Marie Curie (French: [maʁikyʁi]; 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934), née Maria SalomeaSkłodowska (Polish: [ˈmarjasalɔˈmɛaskwɔˈdɔfska]), was a Polish physicist and chemist, working mainly in France, who is famous for her pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the only woman to win in two fields, and the only person to win in multiple sciences. She was also the first female professor at theUniversity of Paris (La Sorbonne), and in 1995 became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in Paris’ Panthéon. She was born in Warsaw, in the Congress Kingdom of Poland, then part of the Russian Empire. She studied at Warsaw’s clandestine Floating University and began her practical scientific training in Warsaw. In 1891, aged 24, she followed her older sister Bronisława to study in Paris, where she earned her higher degrees and conducted her subsequent scientific work.
She shared her 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband Pierre Curieand with physicist Henri Becquerel. She was the sole winner of the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Her achievements included a theory of radioactivity (a term that the Curies coined), techniques for isolating radioactive isotopes, and the discovery of two elements, poloniumand radium. Under her direction, the world’s first studies were conducted into the treatment of neoplasms, using radioactive isotopes.
She founded the Curie Institutes in Paris and in Warsaw, which remain major centres of medical research today. During World War I, she established the first military field radiological centres. While a French citizen, Marie Skłodowska Curie (she used both surnames) never lost her sense of Polish identity. She taught her daughters the Polish language and took them on visits to Poland. She named the first chemical element that she discovered – polonium, which she first isolated in 1898 – after her native country.[a] Curie died in 1934 at the sanatorium of Sancellemoz (Haute-Savoie), France, due toaplastic anemia brought on by her years of exposure to radiation.
Marie and Pierre Curie’s pioneering research was again brought to mind when on April 20 1995, their bodies were taken from their place of burial at Sceaux, just outside Paris, and in a solemn ceremony were laid to rest under the mighty dome of the Panthéon. Marie Curie thus became the first woman to be accorded this mark of honour on her own merit. One woman, Sophie Berthelot, admittedly already rested there but in the capacity of wife of the chemist Marcelin Berthelot (1827-1907). It was François Mitterrand who, before ending his fourteen-year-long presidency, took this initiative, as he said “in order to finally respect the equality of women and men before the law and in reality” (“pour respecter enfin….l’égalité des femmes et des hommesdans le droitcommedans les faits”).
In point of fact – as the press pointed out – this initiative was symbolic three times over. Marie Curie was a woman, she was an immigrant and she had to a high degree helped increase the prestige of France in the scientific world. At the end of the 19th century, a number of discoveries were made in physics which paved the way for the breakthrough of modern physics and led to the revolutionary technical development that is continually changing our daily lives. Around 1886, Heinrich Hertz demonstrated experimentally the existence of radio waves. It is said that Hertz only smiled incredulously when anyone predicted that his waves would one day be sent round the earth. Hertz died in 1894 at the early age of 37. In September 1895, Guglielmo Marconi sent the first radio signal over a distance of 1.5 km. In 1901 he spanned the Atlantic.
Hertz did not live long enough to experience the far-reaching positive effects of his great discovery, nor of course did he have to see it abused in bad television programs. It is hard to predict the consequences of new discoveries in physics. On November 8, 1895, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen at the University of Würzburg, discovered a new kind of radiation which he called X-rays. It could in time be identified as the short-wave, high frequency counterpart of Hertz’s waves. The ability of the radiation to pass through opaque material that was impenetrable to ordinary light, naturally created a great sensation. Röntgen himself wrote to a friend that initially, he told no one except his wife about what he was doing. People would say, “Röntgen is out of his mind”. On January 1, 1896, he mailed his first announcement of the discovery to his colleagues. “….und nun ging der Teufel los” (“and now the Devil was let loose”) he wrote.
His discovery very soon made an impact on practical medicine. In physics it led to a chain of new and sensational findings. When Henri Becquerel was exposing salts of uranium to sunlight to study whether the new radiation could have a connection with luminescence, he found out by chance – thanks to a few days of cloudy weather – that another new type of radiation was being spontaneously emanated without the salts of uranium having to be illuminated – a radiation that could pass through metal foil and darken a photographic plate. The two researchers who were to play a major role in the continued study of this new radiation were Marie and Pierre Curie. In July 1898, Curie and her husband published a paper together, announcing the existence of an element which they named “polonium”, in honour of her native Poland, which would for another twenty years remain partitioned among three empires. On 26 December 1898, the Curies announced the existence of a second element, which they named “radium”, from the Latin word for “ray”. In the course of their research, they also coined the word “radioactivity”.
