Latest / Stuff You Should Know / How did Nikola Tesla change the way we use energy?

Transcript

How did Nikola Tesla change the way we use energy? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, Chuck Bryant, Chuck, Chuck. That's going.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: You can just call me Nikola really okay? How about
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: your Chuck? Yes, all right, Chuck? Good God, I'm good.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: I'm good. I'm I'm much better than how you asked
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: me twenty nights ago when I'm recorded, Yes podcast, No,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: that was that was two days three two days from
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: now right. Yeah, it's magic. It is magic. We'll have
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: to reveal our secret one day like some sort of
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: we could dress up like Siegfried and Roy I get
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: there and tell everybody. Yeah, okay, I owe it to Jerry.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Jerry is always just the white Tiger. Yeah, yeah, nice
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: and Jerry. Chuck. I have a trivia question for you, beautiful, Okay,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: hit me. Why are the Los Angeles Dodgers named the
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles Dodgers? Okay, Chuck, I know the answer. Do
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: you want me to say? What do you want to say?
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: I want you to say. I just asked you a
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: question because when they were in Brooklyn the original spot.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: There were a lot of train trolley cars in Brooklyn
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: at the time that had really dangerous electrical wiring that
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: operated them, and people would dodge these electrical lines and
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: these train cars, and so they called them the Brooklyn
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Trolley Dodgers initially, and then that shortened to the Brooklyn Dodgers,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: and then they o' mount the O'Malley family broke the
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: hearts of Brooklyn and moved them too. L A, I
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: can't believe that still, I know who does that? H
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Did you see a documentary HBO about the Brooklyn Dodgers
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: so good? No, it was it. Yeah, I mean there
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: are people in Brooklyn today that have not watched the
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: baseball game since the Brooklyn Dodgers moved their their hearts
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: were broken so badly. Yeah wow, and uh wow, rip
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: the heart out of Brooklyn. But actually it wasn't. People
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: might right in and there's been some follow up and
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: O'Malley really tried as hardest to keep the team there,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: and there were some politics involved that greedy Sandy kofax Y. Yeah,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: but off topic a little bit, but not really not really,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: because you can make a case that it was um
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Thomas Alva Edison, who gave the Brooklyn Dodgers their name.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Bring it Home, Baby, Okay, I will so. By the
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: time the Dodgers were formed in the eighteen eighties, right, um,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Edison had basically lit up parts of New York with
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: his incandescent light bulb. Big, big innovation. It was huge, man.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: I mean imagine going from like gaslight to electricity. Yeah,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: I mean I bet it blew people's minds back then.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: I imagine so, especially when they touched one of those
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: trolley lines. Sure so, okay. Edison was a visionary, a genius,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: one can make the case um, and an innovator, and
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: he came up with what we know of as the
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: modern harnessing of electricity, which I should probably point out
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: electricity is not energy, it's an energy carrier. Direct current
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: is what he was his big thing, right. Direct current
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: is basically it is, well not basically, it's where electricity.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: The electric charge is constant. It never changes. So if
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: you look directional, it is, and if you look at
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: it it's like a line. It's just a straight line.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: And Edison was pretty happy with his direct current inventions.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: The problem is is that you lose a lot of
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: it to waste heat over long distances. Yeah. Well basically
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: you can't really transport it over super long distances they
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: found out, right, Okay, So that was kind of the
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: drawback to it. Other than that it was enormous. He
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: lit up New York and arguably created um what we
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: know of today is light. Right, But there was another
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: way of looking at things, and that is the alternating current.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: So Edison was super, super super married to direct current.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: He just saw it. I think I read a quote
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: of a river flowing gently to the sea. That's how
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: we characterized direct current. That will kill you if you
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: touch it, yeah, big time. Uh. And alternating current is
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: if you instead of that straight line of a charge
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: um or flow of electricity from one pole to the other,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: I think negative, depositive, all always. Alternating current looks like
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: a sign wave, right, So it has a wavelength and
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: it actually goes back and forth from one pole to another,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: which is why it's called alternating. And these days it
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: does so at about sixty cycles per second, so it
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: changes direction sixty times in a second, and it's very
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: steady and reliable. And actually in those days too, I
