Original subtitles

Electricity holds the power of life.

End of the nineteenth century the unlocking the force of nature.

Is a puzzle as tempting.

As it is dangerous.

Untested unproven uncontrollable.

Vast fortunes and brilliant minds

will be pitted against each other.

In an all out battle to harness the power of electricity.

Thomas Edison.

Nikola Tesla.

Inventors with opposing visions

on a collision course with each other.

And history.

Gentleman.

Give you the future of electricity.

Epic more.

To power the world.

Team of young engineers.

Is under pressure to find a solution to a daunting challenge.

How many trust.

No one hundred maybe.

Persistence.

Patients.

Perseverance.

When something doesn't work.

There's always another solution.

Just thirty one years old

Thomas Edison is the most famous inventor on the planet.

He's already brought the world an astonishing adventure.

Phonograph.

And earned himself the nickname

the wizard of menlo park.

Medicine represents for lots of people.

The essence of Yang key into.

He was brilliant the was insightful the but.

Equally extraordinarily hard headed.

And practical pragmatic businessman.

His success as an inventor is unrivaled.

But now Edison is trying to do something no one has done before.

Create a safe inexpensive light source

that could replace the gas lamp.

And is powered by electricity.

He's experienced over one hundred failed attempts.

But now

in October of eighteen seventy nine the Edison is about to find the element

that will allow with a lightbulb to burn steadily.

Safely

and repeatedly.

Carbon.

The use of carbonized thread is a breakthrough.

But the invention of the light bulb is only half the battle.

To replace gas lighting with electricity.

Edison will have to design and build

an entirely new industry.

Wasn't enough to just have a lightbulb because remember

it eighteen seventy nine when the Edison's working on this

there are no pre-existing sockets there are no plugs there is no wiring in your house.

See if you're going to have lighting in your house or and your business

you're going to have to build everything.

So a men

that Edison had to think in terms of an entire system.

Edison isn't the only genius trying to solve the problem of electricity.

By reversing the direct electrical current

the dynamo can function as both a motor.

Generator.

Giving us at least the potential to waste energy.

The mystery Tesla.

There are still much friction if you remove that commutator as a machine

done more efficiently.

And how do we create a rotating field without the commutate.

I dunno.

In a university in Austria

and Amber vicious physics student is formulating an idea

for a radical new way of generating electricity.

Name is Nikola Tesla.

Nikola Tesla had a vision a vision

of what's to come into the future.

Tesla has enormous dreams and he had a genius to carry them out.

A generator

creates an electrical current at naturally reverses it's flow periodically.

And Tesla's time

electrical current is delivered by channeling that current in a single direction.

It's called.

Direct current.

Tesla envisions fully harnessing a generators naturally alternating current.

Ac would be a stronger and more efficient way to deliver electrical power.

There's just one problem.

Never been done before.

Was very radical

because nobody had figured out how to make an ac motor that would work.

Because they were all thinking about the.

Traditional way in which you designed a mode.

Tesla was a dreamer.

He could envision a technology and his mind.

Is going to be the future.

Thomas Edison is on the verge of creating a system

that will allow him to bring his new light bulb into people's homes.

On the wall street overhear.

The first generator the second gen

the Edison pitches his direct current concept to was investors.

As safe simple and reliable.

Hoping to convince them that his system

could be the new standard light source in people's homes.

Lot more than five hundred customers.

Not bad for starters.

Pearl street today.

Located in Manhattan

Pearl street station is the first power plant in the world.

Within two years

Edison builds eighteen new power plants.

Each can only provide power within a half mile radius.

Could only really build power plants in

very densely populated.

Cities because otherwise it wouldn't be.

Economically feasible.

To right away rural and smaller towns

were kind of frozen out of that.

Power equation.

Over three thousand miles away.

At and Edison factory outside Paris.

Nikola Tesla has a different idea.

For years

Tesla has been trying to perfect his own invention.

And alternating current motor.

Finally has a working prototype.

To prove his idea.

Nikola Tesla will have to come to america.

Confront the most famous scientist in the world.

Thomas Edison has begun the process of wiring the country.

And the world.

Using a system called director.

What he's about to cross paths with Nikola Tesla the a man who is convinced

that he knows a better way to power.

It must have been amazing for Tesla think

he must have seen menlo park as a big.

Playground.

