AC THEORY

[Joethemechanic]

I try to explain that to everybody. I don't always succeed.

A complex, technological society is doomed unless everybody is well-enough educated to make good decisions and fully participate.

When I was in school, we learned how to use the card catalog to find information. Today, finding information is pretty easy -- you can hardly escape the daily avalanche of information -- but we now need to learn how to distinguish information, opinion, propaganda and disinformation. And that requires a fundamental education in science, math, media, history, rhetoric and human psychology.

Yeah well it seems like corporate "leadership" isn't up to the challenge. They seem to have no understanding of anything technical, they have no ability to do basic geometry and trig, and I doubt they can do any algebra. It's like engineering decisions are being made by the kind of people who go to Jiffy Lube and believe the BS the "service advisor" tells them like you need a motor flush, transmission flush, and brake fluid flush, and your wiper blades rotated, because that nice "service advisor" has clean fingernails, there is free coffee, and the lady's room is nice and clean..

Supposedly they are all highly educated, but they have never read The Grapes of Wrath, Catcher in the Rye, any Ayn Rand, nor Thorstein Veblen, they can't tell you who W Edwards Deming or Even John Maynard Keynes is.

I'm totally lost as to what it is they were taught in school

 

[Besoeker3]

I don't know what the problem is here. The theory is fairly uncomplicated.

 

[ggunn]

I don't know what the problem is here. The theory is fairly uncomplicated.

I used to work for a major semiconductor company. The engineer in the cubicle next to mine had this posted on his white board:

IT'S ONLY ONES AND ZEROS; HOW COMPLICATED COULD IT BE?

 

[Joethemechanic]

There are numerous versions of this "parable" sometimes with Henry Ford and Charles Steinmetz

Most of you have probably seen it in some form

A MORAL WITH AN ENDING.
He was the best machinist in the district, and it was for that reason that the manager had overlooked his private delinquencies. But at last even his patience was exhausted, and he was told to go, and another man reigned in his stead at the end of the room.
And then the machine, as though in protest, refused to budge an inch, and all the factory hands were idle. Everyone who knew the difference between a machine and a turnip tried his hand at the inert mass of iron. But the machine, metaphorically speaking, laughed at them, and the manager sent for the discharged employee. And he left the comfort of the “Bull” parlour and came.
He looked at the machine for some moments, and talked to it as a man talks to a horse, and then climbed into its vitals and called for a hammer. There was the sound of a “tap-tap-tap,” and in a moment the wheels were spinning, and the man was returning to the “Bull” parlour.
And in the course of time the mill-owner had a bill:–“To mending machine, £10. 10s.” And the owner of the works, being as owners go, a poor man, sent a polite note to the man, in which he asked him if he thought tapping a machine with a hammer worth ten guineas. And then he had another bill:—“To tapping machine with hammer, 10s.; to knowing where to tap it, £10; total, £10. 10s.”
And the man was reinstated in his position, and was so grateful that he turned teetotaller and lived a great and virtuous old age. And the moral is that a little knowledge is worth a deal of labour.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
In 1921 the influential business magazine “Forbes” printed in a humor section an instance of the story that a reader in Canada had submitted. The bill was specified in dollars:[2]

Knowledge Is Power
In a great factory one of the huge power machines suddenly balked. In spite of exhortation, language, oil and general tinkering it refused to budge. Production slowed down and the management tore its hair.
At last an expert was called in. He carefully examined the machine for a few minutes, then called for a hammer. Briskly tapping here and there for about ten minutes, he announced that the machine was ready to move. It did.
Two days later the management received a bill for $250—the expert’s fee. The accountant was a righteous man who objected to overcharge. He demanded a detailed statement of the account.
He received this:
To tapping machine with hammer…$1.00
Knowing where to tap ………………$249.00

 

[garbo]

Are you from the Philadelphia area?

Yes I'm a philly boy. I think Philly & Detroit maybe the two largest cities that still have hundreds of two phase services. Installed my last three phase to two phase phase changer about 25 years ago for a machine shop that purchased an old two phase machine that had a two speed two phase motor. The first Bridgeport milling machine that I ran wire for & connected was a brand new one back around 1965. Great thing about common 240 volt 4 wire two phase was with the 5th wire that was center tapped off both windings to supply 120 volts. Bad thing about two phase if you connect the power wrong ( 1 wire from phase A and second wire to phase B ) to two phase motors you only receive around 180 volts and motor burns out. We would mark one motor phase with red tape and other winding with blue tape. Did the same with the 4 supply wires. Little by little we had two phase motors rewound for three phase. After they stopped making 4 pole two phase motor starters we would purchase a power pole for three phase ( 3 pole ) motor starters to open & close the fourth energised conductor.

