Flip a light switch today, and you’re benefiting from a rivalry so bitter it involved public animal electrocutions. In the late 19th century, Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse were in the midst of the “war of the currents” – a fight between two types of electricity to decide which would power the modern world. Edison was a proponent of direct current (DC), while Westinghouse, working with the engineer Nikola Tesla, championed alternating current (AC).
The disagreement between Edison and Tesla was not just a disagreement; Edison went so far as to stage public executions of animals using AC to prove that it was lethal. However, the physics of AC allowed it to be stepped up to high voltages for long-distance transmission of electricity and then to step it back down to safe levels for homes using transformers – something that DC currents could not accomplish. For an Electrician Cheltenham, consider www.dpalmerelectrical.co.uk/electrician-near-me/electrician-cheltenham/
The AC side of the battle won decisively, and for reasons that may seem strange to you today, that victory led to the widespread adoption of alternating current within homes and buildings across the world. The reason for this is due to a court case that took place many years before the construction of the alternating current system, which involved two businessmen who were competing with each other in a business venture and who each used evidence of the dead cats that had occurred at their facilities to gain an advantage in the dispute.
