In 1911, Steinmetz recalled that Schenectady had a reputation at that time of being very similar to a cemetery. A piece of wire struck by it vanishes in the dust.[33] But Steinmetz wasnt just interested in a big flash. Of course, my dear, Steinmetz replied, stifling a huge grin. That's because the earliest electricity was generated by batteries. He was baptized a Lutheran into the Evangelical Church of Prussia. Despite his professional successes, there was emptiness in Steinmetzs life, which he rectified with a maneuver that helped secure his reputation as the Bohemian scientist. He spent his first few years in Schenectady in a bachelor circle of GE engineers, hiking, canoeing and experimenting with photography. Birthday parties included liquids and gasses exploding in Bunsen burners scattered decoratively around the house. At the time of his death, Steinmetz held over 200 patents. One can see the delight and love Steinmetz had for his grandchildren from his photographs of them and their remembrances of their doting grand-daddy. He soon obtained a job with a small electrical firm owned by Rudolf Eickemeyer in Yonkers, N.Y. At about the same time, Steinmetz Americanized his first name to Charles and substituted Proteus, a university nickname, for his two middle names. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. [44], Steinmetz was portrayed in 1959 by the actor Rod Steiger in the CBS television anthology series, The Joseph Cotten Show. Such occurrences were all the more painful for Steinmetz, as it was a family and children that he longed for most in his life. The three people (which quickly grew to six with the arrival of Haydens three children, Joe, Midge and Billy) lived in bohemian happiness for the rest of Steinmetzs life. [14] Now, of course, every tech company has such departments. Charles Steinmetz was born Karl August Rudolf Steinmetz on April 9, 1865, in Breslau. [2][18], Steinmetz also greatly advanced the understanding of lightning. Charles Proteus Steinmetz, original name Karl August Rudolf Steinmetz, (born April 9, 1865, Breslau, Prussiadied Oct. 26, 1923, Schenectady, N.Y., U.S.), German-born American electrical engineer whose ideas on alternating current systems helped inaugurate the electrical era in the United States. He at once began to indoctrinate the engineers with his method of calculating alternating-current circuits. Steinmetz was excited as he had never been to the West coast. Steinmetz: Engineer and Socialist. . Where was Charles Proteus Steinmetz born and raised? Gilbert King is a contributing writer in history for Smithsonian.com. Steinmetz Americanized his name to Charles Steinmetz. How much money did Tesla have when he arrived in America? He chose Proteus as his middle namethe nickname his professors in Germany had affectionately bestowed upon him in recognition of the shape-shifting sea god. In 1893 the newly formed General Electric Company purchased Eickemeyers company, primarily for his patents, but Steinmetz was considered one of its major assets. It was around this time that the press started to get interested in Steinmetz. [19] Steinmetz quoted by H. Bedford-Jones The Wonder-Work of the Mohawk Valley Popular Electricity vol. This was his last major project at the General Electric Company, where he had become head of the engineering consulting department. GE took the opportunity to invite their top stars like Irving Langmuir, Albert Hull, Steinmetzs old friend Ernst Berg and, of course, Charles Proteus Steinmetz to the party. In spite of his love for children and family life, Steinmetz remained unmarried, to prevent his spinal deformity from being passed to any offspring. [15] Charles Steinmetz On the Value of the Classics in Engineering Education The Classical Weekly vol. 6 (March 1903), 145. Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. 3 Why was Charles Steinmetz almost turned away at Ellis Island? [10][11] Steinmetz, who stood only 4ft 0in (1.22m) tall as an adult,[5] had dwarfism,[9] hunchback,[9] and hip dysplasia, as did his father and grandfather. Steinmetz then decided that as he was so often called to look at special problems, GE should form a special consulting department that was composed of the best specialist engineers so that they could swoop down and deal with any emergency. In 1894 he arrived in. At 24, he left Germany because his socialistic affiliations barred him from preferment, and came to the United States practically penniless and knowing almost no English. [30] An additional Charles P. Steinmetz Memorial Scholarship was later established at Union by Marjorie Hayden, daughter of Joseph and Corrine Hayden, and is awarded to students majoring in engineering or physics. She agreed after Steinmetz's assurance that she could run the house as she saw fit. His systematic experiments resulted in the first laboratory created man-made lightning, earning him the nickname the Forger of Thunderbolts. The inventor Guglielmo Marconi once asked about Steinmetz about his Gila monster. Back at General Electric, he brought in a gigantic apparatus, then another. