The Electric Century (eBook)

How the Taming of Lightning Shaped the Modern World

J.B. Williams (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2017 | 1st ed. 2018
XI, 216 Seiten
Springer International Publishing (Verlag)
978-3-319-51155-9 (ISBN)

Infos

This book is about how electricity has profoundly changed the way we live, work, and play. Some twenty topics are covered, with an abundance of graphs and images to build a comprehensive picture. Each looks at the developments, and the people who initiated them, together with how one led to the next and their subsequent impact on society. Topics include electric supply, lighting through X-rays, and all those appliances that make our homes so comfortable.

Most homes at the end of the twentieth century were full of electrical equipment, much of which was regarded as essential. It ran from lights, washing machines, fridges, freezers, kettles, telephones and so on, to the more subtle things such as wipers and starter motors on cars. In 1900, in all but a tiny minority of houses, there were none of these things. It is very difficult for us now to imagine a world without electrical equipment everywhere, and yet it has only taken a century. The Electric Century examines how we got from then to now.

 The nineteenth is often described as the century of steam from the impact it had on employment and transport, and The Electric Century makes a similar claim as the description of the twentieth. Electricity and the equipment using it are so pervasive that they have affected every corner of modern life.

J.B. Williams got an electrical engineering degree at Imperial College, which led him into the design of electronic control and instrumentation equipment, and he became a Chartered Engineer. After working for a number of companies, including AVO/Megger and gaining seniority, he went into engineering management and later co-founded Ingenion Design Ltd to produce electronic instrumentation, exposing him to many different industries varying from washing machines to nuclear power stations.

Inhalt

Contents 6
Acknowledgments 8
List of Figures 9
List of Tables 12
1: Introduction 13
2: Chaotic Beginnings 16
Notes 21
3: Lighting that Doesn’t Need Lighting 23
Notes 31
4: Streetcars, Subways, Trains and Suburbs 32
Notes 41
5: First You Have to Make It: The Spread of the Electricity Supply 43
Notes 54
6: Beginnings of Mass Production: Electric Power in Industry 56
Notes 63
7: Early Mass Media: Newspapers and Cinema 65
Notes 74
8: The Catless Miaow: Wireless Telegraphy 76
Notes 85
9: Healthy? Early Medical Electricity 87
Notes 95
10: Portable Power: Batteries 96
Notes 103
11: A Good Investment: Electricity Grids 105
Notes 114
12: Willing Servants: The Growth of Appliances in the 1930s 115
Notes 125
13: Blackout: War and Crisis in Electric Power Generation 127
Notes 136
14: Give Someone a Bell: Telephones 138
Notes 146
15: Horseless Carriages: Road Vehicles 148
Notes 157
16: Too Cheap to Meter? Nuclear Power and Beyond 159
Notes 167
17: Keeping it Fresh: Fridges and Freezers 169
Notes 175
18: Banishing Washday: Home Laundry 176
Notes 182
19: Going Up… or Down: Elevators and Escalators 183
Notes 190
20: Gadgets: Small Household Appliances 192
Notes 198
21: Freedom of the House: Central Heating and Air Conditioning 200
Notes 208
22: Power Tools and the DIY Revolution 210
Notes 216
23: The Electric Century 217
Notes 220
Bibliography 221
Index 224

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 29.6.2017
• Reihe/Serie: Popular Science
• Reihe/Serie: Popular Science
• Reihe/Serie: Springer Praxis Books
• Reihe/Serie: Springer Praxis Books
• Zusatzinfo: XI, 216 p. 67 illus., 1 illus. in color.
• Verlagsort: Cham
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Natur / Technik ► Technik
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung
• Themenwelt: Technik ► Elektrotechnik / Energietechnik
• Schlagworte: Development of electricity • Energy grid history • History of electricity • Household appliances and electricity • Media in age of electricity • Transport and electricity • Uses of electricity for communication
• ISBN-10: 3-319-51155-6 / 3319511556
• ISBN-13: 978-3-319-51155-9 / 9783319511559