Nikola Tesla Books
CHAPTER NINE From his earliest days Tesla had been inspired by the vision of harnessing nature's powers â waterfalls, rivers and winds. With the Edison system, a waterfall-powered generating station was quite possible but there would have been enormous losses in transmitting the current to nearby towns. With Tesla's high-voltage AC generation, the power could be transported across the continent if necessary. His vision, when it came to electrical power, was unlimited and he was determined to win the War of the Currents against Thomas Edison. Tesla's displays won the day, for, by demonstrating the power and excitement of electricity with himself a human conductor, he had thrown fear out of the window. In 1893, the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago was lit by the Tesla system and, in 1896, hydroelectric power was carried from Niagara Falls to the city of Buffalo. Today the electrical power lines which supply North America and the rest of the world are direct descendants of the system Tesla patented at the end of the last century. Tesla's electrical motors are to be found in every factory, and AC induction generators are now powered by everything from coal to atomic energy. The War of the Currents added another dimension to my picture of Nikola Tesla. Not only was he an inspired inventor and a dedicated scientist but he had turned out to be a shrewd businessman who had been able to drive a good bargain. In addition, he had a gift which is unusual in most scientists, showmanship, and the ability to explain his inventions and researches to the general public. Yet what began as a clever and useful way of introducing AC power to the general public ended up as an obsessive need for publicity. Towards the end of his life Tesla bombarded the offices of the leading newspapers with reports of his latest astounding invention. In some cases the editors did not always know what to make of these announcements, particularly when they involved communications with other planets. I wondered what an editor in the early years of the century would have made of one of the following excerpts: My measurements and calculations have shown that it is perfectly practicable to produce on our globe, by the use of these principles, an 86
