WEBVTT - The Current Wars 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.920 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:08.920 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:17.800 tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone, 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:20.599 Welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Polette and 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:23.119 I am an editor at how stuff works dot com. 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:26.279 Sitting on the opposite side of this here table as 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:30.040 usual as senior writer Jonathan Strickland. For those about to rock, 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:34.640 we salute you. I know, I'm all amped up for 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:38.120 this conversation. Yeah. Today we're going to talk about A 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:42.840 C and d C electrical currents and what they mean, 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:46.520 and why do we have them? And who are you? 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:50.880 Oh now, the third one we're gonna skip now that 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:56.480 who are you? As a different band entirely h C 0:00:56.760 --> 0:01:00.280 SID so anyway, he C d C. So we're talking 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:03.160 about direct current that would be d C and alternating 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:07.040 current that's a C. That's the two main forms of 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:11.800 electricity that we're familiar with, and they have a pretty 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:15.520 long history that includes one of the most famous rivalries 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:18.000 in technology. And we've talked about it before and we're 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:22.800 gonna talk about it again. Yes, as uh as we speak, 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:26.880 I currently have a picture of Nicola Tesla staring at 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:28.600 the side of my head. He's on the wall here. 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:30.600 He wants to make sure you get this right. Yeah, 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:34.680 we also have Edison somewhere in this room. Actually he's 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:36.880 further back in the other part of the studio, but yes, 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:40.120 Edison is also here. So Edison and Tesla are the 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:44.600 two names of the the inventors who were kind of 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:49.320 the the the face behind these two technologies. Edison, of 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:55.200 course was a direct current guy, and Tesla was all 0:01:55.200 --> 0:02:00.480 about the alternating current. And they both are argued that 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:03.000 their approach was the best. And it kind of makes 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:05.000 sense that Edison did it because there was a lot 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:07.840 of money at stake. Well, and and to some degree 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:11.320 both of them were right and both of them were wrong, 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:13.640 and sort of depends on the application. All depends on 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:17.200 the application and the and the source of power that 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:22.240 you're using. So, uh, should we talk about the actual power? Well, 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:24.360 before we do that, I just wanted to make one other, 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:28.040 one other mention. So those were the men, right, you 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:30.120 had Edison and Tesla, those were the two men who 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:32.919 were really at the forefront of this fight. Well there 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:36.160 was one other, George Westinghouse. Yes, Well that's what I 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:38.960 was going to say, is that behind these men were 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:43.200 companies you had you had Westinghouse, who wasn't really a company, 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:45.959 but you know west We now know of Westinghouse as 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:48.360 a company. But we had Westinghouse on one side, in 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:52.280 General Electric on the other. Yeah, and Westinghouse was backing Tesla, 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:57.959 and General Electric of course was Edison's Companies is backing Edison. Um, 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:01.160 so should we should we start with the the actual 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:03.760 current and what it does and stuff like that, and 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:05.560 then we can talk about the people. Let's talk about 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:09.560 the current first because that's the easiest. So we know, 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:13.079 we've talked about circuits, and we talked about batteries. That's 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:17.440 an easy way to understand direct current. With direct current, 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:20.560 you've got you have a negative poll and you have 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:24.160 a positive poll on whatever or your power source is. 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:26.359 So let's say it's a battery. You've got your your 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:28.200 negative end and your positive end. The negative end that's 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:30.800 where all the electrons are. Electrons have a negative charge, 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:35.240 positive end. There is an absence of electrons. Now electrons, 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:40.240 you know, like charges repel each other and opposite charges 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:44.440 attract each other. Yes, so those electrons really want to 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:47.200 get to that positive end because they do not like 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:50.680 being all crammed up together. So when you put a 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:54.560 power source into a circuit, that circuit is really a pathway. 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:57.680 It's a pathway from the negative end to the positive end. 