At Edison. The immigrant did not understand the "joke". Years of need. Firm "Nikola Tesla and Co.". Engine is created. Patents and lecture.

Without money, half-starved, Nikola Tesla came ashore in New York. The decision to go immediately to Edison, he accepted with some hesitation - neither the suit nor his condition could create a favorable impression. In thought, Tesla walked along unfamiliar streets in the direction indicated by the policeman. Looking at the windows of shops and workshops, Nikola accidentally saw through one of them, as an old man struggled out of his power tried in vain to establish the work of a small generator that served for lighting. Tesla decisively entered the room and offered his services.

The distrustful attitude of the owner of the workshop soon gave way to surprise. When the generator started working and Tesla, pleased with his success, wanted to retire, the owner made him accept not only words of gratitude, but also a small amount of money. It is unlikely that Tesla was ever more pleased with unexpected earnings than this time. Received them a few dollars allowed to decently dine, rent a hotel room.

The next morning Tesla went to the office of the New York branch of the Edison Electric Lighting Society. Here, in an old house on Fifth Avenue, there were a laboratory, workshops and a private office of Thomas Alva Edison. It was not difficult to find this house - from morning till late at night some curious people gathered around him, attracted by the advertisement of the Society of Electric Lighting, which was rare for those times.

"Can I see Mr. Edison?" Tesla asked the secretary.

"Mr. Edison does not have the ability to accept anyone who wants to see him," the answer came. - But I have specially arrived for this from Europe.

Edison's secretary looked up at the tall, lean man and said without surprise: "Mr. Edison is coming from other parts of the world, but this does not increase the number of hours in a day."

"Then I will ask you to convey to Mr. Edison the letter I brought him from Charles Bechlor." - ABOUT! This is another matter. I'll report to you right away, Mr., Mr. ... Tesla. Nikola Tesla. A few minutes later Nikola Tesla entered the office of someone whom in all corners of the US was called "a magician from Menlo Park."

The illustrious inventor read Bechlor's letter and listened attentively to Nikolas Tesla, but remained completely indifferent to his ideas of applying multi-phase alternating currents. He and before from the messages of the Continental Company knew something about his visitor and valued in the young engineer only his really exceptional performance.

Edison introduced Tesla to Itok, the chairman of the New York branch of society, and recommended him as an experienced electrical engineer. Tesla was immediately taken to the workshops of the company for a modest position as an engineer for the repair of electric motors and DC generators. Soon the New York branch of the company received an order to repair the generator on the Oregon, which was to sail to Europe - by the evening of the next day. It seemed impossible in such a short time to find and fix a malfunction in the generator. Cancellation of the same flight would require payment of a large penalty, as all tickets to the ship were sold out.

The case was assigned to Tesla. His work experience in Europe and his profound knowledge helped him quickly establish a generator fault - a short circuit of winding turns - and eliminate it by rewinding the burnt coil. For this, Tesla had to work over twenty hours, without descending from the ship. Edison and Itok were very pleased with Tesla, but Edison expressed his satisfaction to only a few close friends.

After this incident, Tesla's authority as an engineer greatly increased, although Edison treated him rather coldly. With enthusiasm working in the workshops for eighteen or twenty hours a day, Tesla still found time to develop questions about the use of multiphase AC currents. Edison more and more openly expressed his disapproval of the direction of Tesla's personal research. Soon, between Edison, who sought primarily to develop inventions that promised quick implementation and significant revenues, and "philosophizing," as Edison called it, Nikolay Tesla, there were serious disagreements. Their mutual coldness also aggravated the completely different approach of both inventors to solve engineering problems. Edison denied the need for theoretical premises for experimental research. He found the solution of the problem posed by producing a vast number of various experiments, which required considerable, often completely unjustified, labor.

Once, in a friendly conversation with Itok Tesla, he described the method of Edison's work: "If he needed to find a needle in a haystack, he would not waste time deciding on the most probable location, but immediately, with a feverish diligence, the bee would begin To examine a straw behind a straw, until I found the object of my search. His methods are extremely inefficient: he can spend a tremendous amount of energy and time and not achieve anything unless he is lucky with luck. At first, I watched with sadness his activities, realizing that little theoretical knowledge and calculations would save him thirty percent of his labor. But he had a genuine contempt for book education and mathematical knowledge, trusting himself entirely with his instinctive inventor and the common sense of the American.

