[Jukebox-list] Grounding Issue

[David Breneman]

--- Ron Rich <ronnnrich at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Don't know if this is true--was once told that 60 Hz was chosen
> because at anything less, humans can see it in an incandesent light
> (I know I can sense it anytime I'm somewhere that uses 50 Hz).

I doubt it.  Tesla originally proposed something along the lines
of 30 Hz because it was an ideal frequency for his AC motors
(and the development of a motor that would run on AC was what
really allowed it to take off.  Westinghouse, whome Tesla
worked for, wanted a higher frequency to fight flicker and
it took some work getting a motor to run at the higher
frequency -- put that frequenct was slong the lines of 40
cycles if I remember correctly.  The final rate of 60 Hz was
the result of a lot of compromises, and wasn't universal in
the US until power grids started to be inter-connected after
WWII.  Florescent and neon lights are especially bothersome
at low frequencies because, unlike incandescent lights,
they don't "glow".

>  What
> I was told  was that Westinghouse, who "invented" (while one of
> Edsion's "tinker-ers") the  60 Hz AC that we use today,   hated the
> "flicker" of less than 60Hz.

That's wrong.  Westinghouse never worked for Edison.
Tesla worked for both Westinghouse and Edison.  An
interesting side story is that while working for Edison,
Tesla and Edison actually invented radio years before
Marconi, but couldn't explain how it worked.  They
invited other scientists in for a demo of their discovery.
A spark jumping a gap in a coil on one side of a room
would cause a spark to jump a gap in another coil at
the other side of the room.  The guests universally
accused Edison and his new engineer of a hoax.  Edison
didn't want to bad publicity, so it dropped the project.
Tesla left not long after, when Edison showed no
interest in his proposed polyphase AC current system.
Westinghouse hired Tesla to develop that system.

Westinghouse's big invention was the air brake.  After
that, he mainly worked as a Disney-type manager, hiring
and nurturing talented engineers and scientists rather
than doing the inventing himself.  Tesla, in his later
years, became kind of a crackpot.  Too bad he burned
out so early.



David Breneman         david_breneman at yahoo.com

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