[Westinghouse Promotional Film]

hi darling hi how's it going see how long does it take to write a PhD thesis a good question why do you ask simple I just wanna know how long it'll be before I can tell everybody that my husband is now a pathetic at the rate I'm going you'll be old and gray by that time what trouble well I'm just not getting anywhere that's all the beginnings all right but may I here sure let's see here we are first imagine yourself looking at a sunset most of the time we think of it as just a beautiful sight but scientifically there's a picture of something more it's a picture of a city for performing work it can be peaceful one moment and the next Akanbi is wild and unharness tis a raging storm our very survival has depended on our ability to harness convert and make use of nature's energy one of our early discoveries was to convert the energy latent and would provide heat to keep ourselves warm he found that the energy of falling water could be put to useful work and we discovered that moving air could help us in our fight for life we learn to use all these energies in planting and cultivation to provide us with fools despite the fact that man was learning to master nature's energies found himself a slave to back-breaking toil today labor-saving machines on the farm have helped him master these energies and in our factories he uses thousands of tools to do his work this progress hasn't been slow and steady measured evenly over the centuries on the contrary within a scat hundred years man has taken his greatest strides for it was little over 100 years ago in a scientist named Michael Faraday discovered that the energy needed to move a magnet through a coil of wire could be changed to electrical energy even more important this energy could be transported by wires in the space of one man's lifetime a whole industry has been developed based on that simple principle the electrical industry that sounds good to me yes but where do I go from here the trouble is the electrical industry has become so complex it I'm not sure myself of how it all fits together can't these books help that's the point but I want to write about his men in the books yet hey I've got an idea I gotta go see ray my uncle ray well the one in Pittsburgh yes he's been in the electrical industry for years will you be gone long I hope not what are you leaving I guess tomorrow hello oh hello Peggy everything all right at home sure but guess who just arrived I favorite nephew Hank oh he hasn't told me yet but he wants to see you when are you coming home why can be there right away all right goodbye dear you see peg I've been working on my PhD thesis in sociology but I haven't been able to get anywhere with it so I decided to come here I'm sure ray can help me sociology what's that well you see Johnny in sociology you study groups of people and their functions in relation to all people huh oh I'll explain it to you later dear but if you all will excuse me now I'd better get dinner ready ray will be home well that certainly was a wonderful dinner yeah Peggy's a good cook much too good for me say what's the matter with you you look like you've lost a little weight been working too hard yes I have I've been working on my PhD thesis you see what I want to do is to study the relationship between the electrical industry and social progress you mean what the people in the electrical industry are doing for society as a whole exactly oh but I haven't been able to get anywhere with it well that's where you come in you've been a Westinghouse engineer long enough to know something about it well what's your trouble my boy well for one thing the industry seems so diversified the more i read about Westinghouse for instance the more I think that your company isn't every kind of business well in a way it is but actually each product we make is related to the other you might say that energy is our business say I have a drawing here it'll give you the whole picture of our work in a nutshell one of our artists made it for our educational center are you going to be here a little while and this will be a good reference guide for you once you understand this you'll begin to understand the work of the entire industry look here a minute now here you have it the natural forms of energy falling water oil coal their conversion to electrical energy in the power station and transportation by these wires to factories homes and farms where we need it and much of our electrical energy is produced by releasing the energy in coal and oil by burning and our companies work starts right at the beginning in the oil fields and in the coal mines in a coal mine for example electrically driven continuous mining equipment lightens man's burden of labor and increases his productivity many times after the pole is mind it's burned to get high pressure steam at the power station then we convert the heat energy of the steam into the mechanical energy of his spinning turban how much do you remember about turbines and generators from your high school days Hank well to tell you the truth practically nothing all I remember is that you put steam in one end and get electricity out of the other well come on I want to show you something here's a model I made for Johnny now this turbine and generator like that bub over there jamacha this compressed air is our steam it hits the blades of this fan art urban when it starts turning it makes our generator go now the generator is nothing more than cause of wire rotating inside a magnetic field and hear the electricity we generate is transported through these wires to light this bulb well that looks simple enough simple yeah yeah this is try yourself alright say that's a lot of work just a light that that'll bulb well then just imagine how much work is done in a modern power station huge installations like these house turbo generators that furnish power for over 75,000 homes about three-quarters of our electric energy is produced by turbo generators some of them gigantic in size let's take a look at the inside of a turban under construction our class at Philadelphia and Pittsburgh have been making these since the turn of the century the turban weighs hundreds of tons and is built to run at such constant speeds that your electric clock keeps accurate time you're in and you're out the rotor is constructed of