Re: Tesla or Westinghouse?

[Gary Karshner <karshner@STMARYTX.EDU>]

Michael,
        Others have pointed out the relationship between Tesla and
Westinghouse. Westinghouse, who made his money by inventing air breaks for
trains, financed Tesla's designs. Tesla himself had a one man entry into
either the St. Louis or Chicago exposition where he amazed people with his
Tesla coils and other electrical inventions.
        If memory serves Tesla was a ditch digger for Edison when he first
came to this country and could not interest Edison in his inventions. Both
men were prima donnas. When the electric chair was proposed both Edison and
Westinghouse/Tesla competed for the contract. Edison proposing an AC
powered chair and Westinghouse a DC one. Each stating they had picked the
most dangerous form of electricity for the job. Edison at one point
electrocuted an elephant to show the power of his design. He won the
contract but botched the first execution. They had to try two or three
times to do the poor fellow in.
        Tesla invented the "polyphase electric motor" before he left
Serbia. This was at a time when some of our brethren didn't think you could
do work with AC since its average voltage was zero. He like Edison then
designed a whole electrical system around his inversion.
        Edison was given one of two competing contracts to light a block
of New Your City. The other side used arc lighting. In something like three
months he went from a perfected design for light bulbs  to a whole system.
From generating the electricity, to distributing it, to wiring the houses,
to the fuses, sockets and wall plugs. These are the ones that are still
found in older homes today. His generators where the largest that had been
built to that date, and finding brush that would not ware out was a major
stumbling block.
        Do you know which of Edison's inventions made him independently
wealthy?
Gary

At 02:59 PM 4/11/02 -0400, you wrote:
> Lawrence Ruby has a nice report in The Physics Teacher (May 2002) about DC
> power transmission rather than AC.  In his report he describes the "battle"
> between Edison and Tesla over DC versus AC power transmission.  He also says
> it was the 3-phase generator and high-voltage transformation process that
> allowed Tesla to win.
>
> The history books I have say the DC/AC battle was waged between Thomas
> Edison and George Westinghouse, not between Edison and Tesla.  It is my
> understanding that the works of Tesla, the patents of which were bought by
> Westinghouse, were what ultimately allowed Westinghouse to "win," but I was
> not under the impression that Tesla himself was part of the debate with
> Edison.
>
> I was also under the impression that Tesla's work leading to the induction
> motor was the major deciding factor in favor of AC because it allowed a
> brushless arcless motor.
>
> Of course, some historians might not understand the science and might have
> got some things twisted around.  Does anyone have reliable information on
> this?
>
>
> Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.              Phone/voice-mail:       419-358-3270
> Professor of Chemistry & Physics        FAX:                    419-358-3323
> Chairman, Science
> Department            E-Mail                  edmiston@bluffton.edu
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