ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Who Owns Electrical Theroy?

I have many basic electrical theory papers and pocket books and they indicate that they are copyrighted!

How can any author say that they wrote those electrical formulas?

I think that the credit due should remain with the electricians like Ohm, Ampere, Volta, and others .... please add your favorite electricians.



[This message has been edited by Joe Tedesco (edited 01-01-2003).]

Kirchoff should be up there somewhere.....

This nice page from "Down Under" contains quite a list.

Isn't the book the thing that is copyrighted and not the formulas. The author put them in the book in some sequence and thats whats copyrighted not the individual formulas which are now public domain I would assume.

Anyone who has studied EE and had to use Calculus to prove alot of those formulas generally hates them or at least I do

I think Nikola Tesla should also be up there with the others. His work often seems to be quite neglected.

My favorite is Maxwell who developed his equations regarding the flow/effects of electricity in the early 1800's.
Chris

The Scientists I admire include:

Michael Faraday - trying to make people at the Worlds Fair understand what was so exciting about his experiment, is priceless!!!;

Tesla - what a genius!!! Walking thru the park one day, invisions polyphase AC systems, equipment working from them, plus single phase "taps" driving simple circuits (cut off to eliminate 10K work reply!);

Marconi - even if he "borrowed" from tesla, still pioneered radio;

Ohm, Kirchoff, Maxwell, Volta, Lenz, Watt, Bell, Ampere', the class "playing" with the Leyden Jar, and in a small bit - even good 'ol Tommy A Edison!

So many Scientists to list!!!

Also, these dudes need to be mentioned (excuse the spelling!):

Copernicus, Gallileo Gallelli, Tico Brahve, Johannus Kessler, Isaac Newton, Einstein, The Curries (Sp?), Fermi and all the others involved with Atomic Theories, Max Plak (The Quantum Mechanics guy), and all the other men and women who were bold enough, passionate enough and curious enough to bring the Sciences into our everyday lives (or into the depths of the tech books!).

Scott s.e.t.

I haven't seen George Westinghouse mentioned yet, either.

I'd also include Lee DeForest (inventor of the triode vacuum tube/valve) and Brattain, Bardeen, Shockley and their team (invention of the transistor).

Being of a telecoms background, I'd also have to include Alexander Graham Bell, Elisha Gray, and all the scientists of Bell Labs, GPO Engineering et al who have contributed to the wonderful communications network that today encircles the globe.

How about Ben Franklin, everybody forgets about him. He brought lightning rods to Philadelphia.
Charles Dufray established charges attract or repel
Charles Coulomb force is inversely proportional to the distance squared.
Peter Van Muschenbrock and Franklin 'Leyden Jar for storing charge , ist capacitor
Stores charge and demonstrated electric shock.
WOC

Lot's of name have already been mentioned. I've got one rather unknown: Jonas Wenström who invented (and patented) the 3-phase generator in 1889. (Tesla came up with the concept of polyphase at the same time, but the Wenström patent was a full working system.)

And to you who thinks grounding is a modern thing: The first Wenström generator in 1882 refused to work since it had one ground wire to many. Once it was cut, the generator worked.