# The AIEE presents Tesla the Edison Medal for polyphase and high-frequency work

Date: 1917

## The fact

On 18 May 1917 the AIEE presented [Nikola Tesla](/people/nikola-tesla) the Edison Medal, awarded 13 December 1916, ‘for meritorious achievement in his early original work in polyphase and high-frequency electric currents.’ He had been reluctant to accept an award named for Edison.

## Context

The medal is reception of the 1888 system, not a new machine. IEEE/ETHW records the awkwardness of the [Edison](/people/thomas-edison) name. Later popular myth that Tesla refused all honours is false; he appeared and spoke.

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.

## Evidence and sources

ETHW’s Edison Medal history and ETHW’s Tesla biography independently date the 1916 award and 1917 presentation.

Official or archival record: ETHW — IEEE Edison Medal (https://ethw.org/IEEE_Edison_Medal; IEEE / ETHW).

## Significance

Professional-memory path. High confidence on the medal; low on welfare coefficients.

Store the complex reception.

## What is established and what is not

Established: Edison Medal awarded 1916, presented 18 May 1917 to Tesla. Not established: that the medal measured Niagara’s net welfare, or that Tesla never accepted it.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

## People

- Nikola Tesla: https://factrail.ai/people/nikola-tesla

## Drivers

- Social Cohesion: https://factrail.ai/drivers/social-cohesion

## Sources

- https://ethw.org/IEEE_Edison_Medal
- https://ethw.org/Nikola_Tesla

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/us-tesla-edison-medal-1917