Episode 70: The Gramme dynamo
At the end of the 19th century, the Gramme dynamo gave a major impetus to the development of electric power. It became a crucial device for generating continuous electric currents and paved the way for the dynamos built since then. The specimen that is part of the Faraday Museum collection, at Alameda campus, is one of the few dynamos built by François Breguet, a renowned French watchmaker who was also the author of the “watch number 160”, commissioned as a gift (never delivered) to Marie-Antoinette. When it arrived at the Faraday Museum, the dynamo was not working but quickly entered the Museum’s motto “all we have here must be working”. Today it is one of the most extraordinary specimens in the Museum’s collections.
- Acknowledgements:
Moisés Piedade
Museu Faraday
Episode only available in Portuguese in: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Anchor.fm
Further reading and additional audio in the Portuguese version of this webpage.