Zénobe Gramme (nonfiction)

Zénobe Théophile Gramme.

Zénobe Théophile Gramme (4 April 1826 - 20 January 1901) was a Belgian electrical engineer.

He invented the Gramme machine, a type of direct current dynamo capable of generating smoother (less AC) and much higher voltages than the dynamos known to that point.

In 1873 he and Hippolyte Fontaine accidentally discovered that the device was reversible and would spin when connected to any DC power supply.

The Gramme machine was the first usefully powerful electrical motor that was successful industrially. Before Gramme's inventions, electric motors attained only low power and were mainly used as toys or laboratory curiosities.

Fiction cross-reference

• Crimes against mathematical constants
• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles

Nonfiction cross-reference

• Hippolyte Fontaine (nonfiction)

External links:

• Zénobe Gramme @ Wikipedia