: problem there because you have the power plant emitting carbon

915
00:55:33,200 --> 00:55:36,680
Speaker 1: into the atmosphere as well as other greenhouse gases and

916
00:55:37,360 --> 00:55:42,040
Speaker 1: other types of pollution. So even though the electric utensil,

917
00:55:42,160 --> 00:55:47,480
Speaker 1: or vehicle or whatever itself may not emit any carbon emissions,

918
00:55:48,840 --> 00:55:51,840
Speaker 1: the source of its electricity might be emitting a lot

919
00:55:52,040 --> 00:55:57,880
Speaker 1: of carbon emissions. So coal power plants are not clean right,

920
00:55:58,000 --> 00:56:01,720
Speaker 1: You're not getting clean electricity that way. Nuclear power plants

921
00:56:01,800 --> 00:56:04,920
Speaker 1: also have a problem with generating nuclear waste. Now we're

922
00:56:04,920 --> 00:56:09,560
Speaker 1: getting better and better about finding ways to maximize nuclear

923
00:56:09,600 --> 00:56:12,840
Speaker 1: material and minimize nuclear waste, so that that doesn't become

924
00:56:12,840 --> 00:56:16,160
Speaker 1: as big an issue as was feared, because, of course,

925
00:56:16,200 --> 00:56:18,480
Speaker 1: the worry is where do you put the nuclear waste

926
00:56:18,520 --> 00:56:24,080
Speaker 1: which will maintain a nuclear dangerous level of nuclear radiation

927
00:56:24,280 --> 00:56:29,000
Speaker 1: thousands of years after you gather it. Where do you

928
00:56:29,040 --> 00:56:32,120
Speaker 1: put that stuff? And no one wants it near them, right,

929
00:56:32,200 --> 00:56:36,840
Speaker 1: You don't want to have a nuclear waste holding facility

930
00:56:36,880 --> 00:56:39,160
Speaker 1: anywhere close to where you live. It's a scary thought.

931
00:56:39,880 --> 00:56:42,200
Speaker 1: But nuclear power plants do a very similar thing to

932
00:56:42,239 --> 00:56:46,040
Speaker 1: carbon coal power plants in that you use nuclear radiation

933
00:56:46,160 --> 00:56:49,560
Speaker 1: to heat water converted into steam and turn turbine. Both

934
00:56:49,640 --> 00:56:52,879
Speaker 1: in coal plants and in nuclear power plants, the goal

935
00:56:52,920 --> 00:56:55,480
Speaker 1: is to create essentially a closed system for the water,

936
00:56:56,120 --> 00:57:00,640
Speaker 1: so the water evaporates, turns into steam, turns the turbine.

937
00:57:00,640 --> 00:57:04,359
Speaker 1: Once the pressure builds up, turbine ends up generating electricity.

938
00:57:04,640 --> 00:57:07,759
Speaker 1: The steam continues through the system until it starts to

939
00:57:07,760 --> 00:57:11,520
Speaker 1: cool down, condense back into water, and go back into

940
00:57:11,640 --> 00:57:14,279
Speaker 1: the boiler tank so that it can be turned into

941
00:57:14,320 --> 00:57:16,400
Speaker 1: steam again. That way, you can just keep using that

942
00:57:16,480 --> 00:57:19,640
Speaker 1: same water over and over again, and it is separated

943
00:57:20,080 --> 00:57:22,720
Speaker 1: from the source of heat, so you're not getting pollution

944
00:57:22,920 --> 00:57:25,920
Speaker 1: from the coal furnace or rate, or you're not getting

945
00:57:25,920 --> 00:57:31,960
Speaker 1: any radioactive material from the source of nuclear radiation. The

946
00:57:32,000 --> 00:57:35,320
Speaker 1: two are separate systems. It's just that the water in

947
00:57:35,400 --> 00:57:38,560
Speaker 1: one system is heated by the output of the other system.

