If Edison relied on diligence, then Tesla relied on inspiration. He is an out-and-out genius. Tesla was an inventor who was contemporary with Edison, and the magnetic intensity unit is named after him. Let’s start with the battle between his invention of alternating current and Edison.
Because of his admiration for Edison, Tesla was recommended by Batchelor to join Edison's company in the United States in 1884. Tesla and Edison were naturally incompatible people, and there were serious differences between them. Edison paid attention to practice and was a person who made inventions based on experience; Tesla was the kind of person who paid attention to theory. He felt that Edison's approach was very stupid. He believed that experiments must be based on theoretical basis instead of Like Edison, he made more than 10,000 attempts on just one filament (he found more than 6,000 kinds of bamboos from all over the world for experiments, and when the number of experiments almost reached 10,000, he finally found the bamboo suitable for making filaments) Tesla later often joked about this "experience trawl", "If Edison was looking for a needle in a pile of grass, he would immediately look through it one straw at a time like a bee." , until he finds what he is looking for. In fact, if he knows a little bit of theory and does some calculations, he can easily save 90% of the labor."
Once, Tesla was talking to Edison. Several potential reforms of the generator were possible. Edison said contemptuously: "If you can make it, I will pay you $50,000." Tesla worked frantically for several months to test the generator. , after installing the reformed accessories into the generator, he was completely successful. When he asked Edison for $50,000, Edison replied: "Tesla, you don't understand our American humor." Because Tesla was repeatedly squeezed out by Edison, he angrily resigned from Edison's company.
In 1880, Tesla invented the world's first alternating current generator. He firmly believed that alternating current would one day make power available more widely and at lower cost. Edison dismissed this idea and refused to seriously consider it.
After leaving Edison, Tesla received the support of George Westinghouse and finally introduced alternating current to practical applications. In 1888, Tesla successfully built an alternating current power transmission system. The generator he designed was simpler and more flexible than a DC generator, and his transformer solved the problems inherent in long-distance power transmission. This undoubtedly greatly dealt a blow to the direct current that Edison promoted vigorously (because Edison was making a lot of money on DC generators at the time, he was unwilling to conduct other research).
Edison still realized that alternating current could reduce costs. There was no doubt that attacking alternating current from an economic perspective was bound to end in failure. So, he made a fuss about other aspects of alternating current. He recognized that in the last period of the 19th century, the public still had a fear of electricity: although electricity could bring benefits to mankind, it could also kill people. Therefore, publicizing the dangers of high-pressure is the most effective way to confuse the public's minds.
As a result, he published a pamphlet entitled "Beware", which listed in detail the so-called dangers of alternating current and described the use of alternating current as "a waste of effort". . Edison also published an article in North American Weekly titled "The Dangers of Electric Light," attacking the use of alternating current. He said: "An electric lighting company with whom I have been in contact recently purchased a patent for an entire alternating current system. I protested against this and recorded the contents in the company's memorandum. So far, I have successfully persuaded them Without promoting this system to the public, they would not do it today even if I agreed to promote it."
In addition to overwhelming the opponent in public opinion, Edison also built a special system to prove his point. A huge laboratory that hired elementary school students to catch cats and dogs and other livestock on the street for experiments, and then cruelly electrocuted them under alternating current. He also persuaded New York State prison officials to agree to change the hanging to electrocution, that is, to switch to electrocution using the alternating current provided by Tesla's patent. On August 6, 1890, a murderer named William Kemmler died in the AC chair in Auburn. Due to inexperience, the charge used by the authorities was too weak, and the prisoner was only electrocuted half to death. According to media reports at the time, this horrific scene was much more terrifying than hanging. Since then, alternating current has caused fear in the minds of many people and has become synonymous with death.
However, practice has proven that alternating current has many advantages, so Tesla was not intimidated by Edison's series of attacks. In an effort to change the public's perception of alternating current, he hired Pittsburgh journalist E. H. Heinschis as his news consultant. Under the arrangement of E.H. Heinsis, Tesla promoted alternating current at a press conference at the Chicago Exposition in 1893, changing the public's view of alternating current and ushering the world into the alternating current era.
Although Tesla was born a genius, his fate was unpredictable. Tesla’s fortunes were rather bumpy and his character was quite eccentric, so his evaluation by later generations was obviously lower than his historical achievements. . Tesla died alone in a hotel in 1943.
To pay tribute to Tesla, Elon Musk named the electric car project of Martin Eberhard and Gao Ruiyou "Tesla".