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The usual waveform of alternating current in most electric power circuits is a sine wave, whose positive half-period corresponds with positive direction of the current and vice versa (the full period is called a cycle). "Alternating current" most commonly refers to power distribution, but a wide range of other applications are technically ...
The war of the currents was a series of events surrounding the introduction of competing electric power transmission systems in the late 1880s and early 1890s. It grew out of two lighting systems developed in the late 1870s and early 1880s; arc lamp street lighting running on high-voltage alternating current (AC), and large-scale low-voltage direct current (DC) indoor incandescent lighting ...
An electric arc between two nails. An electric arc (or arc discharge) is an electrical breakdown of a gas that produces a prolonged electrical discharge. The current through a normally nonconductive medium such as air produces a plasma, which may produce visible light. An arc discharge is initiated either by thermionic emission or by field ...
Harold Pitney Brown (September 16, 1857, Janesville, Wisconsin – 1944, Volusia, Florida) [dubious – discuss] was an American electrical engineer and inventor known for his activism in the late 1880s against the use of alternating current (AC) for electric lighting in New York City and around the country (during the "war of the currents").
Mercury rectifier on display in the Beromünster AM transmitter in Switzerland, before being decommissioned.Three-phase full-wave rectifier with six anodes. A mercury-arc valve or mercury-vapor rectifier or (UK) mercury-arc rectifier [1] [2] is a type of electrical rectifier used for converting high-voltage or high-current alternating current (AC) into direct current (DC).
Alternating current is any current that reverses direction repeatedly; almost always this takes the form of a sine wave. [46]: 206–07 Alternating current thus pulses back and forth within a conductor without the charge moving any net distance over time. The time-averaged value of an alternating current is zero, but it delivers energy in first ...
The world's first public electricity supply was a water wheel driven system constructed in the small English town of Godalming in 1881. It was an alternating current (AC) system using a Siemens alternator supplying power for both street lights and consumers at two voltages, 250 V for arc lamps, and 40 V for incandescent lamps. [15]
His experiments with alternating current arc lighting at South Foreland Lighthouse in 1857-60 [6] were the subject of a lecture by Michael Faraday at the Royal Institution. [7] One of Holmes' generators built in 1867 and used at Souter Lighthouse is displayed at the Science Museum, London.