With the advancement of science and technology it is evident that with all these inventions and discoveries, mankind is purely dependent on ENERGY. This energy is in the most common form which we know as “Electricity”. The story of electricity is as interesting as the sole material itself.

The story all begins in 1879 when Thomas Alva Edison after thousands of failed attempts invented the light bulb. He taught the world about using electricity and replaced the kerosene lamp with a much more economical resource. After the invention of the bulb, the most challenging task was to make this invention available door to door and in addition to this, we need “ELECTRICITY” to light this bulb. Edison was a good businessman and set up his own street power station in America for the first time in the world. The power plant of Edison generates DC current, which, in course of time, faced lots of limitations. One of the major drawbacks of DC current was that it was not suitable for long range transmission and the power wastage percentage was much high. So, the power generation plants could be set up in the areas where population density was high. 

When Edison was busy expanding his electricity business to the whole of America, that time, one Austrian college student grew up with the idea of replacing DC motors with some good alternatives, where power wastage will be much lesser. And this person was Nikola Tesla. 

After his college days, Tesla joined and started his job as an engineer in Edison’s factory in Manhattan. After a few days of experience with DC motors, Tesla discovered lots of limitations in the DC system and he individually invented a new motor, where the power generated was in an alternate channel rather than in a direct channel. In addition to this, power can be now transferred to a longer range and it was more convenient and economical. 

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With the excitement of this new innovation, Tesla thought of conveying his idea to Edison and in 1884 he went to Edison’s office. Now there was a problem before he could convey his innovation, he need to first prove himself before Edison. 

Luckily he got a chance, once a ship operating in DC motor was damaged in the sea, Tesla was assigned to mend the ship and he was also successful in his attempt. Edison was much impressed by his work and asked Tesla to meet him in his office. Tesla presented his new idea to him and Edison even at first glance rejected his proposals. He also commented on the works of Tesla as baseless and dangerous. No doubt, Edison was much fearful of this discovery of AC current by a person who was much younger than him due to his huge investment in the expansion of the DC system. 

Later, Tesla resigned from Edison’s company and started to light his own company of electricity. There started the spark of “THE CURRENT WAR”. For getting investments, he said his ideas of a new invention to lots of investors from worldwide. At the time Edison’s company was facing lots of difficulty in transferring DC currents with the increasing demands. 

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In the year 1887, Tesla got appreciation from lots of investors and laid stones for his own company, “Tesla Electricity Company”. Tesla’s invention has shaken the monopoly market of Edison all over in America. Also, Tesla’s AC was sold for 1/3rd the price of Edison’s DC ranging from a big factory to a small house. Till now electricity was only used to light bulbs either from DC or AC, Tesla done some remarkable advancements in his AC motors and now any machine can be operated from this. 

This became a major topic of concern for Edison and his company faced a huge loss. Surprisingly in 1888, Nikola Tesla got a huge investment from George Westinghouse, who was not only the inventor of railway air brakes but also a tech enthusiast at that time. Where Tesla was getting richer day by day, this became a serious headache for Edison Electricity Company. Soon with the mindset of revenge, Edison started taking this issue too personally and urged people not to use AC currents. He started doing experiments on animals with AC and publishing in media about its fatal effects. As time passed, he started spreading lots of negativity about Tesla. 

In 1890, New York State Court gave Edison the charge of punishing criminals with his new ideas. Now with the idea of defaming AC, Edison passed 1000V of AC current through a criminal named Williams in Abbern Jail. Now people started criticizing Tesla’s AC, so he decided to do something more. The life-changing moment came when Tesla Company signed the tender from Niagara Falls. Yes… Niagara Falls where around 300 thousand cubic feet of water flows per second, has the potential of making energy equivalent to burning 100 thousand kg of coal. After the successful result of the tender by Tesla, the Board of Directors removed Edison from his company. 

Nikola Tesla in the later part of his life invested all his profits in his company for further fulfillment of his dreams of AC currents. Tesla lived his old age in The New Yorker Hotel and took his last breath on 7th January 1943. 

There was no ultimate winner and loser in “THE CURRENT WAR”, but due to their immense work in the field of electricity, we are now able to access electricity at any time and anywhere in this world. 

There are some famous quotes by these 2 great scientists: 

I have not failed. I‘ve just found 10,000 ways that won‘t work. (– Thomas Alva Edison) 

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. (– Thomas Alva Edison) 

The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine. (- Nikola Tesla) 

(Opinions expressed here are that of the ‘student guest author’ and is responsible for the originality of the article, photographs etc )

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