Edison also had an arrogant argument that he didn't have to do math himself, because he could hire a group of mathematicians at any time. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 It may be annoying to the scientists who have been trained according to the regular method, but it is undeniable that at that time, in the special stage of the development of American technology, engineers and inventors were probably more prominent than the scientists of the time in terms of their contribution to the country. Everyone knows that Edison often liked to say that he always judged the value of his invention by how many dollars he made, and he didn't care about anything else.

Morgan was the main treasurer of Edison Electric. The direct current wires of the Edison Electric Company are interspersed and intertwined over the streets of New York, weaving into a dense and large patch, like a frightening spider web. Although financiers and industrialists generally do not know much about electricity, a few people like Morgan have seen that since Archimedes invented the propeller, it goes without saying that electricity is the most promising development to come.

In the summer of 9084, on a particularly hot and unpleasant day, Edison heard of an electrical accident in a Vanderbilt building on Fifth Street and hurried to his power station on Pearl Street. It turned out that the wall plate in one part of the building was equipped with some very thin metal wires, and a fire caused by the intersection of two wires behind the siding caused a fire, and the house was burned. Although the fire was extinguished, Mrs. Vanderbilt, who was furious by the disaster, also learned that the problem was that there was a steam engine and boiler in the basement. So, the angry hostess insisted that Edison remove the whole equipment.

He sent a repair team away and thought about what to do next. The phone rang, and Edison picked up the earpiece and put it next to one of his hearing ears.

The manager of the shipping company that owned the ship "Oregon" had to make sure Edison made it clear whether he had arranged for a plan to repair their lighting generators. The steamer has been delayed for a few days, and it is about to lose a lot of money.

What could Edison say? He had no more engineers to send.

He was very envious of his patron Morgan. Morgan hired a full-time engineer to manage the private boiler and steam engine installed in the garden pit of the Mount Mulay Building. The noise was so loud that the neighbors were clamoring to take the case to court. But that didn't bother Morgan; When things got out of hand, he took enough of his beloved black cigar and got on his own speedboat, the Corsair, and went on a good long trip.

"I'll send an engineer over this afternoon," Edison promised the big boss of the shipping company by phone.

Edison had just hung up the receiver when a panting boy slammed into the factory to report that there was a problem on two streets of Ann and Nassar. There was a junction box that was installed by an inexperienced electrician hired by the inventor and is now leaking. The boy vividly described a man who rode by on horseback, flew into the air with his horse, and suddenly disappeared from the streets.

Edison yelled at his foreman, "Get a bunch of people now!" Cut off the current and fix the leakage! ”

He glanced up and saw a tall black figure wandering around his office.

"Sir, what are you doing?"

Tesla announced his name and explained his intentions. He spoke word by word in English, raising his voice a little higher, because he knew that Edison's ears were not very sharp.

"Sir, I bring a letter from Mr. Batchelo."

"Batchelo, huh? What's wrong with Paris? ”

"I haven't heard of any problems, sir."

"Nonsense, there are always accidents in Paris."

Edison read Batchelo's short introduction letter and snorted. He looked Tesla up and down with an aggressive eye.

"I know two great men, you are one of them, and then this young man! Well, it's also worth introducing. What can you do? ”

When Tesla was still on the ship, he had already rehearsed many times to cope with this moment. Edison's fame made him deeply admired. The figure in front of him has no formal education, but has invented hundreds of useful things.

He immediately opened his mouth to describe what he had done for the Continental Edison Company in France and Germany. Without waiting for Edison's answer, he went on and on about his wonderful alternating current induction motor, which, he said, was the trend of the future. A shrewd and capable person can rely on this invention to make a fortune.

"Shut up!" Edison yelled angrily, "Put away your! This kind of thing is too dangerous! We, in the United States, have done it with direct current. Everyone likes direct current, and what I want all my life is direct current. But I might be able to get you some errands to do. Will you repair the ship's lighting and power generation equipment? ”

Tesla boarded the "Oregon" with tools on the same day and began various repair work. The generator was in serious disrepair, with several short circuits and leaks. He worked all night with the help of the crew. The next morning, just after dawn, all the repairs were completed.

He walked back to Edison's factory along Horse Five Road, where he met his new boss and several senior staff members who were about to go home to rest.

