Reading 1 for questions 41 – 47
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 Edison himself. While he hired Tesla, Edison thought the man’s ideas were “splendid” but “utterly impractical.” Edison relied 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 driven dreamer with years of engineering Training, which allowed him to work out theories before physically implementing them.
At same point, Tesla insisted that he could increase the efficiency of Edison’s prototypical dynamos, and eventually wore down Edison enough to let him try. Edison, Tesla later claimed, even promised him $50,000 if he succeeded. Tesla worked around the clock for several months and made a great deal of progress. When he demanded his reward. Edison claimed the offer was a joke, saying, “When you become a full-fledged American, you will appreciate a American joke.” Edison offered a $10/week raise, instead. 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. Edison insisted that his own direct current (DC) system was superior, in that it maintained a lower voltage from power station to consume, ad was, therefore, safer. But AC technology, which allows the flow of energy to periodically change direction, is more practical 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 inventor, 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 form various sources – PPT BPPK)
The word tedious in the passage is closest in meaning to ….