When I was recently watching the DVD for the 1960 film "The Time Machine," which was two nights ago I think, there is a scene that the actor Rod Taylor performs that I have thought about again.
What that scene reminds me of is a time I was standing in the larger of the two workshops I helped my step-father build on the property he and my mother purchased on Hicks Road north of Ashdown Arkansas in the early 1980's. That was after he and my mother married and moved us from De Queen Arkansas, where I had lived, they tell me, since I was about four years old, having moved there from my birthplace in Antlers Oklahoma.
So anyway, the way I remember it is my step-father and I were standing there in that large workshop and there was some dialog about a bench grinder.
I think now about how we had built that larger workshop on the corner of the property for the house he and my mother owned and where I lived during high school. We had first built a small workshop behind the house and then I helped him build a much larger workshop at the edge of the property and behind the house. The larger one had a concrete floor and a big wooden door on the wood structure of the workshop and it swung open so you could drive a car in there to work on. I cannot recall if it was large enough for two cars or just one car. I think only one car would fit in there.
In that case, of that conversation about the bench grinder, I think that was December 1984. I cannot recall precisely but I feel certain that was the time the conversation took place. That was the time when I was back there and I was on leave from the United States Navy and I was in transit to report to my next assignment attached to the USS Taylor FFG 50.
I cannot now recall the precise details I want to describe here but the important details are about the conversation about the bench grinder. The way I remember it there was some dialog about how the bench grinder would rotate in either direction when the power was turned on to it and the wheels would not start turning unless you put your hand on the grinder wheels and pushed the wheel in one direction. Which ever direction you shoved the wheel was the direction the grinder powered by alternating current from the wall outlet would continue to spin.
We were talking about that grinder and apparently the topic of conversation turned to why it did not start spinning when the power was turned on. I didn't know what was wrong with it. The way I remember it my step-father told me that component, not unlike the starter motor on my red 1967 Ford pickup, had failed.
I thought about that sometime later as I was studying for the Fire Controlman rating in the United States Navy and in that Advanced Electronics Field occupational rating we were required to understand such topics as alternating current and especially electric motors. In my normal shipboard duties on the USS Wainwright CG 28 my responsibilities as a computer technician and then as supervisor was the proper operation of motor-generators that supplied power to the computer complex of the guided-missile fire-control system on the ship.
I remember learning about the 'why' of that AC motor and of why the motor would spin in the direction the wheel was shoved.
So I was thinking about all that again when I recently watched the DVD for the 1960 film "The Time Machine."
In that particular scene, the actor Rod Taylor, in his portrayal as time-machine inventor "H. George Wells," is about to embark on his first journey in his time-travel contraption.
He walks into his workroom and then his acting suggests to you he has just visibly noticed something is not right with a component of his machine and so he hurriedly pulls out that rod with the glass prism or whatever it is at the end, and that seems to be a control stick for the machine, and in an unsophisticated element of that 1960 film to make you think about how that rod with the prism is a crucial component of the machine, of which the function had been earlier established in the dialog, he pushes the end of the rod onto a bench grinder and sands it down for a few seconds and then he stands there and puts his hand on the bench grinder wheel.
Considering the year 1899 and that everything is candle- or gas-light, I think it is safe to assume the bench grinder is foot-crank powered although that is never really established. There is a closing scene that shows some features of the grinder and I haven't paused the DVD to study it but I don't think there is any doubt it is foot-crank operated.
And when he puts his hand on the grinder wheel as he stands there looking thoughtful and just as he is about to embark on his first time-travel excursion, I think about that conversation I had about that bench grinder and I think that conversation happened just before I made my first arrival to the Taylor where it was in the shipyards in Maine where it had been recently constructed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_capacitor
Wikipedia
Motor capacitor
A motor capacitor, such as a start capacitor or run capacitor, including a dual run capacitor, is an electrical capacitor that alters the current to one or more windings of an electric motor to create a rotating magnetic field.
Motor capacitors include two common types, run capacitors and start capacitors. The units of capacitance are labeled in microfarads (µF or uF or mfd).
1985 film "Back to the Future" DVD video: [ RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 ]
00:48:34
Dr. Emmett Brown: I've had enough jokes for one evening. Good night, future boy!
Marty McFly: No, wait, Doc. The bruise on your head. I know how that happened. You told me. You were standing on your toilet hanging a clock and you fell and hit your head on the sink. That's when you got the idea for the flux capacitor which is what makes time travel possible. There's something wrong with the starter, so I hid it here.
Dr. Emmett Brown: After I fell off my toilet, I drew this.
Marty McFly: The flux capacitor.
Dr. Emmett Brown: It works! It works! I finally invent something that works!
http://www.divxmoviesenglishsubtitles.com/P/Planet_of_the_Apes_1968.html
Planet of the Apes
Dr Zira, would you tell...|Bright Eyes to be quiet?
- My name is Taylor.|- Bailiff. Silence the animal.
Wait. Let me...
You may proceed, Mr Prosecutor.
Learned judges, my case is simple.|It is based on our first article of faith.
That the almighty created the ape in his own|image. That he gave him a soul and a mind.
That he set him apart from the beasts of the|jungle and made him the lord of the planet.
These sacred truths are self-evident.
The proper study of apes is apes.
But certain young cynics|have chosen to study man.
Yes. Perverted scientists who advance|an insidious theory called evolution.
Come to the point, Dr Honorious.
The state charges that Dr Zira|and a corrupt surgeon named Galen
experimented on this wounded animal,|tampering with his brain and throat tissues,
to produce a speaking monster.
- That's a lie!|- Mind your tongue, madam.
Did we create his mind as well?
Not only can this man speak,|he can think. He can reason.
That can reason?
With the tribunal's permission, allow me|to expose this hoax by direct examination.
Proceed, doctor. But do not|turn this hearing into a farce.
