Andrew Shaw

Mr. Tkaczyk

English 7H

Period: 3

6-2-2017

The Master of Lightning

When you get home what is the first thing you do? Turn on a light switch? You probably

don’t think about who made this possible. It was Nikola Tesla, “‘But I thought Thomas Edison

was the father of the electrical age!’-everyone”. Actually, Thomas Edison just found a better way

to sell the idea of twenty-two other men who actually invented the lightbulb. Nikola Tesla is the

one who invented the A.C. or Alternating Current which supplies the energy to your home. So

why does nobody remember him? That is because the Electrical companies hushed it all up so

they did not lose business because they were still selling D.C. or Direct Current

(theoatmeal.com). By reviewing his life, understanding how he made his invention, and knowing

how important his invention was and even today, we can all appreciate his life and all of his hard

work making inventions.

Nikola Tesla was born on ​July 10, 1856, Smiljan, Croatia, at that time it was a part of the

Austro-Hungarian Empire. “​His father was a priest in the Serbian Orthodox church and his

mother managed the family’s farm”. On 1863 Daniel, Tesla’s brother was killed in an accident

while riding a horse. Daniel’s Death was very surprising to Nikola and is said to what caused his
lifelong mental illness(history.com). Tesla studied math and physics at the Graz University of

technology and he studied philosophy at the University of Prague. In 1884 Tesla arrived in New

York and was hired at Thomas Edison’s Manhattan headquarters as an engineer. He impressed

Thomas Edison with his ingenuity and his ability to work very quickly. After a while’ Thomas

said to Tesla that he would pay him fifty-thousand dollars if he could fix the problems he had

with Thomas’s Direct Current. After months of hard work he fixed it and when he showed it to

Thomas he said “ Tesla you don’t understand our American humor.” Nikola quit soon after.

Later on Tesla joined with George Westinghouse who licensed his patents and gave him his own

lab. Tesla lived his last decades in a New York hotel where he fed and he said that he would talk

with the city’s pigeons. Nikoa died in his room on January 7, 1943.

The invention alternate current or A.C. took Nikola a lot of work to create. It started

when “​Nikola Tesla, the inventor of alternating current, because he was excited about the

prospects of harnessing Niagara Falls for producing electric power.” He predicted that it would

power the cars and the streetlights in Paris one day(gmatclub.com). It started when Tesla was

working with some coils and wires he realized that putting a high amount of voltage in one coil

he would get a low amount of voltage in the another wire. The higher the voltage the faster and

longer the electricity will travel, then it would drop in voltage to be used in homes. To transport

the energy even further it required even thicker wires (science.howstuffworks.com). Alternating

current’s ability to travel great distances is what made it so popular.

Tesla and Thomas Edison were going through arguments about whose way of conducting

electricity was better. Edison even went so far as to pay kids to steal people’s pets and he would

publicly electrocute them with Tesla’s alternating current to show how dangerous it
was(theoatmeal.com). Many people still used AC current because it was able to power many

households without having to have generators every mile like Edison’s Direct Current.

Alternating current is very important to this day because of its ability to travel further. This is

obvious because if you look outside right now you will see large poles with small boxes called

transformers with wires running through them (science.howstuffworks.com). The transformers

have wires so a high amount of voltage hits one of the wires and is conducts electricity. Then the

electricity transitions to another wire and becomes a lower voltage.

Nikola Tesla has faced many challenges throughout his life to help improve future

people’s lives and one of his greatest inventions was the Alternating current. Who doesn’t enjoy

watching movies? Without the invention of A.c. you would not have a Tesla Coil which is the

heart of almost all electronics. Also if we still used D.c. all the generators that would have to be

built would take up a lot of space and you wouldn’t have as much energy flowing to your house.

Finally, all of this is what made Nikola Tesla such a great man.
 Works Cited

History.com Staff. "Nikola Tesla." ​History.com​. A&E Television Networks, 2009. Web. 21 Feb.

2017.

Kelly, John. "How Nikola Tesla Worked." ​HowStuffWorks Science​. HowStuffWorks, 03 Nov.

2012. Web. 21 Feb. 2017.

Sondenso. "Nikola Tesla, the Inventor of Alternating Current, Because." ​GMAT Club Forum​.

Sondenso, 06 May 2008. Web. 21 Feb. 2017.

"Why Nikola Tesla Was the Greatest Geek Who Ever Lived." ​The Oatmeal​. N.p., n.d. Web. 21

Feb. 2017.