The Triangle

Issue date: 10/15/04 Section: Sci-Tech

Yes, you are right; that title was mostly to get your attention. But the fact is that Edison was a loser, although not in the literal sense.

Thomas Alva Edison was, and still is, known to be one of the greatest inventors of all time, and the record for having the highest number of patents definitely proves that.

When I say loser, I am referring to the war of the currents, the war of the Edison Electric company with the Westinghouse Company, the war between two of the most influential figures in electrical history, Thomas A. Edison and Nicola Tesla.

It is a fact, and a good one I might add, that Edison lost the battle between DC (direct current: Edison) and AC (alternating current: Tesla). A good one for us, because DC is much more dangerous and far less portable than AC. So in this article, I am going to give you an idea of how life would have been if Edison had his way. I will also reveal some astonishing facts about Edison.

To begin with, in this war of the two opponents, Tesla was more theoretically sound compared to Edison, who was more of a trial and error person. One might not believe that, as everyone knows the important contributions and inventions he made.

One can probably argue that if Tesla was more "according to the book" than Edison, how come very few people know about Tesla and his ingenuity? The answer also relates to Edison, as he was the one that tried to make sure that his (Tesla's) method and personality was defamed. Believe it or not, Edison was not at all a straight person.

He knew that AC was a better option as compared to DC (I will explain that later on). But he was a monopoly in supplying power to households before Tesla emerged with this idea. Therefore, his constant flow of money would be interrupted if Tesla were to emerge victorious in this battle.

A transformer, pictured above, converts variations of current in a primary circuit into variations of voltage and current in a secondary circuit.

Consequently, he had school kids catch stray animals from the streets and then held demonstrations where, in crude experiments, he would electrocute them. There were posters everywhere warning people of the dangers of AC. He also developed an analogy for electrocution and warned people of being "Westinghoused" (after Nicola Tesla's company).

Edison made every effort he could to erase Tesla's name from history, and he nearly succeeded, as not many people are familiar with Nicola Tesla.

Now, some information on AC and DC. DC stands for direct current and is the direct flow of electrons in uniform direction, staying within the limits of polarity (i.e., the flow of water through a hose).

It is not at all practical for long distances. The copper wires used at that time for carrying current to households provided enough resistance to constitute huge losses of power.

Thus, if we were to have direct current everywhere, instead of the poles at various places for holding the transmission lines, therewould be bulky transformers to boost the voltage, making the entire affair very expensive.

The same equipment would also be needed before the current could enters a household to make it usable. The high costs involved would obviously make it rare.

Also, if DC were to be used, you would have to be very careful using any electronic equipment, as you would be dead in a second if you accidentally came in contact with an open wire. AC also poses danger, but not as much as DC.

AC, on the other hand, is affordable. It stands for alternating current and flows between two poles, positive and negative, at a specific frequency. It has a sinusoidal pattern (sine wave).

It is much more efficient than DC and Edison knew it. The major advantage of AC over DC is that AC voltages can be very easily transformed to higher or lower voltages with the help of a simple transformer.

This means that higher voltages can be used to transmit the power to long distances, and then it can be stepped down with the transformer before it enters the house. Thanks to Tesla, power companies save millions of dollars. Although Tesla was at the receiving end of the humiliation from Edison and is not as well-known, as is apparent, he won the battle of the currents.

But both these "gentlemen" were genii. One more thing that I'd like to add. I read this article some time ago where it said that a Swedish scientist named Wenstrom is the person who is actually responsible for the concept of AC, and that Tesla has been receiving all the credit. I am not sure how much of that is true, but the good thing is that we use AC and save money.



Amar Maniar is a junior majoring in computer and electrical enginering. He is a fan of Edison and Tesla, and is glad to use AC.

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