WEBVTT - The Founding of G&E 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.240 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:13.960 How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:17.400 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:19.640 How Stuff Works in iHeart Radio and I Love All 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:24.919 Things Tech. And In mid August two thousand nineteen, by 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:30.320 financial analyst named Harry Marcopolis released a one hundred seventy 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:35.080 five page report alleging that g E that is General Electric, 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:38.960 the venerable company that is more than a century old, 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:43.760 was secretly on the verge of insolvency. He claimed the 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:47.640 company was using accounting tricks to hide an enormous threat 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:51.640 to its very existence, something akin to the Shenanigans in 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:56.240 Ron polled years ago. And giving Marcopolis some credibility was 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:59.760 his own history. He had raised warning flags about Bernie 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:02.920 made Off before the world found out about made Off's 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:06.440 Ponzi scheme. And to learn more about Ponzi schemes, you 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:09.560 should look up the classic Stuff you should Know episode 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:13.399 All about It. It's great, particularly with the way Chuck 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:18.800 adopted It's a Ponzi scheme into that and subsequent episodes. 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:23.080 Now as I record these episodes, the report and the 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:26.080 responses to it are still part of the news cycle. 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:30.920 GE and some third party analysts have disputed Marcopolis's findings, 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:34.600 claiming that Marcopolis himself actually stands to earn a lot 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:38.200 of money by taking down GE. And Marcopolis has said 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:40.679 he was hired by a Hedge fund to look into 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:44.880 GES practices, but he refuses to name the fund as 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:48.160 of the recording of this podcast. Meanwhile, some other third 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:52.480 parties seem to agree with at least some of Marcopolis's findings, 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:56.400 and GE has been under increased scrutiny for its accounting 0:01:56.400 --> 0:01:59.360 practices over the last few years. So there are a 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:02.600 lot of answered questions around this, and it's by no 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:07.200 means a settled matter. I don't know if Marcopolis's allegations 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:10.200 reflect reality, and in fact, if I'm being totally honest, 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:14.040 I don't even understand all of those allegations. And in 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:16.840 the interest of full disclosure, I have not read the 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:21.040 full one page report, but I did think it would 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:23.640 be good to do a full rundown on the history 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:29.760 of General Electric. It is an incredibly influential company, and 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:35.119 it spans many industries it has had and and it's 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:37.919 heart to stress how big an impact it has had 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:41.520 on the history of the United States in particular and 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:46.079 tech in general. Now I should also add that back 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:49.440 in two thousand twelve, Chris Palette and I recorded three 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:53.679 episodes about the history of GE. But Tech Stuff was 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:56.280 a different kind of show back in those days, so 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:58.160 I thought it might be good to take a deeper 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:02.000 dive into the history and see how GE shaped technology. 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:04.640 And beyond that being said, if I were to do 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:08.959 a comprehensive history on the company and all its subsidiaries, 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:12.640 this series would last a dozen episodes or more. So 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:16.640 to avoid making this episode and this podcast turned into 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:19.440 Ge Stuff, I'm going to try and focus on what 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:22.080 I think are some of the most important historical moments 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:24.160 of GE. And a lot of that is in those 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.400 early years. So let's go back to where it all began. 0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:31.440 And like many corporate histories, this involves going back to 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:34.920 older companies that would form the foundation for the one 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:37.640 we actually want to talk about. So strap in guys 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:42.640 and women and all others. I don't mean to lump 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:46.800 everybody in under the term guys. Anyway, we all know 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:50.200 about Thomas Edison, right He was an inventor. He was 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:54.520 an entrepreneur. He was a master at self promotion and more. 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:58.840 And some folks might throw in some less complementary labels 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:02.120 in there, perhaps suggesting he was also a thief, or 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:04.600 if that's going too far, someone willing to take credit 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:07.200 for the work of people who are working beneath him. 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:11.840 But whatever your opinion of the fellow, Edison got stuff done. 