Alternating Current AC
ALTERNATIVE NAME/S: AC
The earliest and simplest system is direct current, sending electrons along a wire. Alternating current quickly reverses the flow to negate an effect in the wire that decreases efficiency.
In 1881, Nicola Tesla* began work in Budapest on the utilization of alternating current. A few years later he joined Westinghouse* in the USA and they went on to develop its commercial uses. Together, they refined the high-technology application of alternating current.
Electricity is generated when a copper wire moves through a magnetic field, which forces electrons in the wire to move along it. This flow of electrons is known as the current.
When a wire coil is rotated in a magnetic field, the direction of the current alternates with each half-turn, as the coil cuts through the magnetic field first one way then the other, so the electricity produced (electrons) flow first one way then the other in the wire. The great value of alternating current is that the voltage (the intensity of the current) can be increased and decreased.
Since electricity travels more efficiently at high voltage over long distances, this gives AC a huge advantage over direct current*. It can be hugely increased at source (the generator) and then decreased to a safe level for the end user, at home or in businesses.
ONE LINER: Alternating current
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: Westinghouse G, Tesla, Edison, JP Morgan, 1893 World's Fair
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Encyclopedia Britannica
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/edison/sfeature/acdc_insideacgenerator.html
See Direct Current
Nikola Teslais working for his idol, and America's, the Wizard of Menlo Park Thomas Edison. Edison tends to use the brute force method, for example trying thousands of different filaments for light bulbs until he hit on tungsten. Tesla, on the other hand, uses a much more elegant approach: he can, for example, design a machine in his mind, let it run for a while, then take it apart, inspect it for wear, and design a better version. Tesla improved Edison's direct current generator, for which Edison had offered a fifty thousand dollar bonus; when he tried to collect, Edison told him he did not understand American humor (which included suggesting Tesla's mother was a cannibal).
Tesla quit and went to work for the rival George Westinghouse. Together, they won the competition to light the Chicago The Columbian Exhibition of 1893, the first World’s Fair to be entirely powered by electricity. Edison would not them use his bulb's, so Tesla invented a new one. Though Edison opposed capital punishment, he sponsored a number of exhibition that electrocuted animals with an AC system, including Topsy the elephant at Coney Island, and also helped create the first electric chair in New York. The AC system is standard today, as it is so much more efficient, especially over distance. Lord Kelvin was on the board that did the initial evaluation of the Niagara Falls plant (backed by J. P. Morgan, Lord Rothschild, andJohn Jacob Astor IV.), where the idea of compressed air as transmission was briefly considered.
In the Matter of Nikola Tesla: A Romance of the Mind
By Anthony Flacc
Nikola Tesla: Physicist, Inventor, Electrical Engineer
By Michael Burgan