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| San Miguel River valley, Telluride Colorado |
Thomas Alva Edison, the Wizard of Menlo Park, is famous for
inventing the electrified world in which we indulge ourselves. In addition to
the electric light, which replaced the oil lantern, Edison is famous for
inventing the phonograph (a device which reproduces sounds from lines inscribed
in pressed vinyl, freeing us from the whims of a radio disk jockey to play our favorite
bebop and doo wop hits – oh, never mind kids).
But as famous as Edison is, he fought, and lost, the “War of
the Currents” with the brilliant and eccentric Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla.
Tesla was an odd child who was able, at the age of fourteen,
to perform integral calculus in his head, prompting his teachers to accuse him
of cheating. But Tesla was not cheating. He could also visualize spinning,
interacting fields of electromagnetic force. He was, in short, a
genius.
First working as an electrical engineer for Continental
Edison in France, Tesla immigrated to the United States in 1884. His
possessions stolen en route, he arrived with four cents in his pocket. Edison
put him to work and Tesla immediately redesigned Edison’s inefficient electrical
motors and generators. Instead of granting Tesla a promised $50,000 bonus,
Edison reneged and offered a $10 per week raise. Tesla promptly quit.
At the root of their conflict was the choice between direct
or alternating current (DC vs. AC). Edison (and General Electric) championed DC
and had a patent portfolio to protect. Tesla (and Westinghouse) believed in the
virtues of alternating current (AC), and Tesla had the patents to back up his
claims. Edison exhorted that AC was unsafe, while Tesla countered that DC was inefficient.
The nature of our emergent electrical generation and distribution network was teetering
on the outcome of this competition.
Meanwhile, in the mountains of Telluride, a major mining operation was going
on. Gold, silver, zinc, lead, copper, and other ores were being harvested from steep
mountain slopes. Manual methods of mining and transport (including mule trains)
resulted in very high costs of extraction. In 1891, Westinghouse engineers
using Tesla technology built a water-driven AC generating plant. The electricity
was transmitted 3.5 miles to the Gold King Mine and was used to power mining operations. This was the world’s
first long distance demonstration of AC
power generation and distribution, and it was a wild success.
Our world today is shaped by Tesla’s vision rather than
Edison’s, contrary to what you may have learned in middle school. Alternating
current is highly efficient and safe. It lights your home and powers your dishwasher, refrigerator,
and air conditioner. It enables energy to be efficiently distributed over
hundreds and thousands of miles. If Edison’s vision had prevailed, we would
exist in a dim version of our brilliant, electrified world.
Edison, while a genius, was wrong. Tesla, nerdy, eccentric,
and socially inept, built the world that we take for granted.
Today, while Justin Timberlake is feted on “Saturday Night
Live,” who really should be our hero? Nerds are underrated.
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