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Nikola Tesla came to New York in 1884, excited and prepared to meet Tomas Alva Edison to tell him about all the wonders of AC and how it’s better and more powerful then Edison’s DC, and how they can be partners because Tesla knew that Edison was a business man. Also, Nikola had no money because some say he lost it in a card game. Once Nikola entered Edison’s office he was introduced to some of Edison’s friends, who later in life would help Tesla and become his friends, then Tesla showed Edison the AC design. Edison’s friends thought that it was genius, as for Edison he was jealous that some immigrant had a better idea than him, so he declined it. From then on Tesla and Edison were not even close to being partners. Luckily for Tesla two years later in 1886 there will be an AC lightning plant demonstrated at Great Barrington, Massachusetts, by William Stanley, with the backing of the new Westinghouse Electric Company.
Back in 1884 Tesla was having trouble financially, that’s when J. Peirpoint Morgan, a major investor in the Edison Light Company, came in. Mr. Morgan helped Tesla because one of his biggest errors was joining and putting his money into Edison’s DC, and he had big hope for Tesla because he knew that AC would work better. Also carpets and tapestries were stringed, and lights flickered all over in his enormous mansion, and he was embarrassed when important guests came, because of DC and Edison, he was furious. So he took out the money in Edison and put it into Tesla.
Since Edison didn’t think that Tesla was smart enough for him, even Charles Batchelor had written a letter to Edison saying that he knows two great smart men, that one of them was Edison, and the other was Tesla. This letter came on a summer day of 1884 when Mrs. Vanderbilt’s house’s walls were on fire because of the steam engine and boiler made by Edison and demanded that Edison removes the whole apparatus, so he had to rush back to Pearl Street. Then the manager of a shipping called to say that the SS Oregon had electrical repairs and was losing money by the hour. Unfortunately he didn’t have any more engineers to put to the job. That when he sees Tesla with the letter by Mr. Batchelor.
Four years passed and it is May 16, 1888. Tesla, now thirty-one years old stood by the American Institute of Electrical Engineers at the Colombia University. This is where he demonstrated for the first time, what Tesla says “A New System of Alternating Current Motors and Transformers” and there on the table next to him was the small device that was about to change the way light is used. After this happened George Westinghouse, inventor of railroad brakes, came to Tesla’s lab ready to make an offer of one million dollars! Tesla said that he doesn’t want to have the money; I believe that he said this because he didn’t really care about money, that he really doesn’t need it, but he didn’t’ t know or think about that without money how would he be able to afford a better lab and materials needed for the inventions.
Since Tesla had difficulties on the creation of AC, Westinghouse had hired him and took him to Pittsburgh and gave him advice and a blueprint. But Tesla didn’t need a blueprint because he’d just dot down sketches in his palm sized notepad, then he’d give those sketches to engineers and they could barely read it.
When Edison saw that Tesla’s AC was succeeding, then he and the Wall Street investors made a display of AC and made it dangerous and deadly. Edison did this by hiring an associate, named Harold J. Brown, to put AC into an electric chair which was taken place in NY’s Auburn State Prison on August 6, 1890. The chair generated 2,000 volts of electricity, the people that were there said that it was horrible worse than a hanging. Mr. Brown also electrocuted; dogs, horses, and humans.
Next year, Tesla had one of the greatest moments in his life on July 30. The moment was that he became an American citizen. He honored his certificate of naturalization above all honors that happened to him.
In 1893 there was the first all-electric fair and it took place in the Chicago World’s Fair. Tesla had his own electrical exhibit there; the exhibit was greatly brightened by his newest invention, neon tube lighting, and with this twistable light bulb he wrote the names of his favorite scientists- Faraday, Maxwell, Henry- and his favorite Serbian poet-Zmaj. He proved alternating current by creating an “Egg of Columbus” a small magnetic ovoid on a metal plate, which rose when pressed and rotated fast first in one direction then in the other, proving AC. Later on at the same place he demonstrated, with great bravery, and allowed two million volts of electricity pass through his bare body, creating a halo of electric flames surrounding him.
After this amazing sight; the twenty-four million people attending the fair said that AC clearly could have been the future of electricity.
Time passed more and more as Tesla made more discoveries and more inventions from his discoveries. Later on Mark Twain, who had made a horrible investment in the development of a new DC motor, became Tesla’s friend. They met in 1894 when Tesla invited all of the best inventors, and discoverers to his lab. At this meeting he demonstrated AC to every one of the geniuses, this electric dare devil also showed them that AC could also pass through two and even three people without ever harming them! The two of them became partners and friends, later on in which Twain would encourage Tesla in his development of futuristic weapons to end wars. Twain would always invite Tesla to his lab to show him a show of fright and delight, but once; Twain had furnished the entertainment. This is where he examined the gyrations of the platform in which didn’t work because the effect of oscillations on the human body was to create a turmoil on the bowels.
In March 14, 1895 Tesla’s lab went up in smoke, he lost everything. Dazed, he walked through the streets of New York, his friends, worried, searched for him, until Tesla went back to his room and collapsed on the bed no one heard from him in days until the Johnsons finally made contact with him.
In 1902 the construction of a massive Wardenclyffe Tower plant began in Shorbam, Long Island. This invention would be used to demonstrate wireless power transmission. In 1904 the construction was finished the pipes plunged into the ground at about 120 feet. Unfortunately they dynamited the tower because the air was filled with blinding streaks of electricity traveling through the darkness on some mysterious errand.
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