The War of Currents and The Mystery of Nikola Tesla’s Missing Files

This article explains the war of currents which have had a great impact over the entire human civilization. It expose the truth and the struggle of the man, Tesla who sacrificed his entire life for the technology and the benefit of humanity. Second part will discuss about The Mystery of Nikola Tesla’s Missing Files.

Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison are two giants of electrical engineering whose inventions changed history. But the electricity between the two is no secret to the world.

Nikola Tesla contributed to the development of the alternating-current (AC) electrical system which is widely used today and to the rotating magnetic field, which is the basis of most AC machinery.

Born on July 10, 1856, Nikola Tesla went to the United States in 1884 and briefly worked with Thomas Edison before the two parted ways.

Edison, the iconic inventor of the light bulb, the phonograph and the moving picture and Tesla, whose inventions have enabled modern-day power and mass communication systems, waged a ‘War of Currents’ in the 1880s over whose electrical system would power the world. Edison’s direct-current (DC) electric power or Tesla’s alternating-current (AC) system.

A brief history of Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison

In 1884 Tesla arrived in the United States with little other than the clothes on him and a letter of introduction to the famed inventor and business tycoon Thomas Edison. Edison’s DC-electrical works were fast becoming the country standard. Edison hired Tesla and the two were soon working vigorously alongside each other, making improvements in Edison’s inventions.

However, several months later, Tesla and Edison parted ways because of a conflicting business-scientific relationship, which historians attributed to their incredibly different personalities. While Edison was a power figure who focused on marketing and financial success, Tesla was not business minded and was somewhat vulnerable.

After parting ways with Edison in 1885, Tesla received funding for the Tesla Electric Light Company. His task, as given by his investors, was to develop improved arc lighting. After successful completion of the project, Tesla was forced out of venture and for a time had to work as a manual labourer in order to survive.
His luck changed in 1887 when he gained public interest in his AC electrical system and funding for his new Tesla Electric Company. By the end of the year Tesla had successfully filed several patents for his AC-based inventions.

Here’s how the two rivaling inventors stack up:

1. Brilliance
Tesla had an eidetic memory. He could very precisely recall images and objects, which enabled him to accurately visualize intricate 3D objects and therefore, he could build working prototypes using few preliminary drawings.

In contrast, Edison was more of a sketcher and a repairer.

In the end, Edison held 1,093 patents and Tesla held less than 300 worldwide. Of course, Edison had a bunch of assistants helping him devise inventions, and had also bought some of this patents.

2. Forward thinking

Edison had dispelled Tesla’s AC system of electric power transmission, calling it ‘impractical’, instead promoting his simpler yet less efficient DC system.

By contrast, Tesla’s ideas were often more disorderly technologies that didn’t have existing market demand. His alternating-current motor and hydroelectric plant at Niagara Falls- a first of its kind plant- truly electrified the world.

Tesla spent years working on a system that could wirelessly transmit voices, images and moving pictures. His ideas made him futurist. He later invented and patented Tesla Coil, which is till date used in radio, telephones, cell phones and television.

3. Impact

Edison’s enduring legacy is a result of his invention factories where tasks and inventions were carried out by legions of workers. After getting an idea, Edison would leave most of the experimentation on his assistants. By having multiple patents and inventions developing in parallel, Edison ensured a consistent, hefty financial supply to his assistants to continue running experiments and fleshing out more designs.

Tesla’s inventions are the backbone of modern power and communication systems, but he faded into anonymity later in the 20th century. Despite his many inventions and patents, he died an eccentric, destitute man in 1943.

Later life

Tesla’s AC systems eventually caught the attention of American engineer and businessman George Westinghouse, who was looking for a solution to supply the nation with long-distance power. Convinced that Tesla’s inventions will help him achieve this, he purchased his patents for 60,000 USD in cash and stock in the Westinghouse Corporation in 1888.

As the public interest in alternating current system grew, Tesla and Westinghouse stood in direct competition with Thomas Edison, who was intent on selling his direct-current system to the nation.

Edison also launched a negative press-campaign in an attempt to undermine the interest in AC power. All this while, Tesla continued his work and patented several more inventions during this period, including the ‘Tesla Coil’, which laid the foundation for wireless technology that is still in use in radio technology today.

Unfortunately for Edison, the Westinghouse Corporation was chosen to supply the lighting at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and Tesla conducted demonstrations of his AC system there. Two years later, in 1895, Tesla designed one of the first AC hydroelectric power plants in the United States at Niagara Falls. The next year, it was used to power the city of Buffalo, New York. This feat was widely publicized throughout the world.

With its repeated success and favourable press, the alternating-current system became the leading power system of the 20th century and it has remained the worldwide standard since.

The disgraceful fall

Tesla became obsessed with the wireless transmission of energy. In around 1900, he started work on his boldest project, to build a global, wireless communication system to be transmitted through a large electrical tower for sharing information and providing free electricity throughout the world.

With funding from a group of investors that included financial giant J. P. Morgan, in 1901 Tesla began work on the project in earnest, designing and building a lab with a power plant and a massive transmission tower on a site on Long Island, New York, that became known as Wardenclyffe.

However, investors started doubting the plausibility of Tesla’s system his rival, Guglielmo Marconi-with the financial support of Andrew Carnegie and Thomas Edison-continued to make great advances with his own radio technologies, Tesla had no choice but to abandon the project.

The Wardenclyffe staff was laid off in 1906 and in 1915 the site fell into foreclosure. Two years later Tesla declared bankruptcy and the tower was dismantled and sold for scrap to recover the debts he had accrued.

Edison’s Campaign to Discredit the AC Current ; Electrocuting Topsy , A female elephant to death

On January 4, 1903, Thomas Edison, inventor of the incandescent lightbulb, helped electrocute an elephant to death.

Topsy, a cranky female elephant at the Luna Park Zoo, had squashed three of her trainers in the past three years. Desiring to just be rid of her, the Luna Park Zoo decided to kill her, initially choosing to try to hang the elephant.

Edison had established direct current (electricity flowing only one way) as the standard for distributing electricity and was very wealthy from the patent royalties, royalties he could lose when George Westinghouse and Nicola Tesla showed up with the idea of alternating current (electricity flowing in either direction).

Eager to prove his point and seek redemption as he had lost to Tesla almost a decade before in the War of Currents, he launched a campaign to discredit the new theory in which he would electrocute animals (usually cats and dogs, but sometimes horses and cattle). When zoo officials heard of Edison’s work they sought his help with Topsy. While he was not there, his company was more than willing to assist the zoo officials and prove the “dangers” of the AC. An Edison film crew even made a video of the procedure!

When the day arrived, Edison’s team attached copper electrodes to Topsy’s feet and ran a copper wire back to the group. To make sure that Topsy died and was not just made angry by the electricity, cyanide-laced carrots were fed to the elephant moments before she was electrocuted. Officials didn’t even need to worry. The 6,600 volts of AC killed Topsy immediately, and Edison’s point had been proven.

Death and legacy

Tesla suffered a nervous breakdown and eventually returned to work as a consultant primarily. But as time passed, his ideas progressively became more unusual and impractical. He also grew increasingly eccentric and devoted much of his time in caring for wold pigeons in New York City’s parks.

The Mystery of Nikola Tesla’s Missing Files













Credits to History Channel for the information on Tesla’s Missing papers.

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