hundreds of individual blades a turbine blade looks simple enough doesn't it but the precision needed to manufacture it is typical of all the work that goes into the construction of this equipment while this turbine is being constructed hundreds of miles away that generator part of the unit is being manufactured yet the turbine and the generator fit together perfectly precision is attained by careful design and by using specialized swivel in some designs such as for the stator of a hydro generator the work is so big that it has to be made in three sections so that it can be transported to its destination yes the equipment that converts heat energy to electrical energy must be accurate efficient and strong enough to last for years and years I can see why you're so wrapped up in your work well you've only seen the beginning of it let's go back after that drawing ray recalled for me the fundamental principle of changing heat energy to electrical energy he explained the most significant fact about it is that it can be sent anywhere to perform useful work in factories in homes and farms to make sure that not much electrical energy is lost before it gets there it is set at high voltage this is done by using transformers lots of the first transformers in a transmission system all right at the generating station they step up the voltage of the generators ten times or more this gives a push to the electrical energy strong enough to send it through hundreds of miles of wire transformers like these are built at Sharon Pennsylvania incidentally the larger the transformer the less it costs to transmit energy that's why Westinghouse is broken world's records several times in the past few years building larger and larger transformers the next day I was taken through the East Pittsburgh plant where I saw them making soup meant that controls and protects the flow of electric energy as it is sent from place to place equipment like lightning arrester that guard against the tremendous surges of lightning storms large oil circuit breakers taller than a house small oil circuit breakers that interrupt the flow of electric energy in case of short circuits and compressed air circuit breakers to then I saw disconnecting switches that determine the path of the energy through complicated transmission systems and other kinds of equipment that makes it possible to have uninterruptedly service where ever we needed then John Amery the foreman had me meet some of the workers he'll meet Hank lucky glad to know you mr. Larkin thank you how are you fine he's interested in what we're doing oh maybe he wants to see if we really do any work around here say yeah what kind of an insulator is this this is for a high-voltage transformer they're pretty important day they sure are I'd like to see any power system work without insulators and they've got to be made so you can depend on if we weren't I guess would be burning kerosene lamps in no time that's right what I'd like to show you some of the other insulators we make okay nice meeting you bill well professor how are you making out all fine I've had a lot of people directly connected with this energy business and I'm beginning to understand their point of view they're aware of the importance of the work they're doing and they're pretty proud of it the former name ray told me that he's been working there over 30 years well this may be part of the reason they see the results of their work right in their own plants where the electrically driven machines make their work easier and more productive now to come back to this drawing over here you can see how that kind of help comes through the Transformers and distribution systems to all industry so that in almost every factory in the country electrical energy runs the drill presses grinders milling machines punch presses and boring machines in the steel industry electricity is used in the heating and processing of metals incidentally our company engineers developed synchronized drives for machines like rolling mills the operation is almost completely automatic in the oil industry electric energy is put to work pumping and drilling and popping and cracking in the lumber industry Miss Parker fast smooth powerful is operated by one man thanks to modern sequence control in paper mills automatic drives powered electrically make per million tons of paper annually in the transportation industry electricity powers public conveyances safely and dependably in the shipping industry electric motors run all kinds of cranes and winches and drive giant ships huge mortred griffin ventilating fans like these bring fresh air to our underground tunnel systems so that thousands of cars a day can drive safely under our rivers in the aircraft industry electrical systems form the heart of the control equipment for our modern transport planes motors for moving stairs and department stores carry people to and from their shopping and comfort and luxury in Radio City westinghouse elevators travel 3,000 miles every day to carry two hundred and fifty thousand passengers our company serves not only industry but the home as well in our divisions that serve industry sales and engineering departments coordinate the planning of electrical systems for industrial plants office buildings and hospitals for the application of industrial equipment to specific jobs is just as important as its manufacture and as part of the company brass that manufactures products for the home our distributors and our television and appliance retailers are located in every major city in the United States as well as abroad for without effective advertising distribution and selling energy conversion equipment would never have come to its widespread use your boys try some of these they're fresh from the oven don't tell me he's the one who's lost weight Oh what are you doing tomorrow I've got something in mind for him I want to send him over to see mr. johnson Johnson who's he I thought you might round out your picture by talking to one of our managers mr. Larkin yes it said I would you please thank you it's very nice of you to give me your time not at all I'm very glad to see you ray told me about this thesis of yours now I would like to get your general impression of all that you've seen among other things I discovered how every member of the company is linked with the job of