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:00.960 And the electrons say, yippie, we can go to the 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:03.120 positive end. And they just run as fast as they can, 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:05.280 except they don't really run because electrons don't have legs. 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:08.000 But they go as fast as they can through the pathway. 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:11.360 And let's say that you decide, you know what, while 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:14.160 these guys are running really fast, I'd like them to 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:15.760 do a little work. I want them to light a 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:17.599 light bulb. So I'm gonna put a light bulb right 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:19.200 here in the middle of the pathway that they have 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:21.679 to go through before they can get to the other side. 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:24.320 The electrons say, don't care, just want to get to 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:27.400 the positive end. We and they run through that pathway. 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:30.440 They run through the lightbulb, they light up the light bulb, 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:33.360 but they keep on going till they hit the positive end. Right. 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:38.160 That's direct current. It's all moving in one direction. You know. 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:42.520 They play that little song too before they and then 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:45.159 they have to pay royalties to that guy who's suing 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:48.919 the bugle. Yeah, you haven't heard about that. That's a 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:50.840 different discussion. We'll we'll leave it off for it for 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:55.159 this but anyway, so yeah, that's excuse me, that's direct current. 0:04:55.240 --> 0:05:01.280 It's it's a very simple way of delivering electricity. However, Uh, 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:04.800 simple does not always mean good because simple also means 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:08.279 that you are limited. And uh, and so now I 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:11.039 guess we should talk about what alternating current is and 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:13.880 then we can talk about why there was this rivalry 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:20.560 between direct and alternating current. Yeah. Well, so Edison believed 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:25.800 that direct current was the best application of electricity to 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:28.680 bring power to people's homes, and so all his stuff 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:32.440 use this technology. But Tesla saw a different way to 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:37.040 do this, and he decided that alternating current would work better. Now, 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:41.719 alternating current it's sort of weird because, uh to think 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:47.960 about because and when you learn about basic circuits um 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:50.640 in for example, shop class or something like that, where 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:54.080 you're creating a simple circuits that you've got your battery 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:57.040 and your light bulb at a switch and you hook 0:05:57.080 --> 0:06:00.279 everything up and you flip the switch and like is on. 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:02.720 They unflipped the switch or flip it back the other 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:05.359 way and the light goes off, Like okay, I got it. 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:07.360 You know, exactly what Jonathan just said. It went from 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:11.000 one end to the other. But alternating current goes change, 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:14.800 it changes direction within the wires every every so often 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:19.480 it goes let's just oversimplify, as we are apt or 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:21.680 are prone to do on this show. Uh, left to 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:24.680 right and then from right to left. So that's a 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:27.760 little bit more difficult to explain. Yeah, it's using it's 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:31.800 essentially using magnets. Really, it's using magnets too. If you 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:33.640 were to think of it in the sense of the battery, 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:38.360 it'd be swapping the the battery ends really really rapidly. 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:41.839 But it's what it's doing. This through magnets, not through batteries. 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:45.320 And uh. And by moving this back and forth, you 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:50.000 are changing the flow of electricity through those wires several 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:52.479 times a second. Um, I believe. Let's see, in the 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:54.600 United States, I believe that's sixty times a second, and 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:57.680 in Europe I think it's fifty. I believe that is correct, 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:01.000 which is why why you have to have various adapters 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:04.200 when you move between the United States and Europe. And 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:07.760 you know sort of thing happens in other nations as well. Yes, 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:10.840 I was correct, um, And we do have an article 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:13.600 on the website about how electricity works that goes into 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:16.520 alternating current and direct current. I do recommend you check 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:18.800 that out because it'll have a lot some helpful information. 