Light ROM 4/Light ROM 4 - Disc 1.iso/text/maillist/1996/012296.doc/[e-mail] _Wed Jan 31 14:51:53 1996.msg

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From: Andrew Hofman <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Electrocuting Dogs (was RE: Alpha Wars)
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EXTREMELY OFF-TOPIC POST! (Well, it didn't start out that way . . . )

>If you think the level of conflict is high in this discussion, go check out
the book on Nicholas >Tesla (sp?).  In that book they discuss the  AC - DC
wars between Thomas Edision and >Westinghouse (George, I think).   Hell,
they use to electrocute animals to prove that >Alternating current (AC) was
bad.  AC won. By the way I am not suggesting that we should >start
electricuting our competition, but it might be possible to fry them on the
CPU's :)  I think I >smell smoke.
>
> Scott Pincus

That sounds really bizarre, but it happens to be true. Nikola Tesla fought
bitterly with Edison and Westinghouse, who were pushing a DC electrical
system for the U.S. In their effort to discredit AC, Edison had a traveling
roadshow, part of which involved electrocuting dogs with AC to show how
lethal it was compared to their own system. I don't know if Edison zapped
them with his "safe" DC for comparison's sake. As it happens, I recently
heard that 60 Hertz is a particularly bad frequency if you're going to get
electrocuted. Humans conduct current more easily at that rate. Then again,
none of our appliances would have isolation transformers if the nation was
DC, since they require an AC waveform in order to work. Or everything would
need oscillators on the 120 volt side simply to feed a transformer, which
would raise the cost and complexity of every single appliance we own.

Anyway, Tesla was an absolute genius and pretty damn weird himself. His
inventions came to him as visions, complete with working parts, literally
floating before his eyes like we would see a holographic image. That's how
he got the idea for his AC motor. Until he built one based on one of his
hallucinations, not even academics thought you could get a motor to run
using AC. Among other things, he wanted to use the Earth's atmosphere as a
huge power transmission grid, creating a standing wave with three giant
towers located at critical points on the planet (spaced 120 degrees apart).
He also built turbines and generators with no blades or windings, relying
instead on stacks of enormous flat discs and some sort of vortex principle.
A lot of stuff he tried was far weirder than all that, including a large ELF
(extremely low frequency) generator in Manhattan that he mistakenly left on
for a few days, causing sympathetic oscillations to build up in the bedrock
and shaking the city. They had to drag him back from a vacation to shut the
thing off. On a final note, every meal of his had to be accompanied by
exactly seventeen linen napkins, and the sight of pearls made him physically
ill.

How's that for an off-topic post?


Andy Hofman
LumaQuest Productions
Animation and Dual Raptor 3 Rendering
[e-mail]
513-643-7333