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Nikola Tesla was another outstanding physicist and scientist. He was “ahead of his time” because he saw things that would happen later.
Did you know Tesla was one of Thomas Edison’s close employees? In fact, many scientists argue Tesla had better ideas than Thomas Edison. How can this be? Let’s dive deeper into Tesla’s past and his groundbreaking inventions. In the end, you can decide for yourself, who had the bigger impact on how we use electricity.
Nikola Tesla was born in Smiljan, Croatia in 1856. Croatia is a small Eastern Europe country that borders the Adriatic Sea, which is part of the massive Mediterranean Sea. Like Edison, Tesla was intelligent in school and questioned everything. He did so well in math tests that teachers accused him of cheating!
Tesla studied Math and Physics at the University of Prague. He worked extremely hard. He studied from 3 am to 11 pm every day. He never took off during the weekend or even on holidays. That’s dedication! In 1884, Tesla immigrated from Croatia to New York. He was hired as an engineer for Thomas Edison.
Edison vs. Tesla
Edison and his employees were extremely impressed with Tesla’s hard work and what he learned in Croatia. One day, Edison said he would give Tesla $50,000 if he could improve the designs for one of his electric generators. Tesla immediately went to work. Later, Tesla showed Edison his solution for a new DC generator. Edison didn’t think Tesla would take him seriously and made fun of him. It was all a joke to Edison! This made Tesla very upset and he quit working for Edison soon after.
Tesla opened his own company called the Tesla Electric Company. He opened his own laboratory in New York, and created an alternating current motor. “Alternating” means taking turns or switching directions. Before now, we have been discussing direct current because it flows in one direction. The electrons are pushed by a force called voltage. Now, we are discussing alternating currents which switch directions. Important note: electrons must always be moving to produce an electrical current.
Which one is better, you might ask? Running a city on AC is cheaper than DC. And, it is easier to make devices that use AC. So, power plants create alternating currents instead of Edison’s favorite direct currents. Things that run on batteries use direct current. So, a laptop uses DC power, and charges the battery with AC power. Tesla’s motor uses alternating current in to make the motor turn A ring of magnets called the stator creates a magnetic field. The magnets are created by putting electricity through metals in a specific way. This makes the inside spin, which rotates gears that rotate the tires. Magnets created by electricity power the car! See experiment 3 for a demonstration.