Britain's greatest invention: The bike?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...376728,00.html

The author uses words differently than I do, apparently.

Roger Zoul wrote:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...376728,00.html

The author uses words differently than I do, apparently.

LOL! I particularly like this part:
"How many fan websites are there devoted to electricity or
the light bulb?"

But how did the light bulb make it on the list? Wasn't the
light bulb invented by Thomas Edison, an American?

--
Mike Kruger
Too many people spend money they haven't earned
to buy things they don't want
to impress people they don't like. -Will Rogers

On Wed, 1 Dec 2004 20:57:26 -0600, "Mike Kruger"
wrote in message 1101956261.psS6t3/DwJ5XcPEcdXm87g@teranews:

But how did the light bulb make it on the list? Wasn't the
light bulb invented by Thomas Edison, an American?

Electrickery was discovered by Michael Faraday, an Englishman.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

"Just zis Guy, you know?" wrote:

Electrickery was discovered by Michael Faraday, an Englishman.

Faraday did some experiments. But it took a Frenchman (Ampere) and a
Scottsman (Maxwell) to describe the physics.
--
terry morse Palo Alto, CA http://bike.terrymorse.com/

Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:



Electrickery was discovered by Michael Faraday, an Englishman.

Eh, so he claims. I still don't believe in the stuff.

--
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com.
Substitute cc dot ysu dot
edu]

"Mike Kruger" wrote:

Roger Zoul wrote:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...376728,00.html

The author uses words differently than I do, apparently.

LOL! I particularly like this part:
"How many fan websites are there devoted to electricity or
the light bulb?"

But how did the light bulb make it on the list? Wasn't the
light bulb invented by Thomas Edison, an American?

There was a British inventor named Swann who developed a light bulb
about the same time Edison did, and who is, I've heard, widely regarded
in the UK as "the" inventor, as Edison is in the US. What set Edison
apart from various other light-bulb inventors is that he went on to
assemble the whole system of generators, switches, meters, sockets,
etc., that were needed to make the light bulb practical.

From http://www.design-technology.info/inventors/page27.htm:
"Joseph Swann worked on developing a filament lamp before Tomas Edison
and patented a design for an electric bulb. The patent however was
ultimately acquired by Edison buying the company that owned the patent.
"

--
Ray Heindl
(remove the Xs to reply to: )

On 2 Dec 2004 20:42:14 GMT, Ray Heindl wrote:

"Mike Kruger" wrote:

Roger Zoul wrote:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...376728,00.html

The author uses words differently than I do, apparently.

LOL! I particularly like this part:
"How many fan websites are there devoted to electricity or
the light bulb?"

But how did the light bulb make it on the list? Wasn't the
light bulb invented by Thomas Edison, an American?

There was a British inventor named Swann who developed a light bulb
about the same time Edison did, and who is, I've heard, widely regarded
in the UK as "the" inventor, as Edison is in the US. What set Edison
apart from various other light-bulb inventors is that he went on to
assemble the whole system of generators, switches, meters, sockets,
etc., that were needed to make the light bulb practical.

From http://www.design-technology.info/inventors/page27.htm:
"Joseph Swann worked on developing a filament lamp before Tomas Edison
and patented a design for an electric bulb. The patent however was
ultimately acquired by Edison buying the company that owned the patent.
"


What really happened was that Edison figured out to empty the tube of
oxygen which would consume the filament. Someone else invented it, he
just improved it and got all the credit. Edison was famous for that.
Many of his inventions were not his own but ones that he found and
improved then patented in his name.
Same thing that happened in photography, it was not DaGuerre who was
the inventor, just the improver who got credit. Television was invented
by Philo T. Farnsworth, but RCA held him up so long his original patents
expired and RCA got the credit and the money. There are lots of crooked
invention patents out there if you know the history. Some companies like
RCA are big enough to sit and wait while the other guy starves. Of course
look what finally happened to RCA. Gulp! European, now the name is all but
dead. When the purchase took place the new company had the balls to
rewrite the data manuals to say that they had invented the LED or
Light Emitting Diode. There were a whole lot of American engineers ****ed
about that, but it got the point across, money talks.
On a final note about Edison he wanted to distribute DC power and fought
Nicola Tesla almost into bankruptcy before Tesla found backing in
Westinghouse.
Guess who won, even though Westinghouse is all but a memory now?
Money does talk.
Sorry about the off topic, but I am an electronics engineer and don't
like money rewriting history.
Here is an on topic sort of thing. Has anyody put and serious thought
into taking those dynamo hubs and charging a NiMh battery pack with them
so they could be used as a motor for some bonked rides home? Not rockect
science but doable, maybe even with Lithium batteries.
Huh? Come on now, this is a bright group.



