His work enabled people to make dependable electrical equipment. As chief consulting engineer for General Electric, engineers who tapped his brain for help called him “The Supreme Court.” He had 195 patents.
“He really is in the class of Einstein, of Marconi, of Edison. But they (people) don't remember Steinmetz,” said Thurston Sack, president of the Edison Exploratorium.
On Sunday, they did remember. Schenectady threw Charles Proteus Steinmetz a huge party for what would have been the mathematician and engineer's 141st birthday.
The event at the Edison Exploratorium marked the first City Council-proclaimed “Steinmetz Day.” Organizers even recruited a local Nobel Prize winner to cut the cake.
The Steinmetz name is already familiar to Schenectadians. A municipal housing project bears the name. So does a deli on Watt Street and a hall at Union College, where he taught.
But judging by the response of 10-year-old Olivia Golden from Niskayuna and several adults interviewed Sunday, his legacy could use a good dusting off.
The ponytailed girl in a hot-pink corduroy jacket shook her head no when asked if she knew about Steinmetz. Steinmetz's contemporary Thomas Edison — that name Golden knew.
“He made the light bulb,” she said.
A German immigrant who stood less than 5 feet tall, Steinmetz suffered from physical problems, including a hunchback and hip dysplasia that required him to use crutches. He was forced to flee his homeland because of his socialist leanings. He arrived in New York City in 1889.
General Electric hired Steinmetz in 1892, less than a decade after Thomas Edison founded the firm. During his 31-year tenure there, he grew almost as famous as Edison and started a company laboratory in his backyard that was the forerunner to GE Research & Development, now in Niskayuna.
Of the many Steinmetz legends, consultant Jim Duggan entertained the audience Sunday with the one about how GE sought Steinmetz's help to fix a huge generator that wasn't performing right.
After several days isolated with the generator, the story goes, Steinmetz chalked a large “X” on the machine and directed GE's engineers to cut the casing there and pull out some turns of wire. He billed the company $1,000.
Stunned, GE asked for an itemized invoice. It had two entries. Marking chalk “X” on side of generator: $1. Knowing where to mark chalk “X”: $999.
Steinmetz's work revolutionized the development of electrical equipment. Before him, it took months to design things that ended up failing soon after, said retired engineer and longtime Steinmetz enthusiast John Marshall.
“After that, it took weeks to design things and they lasted for years,” he said.
Steinmetz also plunged into the civic life of his adopted city, serving as president of both the school board and the City Council and chairing the Parks and City Planning Commission.
Niskayuna's Ivar Giaever, a GE alumnus who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in physics, spoke of their shared experience as Schenectady immigrants.
“Schenectady has such a marvelous history,” he said. “When I grew up in Norway, believe it or not, I knew the name Schenectady. I could even spell it.”