I'm sure Tesla side

I've finally found my arm finally found a kindred

spirit.

Has been three days what's going on the adjusted the rotors.

Gotta be the commentators.

Climate change.

Before Tesla can present Edison with his big idea for alternating current.

You'll have to earnest trust.

Mr Edison.

Sir.

I have a letter from my supervisor.

What do you do mister.

Tesla.

I am an inventor

okay.

And.

I can fix things.

Is that right.

Yes.

I can fix anything.

Experience with.

Edison gives Tesla a difficult task.

The fix a problem plagued generator

the first of its kind ever installed on the ship.

I think it is in would do that with a lot of.

People that he hired he would send them out

and into something that

might seem very difficult or even impossible

and just see if they could handle that.

Short seconds abundance on the Irish coils wasn't easy fix.

Tesla just showed.

That he was able to kind of be parachuted into

a problem and come up with a novel solution.

I think that's something that that Edison really admired because that was.

Part of his own genius.

Edison electric company is growing at an incredible rate.

Now supplies power to the barons of American industry.

But Edison's director and system

has its limits.

Ooh it can only deliver power effectively

within about a half mile of a power station.

Nikola Tesla believes his alternating current can travel much farther.

And bring electricity to everyone.

Power of alternating current.

Comes at a cost.

They both have their dangers and their advantages in the distribution of electricity

but at that particular moment in time

at the voltages that were being operated on

with our understanding the system of the time.

The high voltage ac.

Seemed clearly more dangerous.

Despite the dangers of

Nikola Tesla is convinced to system is superior.

You have two minutes.

I imagine a central power station.

With one generate.

Are kind of generator.

Alternating current.

He can do the work of many of these.

Can't control it.

Burned down the city.

I want to impress me.

Improve the system we've got.

Correct that

you get the fifty thousand dollar prize.

Tesla takes Edison's challenge to heart.

Tries to devise a way to make Edison's to recurrent more efficient.

Tesla discovers that if he's shortens the magnetic course.

Can triple the output of the generators.

At solution.

It seems debtors.

Avery's on the you

your suggestions with my assistant.

About the bus the thousands of.

You said if successfully design the DC generator.

That will get a bonus.

A joke.

I was that a joke.

Yeah wish they don't understand our American sense of humor.

Get back to work.

As a result of not getting the fifty thousand

dollars from the Edison company Tesla basically

decides that you know what

don't really need the Edison accompany.

Instead of working for Edison.

Tesla will work against him.

Determined to prove that he is right.

War for the future of power.

Is about to begin.

Eighteen eighty five

Thomas Edison's direct current is transform a downtown new York.

Into a city of light.

But his former employee Nikola Tesla beliefs d

is to limited

and that his alter and current

is the future of power.

Now he has to prove.

Nikola Tesla leaves Edison's lab

and for a while it is.

Unemployed and.

Has a hard time.

Finding work there's not a lot of work

for for experimental.

Electricians at the time.

With no other job prospects.

Tesla is forced to find worth digging trenches.

Trenches for underground cable for Edison electric.

Time get this system later it'll be out of date.

Can carry a current a half miles pathetic.

These

a plant with orange one hundred times larger for a fraction the cost.

Is that true.

You can count on.

What he talks about it while he's digging ditches

and one of the people that finds out that he's got this

idea is the superintendent about ditch digging project.

At he says.

You need to come and meet my friend the wall street financier.

Who had invested and developed a whole series of companies.

For Tesla it's the opportunity of a lifetime.

But simply explaining alternating current to investors won't be enough.

He needs to show them and exactly what it can do.

Is not.

Makes use a full possible voltage.

Tell me that.

Us.

No more bridging thoughts but more importantly.

No fish.

Gentlemen.

If may.

Was one of the characteristics of Tesla is really important.

Is he was very good at coming up with sort of simple demonstrations.

To show people.

What the possibilities were for the technology was working on.

A rotating.

Magnetic field.

Alternating current.

Gentleman.

Future.

Of electricity.

Tesla's able to show.

How a spinning egg.

Controlled by electricity is analogous

to an engine the demonstration is ahead

and Tesla gets his first investors.

Now is ready to take on Edison electric empire.

Tesla's opportunity

may be coming just the right time from.

By eighteen eighty eight.

Edison system is struggling to meet demand.