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: think it's the same yeah, which is one of the
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: cool things. Right. So here's the thing we're talking about
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: electricity here. I think a lot of people overlook is
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: that Edison was also quite a showman and great businessman,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: very very much so, as much as much of a
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: great businessman as a genius, right, But he was also
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: very stubborn, and he didn't he didn't he didn't think
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: there was any way to improve or any need to
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: improve upon direct current. There's another guy whose name people
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: might be familiar with. His name is Nicola Tesla. Not
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: a great businessman, in fact, a very poor businessman. Evidently
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: he was. Actually he spent some time after he became
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: a great inventor digging ditches just to try to make
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: ends meet. Apparently he didn't. He did file for a
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: lot of patents, but apparently he didn't do that nearly
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: enough because a lot of his stuff was kind of
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: stolen and kind of you know, nicked from. So, Chuck,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: we've got Edison on one side with d C, and
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: we have Tesla on the other side with a C.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: That sounds like, you know, a couple of a couple
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: of nerds going at it, but really these two guys
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: engaged in this very very public rumble and based gleet
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: stake was the infrastructure of the United States and the
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: in the world exactly, this huge, huge, massive um competition. Sure,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: that just took place, and there was some crazy stuff
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: that went that that came out of it, Lots of electrocutions,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: lots of nefariousness, And we're not going to tell you
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: who won yet because a lot of people don't necessarily
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: know what kind of electricity we use more than the
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: other d C or a C. So we're just gonna
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: pay this out. Baby. This is just interesting. So yeah,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Nicola Tesla he was Austrian born and uh he arrived
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: in the United States in four when he was just
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: a young lad of twenty eight and a merror. Three
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: years later, after being in the United States, he filed
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: for a series of patents that basically outlined what you
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: would need to make the alternating current work. So he
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: made pretty quick work when he came over here to
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: the States, right he did. Did you ever see the
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Prestige movie? I've heard David Bowie played Tesla in that movie? Nice? Yeah,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: very cool. Did he do a good job like Labyrinth
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: quality job? Oh? Better? I thought so? All right, but um,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: just a little sidebar if you're interested in that kind
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: of thing. Um. But yeah, you know, after reading this
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: and then finding out that Tesla actually may have sort
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: of invented the radio, even though Marconi gets credit for that,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of things that Tesla did. He's sort
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: of the unsung inventor when you kind of look at
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: all these little things. Yeah, and again, like you made
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: the point, I think you have to be a really
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: good self promoter time as much an innovator, Especially if
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: you are an innovator, you need to be a self promoter.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: You get lost out in the in the annals of history,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: especially back then. Right, So, Chuck, let's talk about this.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: She said that he came to the States from Austria
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: at the age of twenty eight and filed some really
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: important patents early on. Uh and they were for his
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: alternating current system. Right. Here's the huge advantage of alternating current.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: We were talking about how d C is a constant,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: steady output of electricity. Uh. An alternating current is all
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: over the place, but it's still it's also a steady
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: output of power. The thing is is because the because
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: DC doesn't alternate, UH, it loses a lot of energy
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: to heat and so it's not good for transporting it
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: long distances. Right, So Tesla came up with these, uh,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: these patents for the generation of an alternating current and
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: a transformer. Right, you've heard of these and you probably
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: don't know what they are. Well, here this is the
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: key to alternating current. Absolutely. What what you do is
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: you generate this electricity and you run it through a
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: transformer and with very little power loss. Right, you can
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: step it up to a tremendous voltage. We'll step it
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: down in this case. Well, no, you step it up
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: first for a long distance travel, so you're using you're
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: using less power to generate it, right, But then you
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: run it through this transformer and all of a sudden,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: say a thousand volts goes to like five hundred thousand volts.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: So you can shoot that thing amazingly long distances, uh,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: without losing very much of the electricity involved in it.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: And then when it gets to say a neighborhood, after