948
00:57:40,160 --> 00:57:43,240
Speaker 1: Very clever design because it means that you're not having

949
00:57:43,280 --> 00:57:48,600
Speaker 1: to constantly replenish the water in your closed system. You

950
00:57:48,600 --> 00:57:50,720
Speaker 1: do have to occasionally do it because you're no system

951
00:57:50,760 --> 00:57:53,160
Speaker 1: is completely perfect. You're going to have some sort of

952
00:57:53,240 --> 00:57:55,640
Speaker 1: loss somewhere on there, so you do have to top

953
00:57:55,680 --> 00:57:59,920
Speaker 1: it off occasionally. But keeping them separate limits the amount

954
00:57:59,920 --> 00:58:05,080
Speaker 1: of pollution that you have. That being said, you know

955
00:58:05,160 --> 00:58:08,600
Speaker 1: there are alternatives to cold plants and nuclear power plants

956
00:58:08,960 --> 00:58:13,400
Speaker 1: that don't emit any carbon radiation or a carbon pollution

957
00:58:13,640 --> 00:58:17,680
Speaker 1: or any radioactive material either. So hydropower is a great

958
00:58:17,680 --> 00:58:20,360
Speaker 1: example of that. Wind power also they eliminate the need

959
00:58:20,400 --> 00:58:23,120
Speaker 1: to heat up water entirely, but you're still talking about

960
00:58:23,160 --> 00:58:27,080
Speaker 1: the mechanical energy of turning one of these generators so

961
00:58:27,120 --> 00:58:31,000
Speaker 1: that it induces electricity to flow through a conductor. So

962
00:58:31,040 --> 00:58:34,440
Speaker 1: with hydropower, you engineer a system in which water turns

963
00:58:34,480 --> 00:58:37,120
Speaker 1: the turbine as it typically moves from an area of

964
00:58:37,200 --> 00:58:41,760
Speaker 1: higher elevation to lower elevation. Hydropower dams do this. So

965
00:58:41,800 --> 00:58:44,320
Speaker 1: if you've ever seen a hydropower dam where there's this

966
00:58:44,640 --> 00:58:47,400
Speaker 1: enormous dam stretching across a body of water, and you

967
00:58:47,440 --> 00:58:50,320
Speaker 1: see water pouring out of the base of the dam

968
00:58:50,640 --> 00:58:53,760
Speaker 1: from the higher section into the lower section. So it's

969
00:58:53,880 --> 00:58:58,720
Speaker 1: just shooting out of that lower area. That's where the

970
00:58:58,760 --> 00:59:02,920
Speaker 1: water is turning turbine, So you've got turbines inside the dam.

971
00:59:03,560 --> 00:59:05,880
Speaker 1: Water pressure on the back end of the dam is

972
00:59:05,960 --> 00:59:09,960
Speaker 1: forcing water through some channels. Those channels have the turbines

973
00:59:10,000 --> 00:59:12,800
Speaker 1: in them. The force of the water hitting the turbines

974
00:59:12,880 --> 00:59:15,600
Speaker 1: turns the turbines. The water continues on and pours out

975
00:59:15,640 --> 00:59:22,640
Speaker 1: the other side. Meanwhile, you generate electricity wind power, same thing,

976
00:59:22,720 --> 00:59:26,400
Speaker 1: except you're using wind to turn turbines that have blades

977
00:59:26,400 --> 00:59:29,960
Speaker 1: on them. So wind blows the blades. This causes rotational

978
00:59:30,000 --> 00:59:34,200
Speaker 1: force with the turbines, which then ends up turning a generator,

979
00:59:34,320 --> 00:59:37,280
Speaker 1: just as we've talked about before, and again inducing electricity

980
00:59:37,320 --> 00:59:42,400
Speaker 1: to flow by creating a difference in voltage. Solar power

981
00:59:42,440 --> 00:59:46,520
Speaker 1: is different, or at least it tends to be different. Typically,

982
00:59:46,560 --> 00:59:50,600
Speaker 1: it relies on converting energy from photons striking photo cells

983
00:59:50,960 --> 00:59:54,400
Speaker 1: into electricity, so it is a different means of generating

984
00:59:54,440 --> 00:59:57,360
Speaker 1: electricity than these other methods. But there are also some

985
00:59:57,400 --> 01:00:01,240
Speaker 1: systems that use solar energy to heat water, for example,

986
01:00:01,440 --> 01:00:04,880
Speaker 1: or some other liquid to turn it into steam and

987
01:00:04,920 --> 01:00:08,959
Speaker 1: turn turbines. So this would make it more like coal

988
01:00:09,000 --> 01:00:11,600
Speaker 1: plants or nuclear power plants, except of course you're talking

989
01:00:11,640 --> 01:00:15,720
Speaker 1: about sunlight and water, so you're not emitting any greenhouse

990
01:00:15,720 --> 01:00:18,840
Speaker 1: gases like carbon dioxide. You could emit water vapor if

991
01:00:18,880 --> 01:00:21,440
Speaker 1: it's not a closed system, and water vapor is technically

992
01:00:21,440 --> 01:00:22,240
Speaker 1: a greenhouse gas.