Learning about this evaluation of his activity, Edison answered Tesla with words whose meaning almost completely coincided with what was later pronounced by him on the day of his 40th birthday in 1887: - I do not investigate the laws of nature and did not make major discoveries. I did not study them the way Newton, Kepler, Faraday and Henry studied them in order to learn the truth. I'm only a professional inventor. All my research and experiments were made solely for the purpose of finding something of practical value.

In contrast to Edison Tesla, any idea that emerged from him deeply and comprehensively pondered, based theoretically all the provisions and proceeded to an experimental verification of only that which he carefully selected among the various options. Tesla combined in himself and an outstanding and brilliant experimenter, and the first predominated in him.

This difference in the methods of work of two outstanding engineers reflects a profound contrast between their way of thinking, their theoretical training, their inner convictions. The inventor-experimenter and the inventor-scientist went in their creative activity in various ways. Until recently, these differences did not interfere with the joint work of both engineers. However, they soon became the source of numerous disputes and greatly aggravated the relationship between N. Tesla and Edison.

Despite this, Tesla's fascination with work was extraordinary. He came to the workshops at ten thirty in the morning and worked until five in the morning of the next day. Not having acquired either permanent housing or a family, Tesla often stayed to rest for several hours here in the workshop. As far as Edison appreciated this quality, one can see at least from the characteristic that he gave to one of his assistants. Perhaps it was said about Tesla, perhaps, about someone else, but these words can be fully attributed to him: "When he felt the need for rest," wrote Edison, "he lay down on a bench," here in the And after 20 minutes of sleep he got up fresh and cheerful, in this respect he was extremely similar to me, and I was very proud of the fact that I finally managed to find such a person. "

But the views of both inventors, who possessed amazing performance, on the goal of intensive human activity were directly opposite. Edison considered ideal and exemplary for the whole society of the order of his laboratory, in which employees worked for 20 hours a day, resting no more than four. Tesla, objecting to this, said that he gives all his energy to the creation of a technique that would make a four-hour working day sufficient, enabling all people twenty hours a day to use for rest and study.

One day, Edison suggested that Nicola Tesla develop constructive improvements in electric DC machines, invented by Edison himself. In case of successful solution of the task, he promised a premium of 50 thousand dollars. Tesla set to work and soon constructed twenty-four different versions of the Edison machine, creating a new switch and regulator for it, significantly improving the performance of these most common electric generators and electric motors in the US at that time.

The work brought Tesla great satisfaction - his improvements completely solved the problems posed, but not solved by Edison himself. In addition, the deserved award was supposed to provide an opportunity to organize experiments on further improvement of the machine developed by Tesla and the system of multiphase AC currents.

Edison fully approved all of Tesla's proposals, but about the promised $ 50,000 said that, apparently, an immigrant who recently lived in the United States still does not understand American humor well, and that the promise of this award was nothing more than a joke.

Hardly knew Edison, what a deep trauma he inflicted on an impressionable and trusting inventor. Tesla remembered this evil joke for the rest of his life, so rudely destroying all his dreams of further work. Hence, in a world where everything is sold and bought, there is no word of honor. And Tesla was particularly hurt because this lesson of capitalist morals was taught to him by a man of science, talented and famous. Despite the complete financial insecurity, the proud and scrupulous immigrant immediately refused to continue working with Edison. This happened in the spring of 1885, just one year after his arrival in the United States. During this short period, Tesla gained fame in the business circles of the United States, who appreciated deep and diverse knowledge in the field of electrical engineering and efficiency.

After learning about the gap between Tesla and Edison, a group of electrical engineers dealt Tesla with organizing her own society of electric lighting. But, after listening to his AC projects, they abandoned their original proposal and limited their advice to create a project of an arc lamp suitable for lighting streets and squares.

A year later, Tesla developed the design of such a lamp ⁴ . However, instead of paying the dealers with whom Tesla dealt, they gave him a share of the shares of the established company to operate his invention and tried to get rid of him. Tesla's protests were followed by an unbridled campaign of slander, and he himself was tried to discredit as an engineer and inventor. In deep despair, Tesla came to believe that the New World (as America was then called) was no better than the Old World.

From the autumn of 1886 until the spring of 1887, he tried a variety of professions: he worked as a day laborer, as a loader, and dug out ditches. A year lived in extraordinary deprivation, when he, by his own admission, "slept, wherever he had to eat, what he would find," had an effect on him depressingly. "I lived this year with tears and heartache," Nikola Tesla later wrote. Almost dying from hunger, hounded by material need, well appreciated all the delights of the "land of golden promises," he had already finally decided to go back to Europe.