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. Joseph Hayden was all for it. In the fall of 1923, Steinmetz and his family traveled west by train, stopping to see the Grand Canyon, Yosemite and the actor Douglas Fairbanks in Hollywood. In typical magnetic materials, the Steinmetz coefficients all vary with temperature. He was doing all this to actually test lightning arresters (the lightning protectors for electrical power lines) for the first time. In 1893 the newly formed General Electric Company purchased Eickemeyers company, primarily for his patents, but Steinmetz was considered one of its major assets. He made ground-breaking discoveries in the understanding of hysteresis that enabled engineers to design better electromagnetic apparatus equipment, especially electric motors for use in industry.[1][2][a]. In the early 20th century, Charles Steinmetz could be seen peddling pedaling his bicycle down the streets of Schenectady, New York, in a suit and top hat, or floating down the Mohawk River in a canoe, kneeling over a makeshift desktop, where he passed hours scribbling notes and equations on papers that sometimes blew into the water. What did Charles Proteus Steinmetz do? Today virtually all the appliances that plug into a wall outlet use alternating current. German and Jewish (Ashkenazic): occupational name from Middle High German steinmetze, German Steinmetz stonemason, worker in stone. He founded the Mohawk Aerial Navigation Company, Ltd. He fostered the development of alternating current that made possible the expansion of the electric power industry in the United States, formulating mathematical theories for engineers. In 1888 he wrote an outspoken editorial criticizing the government, however, and was forced to flee Germany to escape arrest. Both during his life and after his death, Charles Proteus Steinmetz was often referred to as the Wizard of Schenectady. However, when I looked into his life, most of his famous contributions occurred when he arrived in America, penniless, with no English or practical engineering skills in June of 1889 (he was a political refugee from Germany due to his socialist beliefs), and when he was transferred to Schenectady in February of 1894. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. What exactly was the Wizard of Schenectady doing in Building 28? Soon after his death, his car company folded. Advertising Notice Steinmetz also greatly advanced the understanding of lightning. What It Is and What It Has Accomplished. Journal of Chemical Education. 2 (1921), 6. That, is the electrons don't travel down the wire but instead just vibrate back and forth. At General Electric, Steinmetz gained an expanded opportunity for research and implementation of his ideas. [25] This was just after the end of WW1, so the anti-German feeling was very strong, but Einstein was so famous that everyone flocked to see him and used him to promote their cause or business. [8][9] He was baptized as a Lutheran into the Evangelical Church of Prussia. In his old photographs with the Berg brothers, Steinmetz labeled them as his family, however, with the Haydens this was finally true and in 1905, Steinmetz formally adopted Roy Hayden. When it survived the night, Steinmetz figured it was stable enough to live in). Using complex mathematical equations, Steinmetz developed ways to analyze values in alternating current circuits. The Father of Electrical Engineering. Background 11 What did Charles Steinmetz do at General Electric? Meanwhile, Steinmetz then decided to build his own house, factory, and conservatory, which were described as a "Den of incomprehensible perplexity." Similar to Nikola Tesla, Steinmetz received his education at a European University. Then he finally got to algebra and geometry and mathematics became his favorite subject. Steinmetz is a major character in the novel Electric City by Elizabeth Rosner. There were thunderous crashes at odd hours of the night. He received 2 honorary degrees, the A.M. from Harvard (1902) and Ph.D. from Union (1903). The house was too large for Steinmetz, and