Charles Proteus Steinmetz, the Wizard of Schenectady | Hacker News Reader

Charles Proteus Steinmetz, the Wizard of Schenectady

smithsonianmag.com

42 pointsmpweiher10 comments

A little trivia for those of you who give your zip code to retailers as "12345"--- this zip code is used for Schenectady, New York.

A friend of mine while we were in school (RPI) interned at GE and apparently they receive tons of letters each Christmas sent to Santa which have 12345 as the zip that GE staff volunteer to reply to.

https://dailygazette.com/galleries/2014/12/09/ge-answers-san...

Well over 30 years ago one of the first things I learned in my EE degree was Steinmetz's method for calculating steady state amplitude and phase in AC networks comprising generators, resistors, capacitors and inductors. He worked out a transformation that lets you use simply solve a set of simultaneous equations, in exactly the same way as simpler DC networks with only batteries and resistors. The only extra price you pay is that the equations use complex numbers instead of real numbers. It really seemed like magic to me. Sadly a career in software has gradually worn down the motivation I once felt to revisit some of the really beautiful ideas underpinning technology, with the idea of getting a better understanding the second time through.

Well the actual transform is due to LaPlace. Steinmetz didn't really work out any new math but he certainly pushed it's practical application forward.

For better or worse most engineering students learn it as a Laplace transform with very little mention of Steinmetz.

In my courses we were taught the Laplace transform as part of analog control theory. It was clear that the Fourier transform was related, but it was taught completely independently in signals theory. Meanwhile I didn't know the Steinmetz impedance concept as (I understood it) was related to the Laplace transform, but it absolutely doesn't surprise me. I had a sense that all these things, things I'd really like to go back and learn properly, were deeply interrelated. I was sure they could best be presented to students through some kind of integrated and harmonious approach rather than the haphazard let-me-present-my-approach-to-one-aspect-as-if-it's-self-contained-when-really-it's-just-one-piece-of-a-bigger-puzzle approach the instructors (and textbooks) took.

I wonder if the teaching of fundamental electrical engineering concepts has improved on average since the early 80s?

Edit: typo

I thought Heaviside came up with the Laplace transform method.

Really fun to read. I grew up in Schenectady, played Schenectady youth hockey and later got a job with GE in downtown Schenectady. It was there I started using Java (v1.0.2) building rich client apps using AWT (Swing didn't exist yet). One app was for building a pricing engine for steam turbines. Good memories.

Nice article. I used the "$9,999 on where to put it" for years; didn't know it was Steinmetz. After reading biographies on Tesla and Heaviside, I suppose Steinmetz is next on my list.

It's an urban myth. http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/where.asp

I don't see any claim in that article that this is a myth. They merely discuss variants of the story. Fwiw, I have heard Steinmetz as the origin of this, a possibility they discuss in the article without explicitly confirming or refuting it.

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