The Hystory of Electrical Engineering

0-1600

600 v.Chr.

Thales of Milet, Greek philosopher and mathematician, discovered the electrifying effect of amber.

1601-1800

1601		William Gilbert, English physician, discovered the matrials (Electrica) and becomes inventor of the term of the electricity.
1663		Otto von Guericke, Mayor of Magdeburger, designed a Electric machine for the demonstration of the effect of cosmic forces.
1729		Stephen Gray, English scientist, discovered the conductivity of metal and the effects of an electrical field (influence).
1733		Charles-François Dufay, French physicist, examined the attraction and repulsion of electrically charged bodies.
1752		Benjamin Franklin , American politician, writer and scientist prove the electrical nature of the thunderstorms.
1765		James Watt, Scottish engineer and inventor, improved the steam engine by invention of the condenser.
1780		Luigi Galvani, Italian physician and scientist, discovered with a contact of a frog thigh with two different metals that electric currents flow.

1801-1850

1801		Alessandro Volta, Italian physicist, demonstrates Napoleon for the first time a galvanic item, a type electrical battery.
1802		Humphrey Davy, English chemist, leaves metal wires glowing and produces sparks between two coal staffs.
1811		Siméon Daniel Poisson, French mathematician and physicist, formulates the potentialtheorie of the electricity.
1813		Humphrey Davy produces a continuous electrical arc with a giant battery, consisting of 1000 items, for the first time.
1820		Hans Christian Oersted, Dane, discovers the magnetic effect of wires. This effect was described in the same year by André Marie Ampère, Jean Baptiste Biot und Felix Sovart.
		Professor Johann Salomon Christoph Schweigger, German, invents the galvanometer, thus the current becomes measurable.
1821		Michael Faraday, English physicist and chemist, builds a first, simple model of an electric motor.
1822		André Marie Ampère, French physicist and mathematician, finds the formula for the force effect of two currents (Ampèr law).
1826		Georg Simon Ohm, German physicist, defines the electrical resistance as relation of voltage and amperage (Ohm' law).
1831		Faraday formulates the induction law and creates thereby the theoretical bases to the building of transformers
1833		William Ritchie builds a generator with rotary coils and fixed magnets.
1838		Moritz Hermann Jacobi, German engineer, demonstrated a boat, which is propelled with an electric motor.
1842		James Prescott Joule, Britain, points experimentally the heat equivalent from electricity after (already 2 years beforehand it formulated the Joule law).
1844		The Place de la Concorde in Paris is lit up with elbow light.
1848		Léon Foucault, French physicist, succeeds for the first time the building to an useful arc lamp (automatically adjustable Carbon rods).

1851-1900

1851		Heinrich Daniel Rühmkorff, German mechanic, builds into a spark coil, which produces high voltages by coils.
1854		Heinrich Goebel, American optician, tinkered lamps from charred bamboo fibers.
1855		James Clerk Maxwell, Scottish physics professor, justifies modern electrodynamics by a mathematical formulation of the field model of Farraday.
1858		The first transatlantic cable for a connection between Europe and the USA is laid.
1864		James Clerk Maxwell formulates the electromagnetic light theory.
1866		Werner Siemens, German engineer and entrepreneur, and the Englishman Charles Wheatstone discover the direct current generator-electrical principle.
1876		The Jablochkoff-Bogenkerze (arc lamp) is developed.
		Alexander Graham Bell, American deaf-mute teacher and inventor, announces the first useful telephone to the patent.
1878		Thomas Alva Edison, American inventor, creates the Edison Electric Light CO in New York.
1879		Edison demonstrates the first until 45 hours burning coal thread lamps.
1890		In London drives the first electrically operated underground locomotive .
1893		Friedrich Wilhelm Schindler-Jenny shows the first electrified kitchen on the world exhibition in Chicago.
1895		Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, Netherlands physicist, leads the atomistic in the electrodynamics.
1896		The power stations install the first electric meters at their customers.
1898		The electrical company AEG makes for the first time open-air-lamps, "Nernst lamps", with a glow body of Oyden rare ground connection.
1899		First electrically operated full railway of Europe of the Burgdorf-Thun course (40 km; 750V; 40 cycles per second).

