Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the latter half of the 19th century after the commercialization of the electric telegraph, the telephone, and electrical power generation, distribution, and use.
John Hopkinson, FRS, was a British physicist, electrical engineer, Fellow of the Royal Society and President of the IEE twice in 1890 and 1896. He invented the three-wire (three-phase) system for the distribution of electrical power, for which he was granted a patent in 1882. He also worked in many areas of electromagnetism and electrostatics, and in 1890 was appointed professor of electrical engineering at King's College London, where he was also director of the Siemens Laboratory.
Elihu Thomson was an American engineer and inventor who was instrumental in the founding of major electrical companies in the United States, the United Kingdom and France.
Eric Roberts Laithwaite was a British electrical engineer, known as the "Father of Maglev" for his development of the linear induction motor and maglev rail system.
First to file and first to invent are legal concepts that define who has the right to the grant of a patent for an invention. Since 16 March 2013, after the USA abandoned its "first to invent/document" system, all countries have operated under the "first-to-file" patent priority requirement.
The invention of the telephone was the culmination of work done by more than one individual, and led to an array of lawsuits relating to the patent claims of several individuals and numerous companies. Notable people including in this were Antonio Meucci, Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell.
Electromagnetic suspension (EMS) is the magnetic levitation of an object achieved by constantly altering the strength of a magnetic field produced by electromagnets using a feedback loop. In most cases the levitation effect is mostly due to permanent magnets as they have no power dissipation, with electromagnets only used to stabilise the effect.
John Stone Stone was an American mathematician, physicist and inventor. He initially worked in telephone research, followed by influential work developing early radio technology, where he was especially known for improvements in tuning. Despite his often advanced designs, the Stone Telegraph and Telephone Company failed in 1908, and he spent the remainder of his career as an engineering consultant.
This article details the history of electrical engineering.
Free World Trust v Électro Santé Inc, [2000] 2 S.C.R. 1024, 2000 SCC 66, is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on patents, namely claim construction and the necessity to identify essential elements and non-essential elements. Along with the related decision, Camco v. Whirlpool (2001), 9 C.P.R. (4th) 129 (SCC), the Supreme Court of Canada rejected the doctrine of equivalents applied in the United States and adopted the doctrine of purposive construction, as originally applied by the United Kingdom House of Lords in Catnic v. Hill & Smith. This was a landmark decision as it resolved the uncertainty in Canadian case law between the two doctrines.
Telecommunications engineering is a subfield of electronics engineering which seeks to design and devise systems of communication at a distance. The work ranges from basic circuit design to strategic mass developments. A telecommunication engineer is responsible for designing and overseeing the installation of telecommunications equipment and facilities, such as complex electronic switching systems, and other plain old telephone service facilities, optical fiber cabling, IP networks, and microwave transmission systems. Telecommunications engineering also overlaps with broadcast engineering.
Anadish Kumar Pal is an Indian inventor, poet, and environmentalist.
Spin-stabilized magnetic levitation is a phenomenon of magnetic levitation whereby a spinning magnet or array of magnets is levitated via magnetic forces above another magnet or array of magnets, and stabilised by gyroscopic effect due to a spin rate that is neither too fast, nor too slow to allow for a necessary precession.
Perepiteia is claimed to be a new generator developed by the Canadian inventor Thane Heins. The device is named after the Greek word for peripety, a dramatic reversal of circumstances or turning point in a story. The device was quickly attributed the term "perpetual motion machine" by several media outlets. Due to the long history of hoaxes and failures of perpetual motion machines and the incompatibility of such a device with accepted principles of physics, Heins' claims about Perepiteia have been treated with considerable skepticism.
Charles Grafton Page was an American electrical experimenter and inventor, physician, patent examiner, patent advocate, and professor of chemistry.
James McEwen is a Canadian biomedical engineer and the inventor of the microprocessor-controlled automatic tourniquet system, which is now standard for 15,000-20,000 procedures daily in operating rooms worldwide. Their widespread adoption and use has significantly improved surgical safety, quality and economy. McEwen is President of Western Clinical Engineering Ltd., a biomedical engineering research and development company and he is a director of Delfi Medical Innovations Inc., a company he founded to commercialize some results of that research and development. He is also an adjunct professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering, in the Department of Orthopaedics and in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of British Columbia.
Andrea Alù is an Italian American scientist and engineer, currently Einstein Professor of Physics at The City University of New York Graduate Center. He is known for his contributions to the fields of optics, photonics, plasmonics, and acoustics, most notably in the context of metamaterials and metasurfaces. He has co-authored over 650 journal papers and 35 book chapters, and he holds 11 U.S. patents.
Vladimir Igorevich Gurevich is a prominent scientist, inventor and author in the field of electrical engineering with 18 books, more than 250 journal papers and over 100 patents on the topic of relays, electrical engineering, electronics, EMP Protection Problems.
Salvatore Cezar Pais is an American aerospace engineer and inventor, currently working for the United States Space Force. He formerly worked at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River. His patent applications for the US Navy attracted attention for their potential energy-producing applications, but also doubt about their feasibility, and speculation that they may be scams, pseudoscience, or disinformation intended to mislead the United States' adversaries.
Yihong Qi is an engineer, professor, entrepreneur, and inventor. His work focuses on networking science and technology. Qi is currently an adjunct professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Missouri University of Science and Technology. He is a Fellow of The Canadian Academy of Engineering and of the National Academy of Inventors. Qi's research has led to the founding of five independent companies.