In 1882, Tesla began working for the Continental Edison Company in France, designing and making improvements to electrical equipment. In June 1884, Tesla relocated to New York City. During his trip across the Atlantic, his ticket, money, and some of his luggage were stolen, and he was nearly thrown overboard after a mutiny broke out on the ship. He arrived with only four cents in his pocket, a letter of recommendation, a few poems, and the remainder of his belongings. In the letter of recommendation from Charles Batchelor, a former employer, to Thomas Edison, it is claimed that Batchelor wrote, “I know two great men and you are one of them; the other is this young man.” (The exact contents of the letter are disputed in McNichol’s book.) Edison hired Tesla to work for his Edison Machine Works.
Tesla’s work for Edison began with simple electrical engineering and quickly progressed to solving some of the company’s most difficult problems. Tesla was even offered the task of completely redesigning the Edison Company’s direct current generators. In 1885, Tesla claimed that he could redesign Edison’s inefficient motor and generators, making an improvement in both service and economy. According to Tesla, Edison remarked, “There’s fifty thousand dollars in it for you—if you can do it”—this has been noted as an odd statement from an Edison whose company was stingy with pay and who did not have that sort of cash on hand. After months of work, Tesla fulfilled the task and inquired about payment. Edison, claiming that he was only joking, replied, “Tesla, you don’t understand our American humor.”
Instead, Edison offered a US$10 a week raise over Tesla’s US$18 per week salary; Tesla refused the offer and immediately resigned. Nikola Tesla (Serbian Cyrillic: Никола Тесла; 10 July 1856 – 7 January 1943) was a Serbian-born American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist, and futurist best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system. Tesla gained experience in telephony and electrical engineering before emigrating to the United States in 1884 to work for Thomas Edison. He soon struck out on his own with financial backers, setting up laboratories and companies to develop a range of electrical devices. His patented AC induction motor and transformer were licensed by George Westinghouse, who also hired Tesla as a consultant to help develop a power system using alternating current.
Tesla is also known for his high-voltage, high-frequency power experiments in New York and Colorado Springs which included patented devices and theoretical work used in the invention of radio communication, for his X-ray experiments, and for his ill-fated attempt at intercontinental wireless transmission in his unfinished Wardenclyffe Tower project. Nikola Tesla was born on 10 July (O.S. 28 June) 1856 to Serbian parents in the village of Smiljan, Austrian Empire (modern-day Croatia). His father, Milutin Tesla, was a Serbian Orthodox priest. Tesla’s mother, Đuka Tesla (née Mandić), whose father was also a Serbian Orthodox priest, had a talent for making home craft tools, mechanical appliances, and the ability to memorize Serbian epic poems.
Duka had never received a formal education. Nikola credited his eidetic memory and creative abilities to his mother’s genetics and influence. Tesla’s progenitors were from western Serbia, near Montenegro. Tesla was the fourth of five children. He had an older brother named Dane and three sisters, Milka, Angelina and Marica. Dane was killed in a horse-riding accident when Nikola was five. Some accounts say that Tesla caused the accident by frightening the horse. In 1861, Tesla attended the “Lower” or “Primary” School in Smiljan where he studied German, arithmetic, and religion. In 1862, the Tesla family moved to Gospić, Austrian Empire, where Tesla’s father worked as a pastor. Nikola completed “Lower” or “Primary” School, followed by the “Lower Real Gymnasium” or “Normal School”. In 1870, Tesla moved to Karlovac to attend school at Higher Real Gymnasium, where he was profoundly influenced by a math teacher Martin Sekulić.
Tesla was able to perform integral calculus in his head, which prompted his teachers to believe that he was cheating. He finished a four-year term in three years, graduating in 1873. In 1882, Tesla began working for the Continental Edison Company in France, designing and making improvements to electrical equipment. In June 1884, Tesla relocated to New York City. During his trip across the Atlantic, his ticket, money, and some of his luggage were stolen, and he was nearly thrown overboard after a mutiny broke out on the ship. He arrived with only four cents in his pocket, a letter of recommendation, a few poems, and the remainder of his belongings. In the letter of recommendation from Charles Batchelor, a former employer, to Thomas Edison, it is claimed that Batchelor wrote, “I know two great men and you are one of them; the other is this young man.” (The exact contents of the letter are disputed in McNichol’s book.)