1901-1950

1900		A German owner of manor calculates that the introduction of the electricity can save two thirds of the past workhorses.
		BBC points at the world exhibition to Paris a steam turbo aggregate.
1903		The company Landis & Gyr manufactures the first double tariff electric meters.
1906		Lee de Forest, American radio engineer and Robert von Lieben, Austrian physicist, invent the electron tube, which enables the building of amplifiers.
		English: The first electrical vacuum cleaner comes under the name "dedusting pump" into the trade.
1910		The first functioning absorber refrigerator is put into operation.
1911		Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Netherlands physicist and Nobel-prize carrier, discovers superconductivity.
1920		Lenin expects the final victory of the revolution from the electrification by his postulate: "communism - that is Soviet power and electrification of the whole country ."
		Washing machines receive an electric motor as drive.
1923		A 220-kV-line in the USA goes into operation for the first time.
		John Logie Biard, Englishman invents the television
1936		The company Osram presents at the world exhibition in Paris the first fluorescent lamps.
1937		The first hydrogen-cooled turbine is taken in the USA in operation (performance 100,000 KW).
1938		Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, German physicists, discovered principle of the nuclear fission.
1947		The large computer " ENIAC " in the USA operates with 14,468 electron tubes.
1948		IBM presents its first electronics computer SSEC, consisting of 12,500 tubes and 21400 relays.
		John Bardeen and walter Houser Brattain, American physicists, discovered the transistor effect. This led to a new technology and a miniaturization of electrical apparatuses and devices. (Bell Laboratries)

1951 to today

1951		Establishment of the international union for the coordination of the production and the feed of electricity (UCPTE).
1953		First regular television broadcasts.
1954		The first programming languages for computers are developed.
		In the company Bell Laboratories is discovered the solar cell principle.
		First performance nuclear reactors of the world in operation in the USA (submarine " Nautilus ") and in Obninsk (USSR).
1955		First commercial nuclear power station is switched on (9MW).
1956		The IBM-305-Computer RAMAC is the first computer with magnetic plate storage.
1960		Theodore Harold Maiman, American physicist, designs a ruby laser and produces for the first time laser light.
1965		Francia, Italian professor produced with mirrors and sunlight steam and operates thereby a turbine.
		Largest " Blackout " of the current supply: After a thunderbolt into a 345-kV line failed on 9 November the current supply for new Yorks during 13 hours.
1967		The first tidal power station of the world (240 MW) to the Rance (France) goes to the network.
1971		The American company Intel places a microprocessor with the designation 4004 for the first time forwards (2300 transistors, 256 byte ROM, 32 bits RAM).
1973		A promotion boycott of oil-producing states leads to an energy crisis. A world-wide reorientation in the energy policy followed.
1974		The personnel computer era begins (Intel microprocessor 8080)
1976		For the first time is produced energy with solar-steam and turbine.
1978		Nuclear power station accident in Three Mile Island (Harrisburg/USA) (without consequences on environment) .
1981		The first larger solar power station (tower system) "Eurelios" (1 MW) is switched
1982		Line-up of a 1-MW Photovoltaik system in Hesperia/Kalifornien.
		The largest European Photovoltaik system (15 KW) on the roof of the cafeteria of the technical school of Lugano put into operation.
1983		Line-up of the first large wind system Growian in Brunsbuettel / Germany (diameter of the rotor blade of 100 meters; Deactivation because of material problems - >1986).
1986		26.4.1986...heavy accident in the nuclear power station Tschernobyl. Also Austria and Switzerland are affected by the atomic fall out.
1992		Line-up of the 500-kW solar power station Mont Soleil (BE).
1996		European union decides gradual opening of the current market.