But he still refuses to abandoned direct current.

Five years of investment personally and

from bankers like jp Morgan

in developing a direct current system.

It's going to build central stations.

People are going to invest in those central stations he's going to earn money from

those he knows that going to work.

But now Edison has competition.

What is investors'

money.

Tesla opens a lab not far from Edison's Pearl street station.

Determined to show the world what alternating current can do.

Tesla's idea of alternating current was very much a populist idea it wasn't

that

a few big power plants.

Would be.

Producing power for a few large companies.

It was that everyone.

Could be electrified.

But he's still needs to find a way to boost a seize power.

Alternating current troubles and waves.

With gaps in between the peaks.

Tesla envisions a second signal.

Out of sync with the first.

To filling the gaps.

For.

Tesla does have a vision about

alternating current.

It comes to him and a kind of picture

and he's able to see that.

As

The way to transmit electricity over long distances.

And from that that

point on.

He really held fast to that

and is eventually.

Proven correct.

As alternating current comes closer to being realized.

Thomas Edison electric empire.

Is about to face it's greatest.

Most famous inventor in the world.

Thomas Edison.

Is being challenged by an unknown genius.

Nikola Tesla.

To break Edison's monopoly on electricity.

Tesla must prove that alternating current can do more than just like the world.

Can also power machines.

Gentleman.

Good afternoon.

No communicators.

Two phases.

One fifth of a horsepower.

Give you the future of electricity.

Alternating current.

Tesla system can power a motor with almost no friction.

Can deliver the power more efficiently than noticeable.

Finding an alternating current

motor that can be used to help compete with the DC systems was important.

The motors would be the future does success this industry.

Now alternating current not only turns on the lighted great distances.

Can power almost any kind of machine.

Motorola allows you to use.

Electricity for all sorts of applications running elevators wanting fans.

Wanting dental drills.

Tesla's model comes along

and is the game treasured.

Now that Tesla has perfected his idea.

Time to sell it.

Tesla's motor gets the attention of George we sting house.

One of the richest men in america.

Westinghouse was kind of.

Railroad baron.

For many years

and

he saw electricity as this untapped market

as a way to really make his fortune.

I'll pay five thousand dollars for a sixty day option.

Then.

Contingent on purchase.

Sixty thousand dollars total.

And I'll cover legal fees.

Rejected offer.

Options contingents legal fees this is the talk of someone

investing in something he does not believe will succeed.

Electricity you will sell.

For every horsepower.

You pay two dollars fifty cents.

Westinghouse except.

And pays the modern day equivalent of some two million dollars

to secure the rights to Tesla's patterns.

Together.

Tesla and we sting house will build a power system to rival Edison's.

But one technical hurdle remains.

The high voltage needed to send electricity over long distances.

And power large machines.

Can be deadly.

It's alternating current is great

but you have to work out all of the installation.

All of the safety devices.

Because the hundred thousand volts will kill you.

To solve the problem.

Tesla looks to a new device developed by European engineers.

Called a transformer.

As you can have a transformer

the basically one that hundred thousand and boat.

Current gets to

the location where you want to use it

you can step down from one hundred thousand

to one hundred and ten volts which is safer inside your house.

Because the transformer allow allows you to do that step-down function.

Transformer will not only make alternating current possible.

It will make it safe.

But in spite of the advantages of ac power.

Edison is committed to building his empire

with direct current.

Edison's great weakness.

His his inability.

To shift is mindset.

As the.

Industry changes.

As.

The market changes.

He wasn't going to let naysayers prove him wrong

that he could solve the problem

he was invested both financially

and his personal rubber.

Tesla and we sting house want to power.

Edison is ready to give it to them.

Battle lines have been drawn.

War over electricity.

Thomas Edison strategy the prove that alternating current is deadly.

Know so dangerous

is untested unproved an uncontrollable.

Imagine being the first person to get in a hot air balloon

before they invented a way to landed.

What is your system.

There is no danger to life held the or person

with any current generated by Edison dynamos.

Edison believe that the ac system as much more dangerous

because of the higher voltages.

And so far his standpoint this was a crucial prompt

and there are certainly plenty of other people who see

this as a potential danger in the streets of the city.

Prove his point.

Edison's team decides to go negative.

Edison managers come to Edison and they say we're going to have to take this.

Anti a c campaign up another notch.

