“Ignis fatuus”
In 1879 William Preece, a senior British telegraph engineer, said in a lecture that dividing electric light among many lamps was an “ignis fatuus,” a will-o’-the-wisp (Dyer & Martin, Edison: His Life and Inventions, ch. 12). Three years later, on 4 September 1882, Edison’s Pearl Street Station began supplying power in lower Manhattan as the first permanent central generating station (IEEE Milestone: Pearl Street Station, 1882).
The War of the Currents
From the late 1880s Edison’s direct current (DC) fought alternating current (AC), backed by George Westinghouse, who licensed Nikola Tesla’s AC motor patents. AC could be stepped up and down with transformers, so it could travel far (U.S. Department of Energy, 2014). Westinghouse won the bid to light the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair at $399,000 against General Electric’s $554,000, and AC from Niagara Falls lit Buffalo on 16 November 1896 (U.S. Department of Energy, 2014).
The Edison camp tried to brand AC as deadly. In 1888 a self-taught engineer, Harold Brown, teamed up with Edison and ran animal experiments at Edison’s West Orange laboratory, then electrocuted a dog in front of electricians and journalists to argue AC was deadly (Richard Moran, TIME, 2010). AC generators were then used in the first electric chair, in 1890 (Richard Moran, TIME, 2010). It failed because AC was simply better for long-distance power (Thomas A. Edison Papers, Rutgers).
Uses nobody planned
Early power was sold for light. The big uses came later, and from directions nobody expected. Röntgen’s discovery of X-rays won the first Nobel Prize in Physics, in 1901 (NobelPrize.org, Physics 1901). Willis Carrier designed the first modern air-conditioning system in 1902 for a Brooklyn printing plant that needed to control humidity (Carrier, company history). Air conditioning later reshaped where people live and work.
Adoption was slow and uneven. As late as 1935 only about 10.9% of American farms had electricity (NRECA, RE Magazine), more than five decades after Pearl Street.
What the popular version gets wrong
Popular version Edison electrocuted Topsy the elephant to discredit AC.
What the record shows A myth. Topsy was killed in 1903 at Luna Park, more than a decade after the currents war ended. Edison took no part (Thomas A. Edison Papers, Rutgers) (Smithsonian Magazine, 2016).
Popular version It was Edison versus Tesla.
What the record shows Commercially it was Edison’s companies versus Westinghouse, which licensed Tesla’s patents (U.S. Department of Energy, 2014).
Popular version Faraday told a minister “one day, sir, you may tax it.”
What the record shows No contemporary evidence; the anecdote is apocryphal (Snopes).
What it means for today
AI looks like electricity in three ways: it is general-purpose, it is doubted, and it needs a physical buildout. Data-center electricity use is projected to more than double, from about 415 TWh in 2024 to about 945 TWh in 2030 (IEA, 2025). The next “air conditioning” is probably a use of AI no one is pitching yet. See Superintelligence.
The Future: Superintelligence →
Companies we own that connect to this story (tickers only, never position sizes):
Sources
- IEEE Milestone: Pearl Street Station, 1882
- U.S. Department of Energy, 2014
- Thomas A. Edison Papers, Rutgers
- Smithsonian Magazine, 2016
- Richard Moran, TIME, 2010
- Dyer & Martin, Edison: His Life and Inventions, ch. 12
- Snopes
- NobelPrize.org, Physics 1901
- Carrier, company history
- NRECA, RE Magazine
- IEA, 2025
Last reviewed: 22 Oct 2026. Historical figures are quoted as the sources publish them; where sources disagree, we say so.
Not investment advice. History is a lens, not a forecast. This page is opinion and education, researched and presented with the help of AI analyst personas, and may contain errors. The EarlyConviction team holds positions in BE, IREN, NVDA, MU and may buy or sell at any time. Read the disclaimer.