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:21.440 We also have information on other elements will be talking 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:23.800 about shortly, like transformers, but we'll get into that in 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:28.200 a second. So, yeah, and the alternating current, the current 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:31.160 reverses sixty times per second in the US or fifty 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:34.920 times in a second in Europe. And that's what you 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:39.200 get out of the wall socket. And you might say, well, 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:42.960 why would you want to to have the alternating current 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:47.080 moving back and forth like that? Well, on its on 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:48.840 on the face of it, if you were just saying 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:51.640 direct current versus alternating current, and you're just looking at 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:55.080 the way that they are providing power to whatever load 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:58.800 you've put on the pathway, like in my example it 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:01.040 was that light bulb. If that's all you're looking at, 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:06.760 there's no real huge advantage of direct current over alternating 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:10.360 current or vice versa. They both are providing power to 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:13.680 the load you're talking about it It only comes when 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:15.559 it only gets down to when you are talking about 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:21.480 generating power and delivering that power to another location. That's 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:25.280 when you start looking at uh the advantages of alternating 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:28.000 current over direct current, and that's the the that was 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:32.280 the heart of the issue between Tesla and Edison. Edison 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:36.600 had a lot of money invested in direct current, and 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:39.960 he had a lot of patents uh that were directly 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:43.600 involved with direct current, and he was drawing royalties from 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:47.520 those patents. Because you had power stations that would be 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:51.080 using direct current, they'd have to pay a fee to Edison. 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:54.480 So it was within his financial interest to really promote 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:57.720 direct current. And Edison was a master promoter. That was 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:01.040 one of the things he was amazing at along with 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:04.079 you know, he was a brilliant inventor as well, but 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:07.640 he was also a great marketer. Tesla not as much, 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:09.640 but Tesla felt that he was in the right. We 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:13.120 get that argument a lot through the whole Tesla story. Yeah, Tesla. 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:19.520 Tesla though, like to do demonstrations with electricity that showed 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:22.800 him basically holding onto a source of electricity and there 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:25.719 were sparks and things, and it it freaked a lot 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:29.400 of people out. But Edison had had a particular demonstration. Well, 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:32.120 we will have to talk about that really freaks people 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:34.640 up to I'm hoping that we can keep that discussion 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:37.000 to a minimum because that still turns my stomach. But anyway, 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:43.559 so we should we should continue talking about the delivering power. 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:48.079 So um yeah, the for edison to use the direct 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:51.840 current doesn't doesn't really travel well, or didn't back in 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:55.840 the day. They have found ways to to provide to 0:09:56.040 --> 0:10:00.480 help it travel long distances better now, But at the time, 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:04.440 you had to have local power stations, very local power stations, 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:07.000 like within a mile or two of wherever it was 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:10.120 you were delivering power, and you could you had to 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:13.360 deliver the same amount of power that your load was 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:17.000 going to require. Um. In other words, you can't change 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:21.480 the voltage easily on a direct current system. And the 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:23.840 reason why that's important is let's say that you have 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:27.760 a h you have you have a device, or you 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:29.960 have you know, you have some sort of electronic load 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:34.920 that's going to require oh um a certain number of 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:38.280 volts will say a hundred volts, and that means that 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:41.560 for a direct current uh generator, you would have to 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:44.080 generate a hundred volts actually be around a hundred and 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:48.640 ten because you do lose some electricity. There's a leakage 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:53.200 issue with direct current that that that gets worse over distance. 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:57.559 So you would have to um, you would have to 0:10:57.559 --> 0:10:59.920 actually have a generator that created the same voltage as 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:01.960 what you were going to consume. And if you had 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:06.679 a lot of different demands on this electricity, like you 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:09.120 had a lot of different things that use different voltage, 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:12.360 then you would have to have a different generator for 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:17.240 each kind. And that's not very efficient either. And uh 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:20.480 and because this these two problems, the fact that you 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:24.640 could not send power over really long distances and you 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:28.240 couldn't change the voltage easily, there were some disadvantages to this, 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:31.600 and the biggest one is probably the distance thing, because 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:33.920 it meant that you had to build generators all over 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:38.120 the place if you wanted to distribute electricity over a region. 