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War of Currents
The 1887–1893 industrial conflict between Edison's direct current and Westinghouse's alternating current—Hughes's paradigmatic case of technological momentum versus technical superiority.
The War of Currents was the decade-long contest between Edison's direct-current electrical system and Westinghouse's alternating-current system for dominance of the American electrical industry. Hughes analyzed it not as a straightforward technical competition (AC was superior for long-distance transmission) but as a collision between technological momentum and technical merit. Edison's DC system had achieved significant momentum by the mid-1880s—installed infrastructure, trained workforces, customer base, regulatory relationships, Edison's personal authority. AC's technical advantages eventually overcame this momentum, but the transition was expensive, slow, and bitterly contested, requiring a new technical paradigm (Tesla's polyphase motor), a new corporate champion (Westinghouse), and a dramatic public demonstration (the 1893 Chicago World's Fair lighting contract) to displace the entrenched configuration.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The conflict began when George Westinghouse, having secured Nikola Tesla's AC patents, challenged Edison's DC dominance. AC could transmit power over much longer distances at higher voltages, stepping down to usable levels at the point of consumption—a decisive advantage for serving dispersed customer bases. Edison's DC system required generating