http://library.thinkquest.org/27826/htmldocs/english/frame.htm

Thales von Milet

Philosopher remembered for his cosmology based on water as the essence of all matter. According to the Greek thinker Apollodorus, Thales was born in 624; the Greek historian Diogenes Laërtius placed his death in the 58th Olympiad ( 548-545 ) at the age of 78. No writings by Thales survive, and no contemporary sources exist; thus, his achievements are difficult to assess. Inclusion of his name in the canon of the legendary Seven Wise Men led to his idealization, and numerous acts and sayings, many of them no doubt spurious, were attributed to him. According to Herodotus, Thales was a practical statesman who advocated the federation of the Ionian cities of the Aegean region. The Greek scholar Callimachus recorded a traditional belief that Thales advised navigators to steer by the Little Bear ( Ursa Minor ) rather than by the Great Bear ( Ursa Major ), both prominent constellations in the north. He is also said to have used his knowledge of geometry to measure the Egyptian pyramids and to calculate the distance from shore of ships at sea. Although such stories are probably apocryphal, they illustrate Thales' reputation. The Greek writer Xenophanes claimed that Thales predicted the solar eclipse that stopped the battle between the Lydian Alyattes and the Median Cyaxares, evidently on May 28, 585. Modern scholars believe, however, that he could not possibly have had the knowledge to predict accurately either the locality or the character of an eclipse. Thus, his feat was apparently isolated and only approximate; Herodotus spoke of his foretelling the year only. That the eclipse was nearly total and occurred during a crucial battle probably contributed considerably to his exaggerated reputation as an astronomer. In geometry, Thales has been credited with the discovery of five theorems: that a circle is bisected by its diameter that angles at the base of a triangle having two sides of equal length are equal that opposite angles of intersecting straight lines are equal that the angle inscribed in a semicircle is a right angle that a triangle is determined if its base and the angles relative to the base are given His mathematical achievements are difficult to assess, however, because of the ancient practice of crediting particular discoveries to men with a general reputation for wisdom. The claim that Thales was the founder of European philosophy rests primarily on Aristotle, who wrote that Thales was the first to suggest a single material substratum for the universe, namely, water, or moisture. Even though Thales as a philosopher renounced mythology, his choice of water as the fundamental building block of matter had its precedent in tradition. A likely consideration in this choice was the seeming motion that water exhibits, as seen in its ability to become vapour; for what changes or moves itself was thought by the Greeks to be close to life itself. To Thales the entire universe is a living organism, nourished by exhalations from water. Thales' significance lies less in his choice of water as the essential substance than in his attempt to explain nature by the simplification of phenomena and in his search for causes within nature itself rather than in the caprices of anthropomorphic gods. Like his successors Anaximander and Anaximenes, Thales is important in bridging the worlds of myth and reason.

James Watt

Watt, James (1736-1819) (1736-1819), Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer, born in Greenock, renowned for his improvements of the steam engine. After determining and considering the properties of steam, Watt designed a separate condensing chamber for the steam engine that prevented enormous losses of steam in the cylinder and enhanced the vacuum conditions. Watt's first patent was on this device. He patented several other important inventions, including the rotary engine for driving various types of machinery; the double-action engine, in which steam is admitted alternately into both ends of the cylinder; and the steam indicator, which records the steam pressure in the engine. Watt also invented the centrifugal or flyball governor, which automatically regulates the speed of an engine by linking output to input, embodying the feedback principle of a servomechanism, which is the basic concept of automation. The unit of electrical power, the watt, was named in his honor.

Alessandro Volta

 

The Italian physicist Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta, b. Feb. 18, 1745, d. Mar. 5, 1827, was the inventor of the voltaic pile, the first electric battery. In 1775 he invented the electrophorus, a device that, once electrically charged by having been rubbed, could transfer charge to other objects. Between 1776 and 1778, Volta discovered and isolated methane gas. When Luigi Galvani's experiments with "animal electricity" were published ( 1791 ), Volta began experiments that led him to theorize that animal tissue was not necessary for conduction of electricity. Proof of this theory was the battery, which Volta invented in 1800. Volta taught at Como Gymnasium ( 1775-78 ) and Pavia University ( 1778-1815 ). Napoleon made him a count in 1801. The unit of electric potential, the volt, is named in his honor.

