Edsion his Galvanometers astatic, tangent galvanometer, and Helmholtz galvanometer Menlo Park and globa warming

The Astatic (Unstable) Galvanometer the most important of all electric scientific instruments
Also Visit our home web site and see a lots of historic instruments

How they helped start and at same time discovered global warming Photos of dozens of them in Edison's Menlo Park laboratory. With out them Edison wouldn't have invented the light bulb.
by Jim & Rhoda Morris

Our dependence on electricity is why the astatic galvanometer was so important to our future.
The Astatic Galvanometer is an unsung hero to all sciences. It was a simple instrument that could easily measurer a millionth of an ampere to hundreds of amperes of electron current. With the addition of a few resistors it could measure resistance and voltage as well as current. It was portable, easy, and inexpensive to make and operate. While not at work helping to make discoveries it was a wonderful tool to demonstrate and teach the principles of electricity,. something that it continued to do after its retirement from the research and development world. Following its history is important yet neglected way of teaching how basic science, applied science, engineering, and business work together. It was the common instrument that was in the middle of all of it.

Date last modified 11/26/2008 scitechantiques.com K1ugm@comcast.net

THE DYNAMIC TRIO
THOMAS EDISON
ASTATIC GALVANOMETER
HENRY FORD
Working together using science and engineering to build a bigger and stronger economy.
They had one thing in common, not often consider, They had a strong hand in starting yet findng Global Warming.

Thomas A. Edison
The Astatic Galvanometer in the hands of the master inventor.

Astatic Galvanometer
Master translator extending the humans sensory systems beyond what anyone could have imagined.

Henry Ford master manufacture.
In 1929 Ford Replicated the Edison's original Menlo Park laboratory in Greenfield Village putting on display many of the original instruments including the astatic galvanometers for people to see and learn what science engineering and invention is all about.

The astatic galvanometer, from its birth in the early 1820s ( via Nobili et al.) until its replacement in the early 1900's, was used in every major laboratory around the world by all of the major experimental scientists, engineers, and inventors. It was responsible for most of the major discoveries and inventions of physics that were to impact all the other sciences. It did most of its work during the 19th century. Everywhere around us we see products of its use and use these constantly. Does familiarity breed complacency ?

How can it be that we know so little about the astatic galvanometer? Was it because it was just a tool? , Maybe, but so were telescopes and microscopes, and everyone knows about them?

This web page hopes to shine some light" (No pun intended) on a flock of them working silently away in Thomas Edison Menlo Park Lab where the modern age of electrical devices for home, work and play were being geared up for the future. They are there ,clearly visible, demonstrating that Edison knew their value, but why don't we? Electrons are a big thing in our lives especially today and getting bigger all the time.

Click here for the technical details of how they work. See the stages of development and an example of a large beautiful working presentation astatic galvanometer.   Or read on for evidence of their importance. See them spread around Edison's laboratory and what they did for Edison in the development of the light bulb and its accessories.

What follows on this website is practical example of some of the roles the astatic galvanometer, along with its brothers and sisters, the tangent galvanometer and the Helmholtz Galvanometer, did in bringing new technology to the public. They made it possible for Edison and his staff, to measure all the critical data needed to invent and develop the light bulb and its accessories. If one studies the pictures of Edison's laboratory at Menlo closely one see's them everywhere but noticed by no one.

In the Edison example they measured the light bulb's
currents
voltages
power inputs
light outputs,
output of the electric current of the electric generators to power them
The nature of wire to conduct current of electrons to and from the bulb the fuses, switches, connectors
In amongst this capacious activity they even found what is called the Edison effect (electrons being emitted by the light bulb's hot filament) which was   the heart of the radio tube industry.

Many other devices and discoveries, just as in the light bulb, were discovered,   measured, and developed by these unique little desk top electron counters.

We start off on our tour of Edison laboratory where the light bulb and many other inventions were born. The photo below which is a mug shot of two little astatic galvanometers standing at attention like solders in their own small box on the ground floor of Edison's laboratory. Literally and physically they were in the center of the business of science and engineering part of the laboratory, atop brick pillars. quietly doing their job of counting electrons (current) for the master of electricians Thomas Edison.

Below is a small sampling of the distribution of the astatic galvanometers through Edison's labs

