Jewish Invention Myths: The Electric Motor
Another of the alleged ‘jewish inventions’ attributed to Russian jew Boris Jacobi aside from electroplating – which I debunked in separate article – is the electric motor.
To begin as always with the claim made by jews we read that:
‘Boris Semyonovich Jacobi – Electric motor, electroplating
The first practically useful electric motor, which immediately found its application, was created by the outstanding electrical engineer Boris Jacobi. He also became famous for the discovery of electroplating and designing a letter-printing telegraph device.’ (2)
This as usual is complete nonsense based on a small kernel of fact.
What is the truth?
The first electric motor is often thought to have been invented by English physicist William Sturgeon in 1832 and could turn machinery. (3)
However, a Hungarian Benedictine monk named Fr. Anianus Jedlik – formerly Stephen Jedlik - had actually invented the electric motor in 1827-1828 and used it to power a model vehicle. (4)
So, Jedlik was technically the first to invent the electric motor, while Sturgeon also independently invented the electric motor in England four to five years later.
If we go back to the claim from ‘MNews’ concerning Jacobi we note that they specifically claim that Jacobi invented the ‘first practically useful’ electric motor, which again is simply not true.
The problem with the claim is quite simple in that while Jacobi invented an electric motor powered by a battery in May 1834 that could be used to propel a boat and a further modified version successfully did so on the Neva River in 1839 when he carried fourteen passengers on said boat against the current at circa three miles per hour. (5)
Jacobi’s invention was not actually ‘practical’ – it is just claimed to have been because it worked once not because it worked consistently nor because it was the basis for commercially viable technology (i.e., there is no evidence for the claim of practicality) – and the reason we know is this is that American inventors Thomas and Emily Davenport – a husband and wife team – also created an electric motor in 1834 for driving street cars (as well as for other uses) based on Sturgeon’s 1832 design, but were bankrupted by the exorbitant cost of primary batteries which made the cost of running the motors commercially unsustainable due to the lack of an electricity distribution system. (6)
Given the severe limitations and unsustainable cost base Jacobi’s similar invention could not have been ‘practical’ simply because the batteries needed to power his electric motor would have been even more prohibitively expensive in Russia then they were in the United States and thus Jacobi’s invention could not have been ‘practical’.
Add to that the fact that the first ‘practical’ electric motor is generally acknowledged to have been that of Frank J. Sprague in 1886 whose motor was used – like Davenport’s – to power street cars over fifty years later. (7)
In other words, Jacobi didn’t invent the first electric motor nor did he invent the first ‘practical’ electric motor: that would be Anianus Jedlik and William Sturgeon then Frank J. Sprague respectively.
Scratch another ‘jewish invention’ myth.
References
(1) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jewish-invention-myths-electroplating
(2) https://mnews.world/en/news/the-great-jews-and-their-inventions
(3) https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/26748
(4) Anon., 1896, ‘Aniaus Jedlik’, Nature, Vol. 53, No. 1379, p. 516; also https://web.archive.org/web/20130826080638/http://www.frankfurt.matav.hu/angol/magytud.htm
(5) https://web.archive.org/web/20170512221521/http://www.eti.kit.edu/english/1382.php
(6) David Nye, 1990, ‘Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880-1940’, 1st Edition, The MIT Press: Cambridge, p. 86
(7) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.7227/TJTH.21.1.6