In April 1887, Tesla met with engineer Brown, close to some of the leaders of the Western Telegraph Company, but at this time forced, like Nikola, to live by accidental earnings. After several months of working together, Brown, keen on the inventor's bold thoughts, persuaded his acquaintances to lend Tesla some financial help to create a society of electric lighting. Brown himself made all his available capital - fifty dollars - into a business that, in his firm conviction, was soon to bring millions of profits. But Tesla did not think about profits. Encouraged to continue working on improving his invention, he agreed with Brown's friends who advised him to create his own company, Tesla Arc Light, just to have workshops where he could experiment with his AC machines.

This time Tesla was lucky. The company he created soon began to carry out large-scale lighting of streets and squares of US cities with Tesla arc lamps. Its activity has acquired a huge scope. There were hopes for such incomes, which Tesla had not previously dared to dream about. For some whim, he hired a room under his company's office at No. 35 on Fifth Avenue, near the house of the Edison Electric Lighting Society. Between the two inventors began a fierce competitive struggle, reflecting the rivalry between permanent and alternating current. On Edison's side was a powerful ally - the banking house of Morgan. And although the financial strength of a company was always stronger than all other arguments, stronger than scientific facts, the "Tesla Electric Company", which had no influential backers, nevertheless gradually expanded its activities. Soon Tesla organized the company "Tesla Electric Company", much more powerful, having the necessary means to ensure the setting of experiments in the field of alternating currents.

Having received an opportunity to continue inventive activity, Tesla again caught fire. Despite the fact that five years have passed since the opening of the park in Budapest, he remembered, to the smallest detail, all the well-designed alternating-current electric motors. In the workshops of "Tesla Electric Company" he created models of generators, electric motors, transformers and all the equipment necessary for the operation of two-phase alternating current devices. The two-phase electric motors built by him possessed properties close to those of the best direct-current electric motors, and promised even better results in the future. Of great importance for Tesla's further success in the field of designing AC electric motors was the recognition of the efficiency of a two-phase current by Professor Anthony of Cornell University. Anthony stated that on the basis of the test of the model transmitted by Tesla to Cornell University in 1886, one can state: the two-phase current electric motors have an efficiency factor of at least the DC motors, combining this property with considerable simplicity.

Anthony also proved that the theory on which these two-phase electric motors are based is not only applicable to a system with a frequency of 60 cycles per second (the frequency of the Tesla model) but also to the entire range from higher (133) to lower (25) Frequencies. Successful tests of the Tesla-built variable-phase AC motors led to the fact that on October 12, 1887, he filed a patent application with the United States Patent Commission. It described his scientific discoveries and inventions relating to the new system of electric power transmission with the help of alternating current. However, attorney Nikola Tesla, representative of the office "Duncan, Courtee and Pezh", advised to abandon such a generalized patent and divide it into a number of separate. Tesla agreed, but he divided the application into only two parts. On both applications, on May 1, 1888, Nicolet Tesle was given the then-famous patents for numbers 381968 and 382280. On the same day, Tesla sent patent applications for his invention to England and Germany and soon received patents in these countries.

The laws of the capitalist world are inexorable. Only having patented his inventions, Nikola Tesla was able to speak publicly with a detailed account of his discoveries. Now he willingly accepted the offer of the president of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers Thomas Camerford Martin to deliver a lecture at this institute - an honor that in those years was awarded to only a few. May 16, 1888 Tesla outlined his thoughts in the lecture "The new system of AC motors and transformers." This lecture was then published in electrotechnical journals of different countries and brought Tesla world fame. Estimating its importance for the development of electrical engineering, the prominent American designer of electrical machines BA Berend, who was one of Tesla's listeners in 1888, later said: "Since the advent of Faraday's experimental research in electrical engineering, no experimental truth has ever been presented so simply And is understandable as Tesla's description of his way of obtaining and using multiphase AC currents.His name makes an era in the development of the science of electricity.As a result of his research, a revolution in electrical engineering took place. "

So, the patents are received, all the puzzled questions are explained in the lecture, the invention of Nikola Tesla was recognized all over the world. Now we can also acquaint the reader with the opening of Tesla, tell us about the significance of the invention made by him, and find out whether such an enthusiastic assessment of his works is justified.