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: passing through you know, the desert or nowhere very dangerously,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: when it gets to a neighborhood, it goes through another
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: transformer and then it gets stepped down. That's what I
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: was thinking about. And so since you've lost very little
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: and it's being stepped down easily without much powerless to
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: this transformer, you can supply tons of homes with a
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: single line like a d volts I think is what
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: you end up using out of let's say a million volts.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: It's on the line right sure, And it can also
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: be when it's stepped up voltage wise, it can be
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: stepped down or it is inevitably stepped down in amplitude,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: which means that it requires less of a physically smaller
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: line of copper, which also says on costs because you know,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: you remember when the economic fallout was going on and
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: people are steeling copper out of other people's cars and
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: air conditioners because it was valuable. It's expensive stuff, especially
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: if you're talking about creating the infrastructure of an entire country.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: So Tesla comes up with these patents and uh, pretty
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: much right then, and there changes everything again except for
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: the self promotion part, right right, he did, But he
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: did his best work when he was able to hook
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: up with people that were very good businessman. Who did
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: you back him? Who did he hook up with? That
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: really changed everything? So Josh, you're talking about George Westinghouse yes,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: And I know you've heard of the Westinghouse company, which
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: is probably means he did a pretty good job if
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: you still know that name. Uh. He had an electric company,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: George did, and it was struggling to work out some
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: details of a successful A C system, And then he
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: heard about this famous lecture that Tesla gave in so
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: he said, you know, we should get this guy. And
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Tesla had a couple of financial backers named Peck and Brown,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: so they approached Westinghouse about commercializing Tesla's work. And at
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: the time he said, all right, sounds like a great idea.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you guys rand and cash and another
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: fifty thousand in notes, and some royalties for the electricity
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: that we create, right well, two and fifty cents for
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: every horsepower that was sold through his invention by Westinghouse. Well,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: I have a little modern conversion for you. Let's hear
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: that seventy five dollars back then would be one point
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: eight million dollars today. Holy count. And that's not even
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: counting the royalties. So this is a lot of dough,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: it is. So thankfully, with Peck and Brown's help hooked
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: him up with Westinghouse. Now Tesla has a viable situation
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: going on here, and you can actually compete with Edison,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: his nemesis. He worked for Edison. He did that was awesome.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: He he went and worked for Edison. And there's a
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: there's legend that he went to Edison and said, look,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: I've got this alternating current ideas together and Edison did
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: not want to hear it. Yeah, he was very, like
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: you said, very stubborn. He was like, no DC, buddy,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: go make the DC better, which he you know, he
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: worked on that, right. So actually, yeah, the the apparently
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Tesla eventually got um so tired of Edison and his
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: um mule headedness. Uh that he just said, you know what,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: I'm going off on my own. And I think that's
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: when he started digging ditches, right, That's when he struggled
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: before he eventually hooked up with Peck and Brown to
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: give him some backing. Right, So that brings us back
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: up to the current time. Well not current is in now,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: but current back then and uh, they he battled. You know,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Tesla sounds kind of a little stubborn guy too. Exeused
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: to battle with the Westinghouse guys on the best way
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: to do this and eventually they settled on what we
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: said before, which is a three phase sixty cycle current
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: that we still used today. And you talked about that
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: lecture that attracted um, some adherence to TESLA, including Westinghouse, right, Yeah, uh,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: well it's he started to get more and more publicity
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: just because he had such a good idea despite his
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: terrible self promotion, right and showmanship was lot of that involved.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: He his idea was so good and it was just
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: so clearly superior to d C in the minds of
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: some people that um, he couldn't help but get publicity.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: So as this started to develop, Uh, Edison engaged in
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: an all out public war. Well, he got a little nervous,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: which is why he engaged in the war. In when
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: this thing was kind of picking up steam and they
