William Joseph Hammer

William Joseph Hammer ( born February 26, 1858 in Cressona, Schuylkill County, † March 24, 1934 ) was an American engineer.

Life and work

William Joseph Hammer began his career in 1878 as assistant to the chemist Edward Weston in Newark (New Jersey), at Weston Malleable Nickel Company. During a visit to the laboratory of Thomas Alva Edison in Menlo Park in December 1879, he secured a job as a laboratory assistant. It concerned itself with the development of the phonograph, telephones and mainly with incandescent bulbs. In 1880 he became chief engineer of the Edison Lamp Works. In 1881 he was sent to London, sent to the English Electric Light Company, where he built the first central power supply for 3000 lamps at Holborn Viaduct (see Station Holborn Viaduct) for demonstration purposes. He also prepared the electrical exhibition at the Crystal Palace (1882).

Hammer discovered the Hammer 's Phantom Shadow ( 1882? ), Who became known in patenting the incandescent lamp in 1883 as Edison effect and later as Edison Richardson effect. In 1883 he took over the post of chief engineer of the German Edison Company ( later AEG) in Berlin. He taught more plants in the German Empire and led the Dynamo production in Charlottenburg. He also invented a flashing light.

In the spring of 1884, Hammer returned to the U.S. and was chief inspector of the central stations of the parent company Edison Electric Light Company. From 1886 to 1887 he was Managing Director and Chief Engineer of the Boston Edison Electric Illuminating Company. In 1888, Hammer worked as a freelance engineer and supervised the completion of the electric lighting system was then the largest isolated on Ponce de Leon Hotel in St. Augustine (Florida ). This year he was also elected as a consulting engineer of the Centennial Exposition, Cincinnati. Edison chose him as his personal representative for the Paris World Exhibition of 1889. During the exhibition took hammer to Drs Wells and Abbott Lawrence Rotch a balloon ride over France. After his return he ran from 1890 to 1925, an independent consulting firm in New York City, where he also served as an expert witness in patent litigation. In 1894 he married Alice Maud White in Cleveland († 1906), with whom he had a daughter.

1902, during a visit by Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris hammer had received a sample of radium with which he experimented. He introduced radium powder and bright colors for the coating of watches and instruments forth. In the summer of 1903 he treated so that a tumor on his hand, supplying hospitals with radioactive water. In experiments with selenium selenium cells and he also developed applications for it.

His passion was aviation.

Publications

• Radium, and other radio- active substances: polonium, actinium, and thorium. New York / London 1903, (online).