--
Bill (?) Baka

Bill Baka wrote:


Sorry about the off topic, but I am an electronics engineer and don't
like money rewriting history.
Here is an on topic sort of thing. Has anyody put and serious thought
into taking those dynamo hubs and charging a NiMh battery pack with them
so they could be used as a motor for some bonked rides home? Not rockect
science but doable, maybe even with Lithium batteries.
Huh? Come on now, this is a bright group.

Since you're an electrical engineer, why not work out the energy balance
and report back?

Compute, say, the extra work required per mile to run the dyno hub; the
energy output of the hub; the efficiency of the charging system; the
efficiency of the battery storage (i.e. energy recovered versus energy
input to the battery); efficiency of the motor you'll use to use the
battery's output; and see what you come up with for an overall system
efficiency.

Then figure out the weight of batteries you'd need to move you, say, ten
miles back home. Oh, and the cost of the system.

Let us know how it all works out. Even rough guesses should tell us a lot.

--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]

Ray Heindl wrote:
"Mike Kruger" wrote:

But how did the light bulb make it on the list? Wasn't
the
light bulb invented by Thomas Edison, an American?

There was a British inventor named Swann who developed a
light bulb
about the same time Edison did ...

Thanks. I learned at least one new thing today.

On Thu, 02 Dec 2004 22:40:09 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

Bill Baka wrote:


Sorry about the off topic, but I am an electronics engineer and don't
like money rewriting history.
Here is an on topic sort of thing. Has anyody put and serious thought
into taking those dynamo hubs and charging a NiMh battery pack with them
so they could be used as a motor for some bonked rides home? Not rockect
science but doable, maybe even with Lithium batteries.
Huh? Come on now, this is a bright group.

Since you're an electrical engineer, why not work out the energy balance
and report back?

The dyno hubs are only good for about maybe ten watts which might be great
for a light but nothing for powering a bike. 200 watts and it would work,
but
the cost of the hub would go up as well as the bike ugly thing in the
middle
of the wheel. With battery technology going like it is and solar cell
reearch, why not?

Compute, say, the extra work required per mile to run the dyno hub; the
energy output of the hub; the efficiency of the charging system; the
efficiency of the battery storage (i.e. energy recovered versus energy
input to the battery); efficiency of the motor you'll use to use the
battery's output; and see what you come up with for an overall system
efficiency.

I was thinking of a dynamic breaking scheme where you could dump the energy
back into the batteries instead of burning up brake pads and on some of
those
long downhills, even Page Mill Road in Palo Alto you could pass on a few
MPH
of wind and put it back into the batterie pack.

Then figure out the weight of batteries you'd need to move you, say, ten
miles back home. Oh, and the cost of the system.

cost might be a bit high for right now, although the Chinese are dumping
toy electric bikes with a top end of 25 MPH here for about$400 to $500
but they are using lead acid batteries. Less that 500 deep cycles and you
need a new batterie/(s) NiMH might be more expensive but would hold out
longer
and I don't know how Lithium would go in that market. It seems like a time
that has come and is ready.

Let us know how it all works out. Even rough guesses should tell us a
lot.

Rough guess is a lot less little old ladies and just plain lazy people
getting
into their gas guzzler to go around the street for a pack of cigarettes.
Ny neighbor does that 3 times a day to buy one pack at a time and complains
she can't walk that far and she is 8 years younger than me. Talk about a
waste of gas.
Maybe $5.00 a gallon might do something (like make Bush and company
richer.)
I see 300 pound women get into their electric scooters at Wal-Mart and
then stand up
to get the high items off the shelf??? What's going on there? Milking SSI?



--
Bill (?) Baka