Turboencabulator

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Turboencabulator or turbo-encabulator is a fictional machine whose alleged existence became part of an in-joke or professional humor amongst electrical engineers.

The widely circulated piece on the mythical "turbo-encabulator" was written by Bernard Salwen, a New York lawyer working in Washington, DC during World War II. Part of Salwen's job was to review technical manuscripts. Having a sharp ear for words, he was bemused by the jargon and came up with this classic piece. The myth was that it was excerpted in a short article in Time magazine on April 15, 1946: [1]

Engineers last week were avidly reading a pamphlet published by Arthur D. Little, Inc., a venerable Cambridge, Mass, chemical and engineering research firm. Title: The Turbo-Encabulator in Industry. Excerpts: " ... Work has been proceeding in order to bring perfection to the crudely conceived idea of a machine that would not only supply inverse reactive current for use in unilateral phase detractors, but would also be capable of automatically synchronizing cardinal grammeters. Such a machine is the 'Turbo-Encabulator'. "The original machine had a base-plate of prefabulated amulite, surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two spurving bearings were in a direct line with the pentametric fan. ... The main winding was of the normal lotus-o-delta type placed in panendermic semi-boloid slots in the stator, every seventh conductor being connected by a nonreversible trem'e pipe to the differential girdlespring on the 'up' end of the grammeters. "Forty-one manestically spaced grouting brushes were arranged to feed into the rotor slipstream a mixture of high S-value phenylhydrobenzamine and 5% reminative tetryliodohexamine. Both of these liquids have specific pericosities given by P = 2.5C.n^6-7 where n is the diathetical evolute of retrograde temperature phase disposition and C is Cholmondeley's annular grillage coefficient. Initially, n was measured with the aid of a metapolar refractive pilfrometer . . . but up to the present date nothing has been found to equal the transcendental hopper dadoscope. ... "Undoubtedly, the turbo-encabulator has now reached a very high level of technical development. It has been successfully used for operating nofer trunnions. In addition, whenever a barescent skor motion is required, it may be employed in conjunction with a drawn reciprocating dingle arm to reduce sinusoidal depleneration."

The turboencabulator was supposedly described by a "J.H. Quick" in "The Institution of Electrical Engineers, Students Quarterly Journal" 25 (London), p184 in 1955 ^[1]. (Other sources give vol 15 no. 58 p. 22, December 1944.) Most of the terms in the description were made up, but technical sounding, to fool the unknowing. The device was said to measure "Inverse Reactive Current". This type of joke among engineers actually dates further back than this, such as the Laplace transformer (a play on the Laplace transform).

A data sheet for a turboencabulator was published in General Electric's 1962/1963 product catalog ^[2]. It is claimed to have been a prank, the nature of which GE management learned after receiving inquiries about the advertised product; or it could be a spoof.

The Turbo-Encabulator is a fictional device purportedly manufactured by the former Chrysler Corporation (circa aprox. 1988-'90), or, later, by Rockwell Automation, renamed Retro-Encabulator, according to video clips that have been circulating on the Internet. The video has become popular with engineers due to its humorous use of technobabble. The 'Encabulator implements the "crudely conceived idea" of generating "inverse reactive current for use in unilateral phase detractors" and "automatically synchronizing cardinal grammeters".

The description of the device, which uses made-up, technical-sounding terms, as well as meaningless strings of engineering jargon, makes it clear to engineer viewers that this is not a real device. Nevertheless, Rockwell Automation does exist, Chrysler survives as a unit of DaimlerChrysler and most of the brands mentioned (in the case of the Rocwkell video, brands or subsidiaries of Rockwell Automation) in the video are accurately described. Allen-Bradley manufactures controls. Dodge Power Transmission manufactures gears and bearings. Reliance Electric manufactures motors, and Rockwell Software is a division of Rockwell Automation. The equipment shown in the original Chrysler video (link below) is a real Chysler FWD transaxle and diagnostic equipment, and the newer (Rockwell) video depicts real equipment that can be ordered from Allen-Bradley (as individual parts, however), including the motor control center (MCC) that is being described as the retro-encabulator. The Chrysler video also delves into actual diagnostics, showing real Chrysler dealership test equipment, circa the late 1980s.

Most generators operate by the "relative motion of conductors and fluxes". On the other hand, the Retro-Encabulator uses the "modial interaction of magneto-reluctance and capacitive diractance". As plausible as this may sound to non-engineers, "modial" and "diractance" are not even words, much less meaningful engineering terms. Some of the other parts mentioned in the video, (e.g. "differential girdle spring" and "dingle arm") help to hint to even the technically non-proficient that it is a joke.

[edit] References

A slightly better scan of reference the GE data sheet is available here: [2]

[edit] Usage

Time (magazine); May 6, 1946; An adjunct to the turbo-encabulator, employed whenever a barescent skor motion is required.
Time (magazine); June 3, 1946; If the sackful of mail we have received from you is any indication, the story of "The Turbo-Encabulator in Industry" struck many a responsive chord. Aside from those of you who wanted to be reassured that TIME hadn't been taken in, we received the customary complaints about using too much technical jargon for the layman, observations such as "My husband says it sounds like a new motor; I say it sounds like a dictionary that has been struck by lightning"; suggestions that it "might have come out of the mouth of Danny Kaye," and plaintive queries like: "Is this good?" Wrote one bemused U.S. Navyman: "It'sh poshible." To some the turbo-encabulator sounded as though it would be a "wonderful machine for changing baby's diapers." A reader from Hoboken assumed that it would be on sale soon in Manhattan department stores. Many of you wrote in to thank us for illuminating what you have long wanted to tell your scientist friends.
The Coe College Cosmos; May 23, 1951, Cedar Rapids, Iowa; "Now I have a brand new turboencabulator with the ... we hope that Jasper ... hasn't scared away all the little tots from future operettas. Seems that he had ..."