A Crummy Commercial

 I was watching the movie: Tomorrowland (2015) recently.  One of the fictional premises was that Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Gustave Eiffel and Jules Verne were part of a secret society called Plus Ultra. Eiffel, Edison, Tesla, Verne Which got me to thinking:  did Tesla ever meet Steinmetz ?  Of course Steinmetz knew Edison:   Steinmetz and the famously hard of hearing Edison   And Edison and Tesla had met although that didn't end friendly :)  But did Tesla meet Steinmetz ? This is a photo of a group of men in 1921, Einstein and Steinmetz stand out and there is a fellow behind them purported to be Tesla.  But although this man is slim and has a mustache he doesn't appear to be Tesla's height (6 foot 2 inches).  He should have towered over Einstein (5 foot 9 inches) and Steinmetz (4 foot).  Apparently the man was named John Renshaw Carson, an engineer.  Later in the century another John Carson made David Sarnoff a lot of money as t...

 When I was in the 5th grade, 1965-66, I got pneumonia and had to stay home from school for several weeks.  I was a voracious reader then but can't remember many of the books in particular.  But when I had pneumonia I couldn't use either the school library or the local municipal library.  And I had a lot of time on my hands staying in bed all day.  So my Dad got me books.  And while I don't remember the titles/authors I do remember the subjects: mainly biographies. A book on Edison of course but another on Steinmetz, too.  Charles P. Steinmetz, born in Europe, emigrated to the USA.  An engineer of the highest grade who worked for General Electric.  People like Tesla dreamed up the new and formerly impossible but men like Steinmetz made those ideas real.  I'm not sure most appreciate the nearly endless grind in getting a product to work, then making it better and always, making it cheaper.  The development side of R&D is underapp...