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It is absolutely stupid to talk about this as edisons revenge. If Tesla had the modern high power transistors needed to get high voltage dc out of the ac produc
by hristov 6mo ago
It is absolutely stupid to talk about this as edisons revenge. If Tesla had the modern high power transistors needed to get high voltage dc out of the ac produced from a spinning turbine he would be all for high voltage dc too. Tesla understood that high voltage was needed for efficient long range transmission. He also understood that transformers were the inly remotely efficient way to climb up to and down from these high voltages. And transformers only work with ac. So he designed an ac system and even designed some better transformers for it.
If there was anything like a high power transistor back then he would have used that. High power transistors that are robust enough to handle the grid were designed inly recently over 100 years after the tesla/edison ac/dc argument.
- arijun 6mo agoAlso, if anything would have been Edison's revenge it would have been HVDC, where they're sending power long distances with DC. (But as you said, even there it wouldn't make a ton of sense, since they were arguing in a different era).
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- themafia 6mo agoThe two primary reasons to do that are to allow the intertie of two AC grids that are not otherwise synchronized, and to take advantage of "earth return" paths when necessary to double the capacity of the line. The latter you may need to consider just to make the line cost effective over an equivalent AC span.
- bluGill 6mo agoTesla also design the modern induction motor which needs ac. Though these days we often run them on a phase generator which has a dc step.
- jacquesm 6mo agoAgreed, for the IEEE to go down this route is more than a little weird.
- Georgelemental 6mo agoIt's just a fun title, you are overthinking it
- chrneu 6mo agothe internet really needs to stfu about tesla and get over that oatmeal comic that spawned a billion internet myths. dude was a decent inventor but suffered from chronic mental health issues and, in his lifetime, wasted so much time/energy/money and burned so many bridges with his horrible attitude. there's a reason most people didnt like him in his day, he was a depressed asshole who alienated everyone around him, and yes I know he was likely gay in a time when that wasn't cool. the fact still remains; his inventions are massively overblown by internet nerds. the podcaster Sebastian Major from "Our Fake History" did a looonnngg patreon episode on tesla and debunked most of the weird myths around tesla. Sebastian doesn't have a vendetta or anything, it's just amazing how much of the Tesla stuff is just nonsense or is viewed through a very weird bias nowadays. Major also briefly touches on the weird Edison stuff and how the internet has twisted Edison into a villain.
- anonymousiam 6mo agoTesla was an outstanding technologist, but a poor businessman. He had a "vision" (actually more than one) about how his ideas could transform the world. Some of his ideas were amazing, but he was swindled out of his patents because the investors knew he had a passion and wanted to see them in use. The polyphase AC motor or fluorescent light bulb could have made him millions. IMHO, the vision he had about universal free electricity (transmitted wirelessly) was the dumbest. It was a novel idea, and he invested a lot (his time and other people's money) in it. The problem with his idea is that there was no way to monetize it (and profit from it). (There were also the technical issues of the power loss over distance (1/R^2), the harm to the environment, and the interference with radio communications.) Edison was quite a villain. He stole many of his "inventions", and orchestrated a PR campaign against Tesla touting the "evils" of AC power. AFAIK, the electric chair was either invented or inspired by him. I know these things because I've read many books on various topics related to Tesla, and all of this knowledge predates the Internet.
- HWR_14 6mo agoEdison did not invent the electric chair. When the inventors were trying to choose between using AC or DC he helped them decide on AC as part of his PR campaign.
- teleforce 6mo ago>It is absolutely stupid to talk about this as edisons revenge. If Tesla had the modern high power transistors needed to get high voltage dc out of the ac produced from a spinning turbine he would be all for high voltage dc too. This! The soon people realized these facts the better. The pervasive high rise buildings did not happen before the invention of modern cranes. Exactly twenty years ago I was doing a novel research on GaN characterization, and my supervisors made a lot money with consulations around the world, and succesfully founded govt funded start-up company around the technology. Together with SiC, these are the two game changing power devices with wideband semiconductor technology that only maturing recently. Heck, even the Nobel price winning blue LED discovery was only made feasible by GaN. Watch the excellent video made by Veritasium for this back story [1]. [1] Why It Was Almost Impossible to Make the Blue LED: https://youtu.be/AF8d72mA41M https://youtu.be/AF8d72mA41M
- mcbishop 6mo agoI've heard the EV charging has played a big role in the maturation of GaN / SiC.
- jibal 6mo agohttps://shrunk.ai/research-journals/f/cranes-skyhooks-and-iterative-design https://shrunk.ai/research-journals/f/cranes-skyhooks-and-it...
- ta9000 6mo agoDoes that mean when we run out of Ga there are no more LED TVs?
- bryanrasmussen 6mo agosure, and also Montezuma didn't actually plan on diarrhea ruining people's vacations, but vernacular usage being what it is we have the phrase Montezuma's revenge. I only found Edison in the headline, I didn't find it anywhere in the body, nor did I find Tesla. Glancing through the article it almost seems like someone tried to make a catchy headline to get clicks.
- fsh 6mo agoIt was Westinghouse who pushed the AC grid against his rival Edison's DC approach. Tesla was a minor figure working for both of them for a bit.
- mr_toad 6mo ago> If there was anything like a high power transistor back then he would have used that. Mercury arc rectifiers were used long before his death.
- crote 6mo agoYes, but a rectifier only rectifies. That's not going to give you DC-DC conversion - let alone converting it to a higher voltage for long-distance transmission.
- wildzzz 6mo agoDC-DC before the transistor was difficult to do at scale. Vibrators and relays existed but were not reliable long term.
- amelius 6mo agoBut there was an equivalent: a mechanical switch. Or an electromechanical relay. Or a spinning wheel with electrical contacts.
- ghighi7878 6mo agoTitle is clickbait. Edison is not mentioned anywhere else in article. I am okay with it.
- superxpro12 6mo agoYeah this isnt an argument. It was far simpler to wrap some copper wire around a chunk of metal than it was to fire up a mosfet fabrication plant in the 1800's. You can have the best idea in the world, but if you cant manufacture it you're SOL.
- crimshawz 6mo agoAgree, clickbait.
- metalliqaz 6mo agoyes, this! thank you good post
- altairprime 6mo agoNote that one could email the mods to de-clickbait/enrage the title, especially with such a concrete point as this comment’s. (I haven’t done so as TIL is a poor basis for such an argument.)
- dang 6mo agoOk, we've deposed Edison from the title above.