A D V E N T U R E S in C Y B E R S O U N DErnest (Ernst Frederik Werner) Alexanderson : 1878 - 1975
The story of Ernst Alexanderson's life's work can be seen as reflecting the progress made by electricity over more than half a century. By 1902 when he commenced, at the age of 24, his employment with the General Electric Co. in Schenectady, electric power, apart from its applications in lighting, had to a large extent replaced previous sources of power in mining and metal engineering, at sawmills and at pulpmills. A few years before the turn of the century, Marconi had succeeded with the wireless transmission of Morse signals over steadily increasing distances. Wireless telegraphy had been born, and it constituted yet another example of the advance for electricity. As early as 1904 the young immigrant was assigned the task - regarded as impossible by all the experts - of designing for radio pioneer Reginald A. Fessenden a high-frequency generator of 100 kHz, and with the requirement of an output measured in kW. He accepted the challenge, and on Christmas Eve 1906 Fessenden was able to broadcast the world's first radio programme with song and music via Alexanderson's creation, a high-frequency alternator for undamped oscillations.
 The two Alexanderson alternators at Grimeton, Sweden
From the very beginning of his employment at General Electric, Alexanderson - parallel with his regular duties in the design and testing departments - had been busy on various inventions, above all in the field of motors and generators. In 1905, this resulted in his first six approved patents. During his long period of service with GE, and including his years in retirement, he obtained a total of 344 patents, of which 11 private, 34 together with colleagues, and the rest as assignor for GE. Each new patent was followed by a "latent patent" (a patent under development) which, when it had been processed and approved, was followed by new patents and latent patents in a long chain over the years. He left practically no aspect of electrical engineering untested. It is thus possible, from his life's work, to sketch the development of electrical engineering from power engineering to the more and more important field of electronics. A complete list of his patents provides convincing evidence of his ability to span wide sectors of technology - not to mention the numerous designs and technical solutions he fathered, but which dit not result in any patents. An exhaustive list includes all the patents he obtained between the years 1905 and 1973. In 1910 Alexanderson enrolled in the famous mathematician and electrical engineer Charles Proteus Steinmetz' Consulting Engineering Department, which afforded him still greater opportunities to concentrate on continued work with the alternator. In 1918 Alexanderson became manager of the newly established Radio Engineering Department. Marconi, who on his visit to the States in 1915 had desired to buy the exclusive right to sell the alternators on the world market, made a new offer to GE in 1919. President Wilson appealed to GE not to sell, since he feared that the English would in that event become completely dominant in the field of world communications. Instead, an entirely new corporation was created, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), for the purpose of marketing the alternators. Alexanderson was brought in as Chief Engineer at the new corporation, and subsequently shared his working time between GE and RCA until 1924, when he returned to working full time at GE. One of his first tasks at RCA was to plan the equipment for the new Central Station that was to be constructed on Long Island for worldwide radio communications. When fully developed, it was planned that this station would have 12 multiple tuned antennas, another of Alexanderson's numerous important inventions. These twelve antennas were directed to different points of the compass, to cover the entire world. One antenna was intended for communications with Sweden, which had bought alternators for a station in Grimeton on the Swedish West Coast. RCA's representative handling the sale to the Royal Board of Swedish Telegraphs was Ernst Alexanderson.
