1893 - Energy

Energy

Charles Steinmetz announces a symbolic method of calculation that will bring the complex field of alternating current within the reach of the average practicing engineer (see 1892; Westinghouse, Stanley, 1885; Tesla, 1888). His method will make the use of alternating current commercially feasible and be largely responsible for the quick introduction of apparatus using alternating current on a wide scale. General Electric has acquired Steinmetz's employer.

The electromagnetic oscillograph invented by French physicist André-Eugène Blondel, 29, at the School of Mines in Paris allows researchers to observe the intensity of alternating currents. Blondel next year will propose the lumen and other new measurement units for use in photometry, and the International Electrical Congress will endorse his system in 1896.

The first free-flowing Los Angeles oil well comes in April 20 (see 1892). Edward L. Doheny and his friend Charles Canfield have obtained enough money to buy a drill and put up a derrick. Their hole at the corner of State and Patton streets produces oil from a depth of only about 200 feet, homeowners give up their yards, palm trees, and even houses to make way for oil rigs, and speculators rush in. The city will have more than 3,000 oil pumps operating by the end of the decade, and Edward L. Doheny will be one of the richest men in America (see 1922).

The Klondike oil well geysers up in a marshy field on East Toledo's Millard Avenue, beginning a rush to drill wells. The Ohio city will become a major oil refinery center.

A model of the diesel engine with a 10-foot iron cylinder and a flywheel at its base runs on its own power for the first time August 10 (see 1892). Rudolf Diesel will work with Fried Krupp of Essen and the Augsburg-Nuremberg machine factory to build a commercially successful engine (see 1896).