The Generator

The rotating wheels of the generator - the clock-wheels of our world. How much is made possible by them? With the exception of solar cells, all electric energy has its source in this invention. Yet few realise what exactly this invention does. It allows us to transport and transform work in accordance with our needs.

The motion of a waterfall turns a generator. The generator transforms it into electric current. A thousand kilometres distant, a portion of the current recreates motion - in atoms in a tungsten filament that lights a dark room.

Burning coal heats water. Rising steam turns a turbine. The electric current generated helps a man to make shoes by animating his tools.

Work is directed force. That such an abstract entity can be transported beggars belief. And yet, not only is it possible, but it underpins our entire modern civilisation. Communications? Telephone, telegraph, internet - modulated signals of electricity. Fibre-optics? Their light transport is generated by electricity. Transport? Electric fire in the spark-plugs of cars, in the circuitry of planes, in the control rooms of ships. Manufacturing? Two-thirds of the factory production of the world is based on electric motors. I could go on and on.

All of this power must have a source. And this source is the device based on the principles that Faraday discovered, that Giovanni Branca and Zenobe Theophile Gramme developed, that Edison patented. Remember them.

Submitted by: Hugo Schmidt