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:41.480 And this got problematic, particularly when you go out to 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:45.280 rural areas, because are you going to build a generator 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:48.880 for every couple of houses that are miles and miles 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:52.719 and miles Apart that that's not very cost effective for 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:55.040 the people who live there, why would they even adopt 0:11:55.080 --> 0:11:58.600 electricity if that? If it meant essentially that they had 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:02.600 to have their own generator right there, and and so 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:07.440 alternating current got around this, and I guess I guess 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:10.640 to really understand this you kind of have to talk about, uh, 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:16.240 current versus voltage. So because voltage is is really and 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:18.480 this is sort of weird to think about, it's a 0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:22.360 unit of electrical pressure rather than current, which is the 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:26.680 number of electrons. Really, so you you measure we talked 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:30.320 about current in terms of amps, and amps really refers 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:33.520 to the number of electrons that are moving through that 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:36.640 that circuit. Voltage, like you said, is more like pressure. 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.719 It's the amount of power you've put behind those electrons. 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:44.240 So if you had high voltage low low amps, then 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:48.040 you would have relatively few electrons moving with a lot 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:50.760 of power. If you had low voltage high amps, you 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:53.480 have a lot of electrons moving at low power um 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:58.960 And if high voltages travel further, it's because you know, 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:02.680 you've put a huge amount of energy into this this current, 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:06.720 and it's going to push the electrons further than it 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:09.240 would with less leakage than it would if you had 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:12.480 a low voltage. See now I'm thinking of a different 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:16.600 song by the same band you quoted initially. Voltage. So 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:18.439 in other words, in other words, let's say that you've 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:21.760 got imagine you have a pipe in front of you 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:23.959 and it's a you've got a bowling ball that will 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:27.880 fit inside this pipe. So that's a pretty big diameter, right, 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:30.559 doesn't matter. It doesn't matter the reason why I'm saying. 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:32.880 Let's say that let's say that you get a little 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:35.480 kid to give that bowling ball a push. Well, that 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:37.520 bowling ball is only gonna go so far. And then 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:41.760 let's say you get a guy in the World's Strongest 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:43.839 Man competition to get come along and give it a 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:45.560 push as hard as he can. That ball is gonna 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:51.040 go much further. Well with direct current because the generator 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:53.120 had to be the same voltage as whatever the this 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:58.120 that the actual receiving um appliance or or load was 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:01.240 going to be. You couldn't crease that voltage to make 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:04.920 the current go further because if you did, then your 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:07.960 loads wouldn't work anymore. They be overloaded because you know, 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:11.280 the voltage would be way too high. But alternating current, 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:15.880 because those electrons change direction, they create something else that 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:21.760 allows you to boost and then reduce the voltage along 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:24.960 power lines. So the power that comes out of a 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:27.800 power generator, uh, the electricity that comes out of a 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:31.280 generator plant doesn't necessarily have to be the same voltage 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:34.640 as what's actually traveling through the power lines on the 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:37.520 power grid. Now you need something to step up the voltage, 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:42.360 which is the transformer. And they are indeed more than 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:45.880 meets the eye, but they are not robots that change 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:50.120 into other forms. A transformer, UH is a way to 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:54.920 change from one voltage to another, and it's actually at 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:59.280 its heart, a transformer is incredibly simple and it all 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:04.120 has to do with the relationship between electricity and magnetism, 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:07.440 which we have talked about many, many times on this podcast, 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:10.000 but in general, if you've forgotten, if you if you 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:12.560 have if you're just tuting it. Yeah, if you have 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:17.320 current moving through a wire and you and that will 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:20.760 generate a magnetic field, particularly if you're alternating that current, 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:24.640 it creates a an alternating magnetic field. All right, So 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:28.720 the currents reversing back and forth through this line that's 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:33.280 creating this this uh magnetic field that itself is changing 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:35.920 over and over again. So let's say you've got a 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:39.800 coil of wire next to an alternating magnetic field, of 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:43.720 magnetic field that's influx, it's changing over and over again. Well, 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:46.680 if the magnetic field is changing and the coil of 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:49.680 wire is close enough, that's going to induce electrons to 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:56.040 flow through the wire. All right, So using this we 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:59.280 can make alternating current and create a and create a transformer. 