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| Charles Steinmetz, sekitar 1915 Imej ihsan Wikipedia |
August 16, 2011
Sumbangannya kepada kejuruteraan elektrik menjadikannya paling disayangi pada zamannya.
Dia berdiri hanya empat kaki tinggi, badannya berkerut oleh bonggol di
belakangnya dan berjalan bengkok, dan batang tubuhnya yang terbantut memberi
ilusi bahawa kepala, tangan dan kakinya terlalu besar.
Tetapi dia adalah seorang gergasi dalam kalangan pemikir saintifik, mengira Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla dan Thomas Edison sebagai kawan, dan sumbangannya kepada matematik dan kejuruteraan elektrik menjadikannya salah seorang lelaki yang paling disayangi dan dikenali pada zamannya.
Pada awal abad ke-20, Charles Steinmetz dapat dilihat mengayuh basikalnya di jalan-jalan di Schenectady, New York, dengan sut dan topi atas, atau terapung di Sungai Mohawk dalam kanu, melutut di atas meja sementara, di mana dia menghabiskan berjam-jam menulis nota dan persamaan pada kertas yang kadang-kadang terhempas ke dalam air.
Dengan sebatang cerut panatela Blackstone yang kelihatan dilekatkan pada bibirnya, Steinmetz mengerutkan kening apabila kanak-kanak bergegas pergi apabila melihatnya - dia percaya, ketakutan dengan "figura aneh, seperti gnome" dengan loghat Jerman.
Kejadian seperti itu lebih menyakitkan bagi Steinmetz, kerana keluarga dan anak-anak yang paling dia rindukan dalam hidupnya.
Tetapi mengetahui bahawa kecacatannya adalah kongenital (kedua-dua bapa dan datuknya menghidap kyphosis, kelengkungan tulang belakang atas yang tidak normal), Steinmetz memilih untuk tidak berkahwin, takut akan meneruskan kecacatannya.
Dilahirkan pada tahun 1865 di Breslau, Jerman (kini Wroclaw, Poland), Carl August Rudolph Steinmetz menjadi pelajar cemerlang matematik dan kimia di Universiti Breslau, tetapi dia terpaksa meninggalkan negara itu selepas pihak berkuasa berminat dengan penglibatannya dengan Parti Sosialis.
Dia tiba di Pulau Ellis pada tahun 1888 dan hampir ditolak kerana dia seorang yang kerdil, tetapi rakan Amerika yang Steinmetz sedang dalam perjalanan dengan pegawai imigresen yakin bahawa Ph.D.D. adalah seorang genius yang kehadirannya suatu hari nanti akan memberi manfaat kepada seluruh Amerika.
Hanya dalam beberapa tahun, Steinmetz akan membuktikan rakan Amerikanya betul.
Tidak lama selepas ketibaannya, dia pergi bekerja untuk Eickemeyer dan Osterheld, sebuah syarikat di Yonkers, New York, dan dia mengenal pasti dan menjelaskan, melalui persamaan matematik yang kemudiannya dikenali sebagai Hukum Histerisis, atau Undang-undang Steinmetz, fenomena yang mengawal kehilangan kuasa, yang membawa kepada kejayaan dalam kedua-dua sistem elektrik berselang-seli dan arus terus.
Amerika sedang memasuki zaman kegemilangan kejuruteraan elektrik, dan apabila Thomas Edison dan General Electric mengetahui apa yang Steinmetz lakukan dengan motor elektrik di Yonkers, syarikat itu membeli Eickemeyer dan Osterheld pada tahun 1892, memperoleh semua paten Steinmetz serta perkhidmatannya.
Steinmetz mengamerikankan namanya kepada Charles Steinmetz.
Dia memilih Proteus sebagai nama tengahnya - nama panggilan yang diberikan oleh profesornya di Jerman dengan penuh kasih sayang sebagai pengiktirafan terhadap tuhan laut yang berubah bentuk.
Dalam mitologi Yunani, Proteus ialah seorang lelaki tua kenabian yang tinggal di dalam gua yang sentiasa kembali kepada bentuk manusianya - seorang bungkuk.
Steinmetz benar-benar menikmati perbandingan itu.
Pada tahun 1894 dia tiba di Schenectady, tempat yang akan dia panggil pulang selama tiga puluh tahun akan datang, dan kesannya di General Electric adalah serta-merta.
Menggunakan persamaan matematik yang kompleks, Steinmetz membangunkan cara untuk menganalisis nilai dalam litar arus ulang alik.
Penemuannya mengubah cara jurutera berfikir tentang litar dan mesin dan menjadikannya nama yang paling dikenali dalam bidang elektrik selama beberapa dekad.
Tidak lama kemudian, minda saintifik terhebat pada masa itu mengembara ke Schenectady untuk bertemu dengan "gergasi kecil" yang prolifik; kisah anekdot pertemuan ini masih diceritakan dalam kelas kejuruteraan hari ini.
Satu muncul di halaman surat majalah Life pada tahun 1965, selepas majalah itu mencetak cerita di Steinmetz.
Jack B. Scott menulis untuk memberitahu pertemuan bapanya dengan Wizard of Schenectady di kilang River Rouge Henry Ford di Dearborn, Michigan.