Hans Christian Ørsted

Ørsted also spelled OERSTED (b. Aug. 14, 1777, Rudkøbing, Den.--d. March 9, 1851, Copenhagen), Danish physicist and chemist who discovered that electric current in a wire can deflect a magnetized compass needle, a phenomenon the importance of which was rapidly recognized and which inspired the development of electromagnetic theory. In 1806 Ørsted became a professor at the University of Copenhagen, where his first physical researches dealt with electric currents and acoustics. During an evening lecture in April 1820, Ørsted discovered that a magnetic needle aligns itself perpendicularly to a current-carrying wire, definite experimental evidence of the relationship between electricity and magnetism. This phenomenon had been first discovered by the Italian jurist Gian Domenico Romagnosi in 1802, but his announcement was ignored. Ørsted's discovery (1820) of piperine, one of the pungent components of pepper, was an important contribution to chemistry, as was his preparation of metallic aluminum in 1825. In 1824 he founded a society devoted to the spread of scientific knowledge among the general public. Since 1908 this society has awarded an Ørsted Medal for outstanding contributions by Danish physical scientists. In 1932 the name oersted was adopted for the physical unit of magnetic field strength.

Michael Faraday

Michael Faraday's scientific work laid the foundations of all subsequent electro-technology. From his experiments came devices which led directly to the modern electric motor, generator and transformer. Faraday was also the greatest scientific lecturer of his day, who did much to publicise the great advances of nineteenth-century science and technology through his articles, correspondence and the Friday evening discourses which he established at the Royal Institution. The Royal Institution Christmas lectures for children, begun by Faraday, continue to this day. Michael Faraday was born on 22nd September 1791. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a London bookbinder. Reading many of the books in the shop, Faraday became fascinated by science, and wrote to Sir Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution asking for a job. On 1st March 1813, he was appointed laboratory assistant at the Royal Institution. There Faraday immersed himself in the study of chemistry, becoming a skilled analytical chemist. In 1823 he discovered that chlorine could be liquefied and in 1825 he discovered a new substance known today as benzene. However, his greatest work was with electricity. In 1821, soon after the Danish chemist, Hans Oersted, discovered the phenomenon of electromagnetism, Faraday built two devices to produce what he called electromagnetic rotation: that is a continuous circular motion from the circular magnetic force around a wire. Ten years later, in 1831, he began his great series of experiments in which he discovered electromagnetic induction. These experiments form the basis of modern electromagnetic technology. On 29th August 1831, using his "induction ring", Faraday made one of his greatest discoveries - electromagnetic induction: the "induction" or generation of electricity in a wire by means of the electromagnetic effect of a current in another wire. The induction ring was the first electric transformer. In a second series of experiments in September he discovered magneto-electric induction: the production of a steady electric current. To do this, Faraday attached two wires through a sliding contact to a copper disc. By rotating the disc between the poles of a horseshoe magnet he obtained a continuous direct current. This was the first generator. Although neither of Faraday's devices is of practical use today they enhanced immeasurably the theoretical understanding of electricity and magnetism. He described these experiments in two papers presented to the Royal Society on 24th November 1831, and 12th January 1832. These were the first and second parts of his "Experimental researches into electricity" in which he gave his ,"law which governs the evolution of electricity by magneto-electric induction". After reading this, a young Frenchman, Hippolyte Pixii, constructed an electric generator that utilized the rotary motion between magnet and coil rather than Faraday's to and fro motion in a straight line. All the generators in power stations today are direct descendants of the machine developed by Pixii from Faraday's first principles. Faraday continued his electrical experiments. In 1832 he proved that the electricity induced from a magnet, voltaic electricity produced by a battery, and static electricity were all the same. He also did significant work in electrochemistry, stating the First and Second Laws of Electrolysis. This laid the basis for electrochemistry, another great modern industry. Faraday's descriptive theory of lines of force moving between bodies with electrical and magnetic properties enabled James Clerk Maxwell to formulate an exact mathematical theory of the propagation of electromagnetic waves. In 1865, Maxwell proved mathematically that electromagnetic phenomena are propagated as waves through space with the velocity of light, thereby laying the foundation of radio communication confirmed experimentally in 1888 by Heinrich Hertz and developed for practical use by Guglielmo Marconi at the turn of the century. In 1865, Faraday ended his connection with the Royal Institution after over 50 years of service. He died at his house at Hampton Court on 25th August 1867. His discoveries have had an incalculable effect on subsequent scientific and technical development. He was a true pioneer of scientific discovery.

