ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING PROBLEMS OF THE 



PRESENT TIME 



BY MICHAEL IDVORSKY PUPIN 



[Michael Idvorsky Pupin, Professor of Electro-Mechanics, Columbia University, 

 New York. b. October 4, 1858, Idvor, Banat, Hungary. B.A. Columbia, 1883; 

 Ph.D. Berlin; D.Sc. Columbia (Hon.); Post-graduate, Cambridge, Berlin. In- 

 structor in Mathematical Physics, Columbia University, 1889-92; Adjunct Pro- 

 fessor in Mechanics, ibid. 1892-1901; Professor of Mathematical Physics, ibid. 

 1901. Member of American Institute of Electrical Engineers; New York Acad- 

 emy of Sciences; American Association for the Advancement of Science; Amer- 

 ican Mathematical Society; American Physical Society ; American Philosophical 

 Society; National Academy of Sciences of the United States. Author of a large 

 number of memoirs on physics and mathematics, some of which led to inven- 

 tions of practical importance.] 



ENGINEERING problems differ from crude scientific problems 

 by the definiteness of their aim. They are created by the indus- 

 trial development of the country, and their solution forms the 

 next step in the progress of this development. The problems in 

 pure science do not have this intimate connection with the present 

 state of the technical arts; they affect it in so far only as their 

 solution contributes additional means for the solution of the exist- 

 ing engineering problems and leads gradually to the formulation 

 of new ones. Public demand is the driving force which impels the 

 engineer in his study of any given problem; the loosest kind of a 

 coupling connects the work of the crude scientist with public de- 

 mand. This does not mean, of course, the existence of any public 

 indifference in this respect. The intelligent public watches with keen 

 interest the steady progress of pure science; partly on account of 

 the intellectual pleasure which one derives from the contempla- 

 tion of the beautiful mechanism which purely scientific research 

 reyeals in the background of various physical phenomena, but 

 principally on account of the recognized fact that the progress of 

 pure science leads to the formulation of new engineering problems, 

 the solution of which is essential to our immediate social progress, 

 our moral and material development. The intelligent public knows 

 with a certainty amounting to mathematical accuracy when the 

 time is ripe for the formulation of new engineering problems, and 

 it is ready then to lend its strong support to the engineer who offers 

 a solution. When Bell discovered a method of obtaining an elec- 

 trical facsimile of articulate speech, and constructed the first tele- 

 phone which represented an embodiment of his great discovery, 

 the intelligent public understood readily that the time was ripe 

 for the formulation of a new engineering problem, the problem of 

 transmission of speech over long distances. It was ready then to 



