I even note if it is out of balance." (Cheney, 1983).
In this fashion, Tesla worked on his dynamo every moment of his life. One day while walking through the park with a companion, the system fell into place. Right there in the park he stopped and drew the diagram in the dirt with a stick, explaining to his friend how it would work. At the age of 26 Tesla built the first practical alternating current motor and generator. Tesla took these models to the Continental Edison Company to demonstrate them. The man there was very impressed but said that he could do nothing. He nevertheless encouraged Tesla to take his ideas to America and demonstrate them to Edison. The man gave him a note in which he praised Tesla AC system highly, and told Edison that Tesla would be a value to the Edison Company. (Hughes, 1989).
In June of 1884, Tesla arrived in New York. He got off the ship and started walking directly to Mr. Edison's office. Edison was in the middle of a crisis that day. He had told the captain of a ship that he would have his engineers there soon to fix the ship's motors. Edison was lying, though; he had no engineers to send. Then Tesla walked in. He approached Edison with the note that the man had given him when he demonstrated his AC model. Edison read the note and declined the AC system without even concerning himself with its potential. Edison did offer Tesla a job, however. He sent him to fix the ship that he had promised to send his non-existent engineers to. He spent all night, but in the morning he had fixed the ship's motors and even made some improvements. The next morning when Tesla arrived back at Edison's office, Edison was impressed by the work he had done. Tesla said that when Edison turned away he could hear him say, "That is a damn good man." (Tesla, 1919) Edison gave him the freedom to free design whatever he thought would be useful, which in Edison's mind meant profitable.
