War of currents: Tesla vs Edison

In honor of the recent news that the not-for-profit Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe has signed a letter of intent to acquire Tesla’s lab and property on Long Island, NY, EDN celebrates one of Tesla’s few triumphs in a life and career that was filled with ridicule, rejection by his peers, and ultimately debt at the time of his death: his polyphase alternating current system electricity.

Read on for photos and commentary on the inventions behind the War of Currents, Tesla’s World's Fair success, and more.

From Frank Chadwick’s “Space 1889” blog: “Were we to seize and to eliminate the results of Mr. Tesla's work, the wheels of industry would cease to turn, our electric cars and trains would stop, our towns would be dark, our mills would be dead and idle.” -BA Behrend, quoted in Liberty, February, 1937.