5/18/2023 0 Comments Nikola tesla war of the currents![]() ![]() It’s the battle of dumb-phones versus smartphones or the conflict between Walkmans and iPods. Tesla is a modern myth about how the novel and advanced supersedes the old and outdated. It’s about the battle between ideas and the digital disruptions that swoop in every few years to utterly change our technological landscape.Įdison vs. ![]() It’s about the potential of the technologically-literate underdog. ![]() Edison tale is about trusting the uber-nerd more than the stuffy status quo. ![]() In the end, this manufactured story of Tesla beating out Edison isn’t even about historical happenings at all. Matthew Inman’s Tesla cartoon in The Oatmeal Millions were energized by Inman’s ( not always historically accurate) interpretation of Tesla’s epic electrical struggle against a self-serving and stodgy Thomas Edison. Since the 1990’s, comic book artists and steampunk storytellers have been appropriating Tesla’s biography and fictionalizing it to fit more of an anti-establishment mold.īut it wasn’t until 2012 that Matthew Inman, cartoonist and creator of The Oatmeal, whipped up his now-famous comic “ Why Nikola Tesla was the greatest geek who ever lived” that this retelling was compellingly packaged as fact for a mass audience. Well, who sounds like a better nerd hero: Westinghouse the uptight capitalist or Tesla the eccentric genius inventor? Everyone loves a good story, particularly those tales of brilliant young upstarts unseating established behemoths. So what gives? Why is Edison being pitted against Tesla with arch-nemesis-worthy furor when it was Westinghouse’s business acumen that really fought the good fight? By 1893, it was clear that alternating current would win the infrastructure war. And Westinghouse’s technologies (purchased from some of the most brilliant minds of the day, including Tesla) helped make AC power even more affordable and dependable as larger infrastructure. Westinghouse knew of the viability of an AC electrical system since Rome had been electrified with AC in 1886. And Westinghouse’s system incorporated a slew of patents from other well-known European engineers. But Tesla was never Edison’s target (Edison famously tried to replace the word “electrocuted” with “Westinghoused” in an anti-AC smear campaign). After all, he’d make more money if Westinghouse kept licensing his AC-powered patents. It’s true that Tesla had some skin in the game. Nikola Tesla explaining the rotating magnetic field to representatives of Westinghouse Electric & Man. Known as the War of the Currents, this technological battle has recently been recast as a struggle between Edison and his fellow inventor Nikola Tesla, leaving Westinghouse out of the picture. In the business realm, Westinghouse and Edison duked it out over whether America’s infrastructure would run on AC or DC. So, naturally, he wanted the country powered by his own technologies. However, Thomas Edison, then America’s reigning king of electricity, owned hundreds of patents for systems powered by direct current. Westinghouse also hires Tesla as a consultant for a year.Īlternating current was gaining notoriety in Europe at the time and Nikola Tesla’s inventions made it a cheaper and more powerful infrastructure than had been previously imagined. In 1888, a wealthy entrepreneur named George Westinghouse comes along and pays Tesla a handsome sum to license several patents that enhance or rely on an alternating current electrical system. But Edison doesn’t pay or listen very well and so Tesla quits. in 1884 and briefly works for Thomas Edison. The bare facts go something like this: gifted inventor Nikola Tesla immigrates to the U.S. So how did Tesla go from a semi-forgotten semi-nutcase to champion underdog innovator of our time? It’s all due to the thematically-enhanced retelling of Tesla’s historical relationship with Thomas Edison. Ten years ago, if you had asked the average American to list the inventions and innovations of the great Nikola Tesla, they’d probably have answered “Nikola who?” But today, there are innumerable Tesla T-shirts, a thriving Tesla Motors, annual TeslaCon, and a multi-million dollar crowd funding campaign for a Nikola Tesla museum in the U.S. How the 19 th century’s War of the Currents became a touchstone for 21 st century innovation ![]()
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