Anecdotes about the Pioneers 3

[waross]

From time to time I run across delightful anecdotes about the early pioneers.
Does anyone else share this interest and have any anecdotes to share.
Example.
Steinmetz. When Steinmetz emigrated from Europe he was stopped at immigration and was about to be turned back. A friend of his who had invited hom to America was there to meet him and got involved.
"Why are you sending him back?"
He's a mathematician. America has all the mathematicians we need."
"Didn't he tell you that he's also an electrician?"
"Why didn't he say so. We need electricians."
Steinmetz went to work for his friends engineering firm.
Up until then the design and manufacture of large electric motors was a hit and miss affair. Sme motors worked and if a design worked well it was put into production. However a working design could not nescessarily be scalled up. Many attempts overheated for an unknown reason.
Stienmetz presented a theoretical paper to an engineering confrence. He had been exploring hysteresis. He explaind hysteresis and presented calculations and mathematical models. I understand that there was a rush to obtain copies of his paper by design engineers who realized that he had just presented the reason for the overheating and the tools to predict it. Overnight the design of electric motors became a science instead of a guess.
Henry Ford wanted to instal batteries and starters in his cars, but charging the batteries was a challenge. The meeting was in the evening, and Henry was forced to wait until Mr. Steinmetz' spent his customary time with his friends children before they went to bed. Henry was on the verge of leaving in discust. When the children went to bed and Stienmetz turned his attention to Henry, he quickly sketched out the basic design of the three brush generator which went on to charge automotive batteries for decades.
yours

 

[JAE]

Interesting -

I dredged up this link with a bit more info:

Steinmetz link

I assume its the same guy.

 

[waross]

Thanks for the link JAE,
Yes that's the gentleman. I run across an article titled "The Wizard of Menlo Park" (I think) every decade or so.
I enjoyed you link.
Does anyone have any anecdotes to share about the other pioneers? Edison, Tesla, Clessie Cummins, etc.
yours

 

[MikeHalloran]

According to people who were old enough to have actually known him, one day Henry Ford was touring one of his factories, and wandered into the boiler room, which he found to be incredibly clean, for a boiler room ... or for an operating room. The operating engineer spent his time at work, working, or cleaning. What a concept.

According to the story, Henry rewarded him with a new car.

Some time later, Henry visited that factory again, made it a point to inspect the boiler room, and found it in a condition more representative of most boiler rooms. The engineer was found outside, polishing the car.

Henry very publicly fired him on the spot.

;---

Okay, I have a little trouble with the story myself. Henry fired a lot of people, but he rarely made a fuss about it. According to eyewitnesses, he would engage a person in a very quiet conversation, out of earshot of anyone else, and that person would never be seen again. And, while he was not averse to publicity stunts, he was noticeably frugal, too. Still, it's a nice story.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[Ussuri]

Steinmetz was quite a chap. He memorised the log tables and was able to manipulate the data in his head. Thats one big brain...

 

[Ashereng]

Richard Feynman is a brilliant physicists - with a very interesting life and experiences to boot! There are several books about him, including "Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman!" which I thought was pretty hilarious.

 

[waross]

Hello Ashereng
Thanks for the tip. I found some fascinating anecdotes at

http://www.feynman.com/

Haven't had time to read them all but I intend to.
respectfully

 

[CESSNA1]

The following concerns a question in a physics degree exam at the University of Copenhagen: "Describe how to determine the height of a skyscraper with a barometer."
One student replied:

"You tie a long piece of string to the neck of the barometer, and then lower the barometer from the roof of the skyscraper to the ground. The length of the string plus the length of the barometer will equal the height of the building."
This highly original answer so incensed the examiner that the student was failed immediately. The student appealed on the grounds that his answer was indisputably correct, and the university appointed an independent arbiter to decide the case. The arbiter judged that the answer was indeed correct, but did not display any noticeable knowledge of physics. To resolve the problem it was decided to call the student in and allow him six minutes in which to provide a verbal answer which showed at least a minimal familiarity with the basic principles of physics.
For five minutes the student sat in silence, forehead creased in thought. The arbiter reminded him that time was running out, to which the student replied that he had several extremely relevant answers, but couldn't make up his mind which to use. On being advised to hurry up the student replied as follows:
"Firstly, you could take the barometer up to the roof of the skyscraper, drop it over the edge, and measure the time it takes to reach the ground. The height of the building can then be worked out from the formula H =3D 0.5g x t squared. But bad luck on the barometer."

