Do you know who invented the light bulb? Do you know who brought affordable electricity into the common man’s home? Most people name Thomas Edison for both. Although he was a brilliant inventor with more than 1,000 patents, he didn’t invent the light bulb – he only improved upon it – and he certainly was not responsible for bringing affordable electrical power to the people. In fact, his rival, a man named Nikola Tesla, was really the brilliance behind inexpensive electricity — and other inventions we're only now beginning to make use of. So, long after his death in 1943, Tesla is just beginning to get the credit he deserves.
Born July 10, 1856, Nikola Tesla came to the United States in 1884 from Croatia, a country in southeastern Europe near Hungary, specifically to work for Edison. He’d been educated as an electrical engineer and worked at various jobs in this field, all the while working on his electrical innovations. By that time, the Edison Electric Illuminating Company had been supplying electricity to homes and businesses for several years using direct current (DC), like the electricity that comes from a battery. Tesla was hired as an electrical engineer and quickly improved upon Edison’s DC generator designs. When Edison denied him a raise from $18 to $25 per week for his advancements, Tesla quit.
Tesla was certain that alternating current (AC) would be a better way of supplying electricity. Direct current, which flows one direction, requires a generating plant about every mile to keep the voltage high enough for use. Alternating current, which rapidly reverses course according to a set frequency, could be transmitted for great distances at high voltages and then efficiently stepped down to a useful voltage. Alternating current had been considered for household use before but scientists couldn’t come up with a motor that could run on AC.
After quitting his job with Edison, Tesla worked as a laborer but continued to perfect his AC system in his spare time and soon constructed a motor that could run on AC. With it, he received financial backing from a rich businessman named George Westinghouse and used the money to build a new lab to work on his AC system. In 1893, Tesla and Westinghouse won the opportunity to light the World’s Fair in Chicago, Ill., beating Edison by half the cost. In this first electrically lit World’s Fair they demonstrated wireless energy transfer, fluorescent lamps, neon lights and various other Tesla AC innovations.
Later that same year, based largely upon his success at the World’s Fair, Tesla was asked to build an AC generating plant at Niagara Falls. In just two years the power plant was online, sending electricity 22 miles to Buffalo, N.Y. This was the event that proved AC was a better system than DC. Instead of requiring a power plant every mile, Tesla and his AC system brought inexpensive power to many people since it allowed electricity to be transferred over great distances. After Tesla’s success at Niagara, Edison’s companies eventually turned to AC production.
Tesla was brilliant about electricity but not about business. He missed many
opportunities for wealth and died alone in a hotel room, nearly penniless. By
that time, in his mid-eighties, he was considered a “mad scientist”
due to some of the more outlandish claims he’d made, including that he’d
invented an earthquake machine and a death-ray device. But today, the ideas
he had in the 1890s for wireless power transfer are being incorporated into
wireless chargers for electronic devices like cell phones and laptops. He is
becoming more well-known for his advances in electricity — more than 60
years after his death.
For more information:
The Tesla Memorial Society's biography of Tesla
Inside Tesla's lab with PBS
Feature story: "Tesla, the Unsung Prophet of Electrical Age"
Timeline of Tesla's life and accomplishments
Static electricity experiment for kids
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