993
01:00:22,240 --> 01:00:23,280
Speaker 2: It just doesn't last.

994
01:00:23,240 --> 01:00:25,600
Speaker 1: Very long in the environment, but it is a very

995
01:00:28,080 --> 01:00:32,400
Speaker 1: effective greenhouse gas for its lifespan. It doesn't last very

996
01:00:32,400 --> 01:00:36,360
Speaker 1: long in the environment, but it is a very absorptive

997
01:00:37,240 --> 01:00:38,240
Speaker 1: greenhouse gas.

998
01:00:39,160 --> 01:00:39,480
Speaker 2: All right.

999
01:00:39,560 --> 01:00:41,560
Speaker 1: Back to the drama of the current wars, so you

1000
01:00:41,600 --> 01:00:44,800
Speaker 1: had Westinghouse in general Electric battling it out big time.

1001
01:00:45,280 --> 01:00:48,200
Speaker 1: GE had some good points. Most of our electronics that

1002
01:00:48,240 --> 01:00:50,840
Speaker 1: we plug into sockets run on direct current, which means

1003
01:00:50,840 --> 01:00:53,440
Speaker 1: if you want to use alternating current to get the

1004
01:00:53,480 --> 01:00:56,320
Speaker 1: electricity to those devices, you then have to convert AC

1005
01:00:56,600 --> 01:00:59,560
Speaker 1: into DC for it to actually work in the thing

1006
01:00:59,640 --> 01:01:03,360
Speaker 1: that you're using. So like a refrigerator for example. I

1007
01:01:03,440 --> 01:01:06,040
Speaker 1: mean that's a modern example, but a refrigerator you needed

1008
01:01:06,160 --> 01:01:10,120
Speaker 1: to convert AC to DC to run the technology.

1009
01:01:09,560 --> 01:01:10,440
Speaker 2: Of the refrigerator.

1010
01:01:10,920 --> 01:01:14,400
Speaker 1: So if you had DC generation and DC transmission, you

1011
01:01:14,440 --> 01:01:16,120
Speaker 1: didn't have to You wouldn't have to you wouldn't have

1012
01:01:16,160 --> 01:01:18,640
Speaker 1: to convert anything. It would cut down on the elements

1013
01:01:18,640 --> 01:01:22,400
Speaker 1: you would need inside the materials themselves. However, you still

1014
01:01:22,440 --> 01:01:25,280
Speaker 1: had the issue of how do you transmit the power

1015
01:01:25,320 --> 01:01:27,760
Speaker 1: from the generating station to where it needs to go,

1016
01:01:28,280 --> 01:01:31,080
Speaker 1: And before the era of high voltage DC, there wasn't

1017
01:01:31,120 --> 01:01:37,240
Speaker 1: really an answer to that question. So Edison and Westinghouse

1018
01:01:37,280 --> 01:01:40,600
Speaker 1: were both making some decisions around this time that were

1019
01:01:40,640 --> 01:01:45,160
Speaker 1: rubbing people the wrong way. Tesla originally worked for Edison.

1020
01:01:45,520 --> 01:01:48,000
Speaker 1: He worked for Edison in Europe for a while. Then

1021
01:01:48,040 --> 01:01:50,920
Speaker 1: he moved to New York and worked with Edison for

1022
01:01:50,960 --> 01:01:53,720
Speaker 1: a while as a contractor, but they had a falling

1023
01:01:53,760 --> 01:01:59,000
Speaker 1: out and then Tesla would end up working over with Westinghouse. However,

1024
01:01:59,080 --> 01:02:02,760
Speaker 1: even at westing Hose Tesla found it frustrating. So one

1025
01:02:02,760 --> 01:02:05,640
Speaker 1: of the problems was Tesla was not very ferocious when

1026
01:02:05,680 --> 01:02:08,080
Speaker 1: it came to protecting his work, and he had really

1027
01:02:08,120 --> 01:02:11,560
Speaker 1: little interest in asserting his authority and demanding what he