 The station at Grimeton, Sweden
The station acquired great importance for direct contacts with the USA, particularly during World War II, when the cable lines across the Atlantic were broken. Today, this station is the only remaining operable alternator station in the world. Experiments were made with colour television, and viewings for, among others, the US National Committee for Television Systems were arranged in the basement of Alexanderson's home in Adams Road in Schenectady in 1940. As recently as in 1955 he acquired the patents on an entirely new system of colour television reception. During World War lI he designed the amplidyne, an electrodynamic amplifier. It was used among other things to generate the control voltage required to train guns, but also acquired peaceful applications in processes at steelworks etc. The thyratron motor was also developed at this time. As a result of the gradual broadening of its work to cover numerous fields, Alexanderson's Radio Consulting Department was renamed the Consulting Engineering Department in 1928, and in 1933 it became the Consulting Engineering Laboratory. In connection with the reorganization of GE in 1945, this laboratory was merged with GE's General Engineering Laboratory to form the General Engineering and Consulting Laboratory. Alexanderson became consultant on the staff of the new organization, where he remained for another year after his formal retirement in 1948. He continued his inventing activities as a private person for a further 20 or so years. During that time he obtained 28 patents in a variety of fields. His last patent he acquired as recently as 1973. His career spanned more than the first half of this century, and extended through two world wars. He served his new country as faithfully as he maintained his ties with Sweden. Many are the Swedes who experienced his hospitality on visits to the States, and obtained the assistance and good advice that he with his thorough knowledge of conditions there, was in such a good position to provide. Even during his lifetime, he received numerous tokens of appreciation. For a while he was President of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, which awarded him its Edison Medal in 1944. In 1924 he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, and in 1934 of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1938 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Uppsala, and in 1948 an honorary doctorate by the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. In 1944, he was awarded the Cedergren Medal for his outstanding technical writing in the field of electrical engineering. The medal was first awarded in 1914, to Charles Proteus Steinmetz. In 1925 he became a Knight of the Order of the Northern Star, and, also in that year, a Knight of the Polish order of Polonia Restituta. These are only a few examples of the distinctions he received over the years. Ernst Alexanderson was honoured posthumously in 1983, when he was elected, for his invention of the high-frequency alternator, to join the ranks of distinguished inventors in the National Inventors Hall of Fame. His broad knowledge, his outstanding personal qualities, and his close contacts with scientists and engineers booth in the USA and Europe over his long and active life make him a central figure in the many branches of electrical engineering during the first half of the 20th century. No one could have greater claim to the title of "The Complete Chief Engineer" Bengt V Nilsson
Alexanderson: Pioneer in American Electrical Engineering Reviewed by Richard Millard
Ernst Alexanderson was one of America's great inventors, with important patents in radio, television, power transmission, and computers, yet his name is hardly known outside engineering circles. One of the questions posed in James Brittain's definitive biography of Alexanderson is why his fame never matched that of Edison or Marconi. Alexanderson was a corporate employee who spent most of his working life of sixty- five years inventing for General Electric. He was not a heroic inventor who laboured alone in mysterious laboratories and formed companies that bore his name. He did not have the talent for self-promotion that made household names of Edison and Marconi. His vital contributions-the high-frequency alternator in radio and the mechanical scan television were quickly superseded by other technologies that determined the present format of radio and television. James Brittain's painstaking study of Alexanderson's inventive career should set the record straight and establish him as an important pioneer in electrical power engineering and broadcasting. Alexanderson's 344 patents covered a wide range of new technologies, and Brittain deals with each one either by explaining it in the text or listing it in an appendix. The author has made extensive use of the Alexanderson Papers and is thus able to reconstruct the path taken to many critical innovations. He shows how Alexanderson's background in power engineering, for example, enabled him to develop analogies to investigate new areas in high-frequency electricity, such as radio waves. This book provides a detailed, technical study of the origins of some complex technologies, and those with little understanding of electrical engineering will find it hard to follow the text. Although the descriptions of the inventions are precise and clear, the sheer complexity of the ideas might baffle the uninitiated. Some of the descriptions and drawings require additional explanation to be understood by the general reader. One theme that Britain has made easily accessible is the relationship of invention and the corporation. As Alexanderson worked exclusively in the industrial research laboratories of General Electric and Radio Corporation of America, his career provides a case study of the in- house inventor whose activities were framed by company policy. Brittain examines the issues of creativity in the corporate setting and shows how the structure of GE's laboratories influenced the process of bringing individual inventions together into technological systems. Not all of Alexanderson's ideas were pursued by his employers; his rotary disc television system was demonstrated in 1925, but did not receive further financial support from RCA. Alexanderson once commented that the "march of progress is necessarily slow; it is an evolution and not a revolution". His career did not bring forth the dramatic breakthrough that served to make other inventors famous, but it did result in a series of inventions which had wide applications in broadcasting and electrical engineering. This book will be valuable to anyone interested in the development of electrical technology in the twentieth century.
Ernst Frederik Werner Alexanderson (b. Jan. 25, 1878, Uppsala, Sweden d. May, 1975, Schenectady, N.Y., U.S.), electrical engineer and television pioneer who developed a high-frequency alternator (a device that converts direct current into alternating current) capable of producing continuous radio waves and thereby revolutionized radio communication. In 1901 Alexanderson emigrated to the United States and the following year began working at the General Electric Company in Schenectady, N.Y., under Charles P. Steinmetz. In 1906 Alexanderson completed his alternator, which in the ensuing years greatly improved transoceanic communication and firmly established the wireless as an important tool in shipping and warfare. He continued to improve the alternator and in addition made important improvements in radio antennas, electric railroads, ship propulsion, and electric motors. In 1916 he patented a selective-tuning device for radio receivers, which became an integral part of modern radio systems. He also developed the amplidyne, an extremely sophisticated automatic control system first used in factories to automate intricate manufacturing processes and used during World War II in conjunction with antiaircraft guns. Alexanderson demonstrated television in his own home as early as 1927 and in 1930 gave the first public exhibition of television with a system that displayed the picture on a 7-foot (2-metre) screen. Alexanderson retired from his full-time position with General Electric in 1948 but continued to act as an engineering consultant. From 1952 he worked at Radio Corporation of America (RCA) as a consultant and was awarded his 321st patent in 1955 for the colour-television receiver that he developed for RCA.
