PortadaGruposCharlasMásPanorama actual
Buscar en el sitio
Este sitio utiliza cookies para ofrecer nuestros servicios, mejorar el rendimiento, análisis y (si no estás registrado) publicidad. Al usar LibraryThing reconoces que has leído y comprendido nuestros términos de servicio y política de privacidad. El uso del sitio y de los servicios está sujeto a estas políticas y términos.

Resultados de Google Books

Pulse en una miniatura para ir a Google Books.

Cargando...

Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World (2003)

por Jill Jonnes

MiembrosReseñasPopularidadValoración promediaMenciones
4931349,384 (4)25
The gripping history of electricity and how the fateful collision of Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and George Westinghouse left the world utterly transformed. In the final decades of the nineteenth century, three brilliant and visionary titans of America's Gilded Age--Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and George Westinghouse--battled bitterly as each vied to create a vast and powerful electrical empire. In Empires of Light, historian Jill Jonnes portrays this extraordinary trio and their riveting and ruthless world of cutting-edge science, invention, intrigue, money, death, and hard-eyed Wall Street millionaires. At the heart of the story are Thomas Alva Edison, the nation's most famous and folksy inventor, creator of the incandescent light bulb and mastermind of the world's first direct current electrical light networks; the Serbian wizard of invention Nikola Tesla, elegant, highly eccentric, a dreamer who revolutionized the generation and delivery of electricity; and the charismatic George Westinghouse, Pittsburgh inventor and tough corporate entrepreneur, an industrial idealist who in the era of gaslight imagined a world powered by cheap and plentiful electricity and worked heart and soul to create it. Edison struggled to introduce his radical new direct current (DC) technology into the hurly-burly of New York City as Tesla and Westinghouse challenged his dominance with their alternating current (AC), thus setting the stage for one of the eeriest feuds in American corporate history, the War of the Electric Currents. The battlegrounds: Wall Street, the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, Niagara Falls, and, finally, the death chamber--Jonnes takes us on the tense walk down a prison hallway and into the sunlit room where William Kemmler, convicted ax murderer, became the first man to die in the electric chair.… (más)
  1. 10
    AC/DC: The Savage Tale of the First Standards War por Tom McNichol (ryvre)
    ryvre: AC/DC is a more enjoyable and informative book.
Ninguno
Cargando...

Inscríbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará.

Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro.

» Ver también 25 menciones

Mostrando 1-5 de 13 (siguiente | mostrar todos)
Extremely interesting story of how electricity came to power the machinery of America and how AC power became the main thing over DC power. Also includes the stories of Edison, Westinghouse, and Tesla, three important figures involved with electricity. Highly recommended ! ( )
  kslade | Dec 8, 2022 |
Surprisingly good. Did not understand it all but the story behind the building of electricity was captivating. ( )
  leebill | Apr 30, 2020 |
If you are looking for a highly technical book then this one isn't for you, the book is more about the business and people that made electricity possible today than about explaining how the science works, and that's fine, it was what I was looking for right now, though it wouldn't have hurt a bit more of explanation. ( )
  Rose999 | Jun 28, 2019 |
A fascinating account of the war of electrical currents. Split into ten chapters, the book talks about Edison developing the light bulb and focusing on DC, Tesla being a genius and far ahead of his time, and Westinghouse being a businessman from Pittsburgh with a background dealing with machines.

The major arguments against AC were the dangers of the current, and that nothing used AC. No one could figure out how to produce AC current without brush contacts. However, DC had its own issues with the limits how far the current could travel. A generator would have to be built in each building and only had an effective distance of around half a mile or so.

