Tribute to the pioneers of the modern world.
Countries tend to put important people on their banknotes and the UK celebrating Michael Faraday is justified – as the father of electro-magnetism, inventor to the dynamo and electric motor.
But without these who followed, Faraday’s contribution would be an interesting footnote, a curiosity and we would be living in a very different world
. …after Faraday was made fellow of the Royal Society [,] the prime minister of the day asked want good this invention could be, and Faraday replied, “Someday you can tax it”
Electricity would have remained a curiosity without a mass-market reason to use it. The invention of the incandescent light bulb was REALLY the next step that propelled mankind into the modern age.
US inventor and businessman Thomas Edison was the first to commercialise the electric light bulb and power generation. However Edison’s DC power generation plants could only supply power to within a few blocks of the power plants itself. Early adapter of Edition’s lighting/power system were the financial district of Wall Street. The modern world was not yet ready of the masses.
Nikola Tesla’s should be famous figure, but few have heard of him.
Whilst Faraday demonstrated this curious thing electro-magnetism, invented the motor and dynamo and Edison invented a mass market reason for generating electricity, it took Tesla to invent a system for transmitting power of great distances and truly create that basis of our modern world. Tesla’s contribution is AC power generation and has remained unchanged to this day. Now, one power station can supply tens of thousands homes instead of thousands of power stations supplying hundreds of homes.
Without these pioneers we would be living in a world without electricity. Just imagine what you’re looking at now, the room around you, street lighting, cars and incalculable items would not exist. Everything depends on the assumption that electricity is everywhere and always available and will always be available.
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