Why 50 Hz and 60 Hz?

Asked and answered about 50 times a month.

Go to the "Search this Forum" box to the right and type in "50/60 Hz".

This is all about an ancient conflict between Wiccans (5-pointed star, 50 Hz.) and Jews (6-pointed star, 60 Hz.) Neither of these sects convinced the other, and the world has been riven ever since. It's just history.

Once that's clear, wonder why the Swiss railway network has used 16²/₃Hz...

• "Once that's clear, wonder why the Swiss railway network has used 16²/₃Hz..."

Beyond the fact that the lower the frequency, the more efficient the motor, I have another theory.

If you create your own power and don't want to have to share it with anyone else, using an oddball frequency facilitates that. When the lights go out in a city and the electric railway is still running, politicians will try to pressure the rail company to help them. If the frequency is so outrageously different, it can't happen regardless of political pressure.

I saw something similar in an old silver mine in Idaho, way out in the middle of nowhere. There was a "company town" right at the mine and a regular city about 10 miles away. The mine was still using 25Hz back in the late 1980s when I visited. I asked them why, they said that they were there first around the turn of the century and used 25Hz because that was best for the motors and electric lighting was not an issue yet. Then the other city sprang up and used 25Hz, so they kept pestering the mine to help out whenever their generators failed. In the 1930s when the REA went around unifying power grids to 60Hz, the town changed, but the mine did not because they wanted to quit having to back up the city.