Edison hired Tesla to work for his Edison Machine Works. Tesla’s work for Edison began with simple electrical engineering and quickly progressed to solving some of the company’s most difficult problems. Tesla was even offered the task of completely redesigning the Edison Company’s direct current generators. In 1885, Tesla claimed that he could redesign Edison’s inefficient motor and generators, making an improvement in both service and economy. According to Tesla, Edison remarked, “There’s fifty thousand dollars in it for you—if you can do it”—this has been noted as an odd statement from an Edison whose company was stingy with pay and who did not have that sort of cash on hand. After months of work, Tesla fulfilled the task and inquired about payment. Edison, claiming that he was only joking, replied, “Tesla, you don’t understand our American humor.” Instead, Edison offered a US$10 a week raise over Tesla’s US$18 per week salary; Tesla refused the offer and immediately resigned. X-ray experimentation
X-ray of Tesla’s hand—one of the earliest x-ray photographs. Starting in 1894, Tesla began investigating what he referred to as radiant energy of “invisible” kinds that he had noticed damaged film in his lab in previous experiments (later identified as “Roentgen rays” or “X-Rays”). His early experiments were with Crookes tubes, a cold cathode electrical discharge tube. Tesla may have been the first person in North America to accidentally capture an X-ray image, when he tried to photograph Mark Twain illuminated by an earlier type of gas discharge tube Geissler tube in 1895. The only thing captured in the image was the metal locking screw on the camera lens. Soon after, much of Tesla’s early research—hundreds of invention models, plans, notes, laboratory data, tools, photographs, valued at $50,000—was lost in the 5th Avenue laboratory fire of March 1895. Tesla is quoted by The New York Times as saying, “I am in too much grief to talk. What can I say?” In March 1896, after hearing of Wilhelm Röntgen’s discovery of X-ray and X-ray imaging (radiography),
Tesla proceeded to do his own experiments in X-ray imaging, developing a high energy single terminal vacuum tube of his own design that had no target electrode and that worked from the output of the Tesla Coil (the modern term for the phenomenon produced by this device is bremsstrahlung or braking radiation). In his research, Tesla devised several experimental setups to produce X-rays. Tesla held that, with his circuits, the “instrument will [… enable one to] generate Roentgen rays of much greater power than obtainable with ordinary apparatus.” Tesla noted the hazards of working with his circuit and single-node X-ray-producing devices. In his many notes on the early investigation of this phenomenon, he attributed the skin damage to various causes. He believed early on that damage to the skin was not caused by the Roentgen rays, but by the ozone generated in contact with the skin, and to a lesser extent, by nitrous acid.
Tesla incorrectly believed that X-rays were longitudinal waves, such as those produced in waves in plasma. These plasma waves can occur in force-free magnetic fields. On 11 July 1934, the New York Herald Tribune published an article on Tesla, in which he recalled an event that would occasionally take place while experimenting with his single-electrode vacuum tubes; a minute particle would break off the cathode, pass out of the tube, and physically strike him. “Tesla said he could feel a sharp stinging pain where it entered his body, and again at the place where it passed out.” In comparing these particles with the bits of metal projected by his “electric gun”, Tesla said, “The particles in the beam of force … will travel much faster than such particles . .. and they will travel in concentrations.”
Tesla’s theories on the possibility of the transmission by radio waves go back as far as lectures and demonstrations in 1893 in St. Louis, Missouri, the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the National Electric Light Association. Tesla’s demonstrations and principles were written about widely through various media outlets. Many devices such as the Tesla Coil were used in the further development of radio. Tesla’s radio wave experiments in 1896 were conducted in Gerlach Hotel (later renamed The Radio Wave building), where he resided. | | |
In 1898, Tesla demonstrated a radio-controlled boat (U.S. Patent 613,809 —Method of an Apparatus for Controlling Mechanism of Moving Vehicle or Vehicles).| In 1898, Tesla demonstrated a radio-controlled boat—which he dubbed “teleautomaton”—to the public during an electrical exhibition at Madison Square Garden. The crowd that witnessed the demonstration made outrageous claims about the workings of the boat: everything from magic to telepathy to being piloted by a trained monkey hidden inside. Tesla tried to sell his idea to the U.S. military as a type of radio-controlled torpedo, but they showed little interest. Remote radio control remained a novelty until World War I and afterward, when a number of countries used it in military programs. Tesla took the opportunity to further demonstrate “Teleautomatics” in an address to a meeting of the Commercial Club in Chicago, whilst he was travelling to Colorado Springs, on 13 May 1899. In 1900, Tesla was granted patents for a “system of transmitting electrical energy” and “an electrical transmitter”.
