Lindsey Graham

It was.

Not anymore.

But how do you propel the electricity forward?

By what mechanism?

Magnetic fields.

By this point, the entire room is wrapped with attention.

You can see the crowd around you is abuzz.

So slowly, you sit back down, your face flushed, as your eyes settle on the spinning motor on the stage.

It galls you to admit, but if what Nikola Tesla says is true, you've never seen anything like it.

Despite initial criticism and disbelief, Tesla's demonstration at Columbia College was a sensation.

His introduction of polyphase alternating current sent shockwaves through the electrical community.

He followed it up with an article in Thomas Martin's journal outlining his new system in detail.

He described how his polyphase motor sent multiple currents coursing through the machine like propelling waves.

The waves moved so quickly, the effect was a steady, seamless, and powerful electric current.

Observers called it wondrous and elegant.

And it wasn't long before the publicity around Tesla's breakthrough drew the attention of one of the most prominent businessmen in the country, George Westinghouse.

Based in Pittsburgh, Westinghouse had made a fortune inventing technologies for the railroad industry, most notably a compressed air braking system that for the first time allowed a train engineer to stop every car simultaneously.

But by the mid-1880s, his ambitions had expanded well beyond the railroads.

And unlike most business tycoons, he had a hands-on approach.

He ran his own laboratory and workshop and got his hands dirty with technical problems.