Robert Jemison Van de Graaff was born on December 20, 1901 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He would later create a machine that could create 80,000 AA batteries’ worth of volts (at the least) with things that you could buy from a dollar store. He got a job during college at the Alabama Power Company (which is probably where he learned the basics of electricity). He also got his Bachelor’s in Science and Master’s in Science at the University of Alabama in 1922 and 1923. He studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and Oxford in 1924, and 1925, earning his Ph.D in 1929.
Now, by this time he understood the advantages of high voltage. There could be lots of possibilities for something that could easily create high voltage. However, the only way to do that would be to get a multimillion-dollar power plant that would also have enough current to instantly kill you. Having the whole thing in a Faraday cage (a device that directs and changes the forms of high current and some radiation so you won’t be killed by it) would be very inconvenient, so that wouldn’t work. The problem with large, expensive, and dangerous equipment is that it isn’t easily accessible to really anybody but entire countries, so a new solution was needed.
But, high voltage and high power are two different things. Electrical power (measured in …show more content…
The Van de Graaff generator allowed people to advance radiation therapy for cancer, create a focused X-ray that could be used by the navy, and even encouraged the use of a better insulation when dealing with high voltage. And the entire thing didn’t actually cost more than a normal person could afford. Finally, the Van de Graaff generator ended the long search for a viable electrostatic generator (that’s the official name for that kind of machine) that had been going on for a long time since the device that would become a battery was