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:02.960 You have one coil of wire, that's your primary coil. 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:07.320 You're running electricity through this coil and it's an alternating current, 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:10.200 so it's going back and forth, reversing direction through through 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:14.280 this coil. You put a secondary coil near the primary coil. 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:18.600 The magnetic field generated by the primary coil will induce 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:22.560 electricity in the secondary coil. And here's the really cool thing. 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:26.440 The number of coils in the primary coil versus the 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:30.520 number of coils in the secondary coil will determine how 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:35.080 the voltage changes. So it's very simple. Yeah, let's say 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:37.880 that you have one coil in your primary coil, so 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:40.120 you just do one turn and that's it, and you 0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:44.360 have ten coils in your secondary coil. The amount of 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:47.600 voltage in the secondary coil that's generated from that magnetic 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:51.360 magnetic flux will be ten times as strong as the 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:54.640 primary coil, so you have stepped up the voltage. So 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:58.040 what you do is at your power generation plant, you 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:01.400 have a primary coil that is a certain number of coils, 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:05.119 and your secondary coil has way more coils, and the 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:09.280 ratio there will determine how much the voltage changes. You 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:14.000 then transmit that electricity through wires to wherever, you know, 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:17.920 through to a residential neighborhood, let's say, Well, as the 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:22.879 the electricity travels there, once it hits the the the 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:25.480 the power lines, the power poles that have the connection 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:29.840 to your house, there's a transformer on those those uh, 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:32.680 essentially their telephone poles. That's what we think of them as, right, 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:36.240 they have they have transformers too. Now in that case, 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:41.399 they their primary coils have more coils than the secondary coils, 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:44.360 so the voltage is stepped down. And that means that 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:47.640 even though the voltage in the power line that's coming 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:51.440 down the street is really really high, way higher than 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:53.760 what you need in your house, in fact, so high 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:58.120 that it's you know, incredibly deadly. Um, once it goes 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:00.119 through that transformer and goes to your house, it's going 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:03.240 to be at the right voltage for your home. Yes, 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:05.560 and we usually in the United States that would be 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:07.720 a hundred and twenty volts. Because remember we talked about 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:10.560 it reversing sixty times a second, Well, you have to 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:12.879 add the two sixties, right, the sixty positives and the 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:16.000 sixty negatives for lack of a better term, add those 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:18.879 together and it's not like sixty plus negative sixty at 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:22.359 sixty plus sixty hundred twenty volts. And that solves the 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:24.920 problem that you were talking about earlier with the need 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:31.119 for the generating Russian to be to match exactly the 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:34.359 the the load at the other end, right, And it 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:37.439 it solves the problem of the distance issue too, because 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:40.240 you've you have upped the voltage so high that it's 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:43.000 going to transmit over a much greater distance than direct 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:47.000 current will and so um, you've just solved that issue 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:49.960 of how do you deliver electricity in an efficient way 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:52.240 so you don't have to build generators every couple of 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:57.520 miles and uh, Tesla and Westinghouse I thought this was 0:18:57.560 --> 0:18:59.879 a brilliant idea. Edison of course, did not like it 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:02.919 because it did not it was it was it was 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:05.040 a competing standard to his own, and it was going 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:06.240 to mean that he was going to be out some 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:10.520 serious dough. So there there became a kind