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:15.880 In the eighteen seventies, Edison was working on the light bulb, 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:19.800 and no, he didn't invent the light bulb, but that's 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:22.640 a story for another podcast. In fact, my former co 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:25.560 host Chris Poulett and I actually did cover that story 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:29.120 in an episode titled tech Stuff Gets a Bright Idea, 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:32.800 which published on October twenty nine, two thousand twelve. But 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:36.839 Edison did make improvements on the lightbulb, working with his 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:40.200 engineers to discover a material to serve as a suitable 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:44.359 filament to incandess brightly enough and long enough to be 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:48.440 a practical use. In eighteen seventy eight, Edison founded a 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:52.120 company to concentrate on that goal. It was the Edison 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:56.600 Electric Light Company. He had some big names in US history, 0:04:57.040 --> 0:05:02.560 particularly US financial history, as his vester's folks like the Vanderbilts, 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:06.120 and JP Morgan. Now Morgan is going to become very 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:09.920 important to this story. Now. At the time, he had 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:13.359 yet to find a suitable approach. The lightbulbs he made 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:17.280 would burn out in just a few hours. The following year, 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:20.040 in eighteen seventy nine, his company produced a light bulb 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:24.640 able to last for forty hours. Not superb by any means, 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:28.159 but a real sign of progress, and Edison boldly stated 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:31.760 that his company would make electricity affordable enough so that 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:37.400 only the wealthy would ever burn candles. That same year, again, 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:40.240 eighteen seventy nine, for those who have forgotten, a couple 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:44.560 of teachers created their own company. Edwin James Houston was 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:49.680 a physics teacher, and Alihu Thompson taught chemistry and mechanics 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:53.560 at the Central High School for Boys in Philadelphia. They 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:58.560 created a company called the American Electric Company in New Britain, Connecticut, 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:02.200 with the help of some local and susters. In three 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:06.839 a different group of investors, this time from Massachusetts, bought 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:09.960 out the company from the original group of investors and 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:14.560 the company got a new name, the Thompson Houston Electric Company. 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:17.680 Thompson would head up the research and development department, which 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:21.800 was called the model room. A fellow named Charles A. Coffin, 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:25.960 the head of the investors, would lead the company and 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:28.839 act as a sort of president and chief financial officer, 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:33.800 while Elwyn W. Rice led the manufacturing part of the business. 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:37.080 Both of those names will be important for ge and 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:41.839 Charles Coffin wasn't a physicist by nature. No, he was 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:44.359 a man with a lot of soul. And by that 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:47.800 I meant he was a shoe manufacturer. As a dad 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:52.039 joke for you. So where many of his fellow investors, 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:56.040 They were all from the shoe manufacturing industry, and they 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:59.600 were all located in Lynn, Massachusetts, and they pulled their 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:05.440 money to purchase this burgeoning, this this blossoming electric utility company, 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:09.960 the Thompson Houston Electric Company, would relocate its headquarters to Lynn, Massachusetts. 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:12.680 And we'll get back to that company in just a second. 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:17.040 Edison was not just working on lamps in the eighteen 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:19.960 seventies and eighteen eighties. He was also creating some of 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:24.480 the first generators. These are devices that would convert mechanical 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:29.280 energy into electrical energy. On December seventeenth, eighteen eighty, he 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:34.000 founded the Edison Electric Illuminating Company. In eighteen eighty two, 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:37.520 he was responsible for building and operating the first steam 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:41.640 generated power station in London to power street lamps and 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:44.560 a few private homes that were not far from the 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:47.960 power plant. In New York, he was responsible for creating 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:52.240 an electric power distribution system called Pearl Street Station, which 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:57.400 supplied electricity to fifty nine whole customers in Lower Manhattan. 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:00.680 Now at the time, not everyone was old on the 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:05.960 idea of this new fangled electricity replacing candles and gas lamps, 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:10.240 so as an incentive, Edison's company offered the first three 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:14.360 months of service at no charge. He also began to 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:18.640 acquire smaller businesses that were likewise getting into the electrical 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:23.400 power generator game, and by eighteen ninety this motley group 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:28.120 of companies merged to form Voltron, and by Voltron, I 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:32.280 mean they became the Edison General Electric Company. It was 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:37.319 this company that in eight installed electrical wires and switching 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:40.520 equipment in the United States White House, and that made 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:44.360 Benjamin Harrison, the twenty third President of the United States, 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:48.319 the first US president to have electricity in the White House. 