ABSTRACT
Ørsted showed that a moving electric current produces a magnetic eld. Faraday then turned this observation around and showed that a moving magnetic eld produces an electric current. Following Faraday’s fundamental discovery in physics, two engineering design modications of the original experiment incorporated the advantages of using rotary instead of reciprocating motion, and of moving the coil of wire while keeping the magnet stationary. Many people contributed to the development of the truly practical large-scale generator. Credit is usually awarded to the Belgian engineer Zénobe Gramme* (Figure 14.1). Gramme’s achievement has considerable similarity with James Watt’s. Neither can truly claim to have originated or invented the device with which they are associated, but each genuinely deserves credit and praise for bringing the device to a state of reliable practical operation and a scale large enough for industrial and commercial application. Perfection of the generator by Gramme in 1870 provided for rapid expansion of the electricity industry. In this chapter, we examine some of the ramications of this on society.