 

[Besoeker3]

I used to work for a major semiconductor company. The engineer in the cubicle next to mine had this posted on his white board:

IT'S ONLY ONES AND ZEROS; HOW COMPLICATED COULD IT BE?

I agree. For me it was just power electronics. Usually around 200 kW to 10,000 kW and around 11,000 KV.

 

[PaulMmn]

There are numerous versions of this "parable" sometimes with Henry Ford and Charles Steinmetz

Most of you have probably seen it in some form



Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
In 1921 the influential business magazine “Forbes” printed in a humor section an instance of the story that a reader in Canada had submitted. The bill was specified in dollars:[2]

It was an elevator and its repairman...

 

[ggunn]

I agree. For me it was just power electronics. Usually around 200 kW to 10,000 kW and around 11,000 KV.

You got that he was being ironic, don't you? Just checking

 

[ggunn]

It was an elevator and its repairman...

In the version I first heard it was an auto mechanic.

 

[LarryFine]

I originally heard it about a TV repairman (remember them?) knowing which button to press.

 

[Besoeker3]

You got that he was being ironic, don't you? Just checking

I hope you are right............

 

[Joethemechanic]

(remember them?)

Yeah one of the old guys that hung around my grandfather's garage did TVs and Small engines when he retired. I still remember his electronics room with the oscilloscope and vacuum tube volt meter. Brilliant guy, construction superintendent. Came from Missouri to work some big project in Philly, lived in a trailer behind my grandparents Esso Station, bought p0roperty off my grandfather and built his own house, and when I say "built" I mean dug with a shovel and wheelbarrow, drove every nail, sweat every pipe connection, etc.

How come there are no guys like that now?

 

[zbang]

Hmm, Detroit has two phase? Got to add it to the metal list of those places.

As for "tapping", I suspect that story has been around as long as machines have been.

 

[Joethemechanic]

Hmm, Detroit has two phase? Got to add it to the metal list of those places.

As for "tapping", I suspect that story has been around as long as machines have been.

The first one I posted goes back to 1908, so it's at least that old

Quote Investigator: The earliest instance located by QI appeared in “The Journal of the Society of Estate Clerks of Works” of Winchester, England in 1908. The bill below was denominated in pounds and shillings. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:[1]

BTW I never knew Detroit used 2 phase either

 

[junkhound]

How come there are no guys like that now?

There are a few. Wife and I did that, did have an old D2 in addition to shovel an WB but had to clear road also.

Young guy I work with doing it all also, but he did rent an excavator he operated himself vs. shovel an' WB..
Wife and I even dug our well by hand, me in bottom with post hole digger, she at top to empty bucket and call aid unit in case of cave in........

 

[drcampbell]

... I never knew Detroit used 2 phase either

I haven't seen or heard of it here
But then, I haven't been in every nook & cranny of the old industrial neighborhoods, nor have I worked for the POCO or the city.

 

[Joethemechanic]

There are a few. Wife and I did that, did have an old D2 in addition to shovel an WB but had to clear road also.

Young guy I work with doing it all also, but he did rent an excavator he operated himself vs. shovel an' WB..
Wife and I even dug our well by hand, me in bottom with post hole digger, she at top to empty bucket and call aid unit in case of cave in........

This is the building that used to be my grandfather's Esso. My grandmother and grandfather built the whole place by hand. The left side was the garage, and my grandmother had a restaurant on the right. There were 3 apartments upstairs

 

[ggunn]

Yeah one of the old guys that hung around my grandfather's garage did TVs and Small engines when he retired. I still remember his electronics room with the oscilloscope and vacuum tube volt meter. Brilliant guy, construction superintendent. Came from Missouri to work some big project in Philly, lived in a trailer behind my grandparents Esso Station, bought p0roperty off my grandfather and built his own house, and when I say "built" I mean dug with a shovel and wheelbarrow, drove every nail, sweat every pipe connection, etc.

How come there are no guys like that now?

A guy I worked with back in the 1970s got a report from his doctor that told him that he had to get on an exercise regimen, so he built a 25' X 10' addition on the back of his house by hand, carrying every board and hammering every nail. He told me that he could have burned the same amount of energy by running and going to a gym, but he wouldn't have had anything to show for it.