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:53.600 Back to the Thompson Houston Electric Company. Like Edison, Charles 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:56.240 Coffin was determined to be a big player in the 0:08:56.280 --> 0:09:01.000 electricity generating business. He had led Thompson Houston to go international, 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:04.840 and he bought out a British company called the Brush Company, 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:09.599 which did not sell brushes. No, it was actually founded 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:12.640 by a guy named Charles Brush, and it was a 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:16.040 company that had patents for stuff like dynamos and had 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:20.160 been in litigation with Thompson Houston Electric Company over some technologies. 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:23.120 But we all know the old saying, right, if you 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:26.920 can't beat them, by them, and that's what Thompson Houston 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:32.120 Electric Company did. So both Edison General Electric Company and 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:36.520 the Thompson Houston Electric Company were buying up competitors and 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:42.080 more importantly, patent holders, so they each had dozens of 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:45.200 patents to their name, and they were quickly becoming the 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:49.400 dominant players in electricity generation and distribution in the Northeast 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:52.840 United States. And there was just enough overlap to make 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:56.520 business tricky for both companies. Without stepping on the toes 0:09:56.720 --> 0:09:59.439 of the other, they could have become great rivals, and 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:03.200 in fact they kind of were. Henry Villard, who was 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:07.760 the president of Edison General Electric Thomas Edison, wasn't involved 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:10.640 in the day to day operations of the company. Villard 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:14.320 had an idea. Both Edison and Thompson Houston were in 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:17.520 a bit of a cash crunch as the market was 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.400 in a bit of a slump. In addition, because both 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:23.560 companies owned dozens of patents, that made it hard to 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:27.319 be the sole provider of any kind of electrical infrastructure. 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:32.079 Business was too expensive. It was not just expensive to 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:34.440 lay out the infrastructure, but you had all these legal 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:37.679 battles that would come up because one company would allege 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:41.000 that the other company was infringing on one or more patents. 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:44.920 There were several lawsuits pending around patents, and there would 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:47.520 likely be even more in the future. Villard wanted to 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:50.959 solve all these problems by having the two companies merge. 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:57.360 Edison reportedly hated this idea and advised against it. Villard 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:00.800 felt that the Edison company was in a dominent position 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:04.240 and could effectively define the terms of the merger, and 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:07.320 so he tried to move on ahead. Then we get 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:11.480 back to JP Morgan, the financier, that he had arrived 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:15.440 at a similar conclusion regarding the merger, but he felt 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:19.200 that the Thompson Houston company was actually the one that 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:23.160 was in a stronger position, and because Morgan was Mr 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:27.480 money Bags. He went behind Villard's back and began wheeling 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:30.480 and dealing to make the merger happen, but on very 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:35.160 different terms than what Villard was thinking. Morgan's spearheaded the 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:38.000 effort to merge these two companies together to form a 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:41.840 new entity, one that would become known as the General 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:46.040 Electric Company and later g E. The headquarters for the 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:50.040 company would be in Schenectady, New York, and Morrigan effectively 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:54.640 removed Thomas Edison and Henry Villard from any sort of 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:58.920 leadership role. Edison didn't even know about the merger until 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:03.120 the day before it at actually happened. Yikes, With their 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:08.280 powers and patents combined, the two former competitors could rapidly 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:12.520 expand throughout the Northeast and beyond and moreover, the merger 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:16.160 meant that the electric utilities industry in the United States 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:21.640 was now split between just two companies because General Electric 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:25.200 Companies had been swooped up, you know, all Thomas Houston 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:28.640 and Edison Electric had brought up all these smaller utilities, 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:33.319 as had Westinghouse, the other big competitor in the US. 