of a 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:17.520 series of one upmanship demonstrations across well mostly the northeast, 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:21.800 but uh, it was an attempt to to make to 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:24.760 to try and have one standard come out the supreme 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:30.800 leader in electricity. Yeah. We uh, we've talked about these things, 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:33.600 not in then and then not terribly distant past. At 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:36.680 this point when we're recording is um and I believe 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:38.439 I revealed at one point that I had read the 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:43.879 book Empires of Light by Jill Jonas Um and I'm 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:47.199 probably still mispronouncing her last name, UM, which is about 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:53.480 this about the current wars, and uh, it paints a 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:56.520 really unflattering picture of Edison really when you learn a 0:19:56.560 --> 0:20:00.919 lot more about it. Um. Now, Tesla was sort of 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:04.879 a eccentric. He was an eccentric. He also kind of 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:08.520 liked to live the high life. Uh. He liked expensive 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:12.560 stuff and eccentric dandy who got progressively crazier as he 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:16.440 got older. I wouldn't say crazy, No, I would still 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:20.160 be alive in some capacity. Um. Now I'm a crazy one. 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:23.480 So yes, my co host is joining Tesla. No there, 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:27.399 it's it's fun to just, you know, make those jokes. Uh. No, 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:31.120 he uh, he wasn't really in the business of He 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:33.040 he liked to invent stuff and he actually at one 0:20:33.080 --> 0:20:36.880 point worked for Edison. Um. They didn't always see eye 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:41.320 to eye. Before all this happened. Um and uh, I 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:44.160 think Tesla sort of felt like, based on what I've read, 0:20:44.200 --> 0:20:47.200 Tesla sort of felt like he was underappreciated and wanted 0:20:47.200 --> 0:20:49.280 to strike out on his own. And this was one 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:51.080 of the things, one of the many, many things. Of course, 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:53.320 we talked about radio and how he worked on that. 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:56.240 He's um, he got involved with a lot of different 0:20:56.320 --> 0:20:59.800 kinds of things. And I've also read that that in general, 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:03.240 and this may be an over generalization, but in general 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:07.520 that Edison took a very experimental approach to learning things, 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:10.720 Like he he was all about doing something and if 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:14.600 that worked, then that's great, solve that problem. Whereas Tesla 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:18.120 was more about understanding and thinking things through and then 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:22.399 designing stuff that builds on that knowledge. So you know, 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:27.639 it's two different approaches. And I've even seen it referred 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:30.800 to as Essen's approach being more of a brute force approach, 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:33.440 like you know, you try something and if it doesn't work, well, 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:35.280 that's too bad. You go on and you do something else, 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:38.240 and whereas Tesla was more of an architect, someone who 0:21:38.240 --> 0:21:42.880 would think things through before actually committing to action. Although 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:46.760 one would argue based upon some of Tesla's later works 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:50.840 that that was not always true. So we're talking about 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:55.040 the one upsmanship, the battles between these two well Edison 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:57.720 Edison was really UM did a lot of his own 0:21:57.720 --> 0:22:01.359 promotion UM and Tesla UH did a lot of his 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:04.920 own personal promotion. UM. So they were really kind of 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:07.159 different people. I mean Thatison was really working on his 0:22:07.240 --> 0:22:11.800 company and building that up UM and Tesla licensed his 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:17.320 patents to UH George Westinghouses company. Westinghouse. He would also 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:19.200 be sort of an interesting person to talk about with 0:22:19.359 --> 0:22:21.000 on his own show, if we ever get around to that. 0:22:21.040 --> 0:22:24.880 But he invented a railroad break that was very very popular. 0:22:25.040 --> 0:22:26.760 He made a lot of money doing this, and he 0:22:26.800 --> 0:22:29.160 saw a way too. He started getting into the electric 0:22:29.240 --> 0:22:32.680 game two. He saw himself as a somebody who could 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:36.000 actually take on Edison and some of the others who 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:39.280 were involved in this. They weren't the only two um 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:40.840 because this was you know, it's like a lot of 0:22:40.880 --> 0:22:44.560 stuff like UH computers and so many other things, the internet, 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:48.480 uh phones. You know, at that point when when Edison 0:22:48.520 --> 0:22:51.160 and Tesla were really doing this, they were all there 0:22:51.160 --> 0:22:54.000 were many many inventors working on solutions to these problems. 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:56.919 How were you going to wire up homes, building the 0:22:57.000 --> 0:23:01.240 infrastructure and that kind of stuff. So Westinghouse licensed Tesla's 0:23:01.240 --> 0:23:04.360 patents and began building equipment. Um, and they've been They 0:23:04.400 --> 0:23:07.320 began competing for different projects, such as the Colombian Next 0:23:07.840 --> 0:23:12.640 Exhibition in Chicago, which was the World's Fair, and who 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:14.960 was going to light the World's Fear because they really 0:23:15.000 --> 0:23:17.240 wanted to do this thing right. They wanted light bulbs 0:23:17.320 --> 0:23:20.160