No thanks, LinkedIn sends me enough spam without half the world seeing that I read your article and spamming me bc of it. Most any other site I’d clicky but not that one.
CWB... don't be logged in when you click the link. They can't spam you if they don't know it's YOU reading the article. That said, the research is from Wikipedia, so might as well go straight to the "source"... first transformer and first engine.
Year 1885 is a major mile stone in the history of human civilization. Two major inventions in that year gave mankind unlimited power and flexible mobility. Till then, for centuries men depended on their own muscles or of animals (yes really horsepower!) for mechanical power and transport.
Electric transformer as we know today, was developed and applied for patent in that year (March 6) by engineers of Ganz Works, Budapest, Hungary (Karoly Zipernowsky (1853-1942) Otto Blathy (1860-1939) and Miksa Deri). They gave the name transformer (in Latin and Transzformator in Hungarian) instead of secondary generator as used till then. Thomas Alva Edison invented incandescent electric lamp in 1879 and succeeded in economic electric illumination with his lamps and direct current power distribution. But economic transmission and distribution of electricity over long distances and areas was not possible with his system. Bulk power generation at remote locations and transmission of alternating electric power to consumer centers was made possible only through, transformers.
The principle of transformer- electro-magnetic induction – was discovered by Michael Faraday on August29,1831. Alternating current generators were developed around mid1850s. But electricians took nearly 30 years to arrive at a feasible induction device to convert electric power from high to low voltages. Ganz engineers in fact, developed their transformer from the “secondary generator” patented by French-English engineers -Gaulard &Gibbs. The change Ganz engineers made were simple- they provided a closed magnetic core (added yoke to limbs as in today’s parlance) and connected primaries and secondary of transformers in parallel instead of in series as tried till then. But this made huge improvement in transformer performance and lighting quality. Alternating current power transmission and distribution became universal and economical to make Edison’s dream true – my lamps will make candles affordable only to the rich! Nikola Tesla’s invention of induction motor made muscle power irrelevant!!
In the same year of 1885, 800 kms away at Manheim, Germany, Carl Benz built the first motor car. It was a two-seater, three wheeled vehicle, powered by a compact, high speed, single cylinder, four stroke engine, installed horizontally in the rear. On January 29, 1886, Benz applied for a patent (No.37435) for his ‘vehicle powered by a gas engine’ and it can be regarded as the birth certificate of modern auto-mobile. First three wheeled motor vehicles (Car Model No.1) rolled out of the factory in July,1886. But the development of oil-fired internal combustion engine was a long journey like that of transformers. Many pioneers worked on it from 1854 onwards and Benz himself took a patent for a two-stroke gas engine in 1874. Motor vehicles gave people flexibility in travel and transportation. It changed the life style and attitude of people and gave birth to several new industries. Warfare changed and oil became the strategic commodity instead of fodder for horses.
But we all know the days of internal combustion engines are numbered, at least for transport. In India, latest bids for solar power plants, were at INR 2 per unit (less than 3 cents) and electric motors will take over the polluting vehicle engines. Cheap electricity from renewable energy sources will give the world a carbon-neutral energy system till nuclear fusion energy is a feasibility. What will happen to electric transformer? Will it become redundant with progress in power electronics and distributed electric power generation? Only time will unfold the true picture. Today electric technology has developed enabling point to point transmission of 10,000 MW of power over two bunch of conductors to 3000 kms away using power electronics and transformers.
These two inventions in 1885 changed the way mankind lived till then and the world was never the same again.
With the article being posted vial linkedin, I thought it a safe bet.
Decent article - easy to forget how long it took from one discover/breakthrough to another.
If you're interested in this sort of thing, things which start a sort of domino effect, I can highly recommend both the Book and BBC TV miniseries, "The Day the Universe Changed: A Personal View by James Burke":
Love James Burke. An earlier series of his, somewhat harder to find, was called "Connections". The boys had a video game based on it, was fun to watch them work through it.
Yes, 'Connections' was great as well, and along those same lines about how some small discovery or invention would eventually lead to something very large and consequential.
I was waiting for the " decision" by MacGyverS2000. I also noted the insinuation by two gentlemen that I had copied the article from wiki and hence better directly refer to wiki. The choice is theirs.
1) I was cultivating the view expressed in the article for more than 50 years. To be exact, in the early 1960s, when I was in university, our professor one day asked us to conduct a seminar on the most important two inventions of 1850-1950 that changed the world. Students had different views. But my choice was for these two inventions. I felt these are the most important inventions that changed the world to the maximum extent. Of course, all inventions bring out great changes in society. But I believe these two inventions had maximum impact on the world. The interesting point is both inventions were at the same time and the incubation period for both inventions was 30 years. Of course, I modified my presentation and views based on my studies all these years. To know the history of transformer engineering - to some extent electric power- I do not want any wiki or google, because the amount of work that I had done in this area is phenomenal. Regarding automobile, I rechecked the dates with wiki. I still believe these two inventions had maximum impact on mankind if you take all changes during the past two millennia. Just like James Burke, this is only my personal view and I thought someone will come out with a better proposal in this forum.
2) I tried to put the article as pdf document but did not succeed. So I put the link to linked-in. I never knew people have so strong allergies to linked-in. Anyway, in our part of the world, linked-in is quite popular. I put similar articles ( mainly on transformer engineering) every weekend and I have a small group of followers from around the world in linked-in. We never get any spam or mail from linked in. It is true some years back they were giving such notifications, but now no more.
3) IR stuff, true, there are grammatical errors and punctuation mistakes in line with "Eats, Shoots &Leaves" Please bear with my poor English as it is my third language after my mother-tongue and the national language. Anyway, I am a fan of your notings in the Grammar skills forum and I will try to improve my English.
The decision was for davidbeach to decide if the article was about "motors" or "engines" after I said engines, hence why I posted the text.
Some here do have an aversion to LinkedIn... I'm not one of them. But I also learned early on not to follow (most) people as the "articles" they post tend to be editorial-style content with a mild engineering flavor rather than actual engineering details. I like a good bit of engineering history, particularly when it involves a good story (debugging, personal strife, etc.)... but a collections of facts and other people's opinions on why they may or may not matter is definitely not my thing. If it works for you to write such articles and it gets you a following, more power to you.
Didn’t read it, but there were definitely “engines” well before 1885. Maybe not internal combustion engines, but there were engines long before then. So, no, not the first engine. Don’t really know when the first motor so that seemed more likely.
I’ll see your silver lining and raise you two black clouds. - Protection Operations
