The centenary confrontation between Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

At the end of 2007, the chief engineer of the utility company Consolidated Edison cut the symbolic cable with his own hand, and New York finally switched from DC to AC. This is how the century-old confrontation between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, which went down in history as the "war of currents", ended.

In our time, the advantages of alternating current seem more than obvious, but in the 80s of the XIX century, over the question of which current is better and how is it more profitable to transfer electrical energy, an acute confrontation erupted. The main players in this serious battle were two rival firms - Edison Electric Light and Westinghouse Electric Corporation. In 1878, the brilliant American inventor Thomas Alva Edison founded his own company, which was to solve the problem of electric lighting in everyday life. The task was simple: to supplant the gas burner, but for this, electric light had to become cheaper, brighter and more accessible to everyone.

"War of currents" ended only in 2007

Anticipating his future discoveries, Edison wrote: "We will make electric lighting so cheap that only the rich will burn candles." First, the scientist developed a plan for the central power plant, drew schemes for connecting power lines to houses and factories. At the time, electricity was produced by dynamos powered by steam. Then Edison set about improving light bulbs, seeking to extend their life from the then available 12 hours. After going through more than 6 thousand different samples for filament, Edison finally settled on bamboo. His future colleague Nikola Tesla ironically noted: “If Edison had to find a needle in a haystack, he would not waste time trying to determine its more likely location. On the contrary, he would immediately, with the feverish diligence of a bee, begin to examine straw after straw until he found what he was looking for. " On January 27, 1880, Edison received a patent for his lamp, the lifespan of which was truly fantastic - 1200 hours. A little later, the scientist patented the entire system for the production and distribution of electricity in New York.

In the year when Edison took up the coverage of the American metropolis, Nikola Tesla entered the philosophy department of the University of Prague, but studied there for only one semester - there was not enough money for further education. Then he entered the Higher Technical School in Graz, where he began to study electrical engineering and began to think about the imperfection of DC motors. In 1882, Edison launched two DC power plants in London and New York, setting up the production of dynamos, cables, light bulbs and lighting fixtures. Two years later, the American inventor created a new corporation - Edison General Electric Company, which included dozens of Edison companies scattered throughout America and Europe.

Edison was a skilled entrepreneur

In the same year, Tesla figured out how to use the phenomenon of a rotating electromagnetic field, which means he could try to design an AC electric motor. With this idea, the scientist went to the Paris office of the Continental Edison Company, but at that moment the company was busy fulfilling a large order - the construction of a power plant for the Strasbourg railway station, during the execution of which numerous errors arose. Tesla was sent to save the situation, and the power plant was completed within the required time frame. The Serbian scientist traveled to Paris to claim the promised $ 25,000 bonus, but the company refused to pay the money. Insulted, Tesla decided to no longer have anything to do with Edison's businesses. At first, he even wanted to go to St. Petersburg, because Russia was famous at that time for its scientific discoveries in the field of electrical engineering, in particular for the inventions of Pavel Nikolayevich Yablochkov and Dmitry Alexandrovich Lachinov. However, one of the employees of the Continental Company persuaded Tesla to go to the USA and gave him a letter of recommendation to Edison: “It would be an unforgivable mistake to give such a talent the opportunity to leave for Russia. I know two great people: one of them is you, the other is this young man."

Arriving in New York in 1884, Tesla joined the Edison Machine Works as a repair engineer for DC motor generators. Tesla immediately shared with Edison his thoughts on alternating current, but the American scientist was not inspired by the ideas of his Serbian colleague - he reacted very disapprovingly and advised Tesla to engage in purely professional matters at work, and not personal research. A year later, Edison offers Tesla to constructively improve DC machines and for this he promises a prize of 50 thousand dollars. Tesla immediately set to work and very soon provided 24 variants of Edison's new machines, as well as a new switch and regulator. Edison approved the work, but refused to pay the money, joking at the same time that the emigrant did not understand American humor well. From that moment on, Edison and Tesla became bitter enemies.

Edison is considered one of the initiators of the creation of the electric chair

Edison had 1,093 patents on his account - no one else in the world had such a number of inventions. A tireless experimenter, he once spent 45 hours in the laboratory, not wanting to interrupt the experiment. Edison was also a very skillful entrepreneur: all his companies were profitable, although wealth as such was of little interest to him. Money was needed for work: “I don't need the successes of the rich. I don’t need horses or yachts, I don’t have time for all this. I need a workshop! However, in 1886, Edison's corporation had a very powerful competitor - the Westinghouse Electric Corporation. George Westinghouse launched the first 500-volt AC power plant in 1886 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

So, Edison's monopoly came to an end, because the advantages of new power plants were obvious. Unlike the American amateur inventor, Westinghouse knew physics thoroughly, so he perfectly understood the weak link of direct current power plants. That all changed when he got to know Tesla and his inventions by granting a patent to a Serb for an AC meter and a polyphase electric motor. These were the very inventions with which Tesla applied to Edison's Parisian company. Now Westinghouse has bought a total of 40 patents from the Serbian scientist and paid the 32-year-old inventor $ 1 million.

In 1887, more than 100 DC power plants were already in operation in the United States, but the prosperity of Edison's companies was about to come to an end. The inventor realized that he was on the verge of financial collapse, and therefore decided to sue Westinghouse Electric Corporation for patent infringement. However, the lawsuit was dismissed, and then Edison launched an anti-propaganda campaign. His main trump card was the fact that alternating current is very life-threatening. At first, Edison was engaged in a public demonstration of the killing of animals by electric discharges, and then he had a very lucky chance: the governor of New York wanted to find a humane method of execution, an alternative to hanging - Edison immediately stated that he considers death from alternating current to be the most humane. Although he personally advocated the abolition of the death penalty, he nevertheless managed to solve the problem.

Edison and Tesla became bitter enemies

To create the electric chair, Edison hired engineer Harold Brown, who adapted the Westinghouse alternator for punitive purposes. An ardent opponent of Edison was strongly against the death penalty and refused to sell his equipment to prisons. Then Edison bought three generators through front men. Westinghouse hired the best lawyers sentenced to death, one of the criminals was saved: the death penalty was commuted to life imprisonment. A journalist hired by Edison published a huge revelatory article, accusing Westinghouse of the torment that the executed man endured.

Edison's "black PR" bore fruit: he managed to postpone defeat, albeit not for long. In 1893, Westinghouse and Tesla won an order for lighting the Chicago Fair - 200,000 electric bulbs were powered by alternating current, and three years later a tandem of scientists installed the first hydraulic system for continuous AC power supply to the city of Buffalo at Niagara Falls. By the way, DC power plants were built in America for another 30 years, up to the 1920s. Then their construction was stopped, but the operation continued until the beginning of the XXI century. Tesla and Westinghouse won the "war of currents". And Edison reacted like this: “I have never been defeated. I just found 10,000 ways that don't work."