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: were getting the sixty cycle thing worked out, That's when
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Edison was like, So, what Edison decided to do was
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: to proved everybody the alternating current is just dangerous. Yeah,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: that was his main focus, and he did sope by
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: performing publicly executions on dogs, horses, and eventually he crescendoed
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: by electrocuting to death an elephant named Topsy in public.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: He did that's pretty funny. There's nothing funnier than publicly
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: electrocuting an elephant. Right, but um it gets it turns
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: a little grim. All right? Have you heard of William Kemmler? Well,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: I thought it was already Graham. But did you you
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: got it tough enough, Nancy um Way. William Kemler was
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: a convicted acts murderer. I looked him up, actually as
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: a convicted hatchet murderer, um who killed his girlfriend and
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: then very calmly went next door and said, I just
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: killed my girlfriend. But a boom about it being not
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: much of a trial. Later he was sentenced to death.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: The thing about Kemmler was he was a going to
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: be the first person in New York and, as far
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: as I can tell, the first person in the United
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: States who would be electrocuted to death rather than hung.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: This is news to me. They I did some extra research.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: I heard electrocution. I'm like, oh, I gotta look more
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: into this. Um. So Kemmler is going to be the
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: first person in the electric chair, and he has on
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: August six, ninety has this date with destiny and um
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Tesla's invention. Apparently they hadn't decided which way to go.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Should it be decent, he should be a C. And
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: this guy who also used to publicly electrocute animals on
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: behalf of Edison, managed to finagle a used old Westinghouse
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: a C generator uh to be used to get rid
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: of Kembler. And the execution was very public and it
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: was very horrible. Apparently there were twenty five witnesses. Most
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: of them vomited. At least one fainted. I think one
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: of the physicians that were attending that was attending to
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: the guy ran out of the room couldn't watch. They
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: put two thousand volts of juice to the guy for
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: I think like ten twelve seconds. He just turned totally rigid,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: apparently punctured his finger with his fingernails. It was bad, right,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: And then they stopped and the doctors went over and
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: looked at him, and he started breathing again, and they
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: shouted to throw the juice back on, and they had
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: to kill this guy because he was obviously in excruciating pain.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: So he did it again, and they left it on
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: for a minute, and apparently the generator didn't stop generating
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: more and more voltage, so they have no idea how
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: much they passed through this guy apparently sweat came out
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: of his pores or um, blood came out of his
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: pores like sweat. Uh. He started to burn and then finally,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: after a minute they turned it off. The long shot
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: of this is that it came out that this was
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: an a c generator I'll be an old beat up
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: one that shouldn't have been used in the first place.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: And William Kemmler was a an actual casualty, very brutal
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: casualty in the war between Edison and um Tesla. Well,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: he should have thought about that before he took the
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: hatchet to the co frience. You know, I'll bet he
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: would have thought twice had he known what his fate
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: was going to be. This would have had the opposite
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: effect on me. Edison was saying, look how dangerous this is.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: If I would have seen that, I always said, Wow,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: that's the electricity that I want supplying power to my house,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: the kind that makes blood come out of your ports. Yeah,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: because I mean, if you can do that, I can
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: probably you know, light up your room. Right. Well, it's
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: certainly lit up William Kemmler. So during the public war,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: a very public war. Now Edison is uh is sweating
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: it and then in uh Westinghouse won the bid to
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: light up the Chicago World's Fair, which was the Colombian Exposition,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: a big, big deal and a big blow to Edison.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: He did, and you know how we how we won
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: the bid. He under key undercut g E had put
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: in a bid for a million dollars, which if seventy
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: five thousand was one point eight million, imagine how much
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: a million dollars was back then. That was ge s
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: bid And by this time ge he G had assumed
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: um Edison's company, Edison General Electric I think is what
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: it was called, so he was with G. Now they
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: put in a million dollar bid. Most of it was
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: to cover the copper wire because remember to get copper
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: to get electricity over long distances using d C, the