When Guglielmo Marconi made his famous first ever transatlantic radio transmission in 1901, Tesla quipped that it was done with 17 Tesla patents. This was the beginning of years of patent battles over radio with Tesla’s patents being upheld in 1903, followed by a reverse decision in favor of Marconi in 1904. In 1943, a Supreme Court of the United States decision restored the prior patents of Tesla, Oliver Lodge, and John Stone. The court declared that their decision had no bearing on Marconi’s claim as the first to achieve radio transmission, just that since Marconi’s claim to certain patents were questionable, he could not claim infringement on those same patents (there are claims the high court was trying to nullify a World War I claim against the U.S. government by the Marconi Company via simply restoring Tesla’s prior patent). Who is Nikola Tesla? He has an electric car company and a rock band named after him.
Legendary rock musician David Bowie even played the eccentric scientist in the 2006 movie “The Prestige.” Tesla had hundreds of patents registered in his name — yet he never won a Nobel Prize for his lifelong work with electricity. The inventions and discoveries he made over his lifetime, particularly in the late 1800s, are the basis for much of our modern lifestyle. Let’s take a look at his most famous and influential works. * Rotating Magnetic Field (1882): Tesla’s first breakthrough came when a professor in his native Croatia (he was ethnically Serbian) told him it was impossible to create a motor powered by alternating current (AC) instead of direct current (DC). Tesla was sure this wasn’t the case, and after two years of performing experiments in his mind, the solution came to him like a bolt of lightning: a rotating magnetic field that would allow alternating current to power an engine without being first converted to direct current.
* AC Motor (1883): Tesla carried detailed plans for this AC motor in his head (a particular talent of his) until he could build a physical model the next year. The alternating current created magnetic poles that reversed themselves without mechanical aid, as DC motors required, and caused an armature (the revolving part of any electromechanical device) to whirl around the motor. This was his rotating magnetic field put into practice as a motor; within two years, he would use it in AC generators and transformers as well. * Tesla coil (1890): The electrical coil named for its inventor is one of Tesla’s showiest inventions, and he used it to its full dramatic extent in demonstrations held in his New York City lab. The coil uses polyphase alternating currents — another of Tesla’s discoveries — to create a transformer capable of producing very high voltages. It brought forth impressive crackling sparks and sheets of electric flame that impressed the electrically savvy and the layman alike. They’re primarily used for entertainment today.
* Radio (1897): Tesla first sent a wireless transmission from his lab at Houston Street in New York City to a boat on the Hudson River — 25 miles (40 km) away — in 1897; he would’ve done this sooner but for a fire that destroyed his previous lab in 1895. Tesla invented everything we associate with radio — antennas, tuners and the like — but an inventor named Guglielmo Marconi was given the actual credit. In 1943, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Tesla’s patent had precedence, but the public already considered Marconi the father of radio [source: TSMNY].
Tesla built on these discoveries and inventions to create the first wireless remote control boat, fluorescent and neon lights (which he did indeed bend into letters), wireless bulbs that were lit by energy from the earth and an AC power plant that harnessed the hydroelectric power of Niagara Falls. He even had a hand in the creation of robotics. His system of delivering power to homes and businesses using AC eclipsed the DC power advocated by his former employer Thomas Edison. (We still receive AC power in our homes today.) By the time Tesla died in 1943, his money and fame were on the wane, but his inventions and discoveries have made much of our current technology possible. Colorado Springs
See also: Magnifying transmitter
See also: Colorado Springs Notes, 1899–1900
Multiple exposure publicity picture of Tesla sitting in his Colorado Springs laboratory with his “Magnifying transmitter” generating millions of volts and producing 7-metre (23 ft) long arcs.
Tesla holding a phosphor-coated gas-discharge lamp, illuminated by wireless electricity. Colorado Springs, 1899.