"Or if the sun is shining you could measure the height of the barometer, then set it on end and measure the length of its shadow. Then you measure the length of the skyscraper's shadow, and thereafter it is a simple matter of proportional arithmetic to work out the height of the skyscraper."

"But if you wanted to be highly scientific about it, you could tie a short piece of string to the barometer and swing it like a pendulum, first at ground level and then on the roof of the skyscraper. The height is worked out by the difference in the gravitational restoring force T =3D 2 pi square root (l / g)."

"Or if the skyscraper has an outside emergency staircase, it would be easier to walk up it and mark off the height of the skyscraper in barometer lengths, then add them up."
"If you merely wanted to be boring and orthodox about it, of course, you could use the barometer to measure the air pressure on the roof of the skyscraper and on the ground, and convert the difference in millibars into feet to give the height of the building."

"But since we are constantly being exhorted to exercise independence of mind and apply scientific methods, undoubtedly the best way would be to knock on the janitor's door and say to him: "If you would like a nice new barometer, I will give you this one if you tell me the height of this skyscraper'."

The student was Niels Bohr, the only Dane to win the Nobel Prize for Physics.

NOTE: Niels Bohr was a physicist who was involved with work on the atom bomb during World War II. He was flown out of Europe in the bomb bay or a British Mosquito Bomber. He almost died of hypoxia (lack of oxygen) when the pilot flew at too high an altitude.

 

[Ashereng]

I have heard various version of the Niels Bohr exam with the barometer.

I have trouble believing it to be anything other than a type of urbn legend, myth.

Niels Bohr did not strike me as that type of person. Feynman and Einstein, yes, Bohrs, not so much. I sort of picture him as more serious than that.

By the way, Feynman is also a Nobel winner.

 

[JAE]

Yes, an urban legend:

Bohr Urban Legend link

 

[quark]

One fine morning Einstein(after he became famous) was standing infront of a fountain in his university, slightly bent to one side, and waving his hand, up and down, to the fountain. This surprised his students but nobody could dare ask hime. One of the girls couldn't resist, went to Einstein and asked an explanation for the peculiar act. Einstein replied "just practice what I do. When you move your hand fast enough with the falling water and focus your gaze, you can see the spectalur view of stream splitting into droplets and this is called as stroboscopic effect.

 

[SlideRuleEra]

This may be an urban legend, too... but the technical details, dates and companies involved seem to check out

http://www.oneoffcd.com/info/historycd.cfm

In the 1970's Philips had developed the audio CD and was looking for partners to produce the consumer hardware to play them. Philips had sized CDs , more or less arbitrarily, to play for about 60 minutes. Supposedly, they played a prototype for the CEO of Sony. He was quite impressed and agreed to have Sony produce consumer CD players - with one change to the CD format. His personal favorite song was Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which takes about 74 minutes to perform (properly). He insisted that CDs be sized so that the Ninth Symphony could be recorded on one CD. Philips increased the physical diameter of the CD to accommodate his request for a 74 minute playing time. And that's the diameter we have today, not only for CDs but DVDs also.