1028
01:02:11,720 --> 01:02:14,960
Speaker 1: was worth and protecting his intellectual property and his patents,

1029
01:02:15,920 --> 01:02:19,040
Speaker 1: and if you don't protect patents, people can walk all

1030
01:02:19,080 --> 01:02:22,760
Speaker 1: over you. Tesla believed that he shouldn't have to protect

1031
01:02:22,800 --> 01:02:26,360
Speaker 1: his stuff because it was clearly his and people should

1032
01:02:26,400 --> 01:02:29,080
Speaker 1: just behave better. But in the world we live in

1033
01:02:29,240 --> 01:02:32,720
Speaker 1: sometimes that's not enough, and some people were walking all

1034
01:02:32,760 --> 01:02:36,800
Speaker 1: over him. He would eventually see his finances drain away

1035
01:02:36,920 --> 01:02:40,000
Speaker 1: over time, so as he got older, he became more destitute.

1036
01:02:40,680 --> 01:02:44,240
Speaker 1: He was living for free in various hotels, and typically

1037
01:02:44,720 --> 01:02:47,120
Speaker 1: a hotel would eventually get fed up with Tesla and

1038
01:02:47,160 --> 01:02:50,400
Speaker 1: a victim, and he would just essentially move further down

1039
01:02:50,440 --> 01:02:53,160
Speaker 1: the street and find another hotel that would be thrilled

1040
01:02:53,200 --> 01:02:55,560
Speaker 1: to have the brilliant Nikola Tesla because they thought of

1041
01:02:55,600 --> 01:02:59,480
Speaker 1: it as something that would elevate the hotel and attract

1042
01:02:59,520 --> 01:03:02,560
Speaker 1: more people to their hotel. If Nikola Tesla stays at

1043
01:03:02,600 --> 01:03:05,080
Speaker 1: their hotel, then obviously it's got to be a really

1044
01:03:05,200 --> 01:03:09,520
Speaker 1: awesome place. That was kind of the approach. It's actually

1045
01:03:09,520 --> 01:03:12,360
Speaker 1: pretty sad toward the end of his life, and I've

1046
01:03:12,640 --> 01:03:14,480
Speaker 1: talked about in other episodes of Tech Stuff, So I'm

1047
01:03:14,520 --> 01:03:16,600
Speaker 1: not going to dwell on it here, but just to

1048
01:03:16,600 --> 01:03:19,720
Speaker 1: say that the end of his life was a little tragic.

1049
01:03:20,840 --> 01:03:23,360
Speaker 1: Then there was William Stanlee. That was the guy who

1050
01:03:23,400 --> 01:03:27,360
Speaker 1: made the first commercially viable transformer, the technology that Tesla

1051
01:03:27,440 --> 01:03:32,440
Speaker 1: would improve over time. Stanley also worked for Westinghouse, but

1052
01:03:32,560 --> 01:03:36,920
Speaker 1: Stanley and George Westinghouse had a fundamental disagreement about money.

1053
01:03:37,320 --> 01:03:39,800
Speaker 1: The disagreement was that Stanley felt he was owed money

1054
01:03:39,840 --> 01:03:46,840
Speaker 1: and Westinghouse said no. So Westinghouse's lawyer, Franklin Pope, actually

1055
01:03:46,960 --> 01:03:52,720
Speaker 1: urged George Westinghouse to drop Stanley's business entirely. That same lawyer,

1056
01:03:53,360 --> 01:03:58,360
Speaker 1: Franklin Pope, would later die in a terrible accident. He

1057
01:03:58,480 --> 01:04:02,040
Speaker 1: was checking on one of stan Lee's transformers and was

1058
01:04:02,760 --> 01:04:07,200
Speaker 1: fatally electrocuted. That's redundant. Electrocuted is fatal. A lot of

1059
01:04:07,240 --> 01:04:10,080
Speaker 1: people use electrocute to mean you got shocked, but electrocute

1060
01:04:10,120 --> 01:04:13,520
Speaker 1: means you died as a result of electricity flowing through you.