the Haydens suspected what might be coming. Reporters were awestruck. Loki: The Life of Charles Proteus Steimetz. Why dont you come and live with me? he asked. ; the next year he was transferred to Schenectady as chief consulting engineer, remaining in that position until his death. On the second night, he asked for a ladder, climbed up the generator and made a chalk mark on its side. As I said before, GE was delighted and decided to use this meeting to promote the company and worked overtime to promote the Steinmetz-Edison connection and the story of Steinmetz, which is why they photoshopped that picture of Einstein and Steinmetz so it looked like it was just the two of them. Steinmetz method of calculation was presented to an uncomprehending audience at the International Electrical Congress in 1893. Not much taller than the children who ran about his laboratory and greenhouse, Steinmetz entertained them with stories of dragons and goblins, which he illustrated with fireworks he summoned from various mixtures of sodium and hydrogen in pails of water. He soon obtained a job with a small electrical firm owned by Rudolf Eickemeyer in Yonkers, N.Y. At about the same time, Steinmetz Americanized his first name to Charles and substituted Proteus, a university nickname, for his two middle names. Once the mansion was finished, Steinmetz filled the greenhouse with orchids, ferns and cacti (he delighted in their strange shapes) and focused on the menagerie of animals he had always wanted. Hes dead, Steinmetz replied. Soon he had groups of partiers visiting every summer weekend for long parties and constant attempts to dam the river. Tesla sailed for America in 1884, arriving in New York with four cents in his pocket, a few of his own poems, and calculations for a flying machine. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. [1] Charles Steinmetz The Vitality of Schenectady (April 7, 1911) Schenectady Board of Trade. Ronald Kline. GE was a little nervous about having Steinmetz doing this publicly, but he was just too famous for them to fire or reprimand. America was entering a golden age of electrical engineering, and when Thomas Edison and General Electric learned what Steinmetz was doing with electric motors in Yonkers, the company bought out Eickemeyer and Osterheld in 1892, acquiring all of Steinmetzs patents as well as his services. Wrocaw 10 (Feb 1913), 1020. Charles Steinmetz and Thomas Edison each enjoy a cigar as they take a short respite from a tour of the GE plant in 1922. [39], In May 2015, a life-size bronze statue of Charles Steinmetz meeting Thomas Edison by sculptor and caster Dexter Benedict was unveiled on a plaza on the corner of Erie Boulevards and South Ferry Street in Schenectady. A Steinmetz solid is the solid body generated by the intersection of two or three cylinders of equal radius at right angles. The Lives of Dwarves: Their Journey from Public Curiosity to Social Liberation. (He famously checked the stability of the shack by hosting a large party and putting the band and the punch bowl at the weak end. Repository. [21] Charles Steinmetz The Future of Automobiling Belongs to the Electric delivered Jan 28, 1914, found in Automobile Topics (Feb 7, 1914), 1091. Steinmetzs lightning produced over a million horsepower for a hundred-thousandth of a second. Manage My Data He died on October 26 in Schenectady, New York. When he woke up in the morning, he said he still felt a bit tired. It is hard not to look at these old photographs, and Steinmetz loved taking photos, including trick photos, without seeing how Steinmetz was always the center of a party. Alternate titles: Karl August Rudolf Steinmetz. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". Then he told Fords skeptical engineers to remove a plate at the mark and replace sixteen windings from the field coil. See, in January 1914, Steinmetz gave a talk with the title of The Future of Automobiling Belongs to the Electic as gas cars were very expensive and, unlike a horse, an electric car requires no attention.[21] Edison immediately asked Steinmetz if he could add that the electric car requires no attention if equipped with an Edison battery.