Soal dan Pembahasan TBI (Reading Comprehension) Bagian 27

        Nikola Tesla, a Serbian by parentage, began working for the phone company in Budapest. In 1882, he headed for Paris, where he took a job with the Continental Edison Company. He was invited to work stateside after his supervisor wrote a recommendation praising the young man as a genius on par with Thomas Alfa Edfison himself. While he hired Tesla, Edison thought the man's ideas were “splendid” but “utterly impractical.” Edison relled heavily on tedious experimentation for most of his discoveries, a commitment which some historians attribute partially to his lack of formal education. Tesla, in contrast, was an emotionally diven dreamer with years of engineering training. Which allowed him to work out theories before phsically implementing them.

        At same point, Tesla insisted that he could increase the effciency of Edison’s prototypical dynamos, and eventually wore down. Edison enough to let him try. Edition, Tesla later claimed, even promised him $50,00 if he succeeded. Tesla worked around the clock for several months and made a great deal of progress. When he demand his reward, Edison claimed the ofter was a joke, saying, “When you become a full-fiedged American, you will appreciate an American joke. “Edison offered a $10/week raise, istead. Ever prideful, Tesla quit, and spent the next few months picking up odd jobs across New York City.

        Edison’s least favorite of Tesla’s “impractical” ideas was the concept of using alternating current (AC) technology to bring electricity to the people. Edition insisted that his own direct current (DC) system was superior, in that it maintained a lower voltage from power station to consumer, and was, therefore, safer. But AC technology, which allows the flow of energy to periodically change direction, is more pratical for transmitting massive quantities of energy, as is required by a large city, or hub of industry, say. At the time, DC technology only allowed for a power grid with a one-mile radius from the power source. The conflict between the two methods and their masters came to be known as the War of Currents. In the end, AC won out. George westinghouse, an invertor, entrepreneur, and engineer who had himself been feuding with Edison for years, fulfilled Tesla’s dream of building a power plant at Niagara Falls to power New York City, and built upon its principles the same system of local power grids we use today.

(Adapted from various sources – PTT BPPK)