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Video: How Tesla worked with Edison and why he could not tolerate him until his death
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Two of the greatest electrical researchers of the twentieth century are traditionally the European Tesla and the American Edison. But not everyone knows that at some point the first worked for the second - and that their cooperation ended in a war with each other.
The genius of commerce versus the genius of physics
The Serbian Nikola Tesla, a native of Austria-Hungary, was known, on the one hand, as a stranger to the entire earthly eccentric - not a lover of either women or men, almost indifferent to food and money - and as a lord of lightning - he staged amazing shows with electric discharges to visitors. His numerous inventions allowed the second stage of the industrial revolution to come true, which means that they shaped the technical world as we know it.
Dutch by birth and American by birth, Thomas Edison was also considered a very talented researcher and inventor - but nowadays the authorship of many of his patents is being questioned. Many much less famous Americans worked for Edison, who, under the contract, were quite possibly obliged to transfer the rights to all their developments to him. Edison was no doubt a genius - a genius for making money, but he was probably not as talented as a scientist as people used to think of him.
However, there is no doubt that Edison did everything to introduce as many technical innovations into life as possible, making life easier (and a little wallets) for his contemporaries. The familiar pear-shaped incandescent light bulb, the ubiquity of telephones, the cheapening of electricity - all this is Edison's work, so he also shaped the technical world as we know it.
American humor
In 1884, a thin and very shabby-looking man of twenty-eight, Nikola Tesla, came ashore in New York. After asking the policeman for the address of Thomas Edison's office, he went there on foot - he had no money for transport. But on the way, he saw a small workshop in which an elderly American was trying to fix the work of an electric generator. Tesla came in to help him, and unexpectedly made some money for himself. This allowed him to appear before Edison later - but full and sleepy. The first day in the USA turned out to be prophetic - it was for the role of the repairman that Edison took the Serb.
Tesla constantly urged his boss to start using alternating current for generators, but Edison's idea is not very inspiring. Finally, the American told the Serb that if he develops something similar - and much better than the generators that already exist - he will receive fifty thousand dollars. Gigantic money for those times!
Tesla accepted the task and in a uniquely short time presented twenty-four (!) Versions of the alternator, a new commutator and regulator. Edison liked everything - he took the blueprints. But when asked about fifty thousand, he said that Tesla clearly does not understand American humor. The offended Serb immediately quit his job and soon opened his own electricity company on a nearby street.
War of currents
Edison's generators were still running on direct current, Tesla's - on alternating current. To eliminate a competitor, Edison launched a campaign to convince the general public that AC generators are very dangerous. This was the main argument, because the current from Edison's generators could only be transmitted over relatively short distances, up to one and a half kilometers, and from Tesla and the physicist Westinghouse who supported him - not that unlimited, but much further, and people liked it.
Naturally, Edison tried - as he often did - to prove in court that all competitors' inventions were so based on his own that they could be considered patent infringements. But - as often happened to him - he lost the case. In fact, the court was needed in order to attract the attention of journalists, who, of course, recorded Edison's claims denigrating Tesla and Westinghouse.
To capture the imagination of the crowd, Edison publicly killed animals with alternating current. Finally, at the suggestion of Edison, his man, engineer Harold Brown, offered to kill criminals with electricity. Westinghouse was radically opposed and even hired lawyers for the killer, who was supposed to be the first to be electrocuted - but all in vain, and the press was flooded with reports that Westinghouse's development killed the first criminal. Everything was done so that alternating current as such was associated with death in people.
It is believed that the "war of currents" lasted until 2007, when the United States completely switched to alternators to electrify cities. Tesla had gone broke long before. As if in mockery of him, in 1917 he was awarded the Thomas Edison Medal; not hiding his irritation, the genius of physics declined the award. Both physicists lived a long life and could not stand each other until the very end.
The history of the genius Serb, of course, is much more extensive. Oddities and phobias of Nikola Tesla: why the "lord of lightning" doomed himself to loneliness.
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