In 1884, Tesla arrived from Europe to New York penniless and went straight to the office of Edison, then a successful entrepreneur and king of inventions.
One of the first electric machines by Thomas Edison in 1913.
Edison without hesitation hired a talented young man to work, however, in a not too high position as an engineer for the repair of electric motors and DC generators.
Edison was primarily a businessman and a skilled executive who worked only on cost-effective projects; Tesla looked several steps ahead and devoted himself to fundamental science, even if it did not bring immediate profit. Edison could run thousands of experiments before finding the right engineering solution; Tesla always carefully considered his actions, philosophized a lot, according to Edison, and only then took up the implementation of the experiment. Finally, Tesla believed in the efficiency, power, and practical significance of alternating current, and Edison's ideas did not find any support for Tesla.
The American businessman promised the Serbian inventor $ 50,000 for a difficult and very important job for the company, and when the latter successfully coped with it, he simply refused to pay, saying that the emigrant apparently does not understand English and American humor well. Tesla immediately left the company to open his own Tesla Erk Light Company in a couple of years next to Edison.
Mark Twain visited Nikola Tesla's laboratory.
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Tesla's affairs were going uphill, and Edison did not tolerate the success of a competitor.
The UN launched an extensive public relations campaign against AC, claiming it was life-threatening. Edison supported the experiments of the inventor of the electric chair, Harold Brown, but the chair itself was called "Westinghouse apparatus" - after Tesla's companion and financial patron.
The controversy over alternating current and the unfavorable economic situation dragged Westinghouse to the bottom, but Tesla refused his due fee of $ 12 million and the company was saved.
Tesla was awarded the Edison Medal by the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1917.
However, he refused it: “The Institute wants to reward me with its medal of honor so that I can attach it to the lapel of my jacket and parade in front of those present for an hour … This miserable pantomime will serve not to the glory of Tesla, but to the glory of Edison, who unfairly shares laurels with each recipient"
After much persuasion, Tesla accepted the medal, but until the end of their lives, the inventors could not make peace.
Among the inventions that are recognized by Tesla are some: alternating current, wireless electricity, loudspeaker, neon light, radar, fluorescent light, remote control, spark plugs, alternator, microwave oven basics, ignition auto-simulation, electron microscope, X-rays (more than 700 patents). And in 1943, the Supreme Court of the United States finally recognized Tesla as the inventor of the radio (Marconi pursued him). Tesla also claims to be the first to observe cosmic rays, which through their "Radiant Energy System", They can be used by anyone as a source of electrical energy for your home.
Many of Tesla's inventions came to him in a dream; he described his creative process as "lightning, in which the secrets of nature suddenly became clear."
"War of currents". Niagara Falls hydroelectric power plant.
The first power plants at Niagara Falls were very small and were of exceptional local importance. The first truly industrial hydroelectric power plant on the waterfall, and indeed in the world, was another structure.
In 1886, engineer Thomas Evershed proposed to build the most powerful hydroelectric power station at that time on Niagara Falls. Unlike Schoellkopf's design, Evershed suggested using a tunnel rather than a canal for water supply. However, Evershed was unable to attract funding for his project, in addition, technical issues of production and transmission of such a significant amount of electricity were not resolved. At the same time, major financial tycoons of those years, such as John Morgan and William Vanderbilt, became interested in the project. The Niagara Falls Energy Campaign was founded, chaired by New York financier Edward Adams.
The power plant project was extremely ambitious at the time and represented a major breakthrough in science and technology. In particular, it was necessary to solve the fundamental problem of transferring current over long distances. At that time, mainly low voltage direct current was used, which was convenient for the consumer, but did not allow long-distance transmission of electricity. The alternating current, which appeared somewhat later, did not initially receive the same widespread use, not least thanks to the efforts of the DC apologist Thomas Edison. The situation that emerged was called the "war of currents".
The current location of the Schoellkopf hydroelectric power station. As you can see, there is little that reminds of the fact that once there were hydro turbines.
The Niagara Falls power plant was a turning point in this war - in 1893, it was decided to use alternating current to generate power from the hydroelectric power station. After that, direct current in household power grids began to rapidly lose ground, although small disparate DC consumers remained in the United States until the beginning of the 21st century. Only in November 2007, with the disappearance of the last DC consumer, the chief engineer of Consolidated Edison cut the symbolic cable. The "war of currents" that had lasted for over 100 years was over.
From 1901 to 1903, HPP # 2 of the same type was built next to the first. In 1927, the power plants were named after Edward Adams. The Adams power plants operated until 1961, after which they were closed as outdated and worn out. The Americans demolished the historic buildings of the first industrial hydroelectric power plants.
From the founders of modern energy, only the building of the transformer substation, declared in 1983 a historical monument of national importance, and the tunnel, the exit from which can still be seen between the Rainbow Bridge and the observation deck of the waterfall on the American side, remained.