Receptacle Voltages?

[Enzo]

Soundguruman, please go back and reconsider posting your professor's name and phone number. It is bad enough putting up someone's email address, but really, do you think this man will appreciate your having put his name and phone number on the internet? if you respect the professor at all, I highly suggest you edit your post to remove that personal information, unless the man had specifically given you his permission to post it.

This is an honest request, and has nothing to do with any lack of respect I may have for you personally.

[Chuck H]

and has nothing to do with any lack of respect I may have for you personally.

I thought I was going to fall out of my chair!

[Jazz P Bass]

Actually what makes Edison's name appear alongside 'lightbulb' is the attention that he gave to making a filament last. So he succeeded in creating the bulb that was cost-effective and had long life.
(James Watt greatly improved the efficiency of the steam engine cycle. Everyone thinks that he invented it)
What Edison really missed was the black spot that appeared on the glass.
If he only would have passed a magnet alongside it, as it was forming, he would have seen that it could be steered.
Can you say CRT.

[km6xz]

History, to be paid attention to, needs to be simplified, distilled and popularized or else it would be way too messy an affair to capture the interest of non-historians. No Marconi did not invent anything either but he did what most popular cultural heroes did, armed himself with lawyers and PR people to create an acceptable myth that made all the messy details of history palatable. The history of popular figures in science and engineering was no different than world or national histories which were re-writes of events to focus on one person, one date or one event. It seems people ignore things that are not concise and focused. A war or a inventor is much easier to describe with one date or event than the reality which is no less complex than trying to distill a whole life's work of a single human with a one word description.....only more so. It is ALL nonsense as taught and accepted but the reality would not be paid attention to at all if a simplified version was not invented.
Even the reports of "the real inventors of xxxx was zzzz" are just the same as the popularized version of distilling a vast array of events, people, trends, the social conditions of the times etc that resulted in a general field becoming distilled down to a simple short descriptor. Who invented any of these things? You could get 100, not 10,000 correct answers that are all different. For example radio was being worked on by literally thousands of people at the same time and none worked in total isolation. Each adding minor modifications to one of the many branches of inquiry so a concept evolved from tiny incremental steps, none by themselves that significant. Invention of general application concepts such as electric lighting, highways, stone construction, writing etc are just like the evolutionary processes of evolution by natural selection in biology.
What a child learns in school is primarily the views of people who made an effort to control the image and shape opinion through popularizing, publicity, courts, and personality. In the late 19th century "invention" primarily became the domain of the courts and the winners were rewarded handsomely with wealth and fame, and the losers, often economic ruin. Edison was the same manipulator of opinion that Steve Jobs was, neither really invented anything but both popularized other people's work to reap the benefits, using pr, a cooperative press and the courts. Bill Gates was the same but with less "hero making" attempted.

[soundguruman]

Chuck wrote:

"I thought I was going to fall out of my chair!"

Dito

[soundguruman]

Actually what makes Edison's name appear alongside 'lightbulb' is the attention that he gave to making a filament last. So he succeeded in creating the bulb that was cost-effective and had long life.
(James Watt greatly improved the efficiency of the steam engine cycle. Everyone thinks that he invented it)
What Edison really missed was the black spot that appeared on the glass.
If he only would have passed a magnet alongside it, as it was forming, he would have seen that it could be steered.
Can you say CRT.

What you don't understand is:
Edison had absolutely nothing to do with making the filament last longer.
That was Swans invention, which Edison unsuccessfully tried to copy and take credit for.
(Swan sued Edison and won the lawsuit)

The stories about how Edison "invented" a light bulb or a filament are completely false.
These stories were planted in the media, in order to convince the public that Edison was a great inventor,
which he most certainly was not.
Edison's talent was buying other peoples inventions and then affixing the Edison nameplate.
After affixing said nameplate, he took credit for the invention.
As I said, he was repeatedly sued for infringement, and lost.

[Chuck H]

Edison's effort was the historic equivallent of corporate management! Shouldn't he get credit for that?!? Take a great thing someone else has done and make it your own. I understand that in Edison's case it was short lived. But the reverberations ring even today! And big corporations do this sort of thing all the time. A short story...

In 1996 a friend of mine told me of an idea he had. CD's do get damaged and fail to work because of minor scratches and buffs. So my friend, having some knowledge about certain chemicals and processes, thought that it might be possible to refurbish CD's with acrylic resins and polishing. Well... It is possible. I was stoked by the idea. People were throwing away CD's and buying replacements when it was entirely possibld to "fix" the old ones. My friend, knowing that the gen pop isn't too industrious, thought that a "vending machine" sort of format would be the way to go. Put in a CD and a dollar and the machine spits out a useable CD in place of the failing one that went in. BRILLIANT!!! After some research we found the hitch. Sony, the largest manufacturer of CD's at the time, had alraedy patented and shelved the technology. The obvious reason being so that they could sell more product.

This is just good business sense. But it's also an obvious middle finger to the buying demographic. Further research on my part revealed that the same profit driven ideologies have been used WRT internal combustion carburators and tire rubber technologies. It's the nature of the capitolist beast. If there is a way to profit or advance on ANYTHING there is someone that will superceed or circumvent as needed to be first in line for recognition or profit. So even if Edison wasn't the inventor of the light bulb, he was a cultural prophet. May he burn in hell (or whatever punishment your beliefs dictate). But the cycle continues unincumbered by the meek seekers of innovation and the creation of new ideas. I'm sorry to say that it's just a fact of human nature that the people who actually make a difference aren't getting credit. It's a matter of proclivities. If the meek actually inhearit the earth I'll be the first to sat I was wrong. Otherwise it's dog eat dog. Unfortunately my morals prevent me from being anything other than fodder.