History

GE develops the hot-cathode, high vacuum X-ray tube. By replacing the cold aluminum cathode with the hot tungsten filament in a high vacuum, the company could provide tubes with better control and greater output than had ever been achieved. The development greatly facilitates the use of X-rays for diagnosis and treatment.

The Panama Canal opens and is the largest electrical installation in the world, with 500 motors operating the locks and 500 more installed in other parts of the canal system. The total horsepower is almost 30,000. The intricate selsyn controls for each of the locks are designed by GE.

Working tirelessly to improve not only our products but our quality of life, electric stoves are made safer with GE's latest material achievement, the development of Calrod, an electrically insulating, heat conducting ceramic that remains the best material for the job nearly a century later.

In another milestone for our time in the kitchen, fresh food is given a new lease on life as GE starts production of the first hermetically sealed home refrigerators, the basic type still in use today. This invention is another gigantic step forward in improving the lives of consumers everywhere, followed quickly by another: leftovers.

From air traffic control to TV dinners, another demonstration of the versatility of a GE idea's application is the Magnetron. GE's Albert Hull invents this new type of vacuum tube, using magnetic fields to control the power output of the tube. It is to become a key element in World War II radar systems and later the basis to cook food by controlling the high frequency, short wavelength radio waves called microwaves.

Harnessing some of the enormous power of one of the great natural wonders of the world, GE builds a record capacity water-wheel generator for Niagara Falls (32,500 KVA, 12,000 volts).

For the first time, radio bridges continents. GE designs a 200 kw, 25,000-cycle alternator, the foundation of the first trans-oceanic radio system that enables the United States to communicate with its Allies and with the American Expeditionary Forces in France.

GE develops an oil-immersed X-ray tube and transformer assembly, weighing only 20 pounds, and suitable for dental and portable X-ray use.

A new world altitude record of 40,800 ft is set by a plane equipped with a GE supercharger. Behind this event is the work of GE's Sanford Moss. Years before at the age of 16, while in a shop that produced compressed air machinery, Moss had an idea: if fuel could be burned in compressed air, the energy output would be increased tremendously. This idea would make possible the altitude speed of today's aircraft.

General Electric radio station WGY, Schenectady, New York, one of the first in the country, begins regularly scheduled broadcasting using its 1500-watt transmitter.