Technikatörténeti szemle 9. (1977)
A MÉRÉS ÉS A MÉRTÉK AZ EMBERI MŰVELŐDÉSBEN című konferencián Budapesten 1976. április 27–30-án elhangzott előadások I. rész - Debreczeny Á.–Vajda P.: A Bláthy-féle fogyasztásmérő, az áramfogyasztás gyakorlati mérőmódszerei
A. DEBRECZENY* —P. VAJDA** THE FIRST INDUCTION—TYPE ALTERNATING CURRENT WATT—HOUR METER In the last quarter of the 19th century, the ascendancy of electric installations, the rapid spreading of electric current generation as a public utility, and in general the growth of knowledge on electricity made the measurement of current consumed an increasingly crucial problem. Furthermore, the universal adoption of the metric system in the 1870's gave rise to the demand of the measurement of electricity being in some way co-ordinated to metric measurements. No better proof of the significance of the issue is found than the fact that the elaboration of electric measurement systems was registered as a problem to be solved by most scientific institutes and academies in the world. In Hungary, Act VIII/1874 established the metric system; later, Act 11/1876 enacted the international metric agreement. At the same time, Department III of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences also included in its program the issue of physical and technical measures — including very early the measurements of electricity (1). The early 80's of the past century witnessed the struggle between the DC and AC current systems for primacy (2). The majority of experts, including Edison himself, regarded the DC system to be the promise of the future. Unlike the majority, the electrical engineers of the Ganz Factory adopted the AC current system for the bases of power supply. The first stage of progress was the AC alternator devised in 1883 by Zipernowsky (3). It was followed in 1885 by the core and mantle transformers (5) developed and patented by Zipernowsky —Déri—Bláthy (4). The parallel connected transformer-based electric power distribution system enabled electric power to be carried over long distances, providing the consumers (loads) continuously with low voltages (6). Among other things, the adequacy of the AC current was proved by the above mentioned two inventions of high significance. The decisive evidence was provided by the tests carried out in 1889 in Frankfurt am Main in order to compare the relative merits of DC and AC electric power supplies. The Ganz Factory presented self-inductance type AC motors and AC watt-hour meters to the committee of experts in charge of the tests. The comparison proved the superiority of AC current (7). * Museum for Science and Technology, Budapest ** 1123 Budapest, Alkotás út l/A.
