Tesla: Signals. Rivals. Ruin.Episode 31:41
The Fair That Turned Night Into Day
At the Chicago World's Fair, Tesla's electrical vision escapes the laboratory in a blaze of artificial daylight.
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Transcript
Chicago's night vanished beneath an impossible electrical sunrise.
In 1893, alternating-current generators were demonstrated at the Chicago World's Fair.
Nikola Tesla, a Serbian-American engineer and physicist, worked on an alternating-current system.
In 1888, he produced the first usable alternating-current motor.
Tesla created what the Library of Congress guide calls “artificial daylight.”
Row after row of belted machines fed copper conductors.
The darkness receded beneath a shimmering canopy.
Insulated cables ran from the hall toward the glowing grounds.
For one evening, darkness stopped feeling permanent.
A Library of Congress guide calls Tesla's work artificial daylight.
Electricity no longer looked trapped inside a laboratory.
Napoleon Sarony photographed Tesla, fixing his image on a glass negative.
Contemporaries linked his ideas to progress in power engineering and radio.
His path there included forming Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing in 1886.
Yet the fair remained a demonstration, however endless its lights appeared.
In 1915, Tesla said he had described patent circuits immune to static and other interference.
He said his wireless world system would let a hundred people talk in secrecy.
The fair's glow recedes; darkness gathers around unseen water.
Where it leaves off
To prove the fair was no illusion, Tesla's alternating current would have to capture Niagara Falls.
Sources
- Introduction - Nikola Tesla: Topics in Chronicling America - Research Guides at Library of Congressguides.loc.govsecondary
- Utility Patent Drawings – The Unwritten Recordunwritten-record.blogs.archives.govsecondary
- Nicola Teslaloc.govsecondary
- Sample text for Library of Congress control number 2001037808catdir.loc.govsecondary
- Nikola Tesla Sees a Wireless Vision - New York Times, Sunday - October 3, 1915 - Open Tesla Researchteslaresearch.jimdofree.comprimary
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