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:36.880 So now the electric utilities industry in the United States 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:40.200 was a do Woppoli. It was either General Electric or 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:43.559 it was Westinghouse and General Electric and Westinghouse had been 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:49.040 part of a patent pool agreement in eight so this 0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:51.800 was a big deal. It would also mean the end 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:55.360 of the war of the currents between direct current and 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:57.920 alternating current. I have a little bit more to say 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:00.760 about that in a minute now. I'm a two minds 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:06.840 about this merger that JP Morgan initiated. Generally speaking, I'm 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:11.000 in favor of competition in markets because that's usually what 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:14.240 ends up being best for the consumer. It's way better 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:17.800 if you have options and choices because companies will do 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:21.680 different things in order to get customers, which usually means 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:24.720 cutting a better deal. But we're also talking about era 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:28.040 in which most people didn't even have access to electricity. 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:31.920 The infrastructure itself had not been laid out, so there 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:34.800 was a real need to do that, and with competition 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:38.520 in the way, it made laying out the basic infrastructure 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:42.400 to get electricity to people harder to do. The same 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:45.960 thing would be true of the telecommunications industry getting telephone 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:49.520 lines out to people. It was tough to do that 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:53.160 while also competing with other companies, and it could mean 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:58.920 that you could have different standards, corporate defined standards that 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:02.920 are incompatible with one another, laying out different regions. It 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:07.080 was just a big mess. So you could argue that 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:11.200 the monopoly like approach was actually beneficial at least to 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:16.400 establish the infrastructure. It just wasn't a good thing to 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:21.560 have as an ongoing thing. The newly formed company started 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:25.360 in eighteen nine two and Charles Coffin would serve as 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:28.680 the first president. So though you could trace the history 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:32.720 as far back as eighteen seventy eight, I think is 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:38.080 a reasonable reckoning day for g s natal day. Now 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:40.680 we're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:42.920 we'll talk a little bit more about what GE was 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:54.480 doing during its first few years of existence. In eighteen 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:59.160 nine three, Edison's company developed an electric locomotive that could 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.640 use electric city to reach speeds of around thirty miles 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:06.640 per hour, which the company showed off at the Chicago Exposition. 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:10.320 This was another opportunity to demonstrate how electricity could be 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:14.160 used to a curious audience, and it helped promote the industry. 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:17.200 You gotta remember again, in eighteen nine three, electricity is 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:19.840 a brand new concept and to show that it had 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:23.280 the power to do something that typically would be done 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:26.400 with a steam engine was a very compelling use case. 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:31.320 In eighteen, Thomas Edison chose to sell his shares in 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:34.760 General Electric. He would continue to serve as a consultant 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:38.040 for the company, but the Wizard of Menlo Park would 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:41.040 no longer be seen as the driving force or voice 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:44.320 for General Electric, and to be fair, ever since the 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:47.880 formation of the company, he had little say in its direction. 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:52.080 While the name and headquarters favored Edison's old company, the 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:55.440 management for General Electric largely came from the Thompson Houston 0:15:55.560 --> 0:16:00.640 Electric Company. So Edison out and at just four years old, 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:05.560 General Electric would become part of financial history. See in 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:10.360 eight six there was this guy named Charles Dow and 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:15.040 he took stocks of twelve large industrial companies to create 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:18.400 a stocks average, and it was a sort of indicator 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:22.160 as to how things were going in the industrial market overall. 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:26.000 You would watch the averaged performance of these twelve companies 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:28.720 and that would kind of tell you how things were going. 