Most people when asked who influenced modern electricity think of Thomas Edison. However, the real mastermind behind modern electricity was Nikola Tesla. Nikola Tesla is most commonly known as the inventor of alternating current, or the electricity found when you plug something into a wall outlet. Undoubtedly, he was a revolutionary thinker in the 1870s. He opposed the old and imagined the new, battling with Edison in “The Current Wars” and filing hundreds of patents. Nikola Tesla was a man of many inventions, inventing practical uses of alternating current, imagining and establishing revolutionary technologies, and promoting the scientific applications of radio. Nikola Tesla, despite his many contributions, is still not recognized in history. Nikola Tesla was able to invent a practical use of alternating current or AC, which was revolutionary at the time. In fact, as a young man attending the Polytechnic, when he heard about AC, he was determined to put it into practice despite his professor, Professor Poeschl, telling him it was impossible (“Dommermuth-Costa” 36). Alternating current was considered impractical at the time because it required the direction of electron flow to rapidly change back and forth. This meant that the poles had to be changed very quickly. However, unlike direct current, the voltage or amount of power passing through the circuit was high and could be maintained over long distances. Clearly, the scientific community thought this was impossible, and the technology needed to do so was apparently beyond their capabilities. To use alternating current the poles (north and south) had to be reversed 90 times per second. How can it seem possible to rapidly move poles as stationary as those of magnets? Tesla eventually solved the problem... middle of paper... by rejecting this possibility during World War I. Works Cited Dommermuth-Costa, Carol. Nikola Tesla: a spark of genius. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications, 1994. Print.Jacobson, Rebecca. 8 things you didn't know about Nikola Tesla. PBS NEWSOUR, July 10, 2013. Network. March 18, 2014./5-things-you-didn't-know-about-nikola-tesla/>.Nicholas, Activist Post. "Activist post". Nikola Tesla's 10 inventions that changed the world. Activist Post, nd Web. March 18, 2014..PBS. PBS. Network. 04 April 2014. .Vujovic, Ljubo, General Secretary, New York Tesla Memorial Society. "Tesla Biography". Tesla Biography. Www.teslasociety.com, July 10, 1998. Web. March 19. 2014. .