Dr. Ernest Alexanderson, the engineer whose high-frequency alternator gave America its start in the field of radio communications, was born on January 25, 1878 in Upsala, Sweden. He developed an early interest in electrical engineering that was stimulated by a year of technical work at the University of Lund in 1896. He then spent three years at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, from which he was graduated in 1890 as an electrical-mechanical engineer. This was followed by a year of postgraduate work at the Technical University in Berlin, Germany. When a copy of Alternating Current Phenomena by Dr. Charles P. Steinmetz, General Electric's mathematics genius, fell into Dr. Alexanderson's hands, it made such an impression on him that he decided to move to America and seek work with the author. In 1901 he arrived in the U.S. and visited Steinmetz in Schenectady, NY. In 1902, on the latter's recommendation, GE gave him a drafting job. The following year, he took GE's Test Engineering Course, and in 1904 he became a member of the engineering staff designating generators under the direction of Steinmetz. In those days, radio was an affair only of dots and dashes transmitted by inefficient crashing spark machines. Then, in 1904, GE was asked by Professor Reginald A. Fessenden, a pioneer in radio experimentation, if the company could build a high-frequency machine that would operate at high speeds and produce a continuous wave transmission. The assignment was turned over to Dr. Alexanderson. Although the usual generator in those days operated at 60 cycles, Prof. Fessenden wanted one that would operate on at least 100,000 cycles, an idea considered fantastic by most engineers. After two years of experimentation, Dr. Alexanderson finally constructed a two-kilowatt, 100,000 cycle machine that he felt met Fessenden's specifications. It was installed in the Fessenden station at Brant Rock, Massachusetts, and on Christmas Eve 1906, it enabled that station to transmit the first voice broadcast in history. When Steinmetz organized a Consulting Engineering Department in 1910, Dr. Alexanderson became a member of the group. Meanwhile, news of the alternator had reached the ears of Guglielmo Marconi, the "father" of radio, and in 1915 he came from England to visit GE and talk with Dr. Alexanderson in Schenectady. He arranged to have a 50-kilowatt and then 200-kilowatt Alexanderson alternator installed in his transatlantic Marconi Company station in New Brunswick, NJ. The latter was put to its first important practical test in 1918: the transmission of President Woodrow Wilson's ultimatum to Germany, which brought the war to a close. In 1918, Dr. Alexanderson became the head of GE's newly organized Radio Engineering Department (renamed Radio Consulting Department in 1922). The next year, Marconi renewed negotiations, first instituted early in the war, for exclusive rights to the alternator. It was then that President Wilson appealed to GE not to sell and instead to help organize an American company to use the alternator. This led to the formation of the Radio Corporation of America, with Dr. Alexanderson becoming its chief engineer. Meanwhile, Dr. Alexanderson's inventive genius had been hard at work. Among his notable radio developments were the magnetic amplifier, the electric amplifier, the multiple tuned antenna, the anti-static receiving antenna, and the directional transmitting antenna. He also devised radio altimeters, and his studies in the polarization of radio waves made possible effective radio direction finders. From 1919 to 1924, Dr. Alexanderson divided his time between General Electric and RCA. In the next few years, he performed pioneering work in television and the transmission of pictures by radio. Using a perforated scanning disk and high-frequency neon lamps, he staged in Schenectady the first home theater demonstrations. The first home television reception took place in 1927 in his home, and a public demonstration was held the following year. The theater demonstration, witnessed by science writers from all over the country, took place on May 22, 1930, in Proctor's Theater in Schenectady. The theater orchestra was led by the image of a conductor on a seven-foot screen which also carried the faces of other performers a mile away in a GE laboratory. With GE's withdrawal from the affairs of the Radio Corporation of America in 1933, Dr. Alexanderson devoted himself at GE to the power applications of the electronic science, such as power transmission with direct current. With the broadening scope of its activities, his Radio Consulting Department had become the Consulting Engineering Department in 1928 and finally the Consulting Engineering Laboratory in 1933. In 1945, the Consulting Engineering Laboratory was merged with GE's General Engineering Laboratory to form the General Engineering and Consulting Laboratory. He served as a consulting engineer on the staff of the new organization until his retirement in 1948. During his 46-year GE career, he had received a total of 322 patents, or nearly one every eleven weeks. He died in 1975 at the age of 97.
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