So Edison and his group focused on Safety, while Tesla and Westinghouse used AC since it was more economical. So AC wins out in the end, but the journey there involved a ton of interesting stories. Like the first Public Execution with Electricity, or how some fellow named Harold Brown used AC to torture animals in order to prove that it was dangerous. ( )
  Floyd3345 | Jun 15, 2019 |
Fascinating account of the travails of bringing electricity into modern life. Thomas Edison, the legendarily stubborn folksy inventor, Nikola Tesla, the true electrical genius, and George Westinghouse, the far sighted business mogul, all dreamed of spreading the power of electricity throughout the world. Highlights include the bank runs of 1894, Chicago World's Fair, Niagara Falls and the financial panic of 1907. The outcome of the competition between direct & indirect current systems is now taken for granted but vital at the time. All the original characters eventually lost control of their business to financial backers. The book was published in 2003 but somehow strangely current with this 1894 quote "many Americans had come to view the notion as a struggle for it's very being, putting the rich against the ordinary folk". The comprehensive approach to the subject provides a more satisfying approach to US History the lists of battles and politicians. ( )
  MM_Jones | Feb 19, 2019 |
Mostrando 1-5 de 13 (siguiente | mostrar todos)
sin reseñas | añadir una reseña
Debes iniciar sesión para editar los datos de Conocimiento Común.
Para más ayuda, consulta la página de ayuda de Conocimiento Común.
Título canónico
Título original
Títulos alternativos
Fecha de publicación original
Personas/Personajes
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés. Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
Lugares importantes
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés. Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
Acontecimientos importantes
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés. Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
Películas relacionadas
Epígrafe
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés. Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
Great are the powers of electricity...It makes millionaires. It paints devils' tails int he air and floats pacidly in the waters of the earth. It hides in the air. It creeps into every living thing...Last night it nestled in the sherry. It lurked in the pale Rhone wine. It his in the claret and sparkled in the champagne. It trebled in the sorbet electrique...Small wonder that the taste was thrilled and the man who sipped was electrified...Energy begets energy. - Buffalo Morning Express, January 13, 1897, describing the banquet celebrating the city's first electricity from the Niagara Falls Power Company
Dedicatoria
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés. Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
For my husband, Christopher Ross
Primeras palabras
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés. Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
In the late spring of 1882, Thomas Alva Edison, world famous as the folksy genius who had invented the improved telegraph and telephone, the amazing talking phonograph, and the incandescent light bulb, would shamble in occasionally to the hushed, formal suits of Drexel, Morgan & Company at 23 Wall Street, an imposing white marble Renaissance palace of mammon.
Citas
Últimas palabras
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés. Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
(Haz clic para mostrar. Atención: puede contener spoilers.)
Aviso de desambiguación
Editores de la editorial
Blurbistas
Idioma original
DDC/MDS Canónico
LCC canónico

Referencias a esta obra en fuentes externas.

Wikipedia en inglés (4)

The gripping history of electricity and how the fateful collision of Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and George Westinghouse left the world utterly transformed. In the final decades of the nineteenth century, three brilliant and visionary titans of America's Gilded Age--Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and George Westinghouse--battled bitterly as each vied to create a vast and powerful electrical empire. In Empires of Light, historian Jill Jonnes portrays this extraordinary trio and their riveting and ruthless world of cutting-edge science, invention, intrigue, money, death, and hard-eyed Wall Street millionaires. At the heart of the story are Thomas Alva Edison, the nation's most famous and folksy inventor, creator of the incandescent light bulb and mastermind of the world's first direct current electrical light networks; the Serbian wizard of invention Nikola Tesla, elegant, highly eccentric, a dreamer who revolutionized the generation and delivery of electricity; and the charismatic George Westinghouse, Pittsburgh inventor and tough corporate entrepreneur, an industrial idealist who in the era of gaslight imagined a world powered by cheap and plentiful electricity and worked heart and soul to create it. Edison struggled to introduce his radical new direct current (DC) technology into the hurly-burly of New York City as Tesla and Westinghouse challenged his dominance with their alternating current (AC), thus setting the stage for one of the eeriest feuds in American corporate history, the War of the Electric Currents. The battlegrounds: Wall Street, the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, Niagara Falls, and, finally, the death chamber--Jonnes takes us on the tense walk down a prison hallway and into the sunlit room where William Kemmler, convicted ax murderer, became the first man to die in the electric chair.

No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca.

Descripción del libro
Resumen Haiku

Debates activos

Ninguno

Cubiertas populares

Enlaces rápidos

Valoración

Promedio: (4)
0.5
1
1.5
2 1
2.5 1
3 10
3.5 3
4 35
4.5 2
5 14

¿Eres tú?

Conviértete en un Autor de LibraryThing.

 

Acerca de | Contactar | LibraryThing.com | Privacidad/Condiciones | Ayuda/Preguntas frecuentes | Blog | Tienda | APIs | TinyCat | Bibliotecas heredadas | Primeros reseñadores | Conocimiento común | 203,231,053 libros! | Barra superior: Siempre visible