Elihu Thomson played with idea over half century ago
✍ Scribed by Nathan G. Goodman
- Book ID
- 104130944
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1937
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 209 KB
- Volume
- 224
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0016-0032
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
The death of Elihu Thomson, pioneer in electrical development and dean of the engineering staff of the General Electric Company, on March I3, I937, has led to some speculation as to the first experiments with wireless telegraphy in this country. Thomson was known largely as the originator of electric arc welding and as the principal organizer of the Thomson-Houston Electric Company in I883, which was later merged with the Edison General Electric Company, which ultimately became the General Electric Company of today. He held no less than 8oo patents. Out of his constructive mind came the repulsion .type of induction electric motor, the magnetic blow-out principle in lightning arresters and electric switches, and the oil-cooled type of transformer.
The true story of Thomson's first experiments with wireless is revealed in a letter written in the spring of I922. "Mr. Edison, in 1875, made some experiments with electromagnets, and found what he called a new force, and named it 'Etheric Force,'" he said. "A Dr. George M. Beard wrote up the matter for the newspapers. It was believed to be a new force because it did not deflect a galvanometer needle, and did not give any evidences of polarity, and seemed to pass through insulators, such as blocks of paraffin." The inventor then discusses the matter in detail:
" I suggested to Professor Edwin J. Houston, who was then teaching physics in the school [-the Central High School of Philadelphia-], while I was in the chemistry department, that there was no new force concerned, but merely electrical phenomena, and that by a few experiments this could be definitely shown. These experiments were made at the. Central High School with the apparatus we had at disposal, and the results were published in the JOURNAL OF THE FRANK-VOL. 224, NO, 1341--22 311