1061
01:04:14,120 --> 01:04:18,720
Speaker 1: So yeah, that was some pretty nasty irony there that

1062
01:04:18,800 --> 01:04:22,560
Speaker 1: the lawyer who advised Westinghouse to get rid of William

1063
01:04:22,600 --> 01:04:27,760
Speaker 1: Stanley would ultimately die by being electrocuted by one of

1064
01:04:27,800 --> 01:04:32,960
Speaker 1: Stanley's transformers. Stanley himself set out to found his own company.

1065
01:04:33,360 --> 01:04:36,320
Speaker 1: He was hoping to rival General Electric in Westinghouse. He

1066
01:04:36,400 --> 01:04:39,760
Speaker 1: was hoping to become the third big player in that

1067
01:04:39,840 --> 01:04:43,080
Speaker 1: space in the United States. But he found it really

1068
01:04:43,080 --> 01:04:45,960
Speaker 1: frustrating because he had to constantly go to court to

1069
01:04:46,080 --> 01:04:48,000
Speaker 1: fight for his patents.

1070
01:04:48,040 --> 01:04:49,520
Speaker 2: He was kind of the opposite of Tesla.

1071
01:04:49,800 --> 01:04:53,720
Speaker 1: Whereas Tesla was sort of lackadaisical in protecting his electual property,

1072
01:04:54,000 --> 01:04:56,600
Speaker 1: Stanley was fierce, but he had to keep doing it

1073
01:04:56,680 --> 01:04:58,840
Speaker 1: over and over again. It's not like you can protect

1074
01:04:58,840 --> 01:05:01,680
Speaker 1: it once and you're fine. Every time there was a threat,

1075
01:05:01,680 --> 01:05:03,840
Speaker 1: he would have to go to court, and this really

1076
01:05:03,880 --> 01:05:06,440
Speaker 1: started to wear on him so much so that he

1077
01:05:07,280 --> 01:05:09,360
Speaker 1: wasn't able to keep control of his own company. It

1078
01:05:09,400 --> 01:05:13,320
Speaker 1: was kind of rested away from him. Eventually, Stanley's company

1079
01:05:13,400 --> 01:05:17,320
Speaker 1: would get swallowed up by General Electric. So he had

1080
01:05:17,360 --> 01:05:22,200
Speaker 1: worked for Westinghouse, left Westinghouse on bad terms, founded his

1081
01:05:22,240 --> 01:05:24,880
Speaker 1: own company, and then that company would get acquired by

1082
01:05:24,880 --> 01:05:29,200
Speaker 1: Westinghouse's big competitor, General Electric. Kind of ugly there too.

1083
01:05:31,800 --> 01:05:35,880
Speaker 1: He would ultimately decide to focus on other things besides electricity.

1084
01:05:35,920 --> 01:05:40,160
Speaker 1: He got completely disillusioned by all the politics and backstabbing,

1085
01:05:40,720 --> 01:05:42,800
Speaker 1: and so he started to go and work on other things.

1086
01:05:42,800 --> 01:05:46,520
Speaker 1: He eventually invented an improved thermos, for example. So he

1087
01:05:46,600 --> 01:05:48,920
Speaker 1: kept on working on things till the end of his life,

1088
01:05:48,960 --> 01:05:54,360
Speaker 1: but he wasn't eager to work in electricity anymore. Edison

1089
01:05:54,640 --> 01:05:58,360
Speaker 1: himself became sort of a victim of his own success.

1090
01:05:59,000 --> 01:06:02,640
Speaker 1: So he built this laboratory in Menlo Park, and it

1091
01:06:02,760 --> 01:06:05,680
Speaker 1: was a place of great innovation, some of it driven

1092
01:06:05,840 --> 01:06:08,720
Speaker 1: largely by Edison himself, some of it by his employees.

1093
01:06:09,040 --> 01:06:11,200
Speaker 1: But the reason they had a place to work was

1094
01:06:11,240 --> 01:06:14,720
Speaker 1: because Edison had created that place. So, whether you want

1095
01:06:14,720 --> 01:06:18,360
Speaker 1: to think of it as direct responsibility or indirect responsibility,

1096
01:06:18,480 --> 01:06:21,120
Speaker 1: Edison played an enormous role in.

1097
01:06:21,080 --> 01:06:23,840
Speaker 2: Those early years of electricity.