Edison quipped, "Look, our 'Parisians' stayed up all night." ”

Tesla said he had just fixed both machines. Edison looked at him silently, then walked away without saying a word. But the Serb had very sharp ears, and he heard Edison say after walking a few steps: "What a great man!" ”

Tesla's technology was quickly appreciated by Edison. Edison gave Tesla the privilege of almost complete freedom, and he was given full authority to deal with all aspects of the factory's design and send-off. He worked from 10:30 a.m. until 5 a.m. the next morning, a spirit that forced his new boss to reluctantly admit, "I've had many hard-working assistants, but you're the first." ”

It wasn't long before Tesla found a way to make Edison's original generator even though it was still generating direct current. He proposed a plan to retrofit the generator, which he said would not only improve the performance of the generator, but also save a lot of money.

Edison was born a treacherous businessman, and his heart fluttered when he heard about money. But he understands that Tesla's approach is not trivial and will take a long time to achieve. He said, "If you can do it, give you $50,000." ”

Tesla worked like crazy for months, rarely getting a full night's sleep. Not only did he complete the renovation of all 24 generators, making significant improvements, but he also installed automatic controls and used an original solution that had already been patented.

The difference in personality between these two people determines their relationship with each other from the very beginning. Edison hated Tesla for being learned, theoretical, and cultured. According to him, ninety-nine percent of genius is "something that knows what doesn't work." Therefore, he himself always dealt with every problem by painstakingly eliminating the method.

Tesla often amused Edison by saying, "If Edison were to find a needle in a pile of straw, he would immediately look through it like a bee until he found what he was looking for." I've seen him do it myself. In fact, I knew in my heart that as long as he understood a little theory and calculated a little, he could save 90 percent of his labor. ”

As for the most basic habits of life, such as personal hygiene, the differences are even greater. Tesla was afraid of germs and was extremely picky, while Edison "had no hobbies, never participated in any sports and entertainment, and completely ignored even the minimum hygiene requirements...... Thanks to the fact that he later found a very well-bred woman to wife, she made taking care of Edison as one of her life's purposes. Otherwise, he would have died many years early because of this so-so lifestyle......"

Edison felt that the talented foreigner posed a threat to his direct current system. He mistakenly thought that to produce and sell his incandescent light bulbs, he could not do without direct current. This is an old issue of vested interests. In the beginning, Edison himself encountered a frenzied resistance from the gas monopoly giants. But he was born with a good aptitude for propaganda; He defeated the gas company in one fell swoop by publishing non-stop bulletins and gloating about the danger of gas pipeline explosions. He also sent salesmen around the country to search for even the slightest sign of "industrial oppression," such as the alleged "damage" of workers' health by gas heat and the damage to their eyesight by gas lamps. But now, in the face of technology newer than his own invention, he has scolded.

Tesla used the sporadic spare time he could squeeze out to immerse himself in reading history and literature books, learning about American habits, meeting new friends, and increasing his experience. He was already fluent in English, and he had even begun to appreciate the American sense of humor, or at least he thought he had. Later events proved that Edison still had enough money to teach him a lesson in this regard.

In order to complete the renovation of Edison's generator, it took Tesla more than half a year. When the task was done, he went to his boss to report that he was done, and asked when he would receive the $50,000 he had been promised.

Edison retracted his feet in black leather shoes from under the table, leaned forward, and shouted with his mouth wide open: "Tesla, you don't understand the jokes and humor of us Americans!" ”

Once again, Tesla was deliberately deceived by Edison. He was indignant and offered to resign. Edison compromised by promising to add $10 to his $18 a week, but Tesla grabbed his bowler hat and strode out the room.

In Edison's eyes, Tesla was a "poet of science" whose ideas were "brilliant but unrealistic." He once told the young engineer that he would make mistakes. For a while it did. The U.S. is still deeply engulfed by the financial crisis, and it's hard to find a job.

Tesla's reputation in the engineering community began to grow, and he was approached by a group of investors who offered him the opportunity to build a company under his name. This is something he could not ask for, and his great discovery of alternating current can finally be made public. In his opinion, humanity will be freed from the burden of this reason. Unfortunately, his backstage boss had a more mundane and practical mind. Streets and factories need modified arc lights, and there is a vast market here. This is a priority.

Tesla Electric Light Company was founded and headquartered in Lahwe, New Jersey. He established the first laboratory on Grande Street, where he successfully developed the Tesla arc lamp, which was simple, safe, reliable, and economical compared to the arc lamp in use at the time. The system was registered as a patent and the first to be installed on the streets of Lahwe.