An experiment in Colorado Springs. This bank of lights is receiving power by means of electrodynamic induction from an oscillator 100 feet (30 m) from the bulbs
A Colorado Springs experiment: here a grounded tuned coil in resonance with a distant transmitter illuminates a light near the bottom of the picture. On 17 May 1899, Tesla moved to Colorado Springs, where he would have room for his high-voltage, high-frequency experiments; his lab was located near Foote Ave. and Kiowa St. He chose this location because the polyphase alternating current power distribution system had been introduced there and he had associates who were willing to give him all the power he needed without charging for it. Upon his arrival, he told reporters that he was conducting wireless telegraphy experiments, transmitting signals from Pikes Peak to Paris. On 15 June 1899, Tesla performed his first experiments at his Colorado Springs lab; he recorded his initial spark length at five inches long, but very thick and noisy. Tesla investigated atmospheric electricity, observing lightning signals via his receivers.
Reproductions of Tesla’s receivers and coherer circuits show an unpredicted level of complexity: distributed high-Q helical resonators, radio frequency feedback, crude heterodyne effects, and regeneration techniques. Tesla stated that he observed stationary waves during this time. Tesla’s diary contains explanations of his experiments concerning the ionosphere and the ground’s telluric currents via transverse waves and longitudinal waves. He researched ways to transmit energy wirelessly over long distances (via transverse waves, to a lesser extent, and, more readily, longitudinal waves). He transmitted extremely low frequencies through the ground as well as between the earth’s surface and the Kennelly–Heaviside layer. Tesla received U.S. Patent 645,576 for wireless transceivers that developed standing waves by this method.
In his experiments, he made mathematical calculations and computations based on his experiments and discovered that the resonant frequency of the earth was approximately 8 hertz (Hz) (later confirmed by researchers in the 1950s—named the Schumann resonance). Tesla sent electrostatic forces through natural media across a conductor situated in the changing magnetic flux and transferred electrical energy to a wireless receiver. At his lab, Tesla proved that the earth was a conductor. He produced artificial lightning (with discharges consisting of millions of volts and up to 135 feet long). Thunder from the released energy was heard 15 miles away in Cripple Creek, Colorado. People walking along the street observed sparks jumping between their feet and the ground. Electricity sprang from taps when turned on. Light bulbs within 100 feet of the lab glowed even when turned off.
Horses in a livery stable bolted from their stalls after receiving shocks through their metal shoes. Butterflies were electrified, swirling in circles with blue halos of St. Elmo’s fire around their wings. While experimenting, Tesla accidentally short-circuited the generator, causing a power outage. In August 1917, Tesla explained what had happened in The Electrical Experimenter: “As an example of what has been done with several hundred kilowatts of high frequency energy liberated, it was found that the dynamos in a power house six miles away were repeatedly burned out, due to the powerful high frequency currents set up in them, and which caused heavy sparks to jump thru the windings and destroy the insulation!” At his lab, Tesla observed unusual signals from his receiver (which he interpreted as 1—2—3—4), which he later believed were extraterrestrial radio wave communications coming from Mars.
The signals were substantially different from the signals those that he had noted from noise of storms and the earth. Specifically, he later recalled that the signals appeared in groups of one, two, three, and four clicks together. Tesla was highly criticized upon revealing his finding. Tesla had mentioned that he thought his inventions could be used to talk with other planets. It is debatable what type of signals Tesla received or whether he picked up anything at all.
Research has suggested that Tesla may have had a misunderstanding of the new technology he was working with, or that the signals Tesla observed may have been from a non-terrestrial natural radio source such as the Jovian plasma torus signals. Other sources hypothesize that he may have intercepted Marconi’s European experiments—in December 1901, Marconi successfully transmitted the letter S (dot/dot/dot, the same three impulses that Tesla claimed to have received from outer space while at Colorado in 1899) from Poldhu, England to Signal Hill, Newfoundland (now part of Canada)—or signals from another experimenter in wireless transmission.
In 1899, John Jacob Astor IV invested $100,000 for Tesla to further develop and produce a new lighting system. Instead, Tesla used the money to fund his Colorado Springs experiments. On 7 January 1900, Tesla left Colorado Springs. His lab was torn down in about 1905, and its contents were sold to satisfy a debt.
