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GE co-founder Elihu Thomson discusses growing up in the 1860's in unearthed video

90 years later people are seeing him on a device he never thought possible.

Photo credit: Canva, Wikipedia

A photo of a lightbulb and a portrait of Elihu Thomson

We can read all the history books in the world, and still, there’s something magical about hearing about a time period firsthand, from someone who actually lived in it. Especially since, depending on how far back you go, it can be incredibly rare.

Take for instance this video interview, originally filmed in 1932 (wow), which was colorized and shared to Youtube by the ‘Life in the 1800s’ Channel. It features Elihu Thomson, an English-America engineer and inventor who helped bring mainstream electricity to America.

But this video isn’t about his career, but about his childhood memories while living in Philadelphia in the 1860s.

Much of the conversation revolved around Thomson’s first electrical experiments. Apparently, the young, precious lad was “forced out of high school” when he was only 11, and teachers recommended that he use his spare two years to “keep away from the books and to develop physically.”

That, however, didn’t fly with preteen Thomson, who said “if you do that you might as well kill me now, because I’ve got to have my books.” Hey, at least he wasn’t saying that about an iPad.

Thomson essentially homeschooled himself for a couple of years, learning about chemistry and electrical experiments, and even performing a few with his father, who was also scientifically minded. Thomson even recalls at one time “getting even” with his dear old dad by giving him a shock with a handmade leyden jar, or as he called them, "lightening jars.”

history videos, cool history, victorian era, colorized video, vintage videoDiscovery of the Leyden jar in van Musschenbroek's labPhoto credit: Canva

Overall it’s a brief interview, but people found it remarkable nonetheless. It seemed to feel particularly meta how someone clearly passionate about science would be even more floored to see today's technology.

“Imagine sitting there, talking about your life, never knowing that in 90 years a bunch of people will be listening to you from a device you would never believe could ever be possible.”

“This guy witnessed the invention of telegraph, telephone, trains, steamboats, planes, tanks, automatic weapons, automobiles, radio, cinema and probably heard some news about a television device before dying. Amazing.”

People were also amazed by how many groundbreaking firs’ts Thomson must have seen, which are just common, everyday occurrences now.

“This man lived through the civil war, saw the first lightbulb, a telephone call, the radio and then silent and talking films, horses being replaced by cars. Everything we take for granted today. He saw them first. Amazing.”

One person even noted, “It's amazing how much of a difference it makes having this old black and white footage colourised. It just makes it that much more real, and gives a feeling that this wasn't so long ago.”

Lastly, someone argued that Thomson was a prime example of why “fostering your child's creativity and knowledge is so important.” After all, Thomson would develop around 700 patents, and later help found the General Electric company, thanks in no small part support he received from his dad helped him discover his talents as an engineer. Guess that doesn’t change no matter what time period you’re born into.

Watch below:

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

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It's the most dangerous electrical job in America. Bill Reimels was born to do it.

Danger! High voltage!

True
Deepwater Horizon

The power is out, and people are worried.

The streetlights have gone dark, and the traffic signals flicked off. Hospitals and data centers have stopped humming as emergency generators groan to life. Across the region, everything — cars, transit, homes, and businesses — is at a standstill. Technicians monitoring the grid confirm it is a major outage. With millions of dollars in lost time on the line, it needs to be identified and repaired as quickly as possible.

Bill Reimels lives for these moments.

Bill Reimels approaches a work site in a helicopter. All images via Deepwater Horizon/Participant.

As part of a team responsible for maintaining and repairing power lines and transformers across the state of New Jersey, Bill Reimels' work needs to be done efficiently, correctly, and quickly. The company he works for, PSE&G, helps keep 1,200 miles of electrical transmission lines running smoothly — making sure cities from Woodbine to Wantage have consistent, reliable power.

The work he does isn't for the faint of heart, either. It takes electrical know-how, a calm demeanor, and the ability to solve complex electrical problems next to a high-voltage power line while sitting on a small seat off the side of a helicopter hovering hundreds of feet in the air.

Yes, you read that right. Watch the video below to see Bill in action:

Before he started working live lines, Bill climbed power transformers for 11 years. His new job takes him even higher — but he says it's well worth the risk.

"People used to ask me all the time — how do you do that?" Bill said. "It's just like anywhere else; you get used to working up there. You just watch where you put your hands and feet."

Bill hard at work.

That latter part is an understatement. Most long-distance high-voltage power lines in America carry a load between 155,000 and 765,000 volts, and touching even a spark could be deadly. At PSE&G, Bill is part of a huge team that constantly monitors and preventatively repairs lines so that big accidents where folks are really at risk are few and far between. That's crucial because people doing this kind of work risk electrocution, burns, and falls every single day, although all are relatively rare.

As for Bill, he said he's had a couple scares but nothing serious. That's amazing considering he does most of his work sitting in a chair hundreds of feet above the ground, held in place by a harness clipped to his back and a small sturdy seatbelt across his lap. That lap belt, Bill shares, is a new addition to their safety set up. "It's really for the pilot's comfort. If he needs to make a rough landing for whatever reason, he wanted to make sure we were safe and wouldn't bounce up into the rotor," he says. "I trust in my team to keep me safe, and make sure these lines are safe, too."

Bill's work isn't always about power lines. Sometimes he gets to help with other valuable work: helping biologists tag baby eagles.

