Not a lick of truth here. Been around in many forms with a slightly different twist each time.
Ever heard of Charles Steinmetz?
Me either. Turns out he was one of the most brilliant electrical engineers ever. He was a weird guy, only 4 feet tall with a bad case of scoliosis that made his body very contorted.
He immigrated from Germany to the US and after working in the new field of electricity caught the eye of Thomas Edison who bought the company he worked for just to get him and his patents. He made a name for himself as an engineer at General Electric and pretty much transformed the electrical industry.
Brilliant is about the only way to describe him. He was one of only about 10 or 12 people in the world that even understood what Einstein discovered about relativity. He even wrote a book trying to explain Einstein's theory on relativity so that more people might understand it. He was buddies with Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Tesla, you name it.
So, there was one story about him that I found interesting. It seems that Henry Ford had a plant in Dearborn, Michigan. In that plant was a couple of HUGE generators and they were having problems with one of them. After the engineers at Ford finally decided they couldn't solve the problem, they called in the little genius Steinmetz to see if he could help. When Steinmetz arrived at the plant, Ford had all of his best and brightest engineers there ready to help and they were told to have anything he might need ready for his disposal. Steinmetz refused all assistance and asked only for a note pad, a pencil, and a cot and told the rest to leave him alone.
He sat by that generator for 2 solid days and nights taking notes in his notebook. On the end of his second night he asked for a piece of chalk and a ladder. he climbed the ladder and drew a small box on the side of the generator near the top and then came down. He told the Ford engineers to cut a hole in the plate at his chalk mark and replace 16 windings from the field coil. They did as he instructed and the generator worked to perfection.
When he returned to his office, he sent a bill to Henry ford for $10,000 for his work. A little set back at the price, Ford responded by asking Steinmetz for a cost breakdown of the bill.
Steinmetz replied:
Cost of making a chalk mark on the side of the generator.....................$1.00
Knowing where to make the chalk mark.......................................$9,999. 00
Total cost.............................................. .................................$10,000.00
Ford paid it.
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