textfiles-politics/pre-src-xml/tesla.xml

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      <p> Short History of Nikola Tesla
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This is a file to straighten out misconception and
disinformation that has occurred over the years, about how
supposedly "great" Edison was, and how Nikola Tesla was
brushed under the capitalist power rug.
Edison was a thief, employing all kinds of people for
their brains, he stole their inventions, their ideas, so
much so, that it is unclear today what Edison actually
invented, and what was stolen from others.
The Edison Electric Institute was formed to perpetuate
the notion that Edison was the inventor of record, and to
make sure that school textbooks, etc., only mentioned HIM
in connection with these many inventions. Much like Bell
Labs does today.
Nikola Tesla was pretty much always a genius, after
having made many improvements in the electric trolleys, and
trains in his country, he came to America, sought
employment, and eventually ended up working for Edison.
Edison had contracted with New York City to build
Direct Current (D.C.) power plants every square mile or so,
so as to power the lights that he supposedly invented.
Street lights, hotel lighting etc. Having trenches dug
throughout the city to lay the cables, copper, and as big
around as a man's bicep, he told Tesla that if Tesla could
save him money by redesigning certain aspects of the
installation, that he would give Tesla a percentage of the
savings. A verbal agreement. After approximately a year,
Tesla went to Edison's office and showed him the savings
that had occurred ($100000 or so, which in those days was
quite a piece of change) as a direct result of his
(Tesla's) engineering, and Edison pretended ignorance of
any agreement. Tesla quit. From that point on, the two men
were enemies.
Tesla invented useable Alternating Current (A.C.) that
we all use today, in a world where Edison and others
already had a huge investment in D.C. power.
Tesla proselytized A.C. power and had some success
building A.C. power plants, and providing A.C. power to
various entities. One of these was Sing Sing prison, in
upstate New York. Tesla provided A.C. power for the
"electric chair" there. Edison had big articles printed in
the New York newspapers, saying that A.C. power was
dangerous "killing" power, and in general, gave a bad name
to Tesla.
To contradict this jab, Tesla set out on his own
positive marketing campaign, appearing at the 1880? World
Exposition in Chicago passing high frequency "dangerous"
A.C. power over his body to power light bulbs in front of
the public. Shooting huge, long sparks from his "Tesla
coil", and touching them, etc. "Proving" that A.C. power
was safe for public consumption.
The advantage of A.C. power was that you could send it a
long distance through reasonably sized wires with little
loss, and if you touched the wires together, "shorted
them", you got a lot of sparks, and only the place where
they were touching melted until the two wires weren't
touching anymore.
D.C. power, on the other hand, needed huge cables to go
any distance at all, while using power, the cables heated
up. When shorted, the cables melted all the way back to the
power house, streets had to be dug up again and new cables
laid. If a short occurred in a single light, it usually
started a fire, and burned down the hotel or destroyed
whatever it was in contact with! This was quite profitable
for those in the D.C. power business, and quite good for
those into ditch digging, construction, etc.
Tesla invented 2-phase, and 3-phase Alternating Current.
He figured motors turned in a circle, so alternately driving
separate, 180 degree, sections of the surrounding armature
would build up less heat, and use less electricity. He was
right.
1929 came, the stock market crashed, bankers, lawyers,
everyone who had lost their wealth and hadn't jumped out a
window, sought work, many as common laborers if lucky, for
a dollar a day. Tesla found himself digging ditches in the
company of broke but influential ex-Wall-streeters.
During the short lunch period, he would tell his buddies
about phased A.C. electricity, and how it was efficient,
etc. Along about 1932, he was working at a small generator
rebuilding shop in New York, and one of the bankers that he
used to dig ditches with, found him, and took him to Mr.
Westinghouse, to whom he told his stories. Westinghouse
bought 19 patents outright, and gave Tesla a dollar per
horsepower for any electric motor produced by Westinghouse
using the Tesla 3-phase system.
Tesla finally had the money with which to start building
his laboratories, and conducting the experiments with free
earth energy. The idea that really made him unpopular.
Something free, that the masters of war and business
couldn't control? They couldn't have that! So, the day
after Tesla died in 1943, his huge laboratory on Long
Island mysteriously burned down, no records saved, and the
remnants were bulldozed the day after that to further
eradicate any equipment still left. So much for "free energy".</p>
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