A Life of George Westinghouse
rotary engine into water meter
The colorful hoses between the tractor and the trailer, one is for air brakes and the other for electricity.
straight-air brake works with increase in pressure Vs automatic air-brake with decrease in pressure. which is more fail proof? (pg 30)
Standardization saving safety, time and money.
Trend of railway cars - heavier tonnage, powerful locomotives, higher speeds, increased length of trains.
Still maintaining legacy - successive improved air brakes still being able to work with predecessors.
"The way in which Mr. Westinghouse had gone to work, directly he found that something was wanted, to design precisely the thing that was wanted, was as good an illustration of the spirit in which engineers ought to work as could be found anywhere. -(Discussion of Galton's thrid paper)" (pg 67)
Contrast this with "What I do has to be a function of what I can do, not a function of what people ask me to do." - Tim Berners-Lee.
"The most surprising fact established by these trials was that the friction between two bodies, one or both being in motion, varies inversely as their relative speed."
Tribology or study of friction. Dry friction. Morin's Law. Coulomb's Law. Newtons Law.
"The general development of the electric art came on in great waves; first arc lighting, next incandescent lighting, then the trolley and the single-phase alternating current at about the same period, and finally polyphase alternating current and transmission of power."
"Westinghouse current"
Imagine bulbs making sounds pg 97.
"The energy expended in the arc became the important thing, not the kind of current" (pg 97)
Westinghouse used his mechanical design expertise to make H-plates ans then I-plates(pg 108). With his direction, Stanley made the E-shaped plate (pg 109).
"the gift of seeing things and the power to do a hard sum" (pg 128)
"Theres a meter in that and perhaps a motor" - Shallenberger (pg 129)
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