Perhaps I wasn't as concise as I might have been. I was referring to the AC courses in my own senior year, as well as those being taught today. In the early 1900's, AC technology was already covered in the universities. Edison didn't have the advantage of a university education in his younger days. He was self-educated (better than a lot of kids today), but he might have sought out guidance on the advanced power transmission, that Westinghouse was working on. But, explorative as TAE was, he would not venture out into the "dark room" that was AC power transmission. DC was a sure thing with him, and he was comfortable with it. Indeed, he was well past the stage in life to take college training, even if he might have had the prerequisites. It wasn't reasonable to expect Edison to have training in the mathematical tangle that is AC power. He had to stay with what he understood. Had he understood the advantages of AC, and sought guidance from a consultant (they had them in those days, too). He could have kept pace with technology if he'd wanted to. It was in use in those early days, but venturesome as TAE was, he wasn't flexible enough to flow with progress. DC was too sure, and AC was too mystifying, and terribly unsure to him. That's just the way the guy was. In many ways, he was a genius, but there were voids in even so great a mind as his. One of his strongest attributes was his tenacity and the determination to achieve success, but once having succeeded, he locked on to his product with whatever improvements he was obligated to make, then carried it as long as possible. Were he operating today, with a product that had become obsolete, as was the cylinder record, he would have been obligated to phase out cylinders, and go forward with discs. His customers would ultimately replace their cylinder players with DD players, and life would go on. The big recording revolution in 1925 left Edison in its dust. Before that, he was still a major name in the phonograph.He was on the brink of finally making lateral records,as dozens of other companies had been doing for years. He developed a long playing record, but it was acoustically recorded, and his dealers expressed disappointment with it. He didn't seem to understand that he needed a slower turntable speed. He also appeared to have an aversion to electric motors for phonographs, though other companies had been using them successfully for as many as ten yeatrs before. He must not have realized how close he was to having a sensational breakthrough in recording. He had developed microgroove recording, and an electric motor could have made possible slower turntable speeds. It took until 1948, when Peter Goldmark, of CBS finally combined microgroove recording with the standard speed of 33 1/3 RPM to make the finally successful LP record. Even Victor bombed out in 1932-34 with their non-microgroove 33 1/3 RPM LP discs. No need to get your backs arched, and claws drawn about Edison's shortcomings. He had them, like any other human being has. He was great, and the world recognizes his greatness. But he was a human being, and had soft spots, like all of us, but fewer than most of us. Who else in history ever rated a whole nation turning out lights for a minute in reverence at his passing? > [Original Message] > From: Dan-K <edisone1 at verizon.net> > To: Antique Phonograph List <phono-l at oldcrank.org> > Date: 11/21/2007 7:50:38 PM > Subject: Re: [Phono-L] Last Con Edison Direct Current Customer Is History > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Douglas Houston" <cdh041 at earthlink.net> > To: "Antique Phonograph List" <phono-l at oldcrank.org> > Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 2:52 PM > Subject: Re: [Phono-L] Last Con Edison Direct Current Customer Is History > > > Edison was at a bad disadvantage in the area of power transmission. DC is > easy to understand. Once you get Ohm's law and power law down, the DC > world is yours! But AC is another animal, that makes you drown in > mathematics, and that's what Edison couldn't grapple with. The senior year > in electrical engineering is a swamp of calculations invovolving power > transmission, phase angles, reactive power, and all that stuff. Poor old > TAE just couldn't handle it. > +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > > He couldn't handle what? There was no "senior year in electrical engineering" > during that period (1880s-90s); the theories were either barely understood or > not even stated yet. (ie: Edison's idea that higher resistance would mean lower > power consumption was pooh-poohed, only a few years before. ) > > For the first few years, the AC systems didn't even have a motor or a meter, > and certainly no difficult math was involved. The work at Westinghouse was > about as trial-and-error as at the Edison or Thomson-Houston works. > > _______________________________________________ > Phono-L mailing list > http://phono-l.oldcrank.org