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Tesla presents ‘A New System of Alternate Current Motors and Transformers’ to the AIEE

On 16 May 1888 Tesla read ‘A New System of Alternate Current Motors and Transformers’ before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in New York, describing polyphase motors and transformers. In the causal graph this event strengthens the driver Industrial-Policy Activism.

Sources: [1][2]

Read the full account

On 16 May 1888 Tesla read ‘A New System of Alternate Current Motors and Transformers’ before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in New York, describing polyphase motors and transformers. It is a dated public paper, not a statute.

Context

The May 1 patents had just issued. The AIEE lecture is how the profession received the system. George Westinghouse’s subsequent licence is a later Fact.

Nikola Tesla is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

Why it matters

Industrial-knowledge path. High confidence on the date and venue.

A paper is not a powerhouse. Keep the lag.

Who was responsible

Contribution type and responsibility level for each recorded actor — not sole-author shorthand.

  • Nikola Tesla

    Person

    Direct responsibility

    responsibility level 0.7 · verified

    He authored and delivered the paper. The American Institute of Electrical Engineers hosted it; Westinghouse engineers later commercialised the system.

What changed

Fact → Driver → Indicator. Relationship strength orders the paths; it is not the observed indicator movement.

    1. FactTesla presents ‘A New System of Alternate Current Motors and Transformers’ to the AIEE
    2. strengthensDriverIndustrial-Policy Activism

    impact weight 0.55 · Effect from 16 May 1888 · verified

    A dated engineering-society paper made polyphase AC a public industrial specification rather than a private notebook, a policy-relevant knowledge instrument.

Evidence

The sources behind this fact and its verification state.

Verified2 sources on file
  1. 1.Britannica — Nikola TeslaEncyclopaedia Britannica · High credibility · verified
  2. 2.Engineering and Technology History Wiki — Nikola TeslaIEEE / ETHW · High credibility · verified
What the sources establish

IEEE/ETHW and Britannica independently date the May 1888 AIEE presentation. The paper text is a professional-society instrument.

Established: AIEE paper 16 May 1888. Not established: that the lecture itself built Niagara, or that every later induction motor is this reading.

Causal path

How this event connects to drivers and indicators in the graph.

  1. ActorNikola Tesla
  2. contributed toFactTesla presents ‘A New System of Alternate Current Motors and Transformers’ to the AIEE
  3. strengthensDriverIndustrial-Policy Activism

Cite this page

Factrail. (2026). Tesla presents ‘A New System of Alternate Current Motors and Transformers’ to the AIEE. Factrail. https://factrail.ai/facts/us-tesla-aiee-paper-1888

https://factrail.ai/facts/us-tesla-aiee-paper-1888

Accessed 15 October 2026.

By the Factrail desk · Method: how we source and score · Last reviewed

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