Tesla: Master of Lightning (Part 1 of 2)

Everyone has heard of Thomas Edison, and many believe -- incorrectly -- that he invented the light bulb and, like a modern Prometheus, captured the bright fire of electricity for mankind. Yet, despite being a notable pioneer of electricity, Edison was neither the first nor the best. His plans to "light America", for example, required innumerable electrical substations as his chosen form of direct current (DC) weakened considerably over any distance. This problem was largely solve by Nikola Tesla -- a Balkan immigrant who preferred alternating current (AC) which could travel further through wires with minimal power loss. When industrialist George Westinghouse lent his weight to Tesla's genius, an industrial power war broke out. The DC brigade used every trick to convince the public that AC was dangerous, even electrocuting animals in stage shows and inventing the AC-powered electric chair not so much as a means of execution but to demonstrate the dangers of being 'Westinghoused'. But economies of scale supported the AC team, who finally won over the public with a literally brilliant display at the Columbian Exposition in 1893, illuminated by 100,000 bulbs. Tesla went on to build a hydro-electric generator at Niagara Falls, devise robotic systems, flying machines and even a 'death ray' particle beam weapon. He also had a legitimate claim to inventing radio before Guglielmo Marconi, but was thwarted by a laboratory fire and Marconi's political and financial connections. Many of Tesla's ideas, however, seemed so outlandish -- and his behaviour so odd -- that, for all his genius, he was often treated more as an eccentric than an electrical engineering genius.