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Title: Fleet Fire: Thomas Edison and the Pioneers of the Electric Revolution by L J Davis ISBN: 1-55970-655-4 Publisher: Arcade Books Pub. Date: March, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: With little-known facts, anecdotes, and insights
Comment: L.J. Davis' Fleet Fire tells of the interactions between various scientists and inventors who contributed to the discovery of electricity and the revolutionary changes instigated by its use. Little-known facts, anecdotes, and insights accompany these capsule features of inventors ranging from Ben Franklin to Thomas Davenport and Cyrus Field.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Crooked Road to Electrical Power
Comment: The recent outage of electrical power in New York and other states has highlighted the importance of electricity. Without it, we cannot work, travel, or communicate, or at least we cannot do these things with the efficiency we have come to expect when we have easily available current. With electricity so demonstrably vital, it is a good time to learn just how we got it. _Fleet Fire: Thomas Edison and the Pioneers of the Electric Revolution_ (Arcade) by L. J. Davis is not just Edison's story, but the story of electricity going back to the Greeks. It is a story filled with odd characters; given the peculiarities of so many of them, it might be thought improbable that delivered electricity could have ever become so universal.
America was involved in electrical experimentation from the beginning of scientific evaluation of such things. Ben Franklin, of course, is forever associated with the start of electrical investigations, and to him we owe such terms as battery, discharge, and condenser. Investigating electricity, however, proved to be a great disappointment for the practical Franklin; he may have invented the lightning rod, but he could not make electricity do anything practical. The great step toward practicality was made in 1796 when Alessandro Volta stacked zinc and lead and made a powerful and useful battery; experimenters no longer had to rely on iffy static charges in a Leyden jar. For almost eighty years, most of the world's electrical power came from batteries. This was despite the invention of the dynamo generator by Faraday in the 1830s. It was not until 1873 in an exhibit in Vienna that dynamos were wrongly connected and someone noticed that one dynamo could turn another dynamo into an electric motor. A few years later, Thomas Edison sensed the opportunity of sending electricity into homes to do motor work. He also worked hard on the light bulb, but Davis makes the case that "The light bulb destroyed Menlo Park and it wrecked Edison as a major inventor." The problem was direct current, and much of the book involves the vituperative competition between Edison for direct current, and Westinghouse and the extremely weird Tesla for alternating current.
Davis gives many examples of inventors who because of petty jealousies or greed did not get credit for their work; if you have never heard of Reginald Aubrey Fessenden, you have heard his radio, the one that sends voices rather than the mere impulses Marconi managed. There were so many wrong turns taken by brilliant men on the way to find good ways to make and use electricity that Davis's tale is an exciting (I will not say shocking) account of human foibles. It is good to be reminded, once again, that scientific knowledge cannot be gained in an orderly or planned fashion, but is accumulated catch-as-catch-can, the way humans perform even the most serious endeavors.
Rating: 5
Summary: Comprehensive and entertaining history of electricity
Comment: In a breezy, readable style reminiscent of James Burke's Connections, the author tells the story of the harnessing of electricity, from Benjamin Franklin's kite to Guglielmo Marconi and the beginnings of radio. Playing no national favorites, the book debunks some popular myths about Morse and Edison, and places developments in Britain and Europe in context with those in America.
Morse and the development of landline telegraphy have their own 52-page chapter, and the story of Cyrus Field and the Atlantic Cable occupies a further 49 pages. Covering all aspects of the history of electricity, Fleet Fire is an entertaining and informative study. The book has endnotes, a bibliography, and, appropriately, a web-page listing of related material.
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Title: Empires of Light : Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World by JILL JONNES ISBN: 0375507396 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 19 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: Executioner's Current : Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and the Invention of the Electric Chair by Richard Moran ISBN: 0375410597 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 15 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Edison & the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death by Mark Regan Essig ISBN: 0802714064 Publisher: Walker & Co Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company, and a Century of Progress, 1903-2003 by Douglas Brinkley ISBN: 067003181X Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 28 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
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Title: Isaac Newton by JAMES GLEICK ISBN: 0375422331 Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: 13 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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