The Colorado experiments had prepared Tesla for the establishment of the trans-Atlantic wireless telecommunications facility known as Wardenclyffe near Shoreham, Long Island. A rotating magnetic field is a magnetic field that has a moving polarity in which its opposite poles rotate about a central point or axis. Ideally the rotation changes direction at a constant angular rate. This is a key principle in the operation of the alternating-current motor. Rotating magnetic fields are often utilized for electromechanical applications such as induction motors and electric generators, however they are also used in purely electrical applications such as induction regulators.
Nikola Tesla came to America from Croatia (but was ethnically Serbian) with four pennies, a few poems and a blueprint for a flying machine (that was never built) in 1884. However, by 1900, he’d just about single-handedly harnessed the power of electricity. Tesla renovated electronic technology, inventing things such as the electrical generator, FM radio, remote control, robots, spark plugs, fluorescent lights and the “Tesla Coil” which is used in TV and radio transmissions. You may recognize a few things on that list as being directly responsible for everything that was awesome about life in the 20th Century.
Showing an uncommon commitment to the whole “mad scientist” thing, he was celibate, afraid of round things (that’s probably why he was celibate!) and hated human hair, jewelry and anything that wasn’t divisible by three. Also, he claimed to have built a “death ray” that could blow things up and some (nutty) people believe that he may have been responsible for the 1908 Tunguska Event, an explosion in Russia that was 1,000 times as powerful as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Probably what it would look like if a man with glowing detachable testicles had his first orgasm at 52. Just sayin’…
After he died, J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI took away all of his personal stuff from fear of someone else building the machines and actually using them to split the world in half (we don’t blame them). War of the Currents
In 1884, Tesla got a job with Edison, and in many of their arguments, Tesla said that he could improve Edison’s electricity and save him money. Edison said there was $50,000 in it for Tesla if he could do it. After months of slaving over Edison’s shitty excuses for electronics, Tesla made huge improvements. When Tesla told Edison to pay up, Edison response was: “You don’t understand American humor.”
Tesla got pissed and got a job working for Westinghouse (Edison’s rival). Soon after, the three men got into “THE WAR OF CURRENTS!!!” *enter lightning and blazing metal music* with Westinghouse, Tesla and his Alternating Current against Edison with his Direct Currents. Of course, Tesla was right, but because he was a shitty businessman, it didn’t matter. His inventions are still being used to funnel fuck you money into the pockets of Edison’s descendants. His legacy has experienced a popular resurgence in recent years, mostly by people who know him as “the guy who enabled Hugh Jackman to be killed hundreds of times in a single movie.” Amazing Feats done by Tesla
Tesla held around 700 patents in 26 countries. These include:
* Tesla Coil.
* Alternating currents.
* Spark plugs
* Electric Arc Lamp
* Devices for X-Ray
* Bifilar coil
* Bladeless turbine
And that’s not all. In 1943, the Supreme Court invalided Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi’s patents for the radio and radio equipment and giving credit to Tesla based on his patents that predated Marconi’s. But, by that time, Tesla was–dead. Tesla once predicted, “The household’s daily newspaper will be printed ‘wirelessly’ in the home during the night”. Hey! That sounds like the Internet!
Tesla turning on a lamp to read
Tesla was the first to harness the power of Niagara Falls into a hydroelectric power plant, constructed a bath designed to cleanse the human body of germs using nothing but electricity, and created a 130-foot long bolt of lightning from one of his massive coils (which remains the world record for man-made lightning). In addition he, once, caused an earthquake in New York City that was so powerful that it almost destroyed 5th Avenue (where his lab was at.)
Outside of Tesla’s laboratory on a daily basis
Though, Tesla’s feats keep going on and on and on and on, he remains largely overlooked and while Edison and Westinghouse have their name stamped on huge cooperations, Tesla can merely lay claim to the B list rock band. The war against AC led him to become involved in the development and promotion of the electric chair (using AC) as an attempt to portray AC to have greater lethal potential than DC. Edison went on to carry out a brief but intense campaign to ban the use of AC or to limit the allowable voltage for safety purposes.
As part of this campaign, Edison’s employees publicly electrocuted stray or unwanted animals to demonstrate the dangers of AC; alternating electric currents are slightly more dangerous in that frequencies near 60 Hz have a markedly greater potential for inducing fatal “cardiac fibrillation” than do direct currents. On one of the more notable occasions, in 1903, Edison’s workers electrocuted Topsy the elephant at Luna Park, near Coney Island, after she had killed several men and her owners wanted her put to death. His company filmed the electrocution.