Contribute

Steinmetz Decoded is an open research archive. It is meant to become more accurate, more useful, and more beautiful over time through careful public contribution.

If you notice an OCR error, a weak explanation, a missing citation, a misread equation, a diagram that should be cropped or redrawn, a glossary term that needs historical context, or a place where interpretation and source fact should be separated more clearly, that is valuable work. Corrections are not small. They are how this archive earns trust.

Contribution standard

Every improvement should preserve the archive’s central rule: source claims, modern explanations, mathematical reconstructions, and interpretive readings must remain clearly labeled.

Open an issueSubmit a pull requestVerification workflow

Best Ways To Help

Correct The Source Layer

Check OCR text against scans, repair broken words, restore punctuation, identify missing pages, and confirm page numbers. When possible, include the book title, chapter or section, page number, and the exact corrected text.

Verify The Engineering

Review equations, variables, units, derivations, diagrams, and modern equivalents. If something is mathematically wrong or too loosely phrased, mark it clearly and explain the correction.

Improve Interpretation Boundaries

Help keep historical fact, modern engineering, Tesla-era comparison, and ether-field interpretive reading separate. Open-mindedness is welcome; blurred attribution is not.

Contribution Types

Contribution	What To Include	Why It Matters
OCR correction	Source title, page or section, incorrect text, corrected text.	Improves search, quotation reliability, and all downstream analysis.
Equation verification	Original formula, page reference, modern notation, derivation note.	Protects Steinmetz’s mathematical meaning from being simplified incorrectly.
Diagram work	Figure number, scan page, crop, redraw, annotation, or correction note.	Makes the archive more visual and easier to learn from.
Glossary entry	Term, source use, modern equivalent, uncertainty level.	Helps readers cross the gap between old electrical language and modern terminology.
Historical source	Stable link, bibliographic metadata, public-domain or access status.	Expands the archive without losing provenance.
Interpretive note	Clear label: interpretation, speculation, comparison, or source fact.	Keeps the project open-minded without making unsupported claims.

Review Labels

Use these labels in issues, pull requests, or notes when they apply:

• Steinmetz explicitly states: use only for claims traceable to a source passage.
• Modern equivalent: use for present-day engineering translation.
• Mathematical reconstruction: use for derivations or notation conversion.
• Historical note: use for context outside Steinmetz’s text.
• Interpretive reading: use for ether-field, Tesla-era, Wheeler-style, or philosophical reading.
• Needs verification: use when a claim is plausible but not yet checked against the scan.

What Not To Do

Please do not rewrite Steinmetz into a modern textbook voice and erase his original language. Please do not merge speculative interpretation into the source layer. Please do not add claims just because they sound exciting. The beauty of this archive is that it can be rigorous and imaginative at the same time, as long as the layers stay honest.

Good First Issues

• Confirm a quoted passage against the original scan.
• Repair OCR in one chapter or lecture.
• Add missing figure metadata to a diagram entry.
• Convert one equation candidate into a verified equation page.
• Add a glossary entry for an old electrical term.
• Improve a concept page with source references and modern equivalents.
• Report a mobile layout issue with a screenshot and page URL.

The Spirit

This archive is a public service. The goal is not to win an argument or sell a product. The goal is to preserve, decode, and teach the work of Charles Proteus Steinmetz with enough care that engineers, historians, students, and independent researchers can all use it.