Einstein - Tesla? - Steinmetz
The AC-DC Wars
In 1921, Albert Einstein, “the world’s greatest scientist”, while traveling in the US, was invited to visit the RCA Transoceanic Station in New Brunswick, NJ. There, he met and was photographed with two great scientist/inventors; the brilliant hunchbacked dwarf, Charles Steinmetz, and the controversial Transylvanian, Nicola Tesla. Steinmetz was General Electric Company’s chief scientist. Tesla, inventor and early proponent of AC electrical power, was a lifelong rival of Marconi and RCA, and of Thomas Edison, founder of GE.
Subsequent photos of this meeting, located in the GE Archives and made available by UPI, curiously (and with poor retouching) show only Einstein and Steinmetz. The original photograph of all three personalities (accompanied by another unidentified individual) are rare and difficult to find.
