Comments by "Keit Hammleter" (@keithammleter3824) on "MOST DEADLY: The Electric Chair - Forgotten History" video.

  1. Some errors in this video;- 1. The presenter says AC is more efficient than DC. This is not true. The reason why AC was adopted for the power mains is because with the technology of the day back then, there was no means of transforming DC up and down in voltage other than very expensive and not very durable motor-generators, so distribution from large power stations was not possible with DC. Distributing DC also causes a metal in contact with the earth to be eaten away - this caused big problems for buildings and phone companies using buried lead sheath cables when railways elected to use DC for traction. Railways liked DC in the early days because speed control of DC motors was at that time easier. 2. He says the elephant Topsy was killed by electrocution. Certainly the poor beast was caused to collapse by electric shock, but she had already just been given a stiff dose of cyanide, and immediately she collapsed a steam-powered strangulation device was used. It is thus in no way clear that she was killed by electricity, and quite likely wasn't. The whole thing was a disgraceful exercise in titillating the peasants by causing the poor beast as much distress in different ways as possible. 3. It would be virtually impossible to be killed by a telegraph system wire, and completely impossible with an AC telegraph system. The voltage is too low. AC telegraph systems had signal voltages of the order of a fraction of a volt - quite a bit less than a torch cell. The script writer, presumably Colin Heaton, did not take much care at all in his research.
    1
  2.  @FORGOTTENHISTORYCHANNEL  ; That is not efficiency, that is convenience and cost. You as a historian should be well aware that newspaper reporters use sloppy language at times - and you can't expect a reporter working against print deadlines to understand technology. You, however, have time to research, or ask a technical expert, respect your audience, and get it right. An analogy for you; A diesel engine is more efficient than a gasoline engine - that is, the diesel will require less fuel to give the same power than a gasoline engine will. but it also costs more. DC is not less efficient than AC - it just would have cost a heck of a lot more using the technology available back in the days of Edison and Tesla etc. For example if you supply 1 kW of DC to a room heater, or 1 kW of AC to a room heater, you get exactly the same amount of heat. Except for very small sizes, where the picture is complex, AC and DC electric motors both have about the same very high efficiency, DC distribution as envisaged by Edison requires a voltage conversion for every street, just as AC does. AC allows the use of static transformers. Back in the day, DC would have required genemotors - these had about the same efficiency (>95%), but a genemotor cost a lot more and requires regular maintenance.
    1