Phasor method for AC circuits (Steinmetz)
Método simbólico de los circuitos de corriente alterna (Steinmetz)
- Date
- 1893 · confidence high
- Place
- Yonkers, New York, United States
- Credited to
- Charles Proteus Steinmetz (and Arthur Kennelly)
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
At the Chicago electrical congress Steinmetz presented the use of complex numbers to treat alternating voltages and currents as rotating vectors. It turned AC network calculation into simple algebra.
Arthur Kennelly published equivalent results almost simultaneously (1893) and Oliver Heaviside had used similar methods earlier; credit is usually given to Steinmetz.
What it led to
- impedance and phasor analysis across electrical engineering
- calculation of large power networks
- teaching of electrical engineering