Georg Simon Ohm

The German physicist Georg Simon Ohm, b. Mar. 16, 1789, d. July 6, 1854, for whom the unit of electrical resistance, the ohm, was named, determined ( 1826 ) Ohm's law, the relationship between the flow of current, the voltage, and the resistance in a closed circuit Ohm's scientific contemporaries were slow to recognize his achievement, failing to realize how closely his conclusions were derived from careful experimental work and especially how his discovery ordered vast quantities of existing experimental data. For most of his life Ohm held only indifferent, poorly paid teaching jobs, but in 1852 he was given the chair of physics at the University of Munich.

 James Prescott Joule

(b. Dec. 24, 1818, Salford, Lancashire, Eng.--d. Oct. 11, 1889, Sale, Cheshire), English physicist who established that the various forms of energy--mechanical, electrical, and heat--are basically the same and can be changed, one into another. Thus he formed the basis of the law of conservation of energy, the first law of thermodynamics. Joule studied with the noted English chemist John Dalton at the University of Manchester in 1835. Describing "Joule's law" in a paper, On the Production of Heat by Voltaic Electricity (1840), he stated that the heat produced in a wire by an electric current is proportional to the product of the resistance of the wire and the square of the current. In 1843 he published his value for the amount of work required to produce a unit of heat, called the mechanical equivalent of heat. He used four increasingly accurate methods of determining this value. By using different materials, he also established that heat was a form of energy regardless of the substance that was heated. In 1852 Joule and William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) discovered that when a gas is allowed to expand without performing external work, the temperature of the gas falls. This "Joule-Thomson effect" was used to build a large refrigeration industry in the course of the 19th century. The value of the mechanical equivalent of heat is generally represented by the letter J, and a standard unit of work is called the joule.

James Clerk Maxwell

The Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell, b. Nov. 13, 1831, d. Nov. 5, 1879, did revolutionary work in electromagnetism and the kinetic theory of gases. After graduating ( 1854 ) with a degree in mathematics from Trinity College, Cambridge, he held professorships at Marischal College in Aberdeen ( 1856 ) and at King's College in London ( 1860 ) and became the first Cavendish Professor of Physics at Cambridge in 1871. Maxwell's first major contribution to science was a study of the planet Saturn's rings, the nature of which was much debated. Maxwell showed that stability could be achieved only if the rings consisted of numerous small solid particles, an explanation still accepted. Maxwell next considered molecules of gases in rapid motion. By treating them statistically he was able to formulate ( 1866 ), independently of Ludwig Boltzmann, the Maxwell-Boltzmann kinetic theory of gases. This theory showed that temperatures and heat involved only molecular movement. Philosophically, this theory meant a change from a concept of certainty--heat viewed as flowing from hot to cold--to one of statistics--molecules at high temperature have only a high probability of moving toward those at low temperature. This new approach did not reject the earlier studies of thermodynamics; rather, it used a better theory of the basis of thermodynamics to explain these observations. Maxwell's most important achievement was his extension and mathematical formulation of Michael Faraday's theories of electricity and magnetic lines of force. In his research, conducted between 1864 and 1873, Maxwell showed that a few relatively simple mathematical equations could express the behavior of electric and magnetic fields and their interrelated nature; that is, an oscillating electric charge produces an electromagnetic field. These four partial differential equations first appeared in fully developed form in Electricity and Magnetism ( 1873 ). Since known as Maxwell's equations they are one of the great achievements of 19th-century physics. Maxwell also calculated that the speed of propagation of an electromagnetic field is approximately that of the speed of light. He proposed that the phenomenon of light is therefore an electromagnetic phenomenon. Because charges can oscillate with any frequency, Maxwell concluded that visible light forms only a small part of the entire spectrum of possible electromagnetic-radiation. Maxwell used the later-abandoned concept of the ether to explain that electromagnetic radiation did not involve action at a distance. He proposed that electromagnetic-radiation waves were carried by the ether and that magnetic lines of force were disturbances of the ether. Subsequently, the experiments ( 1881, 1887 ) of Albert A. Michelson and Edward W. Morley and the advent ( 1905 ) of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity showed that the ether concept was untenable. Because their validity does not depend on the existence of the ether, Maxwell's equations have survived the demise of this concept.