[22] Steinmetz agreed and even signed the ad and Edison used this and his image to promote the Edison battery. A collector of rare plants, he had it designed with a greenhouse, as well as a laboratory, where he planned to work as much as possible to avoid going into the office. Steinmetz had actually built the device in the fall of 1921 after Steinmetzs vacation cabin was struck by lightning two summers before. Steinmetz also greatly advanced the understanding of lightning. Charles Proteus Steinmetz; Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky; Charles E. L. Brown; John Hopkinson (1849-1898) Jonas Wenstrm (1855-1893) Ernst Danielson (1866-1907) Charles Proteus Steinmetz, Inventor. www.yonkershistory.org. In just a few years, Steinmetz would prove his American friend right. When did the Charles P Steinmetz Lecture Series begin? [36] Audio clip Kolin Hagar being interviewed by Larry Hart, 1972 found at https://edisontechcenter.org/CharlesProteusSteinmetz.html, [37] https://plunkettlakepress.com/ses.html, How in the world would the inquisition lead to the invention of the vacuum pump? [41][42] He also serves as a major character in Starling Lawrence's The Lightning Keeper.[43]. Required fields are marked *. He was born on April 9, 1865 in Breslau, Germany, (modern-day Wrocaw, Poland) and was educated at the universities of Breslau and Berlin, and the Polytechnic in Zurich, Switzerland, specializing in mathematics, electrical engineering, and chemistry, and teaching mathematics at the same time. 533,244 Inducted in 1977 Born April 9, 1865 - Died Oct. 26, 1923 Without Charles Steinmetz's theories of alternating current, the expansion of the electric power industry in the United States in the early 20th century would have been greatly delayed. I will let Kolin Hagar, one of the first radio broadcasters from WGY, set the scene: Then, according to these sources at Fords factory Steinmetz refused all help and after two days of observing the giant machine, made a mark on the generator with some chalk and told the engineers that they needed to remove sixteen windings from the field coil at that point. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. However, they couldnt really get any of their prototypes off the ground, Steinmetz said that they made a few jumps but nothing they produced, could be dignified with the term flight.[5] Amusingly, Steinmetz managed to make it look like they flew with trick photography. [6] Hammond, Charles Proteus Steinmetz, 239. mathematician, engineer and inventor charles proteus steinmetz was responsible during the latter part of the 19th and early part of the 20th century for solving a number of problems related to the generation and transmission of electricity, at a critical time in history rife with developments that formed the technological characteristics of the Invention of Radio; Tesla turbine; Oscilators; Tesla coils; Electric lighting; X rays; Radiant energy "Death ray" Aerial transportation; . One Friday afternoon in 1921, Steinmetz hopped in his electric car and headed off for a weekend at Camp Mohawk, where hed built a small house overlooking Viele Creek. One result of Steinmetzs growing reputation was his employment by General Electric Company in its consulting department. [27], One of the highest technical recognitions given by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the "IEEE Charles Proteus Steinmetz Award", is given for major contributions to standardization within the field of electrical and electronics engineering. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Corrections? A humorous aspect of the story is the "itemized bill" he submitted for the work performed. 14 months later Steinmetz and almost all the GE employees were transferred from the GE labs in New York City to 165 miles away in Schenectady. Steinmetz maintained a small cabin overlooking the Mohawk River near Schenectady, New York. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. [35] Ford started envisioning recreating Edisons Menlo Park lab at his museum with the long-range plan of hosting a big party in October 1929 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Edisons manufacture of his first incandescent lamp. The unusual, harmonious living arrangement lasted for the rest of Steinmetz's life. In 1902 he became also professor of electrophysics at Union University. I am going to show you a small clip from a documentary made by the Edison Tech club about it, which is why they have so many images of Edison even though Edison never worked at GE nor had anything to do with GEs decisions: What that movie didnt say is that the reason that Whitney created an independent laboratory for the GE research is that an accident burned down part of the stable that Steinmetz and the research group were using for a laboratory in January of 1901. [23] The New Steinmetz Electric The Central Station (March, 1920), 302-3. Steinmetz, on the other hand, felt that a full liberal education not only would help with knowing the origin of terms but also because the vocation of the engineer is especially liable to make the man one-sided. He loved children and was loved by them. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. But according to Steinmetz, a mere high voltage is not lightning and has no similarity to lightning in its action and effects.[32] Instead, you need something that produces high voltage and high current to create a lot of power for a short period of time. Steinmetz' equivalent circuit is still widely used for the design and testing of induction machines. Charles Steinmetz: Unions electrical wizard. Union College Magazine, November 1, 1998. Before long, the greatest scientific minds of the time were traveling to Schenectady to meet with the prolific little giant; anecdotal tales of these meetings are still told in engineering classes today. Steinmetzs career at GE arguably began when Edison was fired from Edisons General Electric in April of 1892 and, by December of 1892, 27-year-old Steinmetz was hired by the now Edison-free General Electric where he taught them how to use AC. Rock climbing, skiing, boating, picnics, bicycle rides, they even tried to fly with what they called the Mohawk River Arial Navigation Club, which was Americas first glider club. [5] Steinmetz's equation,[b][6] Steinmetz solids, Steinmetz curves, and Steinmetz equivalent circuit[7] are all named after him, as are numerous honors and scholarships, including the IEEE Charles Proteus Steinmetz Award, one of the highest technical recognitions given by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers professional society. Steinmetz Name Meaning German and Jewish (Ashkenazic): occupational name from Middle High German steinmetze, German Steinmetz stonemason, worker in stone. Hayden, who later married and lived in the house with his wife and children that Charles had built for them. [citation needed], Following the Gymnasium, Steinmetz went on to the University of Breslau to begin work on his undergraduate degree in 1883. 533,244, Born for more than 30 years charles proteus steinmetz was a leader in the electrical industry, devoting his life to research, largely: relating to mathematical foundations upon which many of the developments in electrical engineering are based; there was scarcely a detail of any branch of electrical science or mathematics with which he was not The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". By then, Edison was nearly deaf, and Steinmetz tapped out a message on Edisons knee in Morse Code. [40], Steinmetz is featured in John Dos Passos' U.S.A. trilogy in one of the biographies. In addition to his research, he was an electrophysics professor at Union University. "[citation needed], Steinmetz is known for his contribution in three major fields of alternating current (AC) systems theory: hysteresis, steady-state analysis, and transients. It was for that reason that the Radio Corporation of America had a big to-do with Einstein. His book Theory and Calculation of Alternating Current Phenomena (coauthored with Ernst J. Berg in 1897) was read and understood by only a very few. Updates? Doctor Steinmetz served the Institute as vice-president (1896-98), manager (1892-95; 1898-1901) and as committeeman at various times; he also contributed papers frequently to Institute meetings and publications, his first, in 1892, "On the Law of Hysteresis," marking a new epoch in electrical science. Where should I start working out out of shape? [30] Modern Jove Hurls Lightning at Will, the New York Times, March 3, 1922. Wrocaw He didn't invent it. 3 No 21 (April 2, 1910), 175. He spent the entire weekend painstakingly reconstructing the mirror, placing the slivers between two panes of glass. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Karl August Rudolf Steinmetz, (born April 9, 1865, Breslau, Prussiadied Oct. 26, 1923, Schenectady, N.Y., U.S.), German-born U.S. electrical engineer. [26][d] He died on October 26, 1923, and was buried in Vale Cemetery in Schenectady. Jack B. Scott wrote in to tell of his fathers encounter with the Wizard of Schenectady at Henry Fords River Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan. By 1914, as I said before, Steinmetz agreed to let Edison use his words and images to promote Edisons battery. We have taken out crops year after year and never put anything back on the earth. Ford, whose electrical engineers couldnt solve some problems they were having with a gigantic generator, called Steinmetz in to the plant.
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