Tuesday, November 15, 2016

History: The Year is 1897

I've uploaded year 1897 to the TSP Wiki...


Here are some one liners...

The Flight of the Eagle and the Lost Expedition -- This is a different angle on the same event mentioned in the previous episode.

Tesla and the Westinghouse Compromise -- I've talked before about AC power and how Tesla sold the patents to Westinghouse for a song. It was still a substantial sum.

In Other News -- The Invisible Man, the Zionist Congress and Alfred Dreyfus is not guilty.

The Flight of the Eagle and the Lost Expedition

(This is a repeat of Journey to the Center of the Earth...in a Balloon that began in 1896.)
The plan is simple. Fill a balloon with hydrogen and climb into the gondola. Drag weighted ropes along the ice to steer the balloon. Within 48 hours they should reach the North Pole and a few days later they should be in China... or maybe Alaska. Simple. But in exploration, all simple things are difficult. Minutes after launch of The Eagle, the Swedish scientist, S. A. Andrée, and two colleagues are lost from sight. Ten hours after that, a storm kicks up and they lose all but one of their "navigation ropes." The Eagle is hundreds of miles off course and it is dragging along the ice. Sixty-five hours into the flight, the balloon is done, but the men are not. For the next 2 months, they make their way across the shifting pack ice while dragging sleds filled with supplies. Then they reach White Island... and die. The supplies remain: tents and stoves and fuel. They know they will never be rescued, but if their goal was to lay down and die, they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble much earlier. Why did they give up the ghost on White Island? The clues are: a dead bear, a diary, and photos. [1] [2]
My Take by Alex Shrugged
Over the years, reports of Andrée and his party popping up in remote villages proliferated like Elvis sightings. A message buoy from his expedition was found with no message. It was the one designated to be dropped at the North Pole. People held out hope, but in 1930, an expedition discovered two bodies in a tent, frozen solid. A name was on the jacket. It was Andrée. Putting the clues together: they reached White Island and killed a polar bear for food. Unfortunately, they were in the habit of eating raw bear meat. They developed the runs and in their weakened state, they finally succumbed. They had made mistakes all along the way, such as never having flown a such a large balloon before and never under rainy, freezing conditions. Their bodies were returned to Sweden and honored as great explorers. In the modern day, they are seen as foolish risk-takers, but in those days, foolish risk-taking was the rule. It is better to draw our lessons based on principle. The lesson is... know your equipment and test it before you need it to save your life... and don't eat raw bear.

Tesla and the Westinghouse Compromise

Tesla once worked for Edison, but after Edison broke his promises, Tesla quit. He dug ditches for a while, but eventually found his way to more lucrative employment. He negotiated to sell his patents to George Westinghouse for his AC motor and other alternating current applications, but it hasn't worked out. Westinghouse is on the brink of bankruptcy, so this year he tells Tesla that he can't pay what he promised. Tesla sells the patents to Westinghouse for a song. This song is still fairly expensive... $216,000 which is about 5.4 million in 2015 dollars, but if you held lightening in your hands, how much would you charge? (In case you are humor impaired, that was a pun.) Westinghouse surges forward. Edison's direct current (DC) generators require booster stations every few miles, but the oscillating nature of AC current allows longer transmission distances without a booster station. DC is more useful and safer, but the infrastructure required would be very expensive for cities to build out. AC current is cheaper to build out, but it has its problems (serious problems initially). The first is to settle on the AC frequency or cycles. Currently they are stringing separate lines for each frequency needed. They settle on 60 hertz as the standard. Europe uses 50 hertz which is why one needs a converter to use electric devices when traveling from the USA to Europe. [3] [4]
My Take by Alex Shrugged
Tesla's alternate current (AC) generators are on display at the Smithsonian, yet Tesla is not credited with inventing them. It is part of the Edison exhibit. Many, if not most, motor vehicles have an alternator to generate electricity in their cars and Tesla’s induction motor runs most washing machines (or an ancestor of his induction motor). Like gasoline, AC current is inherently dangerous, but if we use care, it is also a lot more economical and efficient. Every new technology is a balance in several directions. Usually engineers summarize the balance as: fast, cheap or good. Choose any two. You can't have it all. I was watching a commercial for a new luxury car. They expressed their "absolute commitment" to several ideals in engineering and the environment. It sounded fabulous, but I quickly realized that if they had the "absolute commitment" they professed, they couldn't have made the automobile in the first place. At some point we must make a compromise or we could never build anything at all.

In Other News

  • The Invisible Man is published by H. G. Wells. A scientist changes the refractive nature of matter to make himself invisible, but cannot reverse the process. [5]
  • Proof is found that Alfred Dreyfus is not guilty of treason. Someone needed a scapegoat. Captain Dreyfus was Jewish and easy to defame. [5]
  • The Zionist Congress meets in Switzerland. This secular movement to find a homeland for the Jews is fueled by "The Dreyfus Affair" which has become a world-wide controversy. [5] [5] [6]

This Year in Wikipedia

Year 1897, Wikipedia.

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