Nikola Tesla: Chicago World's Fair
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Alternating Current Power Plant at World's Fair, Chicago, 1893.
Four of
the twelve 1000 horse-power two-phase generators
``Quite apart from the lighting plant, the Westinghouse Company showed at the
World's Fair a complete polyphase system. A large two-phase induction motor,
driven by current from the main generators, acted as the prime mover in driving
the exhibit. The exhibit, then, contained a polyphase generator with
transformers for raising the voltage for transmission; a short transmission
line; transformers for lowering the voltage; the operation of induction motors;
a synchronous motor; and a rotary converter which supplied direct current, which
in turn operated a railway motor. In connection with the exhibit were meters and
other auxiliary devices of various kinds. The apparatus was in units of fair
commercial size and gave to the public a view of a universal power system in
which, by polyphase current, power could be transmitted great distances, and
then be utilized for various purposes, including the supply of direct current.
It showed on a working scale a system upon which Westinghouse and his company
had been concentrating their efforts; namely, the alternating-current and
polyphase system.
It has been maintained with some plausibility that the most important outcome
of the Centennial Exposition of 1876 was that the people of the United States
there discovered bread. So it may be maintained with even more plausibility,
that the best result of the Columbian Exposition of 1893 was that it removed the
last serious doubt of the usefulness to mankind of the polyphase alternating
current. The conclusive demonstration at Niagara was
yet to be made, but the Wolrd's Fair clinched the fact that it would be made,
and so it marked an epoch in industrial history. Very few of those who looked at
this machinery, who gazed with admiration at the great switchboard, so ingenious
and complete, and who saw the beautiful lighting effects could have realized
that they were living in an historical moment, that they were looking at the
beginning of a revolution.''
Adopted from "A Life of George Westinghouse," by Henry G. Prout,
1921.
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