Charles Steinmetz
1865 – 1923
Made AC calculation routine with the complex-phasor method.
A German-American engineer at General Electric, Steinmetz made alternating-current design tractable with his complex-number (phasor) method in the 1890s — turning AC problems from calculus into algebra. He also did foundational work on hysteresis and lightning.
Barely five feet tall and hunchbacked, he was GE's 'wizard.' The AC, reactance, and impedance tools here compute the way Steinmetz taught the industry to.
Portrait: a stylized blueprint-line rendering, not a photograph.
Contributions in the toolbox
- 1893
Complex/phasor method tames AC calculation.
→ RMS ⇄ Peak ⇄ Peak-to-Peak - 1893
Complex phasor method — reactance becomes arithmetic.
→ Reactance (XL / XC) - 1893
Phasor method makes RLC arithmetic routine.
→ Series RLC Impedance