converting energy and take a real interest in their work too that's right and did you know the tens of thousands of our employees feel that their work is important enough for them to own shares in the company is that so now is anything particular that I could clear up for you well I guess you can you see it's been like putting the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together and now I find I have a few pieces left over for instance how does the manufacture of jet engines fit in with your work that's a good question let me get back to some front of metals the jet engine was made to meet a need in fact the company's work was founded on meeting the needs of the public and the nation as a whole now in order to find if we're qualified to meet these needs we're constantly guided by scientific research now in the case of the jet engine it's a cute little model isn't it yes it is he'll must remember that from our research on high-speed steam turbines it was a logical step to they jet problem you see turbo Jets present a similar problem in the conversion of energy but they changed the heat energy of burning fuel into not electrical energy this time but into mechanical energy strong enough to propel airplanes at tremendous speeds and so after a great deal of experimentation we made the first all-american designed and built jet engine cigarette oh thank you say I thought of something else that might arouse your curiosity thank it's a plastic that we call mccarter micarta it resists moisture and wear and corrosion it was found by our research laboratory when they were looking for a better electrical insulator and now McCarter's used for many things I like for instance control cable pulleys used in airplanes and like those over on the table there let me show you see these are the pulleys here very important in the control of a plane and this is micarta too it's used for burn proof tabletops for instance you can do this with your cigarette go ahead what I do you think you see and it's used for coffee tables and even on that shelf over in the corner there oh it's is that an atomic power play oh yes our studies in this view go back as far as 1937 for a long time we looked for a fuel to help us generate electric power far from the usual sources of coal oil and water well the atomic pile which is nothing more than a furnace heated by the continuous splitting of atomic particles seems to be the answer for the president it just replaces burning coal and it makes the steam which runs the turban and the generator in the power station so you see jet engines my Carter atomic energy like all our other work are still in the field of energy conversion how can you think of anything else where I could help you I don't think so you've been of great assistance I'll be sure to call on me now if I can be of any further aid will you thank you very much mr. Johnson save is one thing more this might give you an idea for your thesis what you have seen how the organization works is typical of thousands of other companies all over America and it's living proof of what free people can do working together in a free society I think my visit with mr. Johnson help round out my understanding of the industry come on this will make you feel better oh thanks honey mmm black coffee good almost finished yeah I'm just checking my last chapter I'm talking here about how the electrical industry has helped us overcome the everyday drudgery in homes and factories sounds interesting me I hear it sure you have to visualize the details but I point out here how a period of 30 years the use of power tools has increased the number of leisure hours per worker by 27 hours per week and in the home not so long ago I mother had to bend over an old wooden washed up for hours to do the family lon while today's housewife has modern automatic laundry but it saves hours of labor and all she has to do is turn a dial her house cleaning is done easily and thoroughly in a matter of minutes a great improvement over the hours of back straining toil of grandma's time and how many times was food spoiled in the old fashioned ice box because it couldn't stay fresh free of bacteria in grandma's time food waste presented a serious problem for the family budget today food keeps fresh and tasty for days and how many winters is grandpa carried in a heavy load of coal for the stove today you can merely set the controls on your life leave the house and when you come back your dinner is ready getting rid of food waste was always a problem until we learn to use a local energy to do the work force the same energy now runs water heaters dishwashers writing by candlelight used to be a tedious and I straining effort but today Anand Essendon fluorescent lighting systems it's for every occasion then there's the whole field of scientific and medical improvements think of the slow tedious blind probing and guesswork of yesteryear in the diagnosis of many complex diseases that is gone today we have high-speed portable x-ray equipment developed specifically for mass chest examinations with Florrick on x-ray equipment doctors are able to see moving organs in the patient's body clearly and distinctly with it the dim light of the fluoroscope is increased more than 100 times so that the Bible workings of the human body like the heart are disclosed in brighter and more revealing detail other bodily functions can also be studied more thoroughly ultraviolet and infrared lamps now give us the benefit of the hidden energies in sunlight when sunlight itself cannot meet our needs energy has been converted for our pleasure as well it brings the magic of sight sound into our living and recreates masterpieces of drunk and music funny how we take a lot of those things for granted and that brings me to my final thought which should be something like this the material progress made possible by man's conversion of energy wise a great hope for social progress for as upon our struggle for freedom from the drudgery of bear survival upon our ability to create more time for education upon our capacity to create comfort and dispel the primitive fears that lie deep within us yet upon all these our hopes for the future man's road to social progress lies in such hopes their future for himself his children and his children's children here is an industry working to fulfill those hopes