Edison, Thomas Alva

Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, February 11, 1847. In 1854 the family moved to Port Huron, Michigan, where seven-year-old Tom Edison set up his first chemical laboratory in the cellar of their large house. Edison's career as a telegraph operator began when he snatched a station agent's young son from the path of a moving freight car. Out of gratitude the father taught Edison the new science of telegraphy. By the time he was seventeen, Edison was "on the road" as a telegraph operator. He drifted from Stratford, Canada to Adrian, Michigan; Fort Wayne; Indianapolis; and Boston. When he was 21 years old Edison went to New York, almost penniless. By fixing a broken down machine in the Gold and Stock Telegraph Company, he landed a $300-a-month job as superintendent of the company. At the same time, he was making many inventions, among them the "universal" stock ticker. For this and other inventions, he received $40,000, and with this money he opened a manufacturing shop in Newark, making stock tickers. At the age of 29, he went to Menlo Park to make perhaps the greatest invention of all, a successful incandescent electric lamp. Out of the Edison laboratory in the important years between 1876 and 1886 came the carbon telephone transmitter, the phonograph, the Edison dynamo, and the Edison incandescent lamp. When the electrical system with which he hoped to light whole cities required a new piece of machinery or a new device, Edison developed it. And if after developing it he could find no manufacturer, he would set up his own plants for manufacturing the equipment he had invented. By the very force of necessity, the Wizard of Menlo Park became a manufacturer of New York City. On September 4th, 1882, Edison started operating the Pearl Street Station, the first central generating station to light New York City. It began to be apparent early in the 1890's that electrical development was being helped up because no company controlled the patents on all necessary elements for installing an efficient and serviceable system. The conviction was taking shape that the incandescent lamp and the alternating-current transformer systems belonged together. The outcome in 1892 was the formation of the General Electric Company with the consolidation of the Thomson-Houston and Edison General Electric Companies. Edison's was one of the many distinguished names which appeared on the first Board of Directors of the new Company. At this period, however, he concerned himself less and less with manufacturing activities, and soon devoted his entire time to his laboratory in West Orange to perfect a modernized phonograph, a motion picture camera, and an electrical storage battery. Edison died October 18, 1931, in Llewellyn Park, New Jersey, at the age of 84.

De Forest, Lee

The broadcasting of sound, or radio broadcasting, began when Lee De Forest invented the Audion tube. His invention changed the living habits of millions; yet he made almost nothing from it. Lee De Forest was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on Aug. 26, 1873. His father, a Congregationalist minister, became head of Talladega College for Negroes in Alabama in 1881. The white community was unfriendly to Lee and his family, and so young Lee made few friends. To fill his lonely hours, he turned to science. By the age of 13 he had invented several mechanical gadgets. A scholarship enabled him to attend the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale University. Some classmates called him the "homeliest and nerviest student in school." He worked hard and earned his doctor of philosophy degree in 1899. While he earned his living at various jobs, he steadily experimented after hours. One problem especially challenged him. Marconi had already sent the "dot-dash" of the telegraph code through the air by radio waves, but no one had found a way to broadcast music or speech. Experimenting with Fleming's vacuum tube, De Forest introduced a third part--a grid between the filament and the plate. He patented this Audion tube in 1907 and broadcast a live Metropolitan Opera performance of Enrico Caruso in 1910. Radio broadcasting was born, but the public was not interested. Discouraged, De Forest sold the rights to the tube to a telephone company. In the following years he took out more than 300 patents on radio and other electronic devices. One invention was phonofilm, a forerunner of sound-track motion-picture film. In 1923 he showed the first public "talking" movie. Wider recognition came to him in his later years, but he was bitter about the financial gains made by others on his inventions. He died on June 30, 1961, in Hollywood, California.