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:33.080 As a broad rule of thumb, one of those twelve 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:37.880 original companies was you guessed it, General Electric. All of 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:41.360 the original dozen companies, GE would be the only one 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:44.760 to survive and remain on the dal Jones Industrial Average 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:49.920 for more than a century, though spoiler alert, GE was 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:53.440 removed from the dal Jones Industrial Average in two thousand 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:56.760 and eighteen, but I'll talk more about that in a 0:16:56.880 --> 0:17:01.680 later episode. Also in eighteen, s Eli Hu Thompson, one 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:04.680 of the founders of the Thompson Houston Electric Company and 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:09.000 a consultant at GE, created an improved X ray tube. 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:12.600 So let's talk about X rays for a second. X 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:16.199 rays are a type of electromagnetic radiation, and they have 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:20.399 a very short wavelength, much shorter than visible light. So 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:22.959 if you were to look at a spectrum of electromagnetic 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:27.600 radiation from longer wavelengths to shorter at the longest end 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:32.000 would be radio waves. Those stretch very long, in some 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:35.960 cases more than a kilometer. Then if you move down 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:40.320 the spectrum you come to microwaves. Below that are infrared waves. 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:43.840 Then you have visible light, then you have ultra violet light, 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:46.399 then you have X rays. If you were to go 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.400 even smaller on the wavelength scale, you would then reach 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:53.359 gamma rays. X rays form when a charged particle like 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:57.760 an electron, experiences acceleration or deceleration, and you want to 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:00.479 have it be in a very controlled way to generate 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:05.480 specific X rays of a particular wavelength. Vilhelm Conrad Runchen 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:10.159 and I always mess up that name. I apologize, but anyway, 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:12.679 this is the fellow who first discovered X rays in 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:17.720 eight He was working with cathode ray tubes in a lab. 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:20.320 These are crt s, is the sort of stuff you 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:23.600 would find in old television sets. And he had concluded 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:26.400 that there was a type of ray that was invisible 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:29.399 to the eye, and it could pass through lots of 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:32.720 solid stuff, like heavy black paper. In fact, he figured 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:35.159 it could pass through lots of different stuff, and it 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:39.280 could cast shadows of solid objects. It could pass through 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:43.600 flesh but not bone. And one of the earliest experiments 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:47.000 he conducted with this discovery was to use film to 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:50.359 capture an X ray image of his wife's hand so 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:54.280 that she could see the skeletal structure of her hand. 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:59.360 So an X ray tube converts energy. Specifically, it converts 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:03.080 electrical energy into two other types of energy. One of 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:07.480 those is heat and the other is X radiation. Ideally, 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:10.800 you want to produce specific X radiation and you want 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:15.880 to minimize heat production because really heat represents waste, it's 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:18.359 lost energy. In this case, so are the way we 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:22.000 think of heat being waste energy for a car engine. 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:25.399 As another example, so, an X ray tube is a 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:29.959 particular type of cathode ray tube. That means inside the tube, 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:32.879 which looks a little bit like a lightbulb, you have 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:36.000 an element called a cathode and you have another called 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:40.880 an anode. Electrical current flows through the tube and electrons 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:45.199 flow from cathode to anode. The cathode connects to the 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:48.080 negative side of the circuit, the anode connects to the 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:50.240 positive side. So in other words, you can think of 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:54.080 the cathode as the component that sheds or contributes electrons. 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:58.640 The anode is the component that accepts electrons. As part 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:02.440 of this process, a electrons lose energy as they moved 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:06.520 through the circuit, and this generates X radiation. The material 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:09.720 in the anode and the energy of the electrons determines 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:12.600 how much of the energy gets converted into heat rather 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:17.679 than X radiation. Modern X ray tubes frequently have tungsten anodes. 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:20.920 And there's a lot more we could explore with X rays, 0:20:21.000 --> 0:20:23.680 but honestly, I think that would require its own episode, 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:26.520 so we'll just leave it here. Just know that the 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:29.120 X ray tubes are pretty similar to the tubes you'd 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:33.640 find in old CRT televisions or monitors, though not modern 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:37.200 TVs or displays because they they don't use cathode ray 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:40.520 tubes anymore. The important thing for our episode here is 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:44.040 that GE became a leader in that space, with Thompson 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:47.640 creating the improved X ray tube just one year after 0:20:47.840 --> 0:20:52.439 X rays had even been discovered. In nineteen hundred, Thomas Edison, 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:56.600 still working as a consultant for General Electric, partnered with 0:20:56.960 --> 0:21:01.439 Willis R. Whitney and Charles Steinmitz to create the first 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:06.199 industrial research laboratory in the United States. The purpose of 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:10.879 the facility was to act as an experimental division for GE, 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:15.960 where engineers and scientists would work on innovating new technologies 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:20.640 and new applications of existing tech, and even making scientific breakthroughs. 