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Who discovered ac?

H

HardySpicer

Jan 1, 1970
0
It wasn't Tesla, though he was the first to engineer a complete ac
power distribution system including 3 phase.

I think it was Faraday?


Hardy
 
T

Tim Williams

Jan 1, 1970
0
It wasn't Tesla, though he was the first to engineer a complete ac
power distribution system including 3 phase.

I think it was Faraday?

Hardy

How so? I think you could draw up some characteristics of AC and list
a number of phenomena that result from it. Your goal is then to find
who first used it.

Example: electrostatic spark is full of dV/dt. A spark into a pile of
foam beads will pretty well scatter them because of it (i.e.,
electrostatic induction).

Hmm, I haven't actually tested that. Sounds reasonable, but testing
is good. Now I need a VdG and a pile of open cell styrofoam...

Tim
 
J

JeffM

Jan 1, 1970
0
HardySpicer said:
It wasn't Tesla, though he was the first to engineer a complete ac
power distribution system including 3 phase.
I think it was Faraday?

Faraday knew electricity can make magnetism
and reasoned that magnetism could make electricity.
He was the one that figured out
that you had to *move* either the magnet or the coil.
 
R

Rich Grise

Jan 1, 1970
0
How so? I think you could draw up some characteristics of AC and list
a number of phenomena that result from it. Your goal is then to find
who first used it.

Example: electrostatic spark is full of dV/dt. A spark into a pile of
foam beads will pretty well scatter them because of it (i.e.,
electrostatic induction).

Hmm, I haven't actually tested that. Sounds reasonable, but testing
is good. Now I need a VdG and a pile of open cell styrofoam...
Does it have to be open-cell? Packing peanuts are closed-cell, but
would work as well and be cheaper than OC. (you can get little balls of
OC at the crafts store.)

As to the OQ, I have no idea. It would have to have been subsequent
to the invention of wire. ;-)

We might never know - it could have been the first guy who used
a loop of wire and a magnet to move a compass needle, and who
knows who that was?

Good Luck!
Rich
 
W

whit3rd

Jan 1, 1970
0
It wasn't Tesla, though he was the first to engineer a complete ac
power distribution system including 3 phase.

Actually, AC means a kind of abstraction on the principles of
electromagnetism, that came after Tesla's work. When the design
of alternating current machinery became a REAL science, the
man at the top was Charles Proteus Steinmetz.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Proteus_Steinmetz>

I've also heard it said that, before Steinmetz, they were called
imaginary numbers; now they're called complex numbers.
 
J

JeffM

Jan 1, 1970
0
R

Rich the Philosophizer

Jan 1, 1970
0
I've also heard it said that, before Steinmetz, they were called
imaginary numbers; now they're called complex numbers.

Yes, people are complex - they have a real part, and an imaginary
part. ;-)

Cheers!
Rich
 
A

alien8er

Jan 1, 1970
0
It wasn't Tesla, though he was the first to engineer a complete ac
power distribution system including 3 phase.

I think it could be argued that it was Tesla. His original Big Idea
(while he was in the equivalent of High School!) was actually the
concept of a rotating magnetic field and what could be done with the
currents it would induce in nearby conductors.

Of course he didn't have the pure mathematical background of say
Steinmetz, but the two men were definitely not working in quite the
same arenas.
I think it was Faraday?

First I think it'd help if you specified which aspect of "AC" you
mean. What it covers today is the entire history of electrical and
magnetic phenomena from electrum and lodestones on, in a manner of
speaking.


Mark L. Fergerson
 
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