My Three Most Important Works 1. Law of Hysteresis 2. Symbolic Method of A-C Current 3. Theory of Electrical Transients
Called an engineering wizard by the engineering profession at GE in Schenectady, Steinmetz in 1892 presented a major paper on the Law of Hysteresis to the AIEE, and this gave him world recognition.
Among Steinmetz's distinguished visitors was Marchese Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of the first practical radio-signaling system and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1909.
Even when Steinmetz went out in his canoe, paper, pencil and slide rule accompanied him. In his diary he wrote, "It was a hot sunny day with almost no wind, and I sat in the sun and calculated instances of condenser discharge through an asymmetrical gas circuit."
Hailed as a "forger of thunderbolts", Steinmetz was the first to create artificial lightning, in 1922. Here he examines the fragments of a tree branch splintered by a bolt of lightning from his 120,000 volt generator. His studies enormously increased the reliability of electric power transmission.
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