The Waxahachie daily light. [volume] (Waxahachie, Tex.) 1894-current, 1912-04-20
A NEW LANGUAGE THAT
BEWILDERS THE LAYMAN.
The Average Man Is Not Familiar
With Electrical Terms.

With Electrical Terms.
Every busineaa has its own lam
saage and nomenclature. The ay-
erage Wall street operator for In
stance, can tie neophyte's braiE
into knots in the course II few
moments conversation on fiscal
matters. But the business which
presents Itself to the layman az the
most hopeless riddle is electrical
manufacturing. DR.. Schuyler Skaats
Wheeler. president OF The Croker
Wheeler Co., OF Ampere, N. j., re-
Gently deplored In public utter
anee the spirit of opposition which
has grown up between the electri-
cal engineers and the world at
large.
You cannot talk In electrical
terms to the average layman," he
said, without soaring him to death.
The mention OF anything as sb-
struse as induction coils is sure to
set his wits to wandering. A cer-
tain method Of Immediately losing
your auditors attention is to make
use OF technical term"
Electricity, like Browning. is not
difficult to understand If YOU APP
proaeh 1t fearlessly, undaunted by
the tElectrictalk" which has been
coined during the last couple of de-
cades. There Is a definite, logical
reason why each OF the forms 10 in
use. and in another decade they will
DO az familiar to that part OF the
public which Is Interested as auto
mobile talk Is fast becoming to the
public at large At present "Elec-
trictaIk" makes the average man
feel that "be it ever so uhmble
there's no place like ohm"
The units of measurement are
the basis of ''ElectrIctalk," am
peres, volts and watts. Ampere Is
the name of the Frenchman who
discovered how to measure electric
|, current. The unit OF measurement
was therefore called an ampere In
acknowledgement OF his valuable
discovery. Electricity may be best
compared to water flowing through
7 pipe. The volume, or gallons OF
water, correspond to the volume, or
amperes OF electricity. But water
may flow at greater or less pres.
sure. A thousand gallons OF watei
flowing through pipe at one pound
pressure to the square inch would
/. lust dribble at the end. Under Q
thousand pounds pressure to tbs
: square inch 1t would shoot out O
: the pipe with fierce energy, TIL
! number OF pounds OF pressure un
I. der which water IL flowing CORES
ponds to tho number OF volts 6
pressure under which an ciectr'
current Is flowing.
The energy with which watt
II flows out of a pipe is the resu
a of the volume of water and tt
pressure under which II Ia fiowin'
Everyone has noticed how niue
!. faster water flows out of fauce
in one place than it does out Of I
: faucet in another. The quantity O
water which flows out of the fauce
depends upon the water pressure III
that particular locality. In the
same way the quantity of electricity
delivered over a single circuit Is
the product of the volume Gam
peres) multiplied by the pressure
(volts). The electrical term for
the energy thus generated is watts.
A thousand watts are called kilo-
watt, as this term is part of the
metric system.
In order to understand just what
a kilowatt is, it is necessary to as
certain what it will do. We know
that a stream of water of given vol
ume flowing at given pressure
into turbine will generate GER
tain quantity of horsepower ener-
gy. A kilowatt is the mechanical
equivalent of one and a third horse
power. Electric lighting cir
cults usually carry ITO to 100 volts.
An ordinary carbon sixteen candle
power lamp takes a little less than
half an ampere in volume, ana
consequently consumes about fifty
watts of current. As thousand
watts ere equal to one and third
horse power, fifty watts are equal to
less than seven hundredths OF
| horse power. A Tungsten twenty
candle power lamp takes less than
three hundredths of a horse power.
It is interfering to remember in
this connection that horse power
is actually based as measure of