NIKOLA TESLA AND GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE

TAKING THE PLUNGE

In the final years of the 19th century, a battle that would determine the future of humanity was being waged.

This war had no battlelines, no soldiers and no treaties. This fight was being perpetrated by the most powerful inventors and business magnates of the time. The papers called it ‘The War Of the Currents.’ 

The leader of the ‘DC’ army was Thomas Edison, inventor of the phonograph and holder of countless patents for electric light and power. Heading up the ‘AC’ army was Nikola Tesla, inventor of a new type of polyphase induction motor and transformer, and holder of a myriad of patents across several engineering disciplines. 

This was not the first, nor would it be the last tech-based battle with high stakes. In the end, the winner was usually whatever technology served the populace most efficiently at the time. The War of the Currents was no exception. 

By the time 1892 rolled around, and despite smear campaigns from the DC side that included electrocuting animals and pushing for the AC electric chair to become a state-backed form of execution, the AC army was taking over. Edison’s company had been wrested from his control and forcibly merged, and J.P. Morgan engineered a deal that would strip his name from the new company, General Electric. It was determined that G.E. would mainly deal with AC generation and the creation of AC-powered devices. 

But there was one final battleground……..