Talk:Frank J. Sprague

Sprague and Edison
The statement 'One of Sprague's significant contributions to the Edison Laboratory at Menlo Park, New Jersey, was the introduction of mathematical methods. Prior to his arrival, Edison conducted many costly trial-and-error experiments. Sprague's approach was to calculate using mathematics the optimum parameters and thus save much needless tinkering.' is both unsourced and incorrect.

Edison was already using mathematical methods when Sprague joined him, for example, employing physicist and mathematician Francis Robbins Upton in 1879. It also repeats and widely believed and unsourced myth about Edison's use of trial and error and so fails to recognise its significance to Edison's sucsess as an inventor. See

Wills, Ian. "The Edisonian Method: Trial and Error." Chap. 10 In Thomas Edison : Success and Innovation through Failure, 203-22: Springer, 2019.

I have deleted the erroneous statement. Sovsw (talk) 05:39, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Untitled
Look at:

Rowsome, Frank; Stephan McGuire, tech. ed. (1956). A Trolley Car Treasury: A Century of American Streetcars—Horsecars, Cable Cars, Interurbans, and Trolleys. New York: McGraw.

For a whole chapter on Sprague. It's hard to find and long out of print, but I found several copies on Amazon. It's defiantely worth a read, and adds soome human anecdotes this article could use. Andacar (talk)

How was constant speed electric motor achieved
It says "His motor was the first to maintain constant speed under varying load" but neither here or at electric motor does it say how this was achieved ie what technique or invention required. - Rod57 (talk) 11:58, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

It's a shunt motor, which is described at the bottom of DC motor. astrayelmgod (talk) 31 January 2017 —Preceding undated comment added 06:45, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

shaded by Edison?
As one of seemingly a number of creative inventors perhaps unfairly overshadowed by Edison, in the legacy of popular history, let's try to improve this article! Maybe the article should be more pointed about how Edison bought out his motor company, and took his name off the motors he invented, somewhat erasing him from history?-71.174.175.150 (talk) 02:08, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

motor invention details
Sprague invented important motor tech. The article should include at least one good drawing of key details of his motor tech. And at least a brief description of the tech, with links to other articles that ought to explain such tech details more completely. Trying to find such WP content today, the other relevant tech articles seem to mostly not even mention his name, and are very vague at best about the relevant science and tech.

It seems like he would have had quite a few patents, and that this aspect should be included in the article.-71.174.175.150 (talk) 15:55, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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