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: copper wire has to be big. You have to keep
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: the amps up to keep the voltage up, so you
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: lose less up the far end. Right. So just by
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: using less copper that alone, Um Wessing else was able
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: to put in a bit of half a million, undercut
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: him by half. So they got the rights of the
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Colombian Exposition, which was big. This was the turning point
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: right here, Yeah, I mean the rest literally, as they say,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: is history because that uh, you know, Grover Cleveland flipped
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: the switch and a hundred thousand lightbulbs lit up, and
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: everyone said, boy, a C might be the way to
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: go here. That was it. Yeah, it was cheaper, it worked,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: and also apparently all over the fair were Tesla's inventions
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: on display. So I think twenty seven million people visited
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: the Chicago World's Fair that year, and every single one
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: of them got to witness alternating current, which ultimately won.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: And even without the World's Fair, I mean that really
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: punctuated it. But just because it was efficient and economical,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, do you know how much you pay for
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: a kilowatt hour of electricity? Now? Not much, No, it's
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: like ten cents tops uh and there's no telling how
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: much it would be with DC uh plus. Also I
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: was thinking about this, it's you could make the argument
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: that uh, Tesla has saved tons of lives from electrical
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: accidents that never took place, because if you have DC,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: you're not using transformers, you're not stepping it up or down. Yeah,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: that's a lot of heat and you can't just send
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: five thousand volts into your electrical outlet, you know how
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: many people die. If we've just gone with d C,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: it would have never happened. Maybe maybe not, would have
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: never happened. So a few years after that, Westinghouse built
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: a hydro electric plant at Niagara Falls, and all of
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: a sudden, buffalo had power. And then that when in
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: New York, New York City were just showing off by
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: this time, Yeah, and then dude, it was all over.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: But don't don't feel too bad for Edison, because we
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: still use d C. We use both. We use DC
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: in car batteries and uh, locomotives, some types of motors
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: use d C, so it's not I would call those
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: consolation prizes. Yeah, sort of the booby prize. And you
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: put a C in DC together and you have one
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: of the best rock bands in history. So, Chuck Um,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: you want to talk a little more about Tesla. Did
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: you know that he also had a vision He never
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: managed to do it, but he had a vision of
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: um wireless. Yeah, the wireless that we enjoyed now he
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: was thinking about in like eighteen ninety. Yeah, Josh, he
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: he met with JP Morgan, who was, as you know,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: one of the most powerful men on earth at the time,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: and uh, he said basically envision a world system of
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: wireless communications to relate telephone messages across the ocean. Not
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: just telephone, I think music as well, broadcast news, music
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: and stock market reports and private messages, exactly what we're
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: doing now. Tesla, Yeah, he was where it's at. Sure,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: he he basically just didn't have enough money. I think
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: he he probably could have done it had he had
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: enough money. He was working on a tower, and uh,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: it was very clear that he needed a lot more
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: than the hundred and fifty thousand. Morgan kicked him, and
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Morgan kind of lost interest. And it was Marconi actually
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: who put the nail in that wireless coffin, because he
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: came up with the telegraph. It's like telegraph and the radio,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: which we already said. Tesla kind of did a lot
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: of work on the radio too. Yeah, Apparently Tesla pointed
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: out that um marc Coni used no less than fifteen
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: um Tesla patents to create that wireless transmission of the
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: s that made him so famous. Right. My impression of
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Tesla is, uh that he was just this uber genius
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: who was so much into his own genius work that
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: he didn't understand that it required self promotion and business
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: savvy and showmanship. And he didn't care about that stuff.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: So that's why he died alone in New York, said stuff, Chuck.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: It is not quite as sad as the fate of
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Topsy the Elephant or William Kemmler, but still very sad.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: So yeah, that was our awkward walk through the life
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: of Nikola Tesla. Did we ever say, um, well, yeah
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: he went out. Well I guess we implied it. But
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: yet today, even still the power stations that generate power
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: do them on the sixty cycle process. But everyone, if
