Nikola Tesla was born in 1856 in present day, Croatia. Tesla’s mother was known for her incredible memory. Tesla’s father was a priest and a writer, and encouraged him to go down the route of priesthood. When Tesla was 7 his brother Daniel was killed in a terrible accident. This was said to be a cause of Tesla’s life long mental illness. When Tesla was older he went to the Technical University of Graz , to be a scientist, despite his father wanting him to be a priest.At first Tesla intended to specialize in math and physics, but fell in love with the sciences of electricity. Tesla started his career at a telephone company in Budapest. It was around this time that Tesla was strolling through town when he stumbled upon the idea for a rotating…show more content… He was offered a job at Thomas Edison’s manhattan headquarters as a engineer in 1884. Tesla’s job was to improve Edison’s DC dynamos. This is where Edison and Tesla disagreed over the use of alternating and direct current. Edison backed direct current because of the vast amount of money he invested in DC equipment. Tesla argued that alternating current was better because it traveled over longer distances much faster, and provided more overall power. This was much better than DC because DC only went one direction, with a limited range of two miles. Tesla wrote a paper on his motors and electrical systems. The name of this paper was “ A New System of Alternating Current Motors and Electrical Systems.” Tesla presented this paper to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. This paper caught the eye of George Westinghouse. George requested to visit Tesla’s lab, and was amazed at the technology Tesla had designed for alternating current. George was now more determined than ever to supply the world with Tesla’s AC than ever. Edison did not want to lose his electrical…show more content… The prisoner William Kemmler was going to be executed for murder at the New York Auburn prison facility. Edison believed he could show the danger of AC by using it to execute the prisoner. This turned out to be a mistake. The execution was incredibly harsh and lowered people’s views of Edison’s morals. On the bright side, this mistake led to the invention of the well known, electric chair, so Edison’s AC example was not completely useless. Three years after Edison AC execution Tesla astonished the world with his alternating current at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. People were amazed with the the way that alternating current was so much more powerful than direct current. Tesla designed the first hydroelectric power plant in Niagara falls in 1895. This was the last great success of alternating current. This major achievement was covered by the world press. The world could never be more amazed by the possibilities of alternating current. After this success Tesla began to experiment with high frequency electricity. He was trying to invent a motor that could run fast enough to produce high frequency
