|THE DEN|
While Thomas Edison is known for several inventions, he was also a canny businessman who could commercialize inventions and turn them into profitable businesses. Nikola Tesla was just the opposite: a prolific inventor who died penniless.
When Tesla first moved to the United States, he idolized Edison and got a job under him. However, they soon had a falling out and Tesla resigned. An epic AC versus DC rivalry later
developed between Edison and Tesla. In the early days of electricity, Edison held patents related to direct current and was a proponent of using this technology to transmit electricity
over long distances. However, direct current is unwieldy and alternating current (AC), which Tesla invented, has proven to be a vastly superior technology for electrical transmission.
Tesla's Projects
After leaving the Edison company, Tesla founded Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing and began developing his ideas for AC transmission systems. His investors fired him from the
company, but he founded the Tesla Electric Company in 1887, where he manufactured a brushless AC induction motor. He also demonstrated the wireless transmission of energy (known as the Tesla Effect) and patented the Tesla coil in 1891. In 1894 he began experimenting with X-rays. His work was lost in a fire in 1895, but he went on to develop many related inventions, X-rays, in addition to patenting an electrical transmitter that
would be used in the radio.
Edison's projects
Edison established the first industrial research laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. It was here that he invented the first commercially viable incandescent light bulb and the carbon
microphone that was used in all telephones up until the 1980s, patented a system for distributing electricity in 1880, and founded the Edison Illuminating Company, which built a power generation system on Pearl Street throughout lower Manhattan.
War of currents
Edison and Tesla were involved in the War of Currents in the late 1880s, with Edison promoting the use of direct current for power distribution, for which he held patents, and Tesla supporting alternating current as it allowed large amounts of energy to power major cities be transmitted.
Edison spread misinformation about the dangers of AC power through publicity stunts in which he or his associates electrocuted animals to demonstrate fatal AC power accidents.
Edison even campaigned against the use of AC in state legislatures.
However, as the years went by, alternating current was adopted as the best system to electrify the country, with additional safety measures on power lines and at substations. It
was the system chosen for the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 and for the electrical installations at Niagara Falls.
Tesla was unable to enjoy the fruits of victory as he was forced to sell his patent to Westinghouse. But in the end, Edison's company, now renamed General Electric, implicitly admitted defeat by seeking a patent license from Westinghouse to use alternating current in its electrification projects.
In the end it would be equitable to say that Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison are two of the greatest inventors in history who battled to dominate with their electricity transmission
systems.