1098
01:06:24,760 --> 01:06:27,880
Speaker 1: But his lab kept growing, and as it grew, it

1099
01:06:27,920 --> 01:06:31,000
Speaker 1: became more complicated and difficult to manage, and Edison missed

1100
01:06:31,040 --> 01:06:34,160
Speaker 1: it when it was tiny and more intimate. He didn't

1101
01:06:34,240 --> 01:06:38,360
Speaker 1: like corporate structures, he didn't like academic structures.

1102
01:06:38,400 --> 01:06:40,600
Speaker 2: So he was feeling more and more out of place.

1103
01:06:40,360 --> 01:06:42,920
Speaker 1: In his own laboratory, and eventually he decided to move

1104
01:06:42,960 --> 01:06:46,000
Speaker 1: away from it. He became more of a business manager

1105
01:06:46,000 --> 01:06:49,400
Speaker 1: than an engineer or inventor. He did go on to

1106
01:06:49,480 --> 01:06:52,280
Speaker 1: work on other things. He eventually would develop a car

1107
01:06:52,400 --> 01:06:55,200
Speaker 1: battery for his buddy Henry Ford for the Model T.

1108
01:06:55,960 --> 01:06:57,720
Speaker 1: And I'm pretty sure at some point I need to

1109
01:06:57,720 --> 01:07:00,880
Speaker 1: do an episode specifically about Henry four. Maybe I'll get

1110
01:07:00,920 --> 01:07:04,280
Speaker 1: Scott to come on Scott from Car Stuff and we

1111
01:07:04,280 --> 01:07:06,080
Speaker 1: can talk about Henry Ford, because I think that would

1112
01:07:06,080 --> 01:07:09,520
Speaker 1: be a fascinating episode to talk about the guy. Another

1113
01:07:09,760 --> 01:07:14,640
Speaker 1: irascible businessman, Edison himself would die at the age of

1114
01:07:14,680 --> 01:07:18,320
Speaker 1: eighty four due to complications with diabetes. He was known

1115
01:07:18,440 --> 01:07:22,520
Speaker 1: as a brilliant but really grouchy dude. He was standoffish

1116
01:07:22,560 --> 01:07:25,400
Speaker 1: even to his own family. But his work, whether directly

1117
01:07:25,440 --> 01:07:27,720
Speaker 1: on projects or as someone who provided a place for

1118
01:07:27,760 --> 01:07:31,200
Speaker 1: innovation to happen, helped shape our world. And that's pretty

1119
01:07:31,240 --> 01:07:33,480
Speaker 1: much where we're going to leave off. This was the

1120
01:07:33,520 --> 01:07:36,440
Speaker 1: era where more and more companies were starting to put

1121
01:07:36,520 --> 01:07:40,520
Speaker 1: up power grids. Cities would contract with Westinghouse and other

1122
01:07:40,560 --> 01:07:44,520
Speaker 1: companies to design power grids and to deliver electricity to homes.

1123
01:07:44,560 --> 01:07:47,840
Speaker 1: We started seeing electric lights get adopted pretty rapidly and

1124
01:07:47,960 --> 01:07:52,680
Speaker 1: replace gas lamps from that point forward, and alternating current

1125
01:07:52,760 --> 01:07:56,040
Speaker 1: one out at least initially because it was easier to

1126
01:07:56,120 --> 01:08:01,280
Speaker 1: accomplish than high voltage direct current. Today could technically switch

1127
01:08:01,320 --> 01:08:03,400
Speaker 1: to high voltage direct current if we wanted to. We

1128
01:08:03,480 --> 01:08:06,040
Speaker 1: have the technology to do it. But again, we already

1129
01:08:06,080 --> 01:08:11,320
Speaker 1: have an existing infrastructure, so that's hard to just ignore.

1130
01:08:11,480 --> 01:08:16,200
Speaker 1: You've got billions of dollars invested in those infrastructures, and

1131
01:08:16,360 --> 01:08:18,840
Speaker 1: to just scrap them and start over would be an

1132
01:08:19,000 --> 01:08:22,679
Speaker 1: enormous and expensive undertaking, so it's not likely to ever happen.

1133
01:08:23,920 --> 01:08:27,200
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this classic episode, and I hope

1134
01:08:27,240 --> 01:08:30,240
Speaker 1: you're all well, and I'll talk to you again really soon.

1135
01:08:36,479 --> 01:08:41,120
Speaker 1: Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

1136
01:08:41,439 --> 01:08:45,160
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

1137
01:08:45,200 --> 01:08:49,800
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.