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:24.600 It was in this facility where GE researchers could conduct 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:29.480 original research projects. The functions of this facility closely resembled 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:33.119 a model practiced in German universities. Much of the early 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:36.360 work in the research lab focused on improving the existing 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:39.199 technologies that GE was producing at the time. It was 0:21:39.280 --> 0:21:42.479 only after a few years that the engineers were starting 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:47.680 to look at totally new types of technology, scientific principles 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:50.480 and applications. Also, this is where we get a little 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:53.639 Monty Python and the Holy Grail with the lab. The 0:21:53.680 --> 0:21:57.879 original lab was not particularly grandiose. It was a barn 0:21:58.080 --> 0:22:00.359 located behind the house of one of the rese searchers 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:04.440 for GE. But, and this will probably come as a 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:08.400 surprise to absolutely nobody, because they were working with electricity 0:22:08.440 --> 0:22:12.919 and heating elements, that particular lab ended up catching fire 0:22:13.320 --> 0:22:17.480 and it burned down. After that, GE re established the 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:20.280 lab in Schenectady, New York. The head of the research 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:23.200 division was a professor from m I. T. And I'm 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:26.560 sure there were many more fires over the following years, 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:29.000 but as far as I know, none of them burned 0:22:29.040 --> 0:22:32.439 the whole lab down to the ground again. One early 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:35.080 invention to come out of the lab was the electric 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:38.800 fan in two. Now, there is a small issue with this, 0:22:39.480 --> 0:22:43.920 and that other inventors had already created electric fans years earlier. 0:22:44.160 --> 0:22:49.960 An inventor with the fabulous name Skylar Scott's Wheeler built 0:22:50.000 --> 0:22:54.560 one in eighteen eighty two, twenty years before GE would 0:22:54.600 --> 0:22:58.480 file patents for its electric fan design. Another guy named 0:22:58.640 --> 0:23:02.120 Philip Deal took the electric fan and flipped it a bit, 0:23:02.320 --> 0:23:05.520 creating the first ceiling fan. He essentially took a fan blade, 0:23:05.800 --> 0:23:08.920 attached it to a sewing machine motor, and then bolted 0:23:08.960 --> 0:23:12.679 that motor to the ceiling in seven Now, I'm not 0:23:12.760 --> 0:23:16.560 sure what innovations General Electric contributed to the electric fan, 0:23:17.040 --> 0:23:19.040 but I will tell you I looked at lots of 0:23:19.080 --> 0:23:22.600 different sources when I was creating these these episodes, and 0:23:22.880 --> 0:23:26.520 many of them talk about two G. E invents the 0:23:26.560 --> 0:23:30.520 electric fan, which clearly is not the case. Uh No, 0:23:30.680 --> 0:23:32.520 they might have come out with an electric fan, and 0:23:32.560 --> 0:23:36.760 they probably did create some interesting innovations with the fan, 0:23:37.160 --> 0:23:39.439 but they didn't truly invent it had been around for 0:23:39.480 --> 0:23:43.639 two decades already. In nineteen o three, GE acquired the 0:23:43.760 --> 0:23:50.240 Stanley Electric Manufacturing Company, which manufactured transformers. In fact, William Stanley, 0:23:50.280 --> 0:23:53.360 the founder of the company, was the developer of the transformer. 0:23:53.640 --> 0:23:58.640 And a transformer in this case isn't a robot in disguise. Rather, 0:23:58.720 --> 0:24:02.600 it's an electrical device that inverts alternating current electricity from 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:06.159 one voltage to another, and depending upon its design, a 0:24:06.200 --> 0:24:10.439 transformer can step up or step down the voltage and 0:24:10.520 --> 0:24:14.000 it only works on alternating current, so let's talk a 0:24:14.040 --> 0:24:17.800 bit about this and why it's important. Alright, at the 0:24:17.920 --> 0:24:21.920 dawn of the age of electricity, you had the current wars, 0:24:22.080 --> 0:24:25.880 the brew haha over whether regions should invest in direct 0:24:25.920 --> 0:24:31.000 current or alternating current for the purposes of distributing electricity. 0:24:31.280 --> 0:24:34.560 Edison was in favor of direct current. Direct current is 0:24:34.600 --> 0:24:36.800 the same sort of current you'd get with a battery. 0:24:37.119 --> 0:24:40.800 The electricity flows one way only through the circuit. It's 0:24:40.840 --> 0:24:45.280 a one direction type of thing. It's simple. But at 0:24:45.280 --> 0:24:51.080 the time, transmitting direct current over longer distances was impractical. 0:24:51.400 --> 0:24:53.879 So it worked fine if you were in a dense 0:24:54.000 --> 0:24:57.920 urban environment and you could build power generation plants at 0:24:57.960 --> 0:25:01.320 regular spots around the region, but it wouldn't didn't work 0:25:01.359 --> 0:25:04.960 so great if you're talking about stretching across rural areas. 0:25:05.680 --> 0:25:11.040 That the transmitting direct current at lower voltages was inefficient. 0:25:11.240 --> 0:25:14.760 You lost too much electricity along the way, and it 0:25:14.920 --> 0:25:17.720 higher curtains. That was considered higher voltages, I should say 0:25:17.960 --> 0:25:22.840 it was considered very dangerous. Now inter alternating current with 0:25:22.960 --> 0:25:26.960 alternating current, the flow of electricity reverses many times a second, 0:25:27.280 --> 0:25:30.000 going one way down the path and then reversing to 0:25:30.119 --> 0:25:33.120 go the other way, and One benefit of this approach 0:25:33.560 --> 0:25:36.560 is that you can create transformers to step up the 0:25:36.640 --> 0:25:41.199 voltages for purposes of transmitting electricity over long distances, and 0:25:41.200 --> 0:25:44.040 then have another transformer on the other end to step 0:25:44.080 --> 0:25:46.320 the voltage back down so it can be used in 0:25:46.400 --> 0:25:50.080