The previous column talked about the invaluable importance of electricity in modern-day society. It also talked about the phases of the Industrial Revolution since 1760 and about the different energy sources for generating electricity. This column takes up the interesting story of the “War of the Currents” in the history of the generation of electricity.
Generating electricity involves, but not always, a rotating electric generator, the driven part, and a prime mover, the driving part. There are several types of prime movers in generating electricity, which will be taken up in the succeeding columns. As to electric generators, there are two kinds: DC (Direct Current) and AC (Alternating Current) generators.
Again, the polyphase AC generator was invented by Nikola Tesla in 1887. Tesla was a Serbian visionary electrical genius who migrated to America in 1884. In the same year, he began working as assistant to Thomas Edison, the inventor of the DC generator, or dynamo. Later, Tesla showed the design of his alternating current generator to Edison, who dismissed it as impractical and unsafe. But, as history shows, Edison seemed to be threatened by the AC generator as a potential (commercial) competitor.
It turned into hostility between the two inventors, Edison and Tesla. What ensued was the historic “War of the Currents.” On the one hand, Edison tried his best to prove Tesla’s AC generator was impractical and unsafe. He even demonstrated in public, in which an elephant was electrocuted using Tesla’s AC electricity, and the elephant died. On the other hand, Tesla proved his AC generator to be practical and safe. He even famously demonstrated in public, in which he let a high-voltage, high frequency AC electricity to pass through his own body, and he remained alive. It finally proved the superiority of Tesla’s AC electricity over Edison’s DC electricity and it ended the “War of the Currents.”
Tesla left Edison’s Company. But the primary reason was the so-called “joke” or “American humor.” Edison promised to award 50,000 dollars to Tesla if he could make further improvements of Edison’s DC generator. Tesla took it seriously. He worked on it and succeeded in making improvements. Tesla then asked for the 50,000-dollars promise. But then Edison just simply said that Tesla did not understand the “American humor”; Edison dismissed the promise as a “joke.”
After resigning from Edison’s company, Tesla tried business ventures but he failed. He became penniless and ended up working as a ditch digger for 2 dollars a day for survival sometime in 1886.
George Westinghouse, an industrialist, was aware of the “War of the Currents” involving Edison and Tesla. He saw the potential of Tesla’s polyphase AC generator. He bought Tesla’s patents for his polyphase systems, including both generator and induction motor, at 60,000 dollars plus a royalty, in July 1888. It is said that Tesla agreed with a royalty, stating that Westinghouse would pay 2.50 dollars per horsepower of electric power produced. This royalty could have made Tesla one of the richest men on the planet. But this did not turn out to be the case.
Later, Westinghouse established the first hydroelectric power plant at Niagara Falls in the middle of the 1890s. From Niagara Falls, the hydroelectric power plant successfully sent AC electric power 42 kilometers to Buffalo, New York, on 16 November 1896. Tesla’s polyphase AC system proved to be really practical.
Under pressures from competing companies, the Westinghouse Electric Company underwent a financial crisis. Because of this, George Westinghouse was forced to renegotiate with Tesla concerning the royalty agreement. Seeing the difficulty of Westinghouse’s company, Tesla took the royalty contract and tore it apart (in 1891), thus erasing his royalty that could have made him a millionaire. Tesla did it to save Westinghouse’ Company. It could be a sort of gratitude on Tesla’s part, since it was George Westinghouse who had believed in his polyphase AC system and had made it realized in and through the power plant established at Niagara Falls. Later, Westinghouse sought to buy out Tesla’s patent rights in 1896.
This was the road passed through by the polyphase AC electricity produced by electric power plants around the world today. Modern society depends on electricity distributed to houses 24/7. It has become a part of modern man’s life. If suppose electricity would be off for a month, it would be a great loss to the economy and a huge discomfort in man’s life especially in urban areas. It could even result in some deaths in the case of patients (in hospitals) who need electrical medical devices for survival.
The story of the “War of the Currents” was indeed interesting. Yet, it remains to be the case that Edison is mentioned more than Tesla in textbooks when it comes to electric power generation. In physics, in the area electricity, Tesla is seldom mentioned or mentioned only in passing.
I could only surmise why. Perhaps, the physics community has not liked Tesla, even his memory. In 1892, it is said that Tesla went to Heinrich Hertz (the one who had experimentally proved the existence of electromagnetic waves, the foundation of wireless communication) in Bonn, Germany, to discuss about his findings in high frequency electricity and to show his own improved apparatus. Hertz is said to have been disappointed with his own work, and for this, Tesla regretted having visited Hertz. Tesla also had his own different theories concerning wireless transmission. Tesla was also highly critical of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. He rejected the idea of curved space in Einstein’s theory, saying that “attributing properties to space is akin to suggesting nothingness can act upon something.” Tesla’s criticism was also philosophical.