The plaque displayed in front of one more sensitive astatic galvanometer in the replication of Edison's Menlo Park development laboratory where the light bulb and many other electrical products were created.	Thomas Edison's first light bulb used to demonstrate his invention at Menlo Park.	On the bench in Menlo a Astatic Galvanometer surrounded by its team (gang) of accessories ready to be pressed into service.
Note the brick pillars that hold the box of this set of astatic galvanometers	Looking through the window in the side of a box, which sits on brick pillar, into its interior showing a light beam astatic galvanometer and its light scale.	Another view of the box showing the back of the light scale and a set of batteries.
The astatic and tangent galvanometers such as in the photo at the right made the telegraph, the Atlantic cable and the telephone possible just as it did for the light bulb.		Astatic in the front and a tangent galvanometer in the back ground . Scales, batteries, transducers, resistance boxes, and other associated accessories surrounding the galvanometers.
Here is one housed in a brass cylinder next to a battery and large Helmholtz set of coils.	A Helmholtz Galvanometer	Here is a light spot scale for one mounted on a ring stand which is next to shelves of chemicals
. Jim is sitting at Edison's telegraph desk which was located in the Menlo Park laboratory from which Edison announced many of his inventions .Jim (one authors) felt very much at home in Edison's Menlo Park lab and telegraph station having built, repaired, and used many of the types of instruments found there--- but also like Edison Jim also worked as a telegrapher Again even more Uniquely! almost like a Ripley believe it or not story. Jim like Edison also worked as a light bulb engineer and inventor. In between these two jobs Jim worked as a basic research physicist studying the light emitting processes of plasma and solids. Unlike Edison however Jim is now working as an independent scholar of early scientific instruments.	It looks like Mr Edison is asking the question "Who is that on my right sitting at my desk of my telegraph station? I hope he doesn't take any of my astatic galvanometers home with him"	Here are two more Astatic Galvanometers and pieces of a prism spectrometer with bits and pieces of equipment needed to enter the new world of electric power. They seemed to be on every bench in every cabinet of the facility. *Click here* to see what the original spectroscope look like in its prime.

Our dependence on electricity is why the astatic galvanometer was so important to our future.

We may not know or don't think about it but it is electrons that are among the principal ingredients that everything in the universe is made of. Electrons their electro chemical, mechanical, and magnetic forces soaks into everything, even into every atom and molecule making up our body. Because of this the astatic galvanometer (a sensitive electron flow meter counting the number of electron going through it) made it possible to search into how the electric part of nature works at its most fundamental level. It is electrons that give us the light that telescope, microscope, and the spectroscope see and amplify and analyze.

For nearly 80 years
It gave humans for the first time a quantitative way of monitoring and make measurements of most all things in nature doing their electric thing.
It was the translator of electric signals in nature into the movement of a needle across a scale of numbers
In its youth it was used first by scientist in the medical profession to study the generation electricity signals in our bodies.
It was instrumental is studying the generation of electricity through the interaction of atoms and molecules with each other( batteries etc.).
in the generation of electricity from light (the photocell)
and light from electricity (the electric arc and incandescent bulb)
The ejection of electrons from hot objects (The Edison affect)
the generation of electricity from heat (the thermocouple)
it was used to discover new things that could be used to design a better instrument to replace its self.

on an on.

This paragraph show one a typical example of how and what astatic galvanometers did that so changed our world.
Lets start by taking just one of our senses and show how the a g expanded it. Sight is one of the easiest and most important of our senses. We humans can only sense a very tiny part of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum with our eyes, we call it the visible spectrum . Before the advent of the astatic galvanometer we did not know, that there were radiations from super short waves, cosmic rays, all the way to super long and longer radio waves. Shortly after the astatic galvanometer( a very sensitivity current flow meter) was invented humans began to find out that there were all sorts of materials in nature that when hit by these rays would produce a shift or flow of electrons in that material. This electric current could be measured by this little inexpensive instrument and could and was correlated to the strength of these rays. This essentially expanding sight (our view though just the visible spectrum) to the whole spectrum of our world enormously. The same phenomena was found to be true for all the rest of our senses. touch smell sound etc. Suddenly the size of our world expanded dramatically. This little instrument's discoveries fostered other instrument other detectors. Some of the discoveries were turned into much faster communications, the telephone the telegraph the radio, which fostered more discoveries faster etc etc all from the connection of these little astatic galvanometer to the hidden world of electrons.

So why if the astatic galvanometer is so important that we haven't heard more about these little instruments and their stories? One possible reason may be that there was no personal drama in its development. No one person stood out as a danger to society, the church, the government. No hook of personal excitement and drama to make a popular an interesting story that the public would read. So like most good science it just churns along giving a piece by piece understanding of how nature works. To say it in more familiar terms , one small discovery breeds another and another until we have a better understand of the whole. This is the where, and how, of the little astatic galvanometer's role in science and industry.

The bottom line. It did its work and thus deserves some lime light for its contribution to mans progress to a better life. Its a symbol just like Galileo's telescope but no where as much appreciated. There should be one in every school and museum reminding us of how very clever humans can be given a little piece of copper wire, some string. a few iron needles, and some wood to hold the lot together.

The astatic galvanometer helped start Global warming! But also helped flag a warning of it happening.
Last but not least. Connect one to a pair of iron / copper thermocouples each stuck into a bit of wood. Put one of the pieces of wood in the shade, the other in the sun light where it warms up. A voltage will appear across the thermocouples which can used to measurer ,quantitatively, the infrared radiation ( that humans can't see) from the sun reaching your detector. The first step in a chain of events of forecasting the prospect of global warming . Warning us before it is too late of the catastrophic consequences such event could cause the human race. Remember all those electric power stations that Edison helped to invent spewing out all that CO_2. Like most information that science produces it serves as a double edge sword.

A beautiful working presentation piece
It gave us our first meaningful connection to the micro universe of the electron. completely revolutionizing our finger tip control of great power: tapping the energy of the atom, communicate around the world and to the planets, looking into our genes putting our telescopes on other planets.