Tesla: Master of Lightning Page #5

the scheme of modern civilization.

The war of the currents came

to a dramatic head in 1893.

The Columbian Exposition in Chicago

was to be the first World's

Fair lighted by electricity.

The Edison Company, the

Thomson-Houston Company,

they all got together and formed

General Electric Company 1892.

One of the first things they

did of course was put in the

bid for the job at the Fair.

Their bid was roughly

a million dollars.

The Westinghouse bid was about

half a million dollars, and naturally

Westinghouse got the job.

In retaliation, GE refused to sell

Westinghouse

any of their Edison light bulbs.

And they got some judge to say that

Westinghouse couldn't use any one-piece

lamps of any description at the Fair.

Westinghouse frantically devised

a two-piece stopper lamp by Fair time

and saved the day.

Now Tesla had a chance

to make history in Chicago.

His large AC generators would

supply all of the Fair's electricity

and prove that his system

would work on a large scale.

On May 1st, 1893 100,000 eager

spectators filed into the fairgrounds,

awed by the gleaming neo-classical

architecture.

Night fell, President Grover

Cleveland pressed a button

and the fairgrounds exploded

with brilliant tube lighting

and multicolor searchlights

the most incredible display of

lighting the world had ever seen.

In the great hall of electricity, the

public could see that

the Tesla-Westinghouse

system made it all possible.

To overcome the impression

that AC was dangerous,

Tesla put on remarkable

demonstrations.

He created a device called

the Egg of Columbus

to show the rotating magnetic

field created by his AC motor.

In his room, he had

cork-soled shoes on and

a tuxedo and white tie

and a top hat.

And he would put his hand

on a terminal which would flash

electricity through his body

creating a great shower

as his whole body was

encompassed in flame.

And people were quite impressed

by this, to say the least.

The Chicago exposition left an indelible

impression on the American imagination.

This was the gleaming new city of

the future,

and it was powered by

the inventions of Nikola Tesla.

Since childhood, Tesla had dreamed

of harnessing the power of

the great natural wonder

called Niagara Falls.

The famous British physicist

Lord Kelvin

was now head of an

international commission

to find a way to use the falls' power.

He had sent a cable to all the other

members of this commission

and it said:
Trust you avoid the gigantic

mistake of alternating current.

But all this dramatically changed

when Lord Kelvin attended

the Chicago exposition

and saw the AC system in operation.

A contract was immediately

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