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: you ask your comment person on the street who invented electricity,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: they would say, oh, Edison. And did you also know
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: that the light bulbs, the incandescent light bulbs that he created,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: were inefficient? I know, I know what a heck? Al right,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: so that's a Tesla and Edison can rock? We have
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: speaking of rock, the band Tesla rock. If we really
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: didn't want to go there, remember them? Yeah they didn't rose? Okay,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: so Chuck, we just did that. Do you think it's
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: time for a listener mail? Please? God, yea, please, indeed,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: thank you, So Josh, I'm just gonna call this dreamy
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: listener mail and it's another dream. And uh, just let
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: me tell folks, I'm not getting into this. Please don't
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: start sending me all your dreams, and certainly don't send
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: him in haikou form. But this is this is a
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: good one. This is sent to us from Ruth from England.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: And Ruth was backpacking around the United States in two
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: thousand eight. Oh I know where Ruth changed close and
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: she said, can grats on your country, by the way,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: which was kind of funny. We're very proud of it.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: We're going to take your country as well. And she
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: actually came through Atlanta with her friends and she this
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: is kind of funny. She mistakenly thought they were going
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: to Atlantic City. And so if you happen to see
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: three very confused English girls in mid September carrying backpacks
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: looking for casinos, that was us. They ended up at
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: the video poker machines in the Big h G. Right,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: we should introduce Ruth to the Internet, where she could
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: have found out that she was about a thousand miles
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: off course. So Ruth writes in and says, uh, she
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: had this dream when she was in her mid twenties,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: and here it is. Um I was a woman in
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: my mid twenties with a very maternal and passive attitude
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: on the holiday on some kind of island resort as
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: a dream war on the atmosphere, and this resort began
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: to change. The reps became increasingly belligerent and some of
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: the holiday goers became edgy. Then followed a very detailed
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: and structured experience of the island becoming a prison state.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Apparent to my mind is a microcosm of an apoca
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: liptic world. She became involved in a secret resistance movement
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: led by a group of African Americans and they were
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: There were many interpersonal stories which I won't bore you
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: with now, so she wrote it down in her travel diary.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: This is where it gets interested. She wrote it down
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: in her diary and she told about you know, told
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: this to a lot of different people because it's such
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: a cool dream over the years, and when she returned
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: to England, I guess over her travels. She returned to England,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: she picked up a newspaper, flipped to the art section
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: and there was a Books of the Past column space
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: devoted to rediscovering books that have gone out of publication,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: and there was an exact synopsis of her dream, So
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: she jumped about a book she'd read before. Now she
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: had never read it. She uh, this was the book
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: was written by an Australian woman eighty years ago, was
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: out of publication for decades. It was not even popular
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: at a time, and she had never read it. So
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: she dreamt about an eighty year old, unpopular novel she
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: had never read. Pretty cool. It was pretty cool. So
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: that is from Ruth. She says. You don't have to
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: read this out, but it's a little late for that, Ruth.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: We did anyway. And what you're talking about with her
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: changing clothes, she says that when she went to the
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Atlanta aquarium, she said, please say thank you to the
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: troop of schoolgirls who had to see us wash, brush
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: our teeth and change our clothes in the bathroom and
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: the aquariums. So Ruth thinks that Atlanta's Atlantic City, Chuck
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: and I founded America, and that we know the girl
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: scouts that saw her change in the bathroom, right, And
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: I like yeah, And that guess she's possessed by the
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: some eighty year old off demon of an eighty year
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: old listroain rights. Ruth, hats off to you if you're
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: ever in town again. Look us up, we'll go out
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: and get a plank together. You're buying Ruth If you
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: want to buy Chucking Me a pint. Yeah, you can
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: send us an email to stuff Podcast at how stuff
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: works dot com. For more on this and thousands of
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: other topics, is it how stuff works dot com. Want
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: more house stuff works, check out our blogs on the
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: house stuff works dot com home page. H brought to
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: are you