The price Tesla gets is a stake in the company. But later, Tesla was devastated by the American way of doing business, and he found himself being squeezed out of the company. In the end, all he ended up with was a beautifully printed stock ticket; Since the company was newly established and the economic crisis was repeated, the stock note had little cash value.

Tesla lost again.

A full four years have passed since Tesla discovered the rotating magnetic field and made the first AC motor in Strasbourg. He has begun to wonder if America's green pastures and golden future are still out of reach. He was humiliated by his recent frustration and depressed.

But just then, Tesla received a letter from the East.

This letter was written specifically to him by Lin Yiqing.

Tesla is no stranger to Lin Yiqing's name, although he has never cared about politics, but he still knows a little about Lin Yiqing's deeds.

To Tesla's surprise, Lin Yiqing not only wrote the letter in fluent French, sincerely expressing his admiration to him, but also showing his deep scientific knowledge in the letter to support the alternating current system.

Tesla never imagined that in the ancient East, there would be such a person who could deeply understand his own thoughts.

Attached to the letter was a cash check for $50,000.

Lin Yiqing said humorously in the letter that he had heard about Edison and Tesla's "joke", and believed that Tesla deserved the $50,000, and that Edison's American-style humor was in his opinion "an insult to a great inventor", which was difficult for Orientals who admired faith and righteousness to understand, and he understood the injury suffered by Tesla, so he was willing to pay Tesla $50,000 as a little "personal compensation" for Tesla's "great contribution to the world".

At the end of the letter, Lin Yiqing also said that he would resolutely support all of Tesla's inventions now and in the future, and was willing to provide him with "all the conveniences he needs."

Tesla was deeply moved.

At this time, Tesla can be said to be exhausted, desperate, the economic recession developed into a depression, and after breaking with Edison, Tesla could not find engineering and technical work to do. From the spring of 9085 until now, he has experienced the most depressed period of his life. He became a coolie, doing a lot of work on the streets of New York, barely able to make ends meet, and the $50,000 sent by Lin Yiqing immediately saved him from his predicament.

Tesla rebuilt his home and outfits, and his appearance at the Palms restaurant at the Wardorf-Astoria Hotel, where he used to sit at the same table, showed his determination to make a comeback.

In accordance with Lin Yiqing's suggestion in the letter, he set up a laboratory that belonged entirely to him, and began research and invention independently. His invention of the arc lamp was soon granted seven patents, two of which were particularly valuable (Patent No. 396121, Thermomagnetic Electric: Patent No. 428057, Thermomagnetic Electric Generator, Patent No. 382845, Rectifier for Generator). According to these two inventions, the magnetic loss of iron at temperatures above 760 degrees Celsius can be used to directly convert heat into mechanical or electrical energy. Like some of Tesla's previous inventions, these two inventions didn't get used right away, but Tesla didn't care anymore at this point.

"Mr. Tesla, there is your letter." The postman delivered a letter to Tesla.

Seeing the signature on the letter, Tesla knew that his hunch had once again come into play.

The letter came from Lin Yiqing.

Since 9085, he has maintained correspondence with Lin Yiqing. Although they did not exchange many letters due to their geographical location, they talked about topics related to scientific inventions.

And the more Lin Yiqing is like this, the more it makes Tesla feel uneasy. Although he knew that Lin Yiqing was completely different from Edison and even Edison's patron Morgan.

Edison was entirely in the palm of Morgan's hands, and he had thorny financial problems of his own. The inventor wanted to go full throttle, but the banker Morgan insisted on a slow pace. The Morgan family poured capital into a large-scale railroad project, and Edison's offer of a small expansion loan was rejected by Morgan. Like Edison, he was known for his brilliant aphorisms. There's a maxim that Tesla often remembers: "People do everything for two reasons: one is good and the other is genuine." ”

Lin Yiqing never made any requests to him. Lin Yiqing was just happy for each of his successful inventions and encouraged him to make more inventions and apply for more patents.

Tesla took a deep breath, calmed down, opened the letter, and looked at it.

In the letter, which was written in French, told Tesla that he would soon visit the United States, looked forward to meeting him, and wanted to visit his laboratory to "experience first-hand the great inventions of the world's greatest inventors." (To be continued.) )