textfiles-politics/old/regexConsp/tesla.xml

<xml><p>   Short History of Nikola Tesla
  
  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></xml>