I don't remember where I heard this story, but it was well over 20 years ago.

http://www.SlideRuleEra.net

 

[waross]

Thanks SlideRuleEra
Do you remember the "Winchester Drive"?
For the younger members,
“Noun: Winchester drive. Computer hardware that holds and spins a magnetic or optical disk and reads and writes information on it - disk drive, disc drive, hard drive. Type of: drive.” (I don’t remember ever hearing of an optical ‘Winchester’ drive but this definition may have been written by someone younger than the Winchester.
The story year ago was that when the HDD was in development, a prototype was planned with 30 tracks and 30 sectors per track. It was given the designation of 30:30. Someone said "Hey 30:30! That's a Winchester!" The name stuck even though the parameters were changed in the initial design stage and the model 30:30 was never actually built. Even so, hard drives were called Winchesters for a decade or so.
Actually the design break thru with Winchesters was using a permanently installed hard disk. The main frames used interchangeable hard disks. Changing hard disk packs was a clean room operation by a trained operator. The Read write heads had to have very accurately calibrated positioning to be able to read the changeable disk packs. Someone realized that with a permanently installed disk you didn't need highly accurate absolute positioning, you just needed good repeatability. This made the drives much easier to mass-produce and drastically dropped the prices of hard drives so that they were affordable for personal computers.
I had at least three computers before I got one with a hard drive. I started with audiotape, and 16 K of ram.
respectfully

 

[ScottyUK]

waross,

You have placed me in the other category from 'younger members' - that really makes me feel better!


----------------------------------

I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy it...

 

[SlideRuleEra]

waross - My first contact with computers was in 1967, in college, learning to program engineering problems on an IBM mainframe using Fortran II, with punch cards... which brings up another story...

When Herman Hollerith was developing his punch card system for use in the 1890 US Census, he obviously needed to create cards a certain size. He chose to duplicate the size of US paper currency (of that time) so that existing money handling bins, storage boxes, etc. could be adapted for his uses. Mr. Holerith's company (after mergers etc.) evolved in to today's IBM. The card details & dimensions have changed some over the years, but are still close to the original size.

http://www.SlideRuleEra.net

 

[Ashereng]

I thought Thomas Watson, founder of IBM, came from NCR (National Cash Register).

Are you saying Mr. Hollerith's company evolved into IBM?

 

[waross]

Hello SlideRuleEra and Ashereng;
Googleing on Hollerith was enlightening. Hollerith was not the first to use punched cards, just the first to use them for data.

In the early 1800s, a French silk weaver called Joseph-Marie Jacquard invented a way of automatically controlling the warp and weft threads on a silk loom by recording patterns of holes in a string of cards.

Back to Hollerith,

Whatever the case, we do know that these cards were eventually standardized at 7 and 3/8 inches by 3 and 1/4 inches, and Hollerith's many patents permitted his company (which became International Business Machines (IBM) in 1924) to hold an effective monopoly on punched cards for many years.

respectfully
Thomas Watson

# 1874 born in Campbell, N.Y.
# 1892 began his career at age 18 as bookkeeper in Clarence Risley's Market in Painted Post, N.Y. Later, he sold pianos and sewing machines in the same village.
# 1895 took a job as a salesman with National Cash Register Company and later became general sales manager.
# 1913 married Jeannette M. Kittredge, daughter of an Ohio industrialist. They had four children.
# 1914 joined CTR (Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co) as general manager.
# 1915 became president of CTR.
After he was cleared of antitrust charges lingering from his tenure at NCR, Watson was promoted to president.
# 1924 CTR became IBM.
# 1937 became president of the International Chamber of Commerce.
# 1956 died at age 82.
President Eisenhower declared, "In the passing of Thomas J. Watson, the nation has lost a truly fine American - an industrialist who was first of all a great citizen and a great humanitarian

 

[SlideRuleEra]

Ashereng - Hollerith's firm, "Tabulating Machine Company", merged with "Computing Scale Company of America" and "International Time Recording Company" in 19ll, to form "Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company". Thomas Watson, Sr. did come over from NCR, but in 1914.

In 1924, "Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company" changed it's name to "International Business Machines Corporation".

http://www.SlideRuleEra.net

 

[Ashereng]

Thanks for the clarification.

 

[unclesyd]

Here is information about Joseph Desch of NCR and his work during WWII with the American Bombe and his later patent on a computing machine.

http://www.daytoncodebreakers.org/index.html