Einstein×Tesla

full transcript

1. 00:00
   Verashare moment

   From the studio at Reborn Radio — next on THE TRIAL OF ——, Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla. They take up Einstein cross-examines Tesla con A/C vs D/C and what technology was superior for humanity.
2. 00:14
   Albert Einsteinshare moment

   Mr. Tesla, I want to understand something that has always puzzled me a little. You fought very hard for alternating current, against Edison and his direct current system. Now, I am not an electrical engineer, you understand, but I wonder—was this really about what was best for humanity, or was it about winning?
3. 00:34
   Nikola Teslashare moment

   Dr. Einstein, the question answers itself if you understand the mathematics of transmission. Direct current loses power over distance—it bleeds energy into the wires like a wound that will not close. My polyphase alternating current system can transmit power hundreds of miles with minimal loss. This is not about winning. This is about whether civilization survives its own energy hunger.
4. 01:05
   Albert Einsteinshare moment

   Yes, yes, the transmission efficiency, I have read about this. But Edison, he argued that alternating current was dangerous, no? High voltages, electrocutions. He was not entirely wrong about the dangers.
5. 01:19
   Nikola Teslashare moment

   Edison electrocuted dogs and horses in public demonstrations to frighten people. He killed an elephant—Topsy was her name—to prove alternating current was a killer. This was not science, Doctor. This was theater of the most barbaric kind.
6. 01:38
   Albert Einsteinshare moment

   That is... that is terrible, truly. Still, the danger was real, was it not? High voltage alternating current can kill a man.
7. 01:47
   Nikola Teslashare moment

   So can Edison's direct current. I proved this myself—I passed alternating current through my own body before audiences. One million volts, Doctor Einstein. I lit lamps with my fingertips. The danger is in ignorance and improper engineering, not in the current itself.
8. 02:08
   Albert Einsteinshare moment

   You put one million volts through yourself? This is... this is not how we normally conduct experimental verification. But I take your point. Let me ask you something else. Your system, it required transformers, yes? To step the voltage up and down?
9. 02:25
   Nikola Teslashare moment

