Electrical Wizard - a review
Rusch, Elizabeth. 2013. Electrical Wizard: How Nikola Tesla Lit Up the World . Somerville, MA: Candlewick. Ill. by Oliver Dominguez. While Thomas Edison was busy lighting up big American cities with his new invention, Nikola Tesla was pondering the current that made it possible. While watching a college professor demonstrate a new electrical machine, Inspiration flashed. Nikola realized that the motor didn't need to be run by direct current. Alternating current, like the kind created by the hand crank, could power the motor. Sticking with alternating current would be simpler than converting to direct current -- and it would eliminate that awful sparking. His professor scoffed, and when Nikola Tesla traveled to the United States to meet his hero, Thomas Edison scoffed, too. Although he gave Tesla a job, Edison saw Tesla's alternating current (AC) idea as a direct competitor to the power grid he had already set up using direct current (DC). The two men had a ...