Steinmetz dan rakan seangkatannya (Tesla, Einstein dan lain-lain)
di stesen wayarles Marconi di New Jersey. Imej ihsan Wikicommons
Ford, yang jurutera elektriknya tidak dapat menyelesaikan beberapa masalah yang mereka hadapi dengan penjana gergasi, memanggil Steinmetz ke kilang itu.
Apabila tiba, Steinmetz menolak semua bantuan dan hanya meminta buku nota, pensil dan katil bayi.
Menurut Scott, Steinmetz mendengar penjana dan menulis pengiraan pada pad nota selama dua hari dan malam berturut-turut.
Pada malam kedua, dia meminta tangga, memanjat penjana dan membuat tanda kapur di sisinya.
Kemudian dia memberitahu jurutera skeptikal Ford untuk mengeluarkan plat di tanda dan menggantikan enam belas belitan dari gegelung medan.
Mereka melakukannya, dan penjana melakukan dengan sempurna.
Henry Ford sangat teruja sehingga dia mendapat invois daripada General Electric berjumlah $10,000.
Ford mengakui kejayaan Steinmetz tetapi menolak angka itu.
Dia meminta bil terperinci.
Steinmetz, Scott menulis, menjawab secara peribadi permintaan Ford
dengan yang berikut:
Membuat tanda kapur pada penjana $1.
Mengetahui di mana untuk membuat tandaan $9,999.
Ford membayar bil.
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Charles Proteus Steinmetz, the Wizard of Schenectady
His contributions to mathematics and electrical engineering made him one of the most beloved and instantly recognizable men of his time.
Gilbert King
August 16, 2011
He stood just four feet tall, his body contorted by a hump in his back and a crooked gait, and his stunted torso gave the illusion that his head, hands and feet were too big. But he was a giant among scientific thinkers, counting Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison as friends, and his contributions to mathematics and electrical engineering made him one of the most beloved and instantly recognizable men of his time.
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. With a Blackstone panatela cigar seemingly glued to his lips, Steinmetz cringed as children scurried away upon seeing him—frightened, he believed, by the “queer, gnome-like figure” with the German accent. Such occurrences were all the more painful for Steinmetz, as it was a family and children that he longed for most in his life. But knowing that his deformity was congenital (both his father and grandfather were afflicted with kyphosis, an abnormal curvature of the upper spine), Steinmetz chose not to marry, fearful of passing on his deformity.
Born in 1865 in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland), Carl August Rudolph Steinmetz became a brilliant student of mathematics and chemistry at the University of Breslau, but he was forced to flee the country after the authorities became interested in his involvement with the Socialist Party. He arrived at Ellis Island in 1888 and was nearly turned away because he was a dwarf, but an American friend whom Steinmetz was traveling with convinced immigration officials that the young German Ph.D. was a genius whose presence would someday benefit all of America. In just a few years, Steinmetz would prove his American friend right.
Soon after his arrival, he went to work for Eickemeyer and Osterheld, a company in Yonkers, New York, and he identified and explained, through a mathematical equation that later became known as the Law of Hysterisis, or Steinmetz’s Law, phenomena governing power losses, leading to breakthroughs in both alternating- and direct-current electrical systems. 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 Steinmetz’s patents as well as his services.
Steinmetz Americanized his name to Charles Steinmetz. He chose Proteus as his middle name—the nickname his professors in Germany had affectionately bestowed upon him in recognition of the shape-shifting sea god. In Greek mythology, Proteus was a cave-dwelling prophetic old man who always returned to his human form—that of a hunchback. Steinmetz thoroughly enjoyed the comparison.
In 1894 he arrived in Schenectady, the place he would call home for the next thirty years, and his impact at General Electric was immediate. Using complex mathematical equations, Steinmetz developed ways to analyze values in alternating current circuits. His discoveries changed the way engineers thought about circuits and machines and made him the most recognized name in electricity for decades.
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. One appeared on the letters page of Life magazine in 1965, after the magazine had printed a story on Steinmetz. Jack B. Scott wrote in to tell of his father’s encounter with the Wizard of Schenectady at Henry Ford’s River Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan.
Ford, whose electrical engineers couldn’t solve some problems they were
having with a gigantic generator, called Steinmetz in to the plant. Upon
arriving, Steinmetz rejected all assistance and asked only for a notebook,
pencil and cot. According to Scott, Steinmetz listened to the generator and
scribbled computations on the notepad for two straight days and nights. On the
second night, he asked for a ladder, climbed up the generator and made a chalk
mark on its side. Then he told Ford’s skeptical engineers to remove a plate at
the mark and replace sixteen windings from the field coil. They did, and the
generator performed to perfection.
Henry Ford was thrilled until he got an invoice from General Electric
in the amount of $10,000. Ford acknowledged Steinmetz’s success but balked at
the figure. He asked for an itemized bill.
Steinmetz, Scott wrote, responded personally to Ford’s request with the
following:
Making chalk mark on generator $1.
Knowing where to make mark $9,999.
Ford paid the bill.
Pautan: charles-proteus-steinmetz-the-wizard-of-schenectady
