New Scientist Australia - 10.08.2019

32 | New Scientist | 10 August 2019

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LET’S begin by being boorish.

Thomas Edison didn’t invent the

light bulb. German-born precision

mechanic Heinrich Göbel

demonstrated a prototype in 1854.

Joseph Wilson Swan filed a patent

for a light bulb in 1879, which

Edison promptly purchased.

And so on: you can play this

game with most inventions. The

correct response to such nitpicking

is given by Edison himself

(inventor of the phonograph and

motion pictures; holder of 2332

patents) in the movie The Current

War, which lays out the battle

between Edison and George

Westinghouse to bring electric

light to late 19th-century America.

Salt. Fat. Flour. Water. Edison

explains that it is only when you

put all the ingredients together,

in the right proportions, using the

right method, that you get bread

that people will buy. Priority –

being first to file a patent – isn’t

won by dreaming alone. Edison

(Benedict Cumberbatch) teaches

this hard lesson to his secretary

Samuel Insull, an entertainingly

exasperated Tom Holland.

Originally planned for release

back in November 2017 by the

Weinstein Company, the film

was quietly shelved as allegations

about Harvey Weinstein spread.

It doesn’t feel like an old movie,

but it does feel like an odd one. Big,

bold, none-too-subtle speeches by

the scriptwriter and playwright

Michael Mitnick are directed by

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon as though

they were set pieces by Martin

Scorsese, for whom he once

worked as a personal assistant.

Inventor George Westinghouse

(Michael Shannon in a sensitive,

understated performance that

rather puts Cumberbatch’s shtick

to shame) has developed a system

of electrification using alternating

current. For cost and efficiency,

it has Edison’s direct current beat.

Westinghouse offers a partnership,

but Edison behaves like a cad,

disparaging Westinghouse’s

Looking for another charge The Current War is an epic tale of the fight between

Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse to electrify late 19th-century America.

But the real story of electricity and invention is far more gripping, says Simon Ings

“ Edison executes dogs,

sheep and horses with

AC to prove his point

about Westinghouse’s

‘lethal tech’”

Film

The Current War

Directed by Alfonso

Gomez-Rejon

Simon also

recommends...

Film

The Prestige

Directed by Christopher

Nolan

Based on a story by

Christopher Priest, this is

another fine example of an

imaginative intellectual

recreation of the fin de

siècle’s ferment around

energy and transmission.

Forbidden Planet

Directed by Fred M. Wilcox

A delirious interstellar

fantasy about energy and

the imagination.

“lethal” tech, and executes dogs,

sheep and horses with AC to

prove his point. Ironies pile up as

Edison edges inevitably towards

designing, against his moral

judgement, the first electric chair.

The real “war of the currents”

isn’t done. DC lost at that time

because long-distance

transmission required high

voltages, while the public needed

safer, lower voltages. That took

transformers, available for AC

but not for DC.

For transmitting a lot of

electricity over long distances,

high-voltage direct current

(HVDC) is far more efficient than

conventional AC. The length and

capacity of HVDC has risen fast;

calculations suggest continent-

wide HVDC “supergrids” may

smooth out the variable power

created by renewables. In 2009,

a study by German researcher

Gregor Czisch proposed a

supergrid to link some European

countries, and bordering regions,

at a cost that virtually guarantees

cheap, green electricity for all.

No one has heard of Czisch, even

though his work may save us from

global warming. It was ever thus:

we remember Nikola Tesla (The

Current War’s peculiar third wheel,

an AC pioneer and inventor of

fluorescent lighting) only because

David Bowie played him in

Christopher Nolan’s magical

puzzler The Prestige.

Priority is a twisty business, and

fame is twistier. Westinghouse so

despised the whole business that

he burned his papers. “If you want

to be remembered,” he says, “it’s

simple: shoot a president. But if

you prefer to have what I call a

legacy, you leave the world a better

place than you found it.” ❚

D ROGERS/THE WEINSTEIN CO/KOBAL/SHUTTERSTOCK

Thomas Edison (Benedict

Cumberbatch) with his

son Dash

The film column

Simon Ings is a novelist and

science writer and a culture

editor at New Scientist. Follow

him on Instagram at

@simon_ings