   Precisely. Step up the voltage for transmission—fifty thousand, one hundred thousand volts—minimize the current, minimize the resistive losses. Then step down at the destination for safe use. The transformer is the key. It only works with alternating current. Edison's system had no such possibility.
10. 02:47
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    So Edison, he would have needed a power station every mile or two in a city?
11. 02:52
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    Every square mile at most. His copper wires had to be thick as a man's arm to carry enough current. My system? A single generating station at Niagara Falls now powers all of Buffalo, and will soon power New York City. The waterfall that once simply made noise now drives industry across hundreds of miles. This is the difference.
12. 03:16
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Niagara Falls, yes, that was your great triumph, I think. But tell me, Mr. Tesla—and I ask this with genuine curiosity—if your system was so obviously superior, why did it take so long to win? Why the war at all?
13. 03:31
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    Because Edison had patents, investments, infrastructure already in place. He had Pearl Street Station lighting lower Manhattan. He had rich men's money behind him. And he had something I never possessed—a talent for business and persuasion.
14. 03:50
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Ah, so it was not purely a technical question. There was economics, there was politics, there was—what do they call it—market forces?
15. 03:58
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    There was money, Doctor, which is not the same as economics. There was Morgan's money, Vanderbilt's money. They had invested in Edison's system and they did not wish to see it become obsolete. Truth in engineering matters less to such men than return on investment.
16. 04:15
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    I understand this feeling very well. But eventually they came around to your side, yes? Westinghouse, he backed you?
17. 04:21
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    George Westinghouse understood what I had created. He paid me one million dollars for my patents—though I later tore up the contract to save his company, and have lived with that decision ever since. He believed in alternating current when others called me a dreamer. Without him, Edison might have won simply by exhaustion.
18. 04:45
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    You tore up a contract worth one million dollars? Mr. Tesla, this is... well, I am not sure this was wise, but it was certainly generous.
19. 04:54
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    Wisdom and generosity had nothing to do with it. Westinghouse was drowning in legal battles and debt. If his company failed, alternating current failed with it, and humanity would be chained to Edison's inferior system for decades. I could not allow this.
20. 05:14
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    So you sacrificed your own fortune for the principle. I can respect this. Though I wonder—did it have to be this way? Could there not have been some compromise, some hybrid system?
21. 05:26
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    Compromise with what? With a system that cannot transmit power beyond a few city blocks? Doctor Einstein, imagine if physicists had compromised between Newton and the truth. Between alchemy and chemistry. Some things are simply superior, and alternating current is one of them.
22. 05:43
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Ha! Well, I should be careful here, because I myself had to ask the world to move beyond Newton. But there were things Newton got right, you know. His laws still work very well at everyday speeds.
23. 05:56
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    And direct current still works very well for batteries and small devices. I do not deny this. But for the electrification of nations? For industry, for cities? There is no comparison. My system can deliver power from a single source to millions. This is not opinion.
24. 06:15
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    No, no, you are right of course. The mathematics is clear. But I am wondering about something else now. You once talked about wireless transmission of power, yes? Towers that would send electricity through the air itself?
25. 06:30
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    Wardenclyffe. Yes. My tower on Long Island could have transmitted power without wires to any point on Earth. Morgan withdrew funding before I could complete it. Another casualty of men who see copper wires as investments rather than obsolete technology.
26. 06:49
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    But Mr. Tesla, if I may ask—would this wireless power not have been extraordinarily inefficient? The energy would radiate in all directions, most of it lost to space.
27. 07:00
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    You are thinking of radiation, like Hertz's waves. I was not radiating power, Doctor Einstein. I was using the Earth itself as a conductor—resonating the entire planet at specific frequencies. The Earth would become a single electrical system, with power available anywhere by tuning to the correct resonance.
28. 07:21
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    The entire Earth as a conductor? This is... this is a remarkable idea. Did it work?
29. 07:27
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    I demonstrated the principles at Colorado Springs. I created electrical resonance that lit lamps miles away without wires. I recorded standing waves that circled the planet. But I needed Wardenclyffe to prove it at scale, and Morgan... Morgan wanted to know where to put the meter. How to charge for power that anyone could access. When I could not answer this to his satisfaction, the money stopped.
30. 07:57
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Ah. So again, the technical question becomes tangled with economics. But tell me honestly—do you think wireless power could have worked? Really worked, for a whole civilization?
31. 08:08
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    I know it could have worked. Whether it should have worked, whether humanity was ready for free and universal power—this is a different question. Perhaps Morgan understood something I did not. Perhaps a world where power cannot be metered and controlled is a world too dangerous for men like him to permit.
32. 08:29
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    You sound almost bitter about this, if I may say so.
33. 08:32
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    I am not bitter, Doctor Einstein. I am old and I live in a hotel room with pigeons as my companions. Bitterness would be redundant. But I wonder sometimes what the world would look like if engineers made decisions instead of financiers.
34. 08:49
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Yes, well. I understand this feeling also. Though I will tell you, engineers can make their own terrible decisions. I know something about this. But we are talking about your work, not mine. Let me ask you—today, now, knowing what you know, would you still say alternating current was the right choice for humanity?
35. 09:09
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    Without question. Look at what has been achieved—entire continents electrified, factories running, cities lit, communications possible over vast distances. All of this because power can be transmitted efficiently. Would you prefer we had followed Edison's path? Millions of small power stations burning coal in every neighborhood?
36. 09:33
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    No, no, of course not. You are absolutely right. Your system made modernity possible. I just wonder sometimes if we think enough about the consequences of our inventions. Not just the immediate benefits, but what comes after.
37. 09:46
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    What comes after is what other men do with our work. I gave the world a tool for enlightenment and progress. That some use it for profit, that some use it poorly—this is not the fault of the alternating current itself. A hammer can build or destroy. The hammer is innocent.
38. 10:07
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Hmm. I used to think this way also. Now I am not so sure the hammer is always innocent. But perhaps you are right that we cannot control everything that follows from our work. We do our best, yes? We try to serve humanity, we solve the problems in front of us.
39. 10:24
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    And sometimes humanity is served despite itself. The current wars were never really about alternating versus direct. They were about whether innovation would be permitted to replace investment. Whether the future could challenge the present. In the end, physics won. It always does.
40. 10:44
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Physics won, yes, I like this. Though it took longer than it should have because of money and pride and stubbornness. This is the human element, I suppose. We cannot remove it, even from our most technical decisions. Mr. Tesla, I must say—I think history has vindicated you completely on this question. Your system powers the world. Edison's is a footnote.
41. 11:07
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    History vindicates, but it does not compensate. Edison died wealthy, surrounded by fame and comfort. I will die in debt, my most ambitious work unfinished. Vindication is cold comfort, Doctor Einstein. But I would make the same choices again. The work mattered more than the reward.
42. 11:27
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    I think perhaps this is what makes you both a great engineer and a poor businessman. You cared too much about the right answer and not enough about the profitable one. Though I must say, I admire this about you. The world needs people who care more about truth than money. Even if such people usually end up sleeping with pigeons.
43. 11:46
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    The pigeons, at least, are honest creatures. They do not pretend to understand electrical theory, and they do not withdraw funding when the work becomes difficult. In this way they are superior to many investors I have known.
44. 11:59
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Ha! Yes, I think you may be right about this. Well, Mr. Tesla, thank you for explaining these matters to me. I came here to examine you about your choices, but I think instead you have taught me something about the price of being right too early. Your alternating current system was the correct answer—this is clear. That it took so long to win, that it cost you so much—this tells us something important about how human progress actually works.
45. 12:26
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    Progress is not a scientific process, Doctor Einstein. It is a battle between the possible and the profitable, between vision and investment, between those who see the future and those who own the present. I won my battle, but barely. I wonder sometimes about the futures that lost their battles, the inventions that died in laboratories because they could not find a Morgan to fund them. How much further would we be now if genius did not require permission from capital?
46. 12:57
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    This is a question I cannot answer. But I think we should be grateful that your particular genius found just enough permission, just enough support, to change the world. Even if it was not enough to make you comfortable. The lights stay on because of you, Mr. Tesla. This is not nothing.
47. 13:13
    Nikola Teslashare moment

    The lights stay on. Yes. I suppose this will have to be enough.