He's got so much at stake.

That he's willing to do.

This smear campaign.

Conduct experiments with dogs.

Are demonstrations for the newspapers and public

to show that larger animals could also be

electrocuted.

To seal his case against ac.

Edison needs to go beyond animals.

Edison is asked to advise the state of new York

on a new way to execute criminals.

For the first ever electric chair.

Edison recommends his rival system.

Thousand volts course through convicted murderer William kindler.

But it's not an instant death.

Turns out to be quite a gruesome execution.

Which serves as

quite well because that's what he wanted to show he wanted to show vary dramatically.

That alternating current.

Is what he calls the death current.

They could have determine better with an axe.

Says how alternating current will be judged.

As the battle for power turns ugly

we sting house needs a major public victory for ac.

Current wars are about to have

the ultimate showdown.

Do you know it's so dangerous

is untested unproven uncontrollable.

Thomas Edison is waging a relentless campaign.

To defend his direct current system.

Against Nikola Tesla.

And this backer we sting house electric.

Final showdown.

Will come at one of the largest natural power sources in north america.

Niagara falls.

The niagara falls power company

is looking for a way to harness up to two hundred

and twenty five thousand cubic feet of water

flowing down the falls every second.

Generate the power equivalent of more than a million tons of coal per year.

Edison meets with his board.

To pitches plan for the falls degenerate DC power.

Gentleman.

As.

We have a proposal.

We'd like to submit

to the niagara commission.

Edison like x already got a proposal.

Edison electric.

Is

Becoming a new company.

General electric.

Behind Edison's back the board decides that alternating current is the way to go.

And they know that Edison will never

go along with this.

So they shut amount out of.

Any of the proceedings.

About this camp.

It'd be nothing without me.

And you're driving into the ground.

It's time to turn a profit.

Your penny counters.

You can't see anything but your ledgers.

Leave the business to us.

Edison has lost the confidence of his board.

And control of his empire.

Edison's very bitter

he's the brains behind the company is

technically the reason the company exists.

They just care about.

What's going to make the money.

Edison will be forced to watch the battle for niagara falls from the sidelines.

Of Nikola Tesla makes the pitch from we sting house.

Gentleman.

As for Nikola Tesla.

At pleasure.

Ten.

Generators.

Two thousand

two hundred and fifty volts the to produce and thirty seven thousand kilowatts.

Here.

A current is increased to twenty two thousand volts for travel.

How far.

Albany.

New York city.

Chicago.

This will revolutionize the industry as we know.

Niagara contract goes to a we sting house.

Tesla's alternating current wins the pivotal battle of the current.

But for we sting house

it may be too little too late.

I Tesla's licensing fees.

The crushing us.

Endless legal battles with Edison

and fees owed to Tesla.

Have driven we sting house electric

to the brink of bankruptcy.

To keep we sting house in business

and save his vision for ac power.

Tesla decides to give up the millions of dollars in license the.

He's entitled to.

The a move that cost Tesla his personal fortune.

People don't realize that.

Tesla suffer from mental illness

today we call it always cd.

Obsessive compulsive disorder

but back then we were clueless about this

and so because of this obsessiveness that he had

it impaired his work later in life.

When he should be enjoying the fruits of his endeavors.

Other people were rating is patterns

other people are capitalizing on his world without giving a proper credit

and he was suffering from mental illness.

At Tesla will live out his last years in a new York hotel.

In nineteen forty three.

He died penniless.

And alone.

His rival Thomas Edison will be awarded over one thousand patents in his career.

More than any other inventor.

Losing the current worst and Nikola Tesla.

Would Mark the most bitter defeat of his career.

In the electricity battle you see Edison

probably at his most human.

He allows his ego to take over.

Edison bought into his own mr a little bit

he loved being the wizard of menlo park arc

he loved being.

Publicly acclaimed genius.

And.

The idea of losing a big battle and electricity.

Was just something that he didn't want to face.

Tesla's alternating current would go on to power america for the next century.

And beyond.

Battle between Edison and DC and Tesla and a see.

Was ultimately won by Tesla.

Today ninety nine point ninety nine percent

of all the electricity in this country is

generating distributed using alternating current

and that comes down to the ideas and the vision that Tesla had

in the late eighteen eighties

Tesla's clearly the winner

of the battle of ac versus DC.