The De Forest wireless telephone was adopted for use in the United States Navy shortly before the cruise around the world in 1908. Every ship in the navy was equipped with the wireless telephone, enabling the Admiral to talk with the officers of any vessel up to a distance of thirty-five miles. The wireless telephone in use on a battle-ship is shown in Fig. 113.
FIG. 113–CAPTAIN INGERSOLL ON BOARD THE U. S. BATTLE-SHIP "CONNECTICUT" USING THE WIRELESS TELEPHONE
Wonders of the Alternating Current
Before the days of the electric current, men used the power of falling water. The mill or factory using the water-power was placed beside the fall. The water turned a great wheel, to which was connected the machinery of the mill, It was not until the invention of the dynamo and motor that water-power could be used at a great distance. If a hundred years ago a man had said that the time would come when a waterfall could turn the wheels of a mill a hundred miles away he would have been laughed at. Yet this very thing has come to pass. Indeed, one waterfall may turn the wheels of many factories, run street-cars, and light cities up to a distance of a hundred miles and even more. The power of the falling water goes out over slender copper wires from a great dynamo near the fall to the motors in the factories and street-cars.
The falling water of Niagara has about five million horse-power. About the hundredth part of this power is now being used. The water, falling in a wheel-pit 141 feet deep, turns a great dynamo weighing 87,000 pounds with a speed of 250 turns per minute. A number of such dynamos are used supplying an alternating current at a pressure of 22,000 volts, the current alternating or changing direction twenty-five times per second. Such a pressure is too high for the motors and electric lights, but the current is carried at high pressure to the place where it is to be used and there transformed to a current of low pressure. In carrying a current over a long line, there is less loss if the current is carried at high pressure. With an alternating current this can be done and the current changed by means of a transformer to a current of low pressure.
A transformer is simply two coils of wire wound on an iron core. The simplest transformer is the form used by Faraday when he discovered electromagnetic induction. If instead of making and breaking a circuit that flows only in one direction as Faraday did, we cause an alternating current to flow through one of the coils, which we may call the primary, each time the current changes direction in the primary the magnetic field is reversed—that is, the end of the coil which was the north pole becomes the south pole. This rapidly changing magnetic field induces a current in the secondary coil. Each time the magnetic field of the primary coil is reversed the current in the secondary changes direction. Thus an alternating current in the primary induces an alternating current in the secondary. One of these coils is of fine wire, which is wound a great many times around the iron. The other is of coarser wire wound only a few times around the iron. Suppose the current is to be changed from high pressure to low pressure. Then the high-pressure current from the line is made to flow through the coil of many turns, and a current of low pressure is given out from the coil of few turns. By changing the number of turns of wire in the coils we can make the pressure whatever we please. If the pressure or voltage of the secondary coil is less than that of the primary, we have a "step-down" transformer. On the other hand, if we send the current from the line wire through the coil of few turns, then we get a higher voltage from the secondary coil than that of the line wire, and we have a "step-up" transformer. The Niagara current is "stepped down" from 22,000 volts to 220 volts for use in motors.
An electric lamp may be lighted though not connected to any battery or dynamo, but connected only to a coil of wire (Fig. 114). More than this, the coil may be insulated so that no current can enter it from any other coil or wire, and yet the lamp can be lighted. This can be done only by means of an alternating current. If the coil to which the lamp is connected is held in the magnetic field of an alternating current, then another alternating current is induced in the coil, and this second current flows through the lamp.