"I love bald eagles, and as it turns out, we have 20 nests on our lines," he shares enthusiastically. Because bald eagles are protected in the United States, they can make their nests anywhere they want, and the helicopters on Bill's team generally give them and their nests a wide buffer when they pass by — at least 500 to 1,000 feet.

But sometimes they have to get a little closer, like when they're assisting biologists in identifying and tagging baby eaglets.

"We'll help gather them from the nest and take them to the biologists to do their thing, then we help put them gently back in the nest," he says. "It's pretty amazing, getting to hold my favorite animal in the world in my hands."

Ultimately, this work — challenging, thoughtful, and outside — is perfect for Bill. He couldn't imagine doing anything else.

"I'll never forget the first time I got to fly in the helicopter," Bill said. "I got to jump on a ride to check out a transformer. It was usually an hour and a half trip by car, but it was only 10 minutes by helicopter. It was such a thrill." He paused to think.

"Now it's kind of old hat," he laughed.

Heroes

This glow-in-the-dark bike path shows what happens when you let imaginations run wild.

Poland just wrote a glow-in-the-dark love letter to bicycles.

And no, that's not what you see after you die. That's a bike path in Poland that's designed to glow in the dark. It was unveiled near the town of Lidzbark Warmiński in late September.

It glows blue because of special luminophores built into the pavement.

The synthetic materials absorb energy from the sun during the day and slowly release it at night. The company who built them says they can last for more than 10 hours at a time.

The company that built the path said they were inspired by the Netherland's "Starry Night" bike path but decided to take it a step further. While the "Starry Night" path uses electric LEDs, the new blue path needs no electricity whatsoever.

The path is a test run to see if the technology can be used on a wide scale all over the country.

Right now, the track is only 100 meters long. It's currently being tested to see if stands up to weather and traffic and whether they can build it more economically. Currently, the path seems to be more of a novelty than anything else — a way to beautify the biking experience — but if the results hold up, it's possible we could use this glow-in-the-dark technology to help improve road safety all over the world.

(By the way, the company that built this has also experimented with trying to impregnate asphalt with citrus, strawberry, and rose scents.)

Cycling is an awesome way to commute, get exercise, and clean up the environment.

A lot of European cities have embraced the bike, and many American cities are catching on as well.

While we still need to improve our biking infrastructures overall, this glow-in-the-dark road shows that infrastructure projects don't have to be boring. They can be imaginative, innovative, and beautiful, too.

Heroes

How Hawaii turned its amazing surfing into renewable energy.

Hawaii is basically where good little surfers get to go when they die.

I mean, can you ask for a more picturesque location? Warm weather, sandy beaches, the majesty of the Pacific Ocean right in front of your face. Imagining standing there, watching those beautiful, aquamarine waves roll in … man, you can’t help but feel a little amped up, right?

But now, those waves are electrifying more than just surfers. They're also powering homes.

Photo by Northwest Energy Innovations.

In Kaneohe Bay, barely noticeable from shore, two wave turbine machines bob in the surf. Since this summer, they’ve steadily been producing electricity, funneling it back through undersea cables to a nearby military base and onto the Oahu power grid.

These are the United States’ first grid-connected wave energy generators. They were set up by the Navy, which is interested in testing them as power sources for refueling stations and remote communities.

"More power from more places translates to a more agile, more flexible, more capable force," the AP quoted Joseph Bryan, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy, as saying. "So we're always looking for new ways to power the mission."

If they work,  communities all across America’s coastlines could use them, not just the Navy.

The Hawaii site is testing two different designs of wave energy makers.

An expert shows off a model of the devices. Photo from Cathy Bussewitz/AP.

The first is called Azura, and it looks kind of like a hefty version of a football goalpost. The other’s called Lifesaver, and it looks, well, kind of like a huge lifesaver. The researchers are putting the devices through the gauntlet to see which design will most reliably put out power and withstand the ocean’s tremendous forces and corrosive salt spray.

Between the two, they’re producing about enough energy to power just over a dozen homes right now. But later versions might be able to juice up hundreds of homes at a time, and they could be set up in big groups as well.

Imagine if these generators were set up on every coastline.

"When you think about all of the states that have water along their coasts ... there's quite a bit of wave energy potential," the AP quoted Jose Zayas, a director of the Wind and Water Power Technologies Office at the U.S. Energy Department, as saying. He also suggested that if we were to really get our heads in the game, 20% to 28% of all of our electricity could eventually come from the ocean.

Other researchers are currently planning on building test sites in Oregon and California, too.

That said, wave power is one area of renewable energy where we’ve been lagging behind in the U.S. We’ll need to build a more large-scale infrastructure — something other countries are already doing — if we actually want to make this work. In Scotland, for example, they have been experimenting with wave and tidal energy for more than a decade.

A wave energy device in Scotland. Photo from P123/Wikimedia Commons.

The good news, though, is that we can learn from other countries’ experiences and use them as a guide as we try to get in the game.

Hawaii has given itself a mandate to be completely powered by renewables by 2045, which is a huge goal.

It's a smart plan for the collection of islands because otherwise they have to rely on giant, expensive container ships to deliver fossil fuels.

The ocean is one of the greatest natural wonders on our planet, and it has given us so much — food, transportation, and, yes, totally amazing surfing spots. And if we keep focusing on the ocean, maybe it can give us renewable energy, too.

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